French · Wine

Le Vin de l'assassin

The Murderer's Wine

52 lines · 25 notes

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1
My wife is dead, I am free!
Mamymon · determiner, feminine, singulardeterminer of femme
femmewifefemme · noun, feminine, singularsubject of morte
estisêtre · auxiliary verb, present, indicative, third-person, singularcopula linking to morte
mortedeadmort · adjective, feminine, singularpredicate complement of est
jeIje · pronoun, singularsubject of suis
suisamêtre · auxiliary verb, present, indicative, first-person, singularcopula linking to libre
librefreelibre · adjective, singularhead of the phrase
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So now I can drink my fill.
Wordboire son soûl «boire (tout) son soûl» = 'to drink one's fill, to drink as much as one wants'. «soûl» as a noun means 'one's fill'; as an adjective the same word means 'drunk'. «Je puis» is a literary form of «je peux» ('I can'), from «pouvoir».
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When I would come home without a penny,
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her screaming tore me to the core.
Worddéchirer la fibre «déchirer» = 'to tear, to rip'; «la fibre» is the fibre of one's being, the rawest nerve. «Ses cris me déchiraient la fibre» = literally 'her cries tore my fibre' — they cut him to the quick. «déchiraient» is the imperfect, an action repeated night after night.
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As happy as a king am I;
Grammar«autant que» (as much as) «autant que» = 'as much as'. Fronted for emphasis, «Autant qu'un roi je suis heureux» = 'I am as happy as a king'. French freely moves such comparative phrases to the head of the line, a word order verse often exploits.
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the air is pure, the sky sublime...
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We had a summer just like this
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when I first fell in love with her!
Grammar«devenir amoureux de» + «en» «devenir amoureux de quelqu'un» = 'to fall in love with someone'. The pronoun «en» stands in for «d'elle» ('with her'): «j'en devins amoureux» = 'I fell in love with her'. «devins» is the passé simple of «devenir» ('to become'), the literary past used for single completed actions.
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The horrible thirst that rends me
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would need, in order to be slaked,
GrammarReflexive «s'assouvir» «assouvir» = 'to satisfy, to quench (a hunger or thirst)'; the reflexive «s'assouvir» = 'to be sated, to slake itself'. «pour s'assouvir» = 'in order to be slaked'. «Aurait besoin» is the conditional of «avoir besoin de» ('to need') — the thirst would need.
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as much wine as could be held
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by her tomb; — and that is saying plenty:
Wordce n'est pas peu dire «ce n'est pas peu dire» is a set phrase = 'that's saying a lot / no small thing'. By litotes (understatement), the murderer boasts of the monstrous scale of his thirst: it would take all the wine her tomb could hold — «ce n'est pas peu dire».
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I threw her down to the bottom of a well,
GrammarPast-participle agreement with «la» With «avoir», the past participle agrees with a preceding direct object. Here the object «l'» = «la» (his wife, feminine), so «jeté» takes a feminine -e: «je l'ai jetée» = 'I threw her'. The silent agreement is visible only in writing.
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and I even shoved down on top of her
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all the paving-stones of the well's rim.
Wordmargelle (f.) «la margelle» is the stone curb or coping that rings the mouth of a well. «les pavés de la margelle» = 'the paving-stones of the well's rim' — the very stones he pries loose and heaps down onto the body to bury it under water.
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— I will forget her if I can!
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In the name of the vows of tenderness,
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from which nothing can release us,
GrammarRelative «dont» (de + which) «dont» replaces «de» + a noun — here 'from which'. «délier de» = 'to release / untie from'; «Dont rien ne peut nous délier» = 'from which nothing can free us'. The vows bind the couple together even in murder.
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and so as to reconcile us
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as in the fair days of our drunkenness,
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I begged of her a rendezvous,
GrammarPassé simple «implorai» «implorer» = 'to beg, to implore'. «J'implorai» is the passé simple (literary narrative past) of the first-person singular, ending in -ai. From here the stanza recounts the lure of the meeting as a chain of single, completed past actions.
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in the evening, on a darkened road.
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She came there — the mad creature!
Grammar«y» + passé simple «vint» «y» = 'there', standing in for «sur cette route» ('to that road'). «vint» is the passé simple of «venir» ('to come'). «Elle y vint» = 'she came there'. The curt verb lands the trap: she walked into it.
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We are all of us more or less mad!
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She was still pretty,
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though very worn out! and I,
Grammar«quoique» (although) «quoique» = 'although, even though' and properly takes the subjunctive; in speech and verse it often shortens to an elliptical phrase with the verb dropped: «quoique bien fatiguée» = 'although (she was) very tired'. «bien» here intensifies — 'quite, very'.
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I loved her too much! that is why
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I said to her: Get out of this life!
GrammarImperative «sors» «sors» is the «tu» imperative of «sortir» ('to go out, to leave'); «sortir de» = 'to get out of'. «Sors de cette vie!» = 'Get out of this life!' — a death sentence pronounced as a command, the moment of the murder.
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No one can understand me. Has a single one,
Grammar«nul ne» (no one) «nul» as a subject pronoun = 'no one', a formal equivalent of «personne», paired with «ne»: «Nul ne peut me comprendre» = 'No one can understand me'. «Un seul» ('a single one') then opens the question that runs across the rest of the stanza.
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among these stupid drunkards,
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ever dreamed, in his morbid nights,
GrammarInversion «songea-t-il» «songer (à)» = 'to dream, to think (of)'. The question inverts verb and subject; the inserted «-t-» is a euphonic buffer between two vowels: «songea-t-il» = 'did he dream… ?'. In the passé simple, it asks whether any of these drunkards ever conceived such a thing.
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of making a shroud out of wine?
Wordlinceul (m.) «un linceul» = 'a shroud, a winding-sheet', the cloth wrapping a corpse. «faire du vin un linceul» = 'to make a shroud out of wine' — to use drink itself to bury the deed and the memory. «faire de X un Y» = 'to make a Y out of X'.
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This invulnerable rabble,
Wordcrapule (f.) «la crapule» means both 'a scoundrel' and, collectively, 'the drunken rabble, the dregs'. Here it is the herd of insensible drinkers, «invulnérable» like cold machinery — a crowd that has never known true love and so could never imagine his crime.
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like the engines of iron,
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never, neither in summer nor in winter,
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has known true love,
Grammar«ne… jamais» + «connaître» The negation «ne… jamais» ('never') is split across the lines: «Jamais… N'a connu» = 'has never known'. «connaître» = 'to know, to be acquainted with' (a person or feeling), as opposed to «savoir» (to know a fact). This «crapule» has never known «l'amour véritable» — true love.
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with its black enchantments,
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its infernal train of alarms,
Wordcortège (m.) «un cortège» = 'a procession, a retinue, a train' — the entourage that follows behind. «son cortège infernal d'alarmes» = 'its hellish train of alarms'; love drags along after it a whole procession of dread, poison-vials, tears, and rattling chains in the lines that follow.
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its vials of poison, its tears,
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its noise of chains and of bones!
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— Here I am, free and alone!
Grammar«me voilà» (here I am) «voilà» = 'there is / behold', and «voici» 'here is'. With a pronoun, «me voilà» = 'here I am'. It presents the speaker to view as if pointing at himself: «Me voilà libre et solitaire!» — 'Here I am, free and alone!'
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Tonight I will be dead drunk;
Wordivre mort «ivre mort» = 'dead drunk', literally 'drunk-dead' — «ivre» ('drunk') intensified by «mort» ('dead'). The grim pun is exact: he plans to drink himself into a deathlike stupor on the very night he has dealt out a real death. «Je serai» is the future of «être».
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then, without fear and without remorse,
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I will lie down upon the ground,
GrammarReflexive «se coucher» «coucher» = 'to lay down (something)'; the reflexive «se coucher» = 'to lie down, to go to bed'. «Je me coucherai sur la terre» = 'I will lie down on the ground'. The reflexive «me» turns the verb back on the subject — he lays himself down in the dirt.
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and I will sleep like a dog!
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The cart with its heavy wheels,
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loaded with stones and with mud,
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the raging wagon may well
Grammar«pouvoir bien» (concessive) «pouvoir bien (faire)» = 'may well (do), can quite freely (do)' — a concessive use that grants the possibility with a shrug. «Le wagon… peut bien / Écraser ma tête» = 'the wagon may well crush my head'; the verb «peut» reaches across the stanza break to its infinitive «Écraser».
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crush my guilty head
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or cut me in two at the middle,
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I care no more than I do for God,
Grammar«se moquer de» / «en» «se moquer de» = 'to make fun of' or, idiomatically, 'not to care about'. The reflexive «se» plus «en» (= 'of it') gives «je m'en moque» = 'I couldn't care less'. «comme de Dieu» = 'as (I do) of God' — he cares for being crushed exactly as little as he cares for God, the Devil, or the altar.
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for the Devil, or the Holy Table!
Wordla Sainte Table «la Sainte Table» — 'the Holy Table' — is the altar or communion rail where the Eucharist is received. Lumping God, the Devil, and the Sainte Table together as equally worthless, the murderer ends in flat blasphemy: nothing sacred or damned holds any weight against his wine.

The particulars

The text: Les Fleurs du mal, Charles Baudelaire. Wine.
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