# Le Poison · The Poison

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/le-poison. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/le-poison.json.

**1** Le vin sait revêtir le plus sordide bouge  
Wine knows how to clothe the most squalid hovel
> bouge (a low den): «un bouge» = 'a hovel, a squalid den, a dive' — a cramped, sordid room. «revêtir» = 'to clothe, to dress, to cover over'; «sait revêtir» ('knows how to clothe') gives wine an artist's skill, draping the meanest room in «un luxe miraculeux».

**2** D'un luxe miraculeux,  
in a miraculous luxury,

**3** Et fait surgir plus d'un portique fabuleux  
and makes more than one fabulous portico rise up
> Causative «faire» + infinitive: «faire surgir» = 'to make (something) spring up / cause to rise'. French builds the causative with «faire» + a bare infinitive, where English needs 'make … rise'. «un portique» is a colonnaded porch; «plus d'un» ('more than one') takes a singular verb and noun in French though the sense is plural.

**4** Dans l'or de sa vapeur rouge,  
in the gold of its red vapor,

**5** Comme un soleil couchant dans un ciel nébuleux.  
like a setting sun in a clouded sky.


**6** L'opium agrandit ce qui n'a pas de bornes,  
Opium enlarges what has no bounds,
> «ce qui» (what / that which): «ce qui» = 'what / that which' — the headless relative pronoun, subject of its clause. «une borne» is a boundary-marker or limit; «ce qui n'a pas de bornes» = 'that which has no limits'. The paradox is deliberate: opium makes even the limitless larger still, a theme the next two lines push further.

**7** Allonge l'illimité,  
stretches out the limitless,

**8** Approfondit le temps, creuse la volupté,  
deepens time, hollows out pleasure,
> creuser / volupté: «creuser» = 'to dig, to hollow out, to deepen'. Paired with «approfondit» ('deepens'), it turns sensation into excavated space. «la volupté» is 'voluptuous pleasure, sensual delight' — a key word across «Les Fleurs du Mal», stronger and more carnal than ordinary «plaisir».

**9** Et de plaisirs noirs et mornes  
and with black, dismal pleasures

**10** Remplit l'âme au delà de sa capacité.  
fills the soul beyond its capacity.


**11** Tout cela ne vaut pas le poison qui découle  
All that is not worth the poison that flows down
> «valoir» (to be worth): «valoir» = 'to be worth'; «cela ne vaut pas X» = 'that is not worth X / is no match for X'. «vaut» is its irregular present. The refrain «Tout cela ne vaut pas» opens both this stanza and the last, ranking the lover's poison above wine and opium alike.

**12** De tes yeux, de tes yeux verts,  
from your eyes, from your green eyes,

**13** Lacs où mon âme tremble et se voit à l'envers...  
lakes where my soul trembles and sees itself reversed...
> Reflexive «se voir» + «à l'envers»: «se voir» = 'to see oneself'; the reflexive «se» makes the soul both viewer and image. «à l'envers» = 'upside down, inside out, the wrong way round' — the soul, mirrored in the green-eyed lakes, sees itself inverted, as a reflection on water always is.

**14** Mes songes viennent en foule  
my dreams come crowding in

**15** Pour se désaltérer à ces gouffres amers.  
to slake their thirst at these bitter chasms.
> se désaltérer (to quench one's thirst): «se désaltérer» = 'to quench one's thirst, to drink one's fill' — a pronominal verb, literally 'to un-thirst oneself'. The dreams come «en foule» ('in a crowd') to drink at «ces gouffres amers», 'these bitter chasms' — the same green eyes, now abysses the dreams flock to drown in.


**16** Tout cela ne vaut pas le terrible prodige  
All that is not worth the terrible marvel

**17** De ta salive qui mord,  
of your saliva that bites,
> prodige / mordre: «un prodige» = 'a marvel, a wonder, a prodigy'; «le terrible prodige» yokes awe and dread together, as the whole poem braids delight and poison. «mord» is from «mordre» ('to bite') — the kiss is venomous, the saliva itself a thing with teeth.

**18** Qui plonge dans l'oubli mon âme sans remords,  
that plunges my soul into oblivion without remorse,

**19** Et charriant le vertige,  
and, sweeping along the vertigo,
> Present participle «charriant»: «charrier» = 'to cart, to carry along, to sweep down' (as a river carries debris). The present participle «charriant» ('carrying / sweeping along') describes the saliva of line 2, prolonging the action into the final line, where it «roule» the soul down to the shores of death.

**20** La roule défaillante aux rives de la mort!  
rolls it, swooning, to the shores of death!
> rouler / défaillant: «la roule» = 'rolls it', the object pronoun «la» standing for «mon âme» ('my soul'). «défaillante» ('fainting, swooning, failing', feminine) agrees with «âme» — the soul is rolled along already losing consciousness. «aux rives de la mort» = 'to the shores of death', closing the poison's river at the water's edge of death itself.

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