# Le Goût du néant · The Taste for Nothingness

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/le-gout-du-neant. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/le-gout-du-neant.json.

**1** Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte,  
Gloomy spirit, once in love with the struggle,

**2** L'Espoir, dont l'éperon attisait ton ardeur,  
Hope, whose spur once stoked your ardour,
> Capitalized «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).

**3** Ne veut plus t'enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur,  
wants to mount you no longer! Lie down without shame,
> Pronominal 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.

**4** Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle butte.  
old horse whose foot stumbles at every hurdle.


**5** Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute.  
Resign yourself, my heart; sleep your brute's sleep.
> Cognate 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.


**6** Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur,  
Spirit defeated, worn out! For you, old marauder,
> fourbu: «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.

**7** L'amour n'a plus de goût, non plus que la dispute;  
love has no taste any longer, no more than quarrelling does;
> «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.

**8** Adieu donc, chants du cuivre et soupirs de la flûte!  
Farewell then, songs of the brass and sighs of the flute!

**9** Plaisirs, ne tentez plus un coeur sombre et boudeur!  
Pleasures, tempt no longer a heart gloomy and sulking!


**10** Le Printemps adorable a perdu son odeur!  
Adorable Spring has lost its scent!


**11** Et le Temps m'engloutit minute par minute,  
And Time swallows me up minute by minute,

**12** Comme la neige immense un corps pris de roideur;  
as the boundless snow swallows a body seized with stiffness;
> Verb 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.

**13** — Je contemple d'en haut le globe en sa rondeur  
— I gaze down from on high at the globe in its roundness

**14** Et je n'y cherche plus l'abri d'une cahute.  
and I no longer seek there the shelter of a hovel.
> The 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.


**15** Avalanche, veux-tu m'emporter dans ta chute?  
Avalanche, will you carry me off in your fall?
> Inversion + «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.

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Source text: public domain (Charles Baudelaire, d. 1867). English translation: © 2026 1732 Studios, LLC — original draft, pending editorial review.