French · Spleen and Ideal

Le Goût du néant

The Taste for Nothingness

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1
Gloomy spirit, once in love with the struggle,
Mornegloomymorne · adjective, masculine, singularmodifies esprit
espritspiritesprit · noun, masculine, singularvocative address
autrefoisonceautrefois · adverbmodifies amoureux
amoureuxin loveamoureux · adjective, masculine, singularmodifies esprit
dewithde · prepositionpreposition marking lutte
lathele · determiner, feminine, singulardeterminer of lutte
luttestrugglelutte · noun, feminine, singularoblique argument of amoureux
2
Hope, whose spur once stoked your ardour,
GrammarCapitalized «l'Espoir» Baudelaire capitalizes «l'Espoir» (Hope) to personify it as an allegorical figure — here a rider whose «éperon» (spur) drove the spirit on. The relative «dont» = 'whose / of which', linking Hope to the spur that «attisait» (stoked, fanned, kindled) the spirit's «ardeur» (ardour, fire).
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wants to mount you no longer! Lie down without shame,
GrammarPronominal imperative «se coucher» «se coucher» = 'to lie down, go to bed'; the imperative drops the «se» and appends the stressed pronoun: «Couche-toi» = 'Lie down'. The spirit is told to lie «sans pudeur» (without shame, without modesty) — to surrender openly, like the exhausted old horse Hope refuses to ride.
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old horse whose foot stumbles at every hurdle.
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Resign yourself, my heart; sleep your brute's sleep.
GrammarCognate accusative «dors ton sommeil» «dormir» (to sleep) is normally intransitive, but here it takes its own noun as object: «dors ton sommeil de brute» — literally 'sleep your sleep of a brute'. This figure (a verb governing a noun from the same root) makes the sleep feel total and animal — «de brute» = 'of a beast', mindless and dumb.
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Spirit defeated, worn out! For you, old marauder,
Wordfourbu «fourbu» means 'exhausted, dead-beat' — and is used especially of a foundered, broken-down horse, which keeps the equine image of the first stanza alive. «vaincu» = 'vanquished, defeated'; «maraudeur» = 'marauder, prowler, petty thief', the spirit recast as a beaten old vagrant.
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love has no taste any longer, no more than quarrelling does;
Grammar«ne... plus... non plus que» «n'a plus de goût» = 'no longer has any taste / appetite'; «non plus que» = 'no more than'. The construction pairs two losses: love has gone flat, «non plus que la dispute» — and so has the strife that once fed the spirit's «ardeur». «le goût» here is both 'taste' and 'liking', and gives the poem its title.
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Farewell then, songs of the brass and sighs of the flute!
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Pleasures, tempt no longer a heart gloomy and sulking!
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Adorable Spring has lost its scent!
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And Time swallows me up minute by minute,
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as the boundless snow swallows a body seized with stiffness;
GrammarVerb elided after «comme» The comparison reuses the verb «engloutit» from the line above without repeating it: 'as the boundless snow [swallows] a body…'. «pris de roideur» = 'seized with stiffness / rigidity' (an older spelling of «raideur») — the stiffening of a corpse, or of a body freezing in the snow.
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— I gaze down from on high at the globe in its roundness
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and I no longer seek there the shelter of a hovel.
GrammarThe adverbial pronoun «y» «y» = 'there / in it', standing in for «sur le globe» (on the globe) from the previous line, so «je n'y cherche plus» = 'I no longer look there for'. «une cahute» = 'a hut, a shanty, a hovel': the speaker, gazing down from above, has given up even wanting the smallest refuge on earth.
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Avalanche, will you carry me off in your fall?
GrammarInversion + «m'emporter» The question inverts subject and verb: «veux-tu...?» = 'do you want to...? / will you...?'. «emporter» = 'to carry off, sweep away', with «m'» ('me') as its object. The poem's final wish is to be taken «dans ta chute» (in your fall) — to vanish, completing the «goût du néant», the craving for oblivion.

The particulars

The text: Les Fleurs du mal, Charles Baudelaire. Spleen and Ideal.
Words: Every word of the text, by letter.
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