French · Death

Le Voyage

The Voyage

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To Maxime du Camp
ÀToà · prepositionpreposition marking Maxime
MaximeMaximeMaxime · proper noun, masculine, singularhead of the phrase
dudude · prepositionparticle in the surname du Camp
'du Camp' is the dedicatee's surname (Maxime du Camp).
CampCampCamp · proper noun, masculine, singularpart of the surname, modifies Maxime
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I
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For the child, in love with maps and prints,
Wordamoureux de «amoureux de» = 'in love with, enamored of'. Here it modifies «l'enfant» and takes its object with «de»: the child enamored «de cartes et d'estampes» — of maps and engravings. The whole poem grows from this single appetite, the child's globe shrinking as the eye of memory replaces it.
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the universe is equal to his vast appetite.
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Ah! how great the world is by lamplight!
GrammarExclamatory «que» «que» before an adjective makes an exclamation of degree — 'how...!'. «que le monde est grand» = 'how great the world is', answered next line by «que le monde est petit» ('how small the world is'). The mirrored exclamations frame the poem's whole arc: vast by lamplight, tiny once seen.
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to the eyes of memory how small the world is!
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One morning we set out, the brain full of flame,
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the heart swollen with rancor and bitter desires,
Wordgros de «gros de» = 'swollen with, heavy with, big with' — the same idiom as «gros de» a coming storm or «grosse» with child. The heart is not merely full but distended with «rancune» (rancor) and «désirs amers» (bitter desires): the departure is driven by grievance, not joy.
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and on we go, following the rhythm of the wave,
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cradling our infinite upon the finite of the seas:
GrammarPresent participle «berçant» «bercer» = 'to rock, to cradle, to lull'; «berçant» is its present participle, here describing «nous» as we go. Baudelaire then plays adjectives as nouns — «notre infini» ('our infinite') rocked «sur le fini des mers» ('upon the finite of the seas') — setting the infinite longing against the measurable sea that carries it.
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Some, glad to flee a vile homeland;
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others, the horror of their cradles, and a few,
Grammar«les uns ... d'autres» «les uns ... les autres / d'autres» is the standard French pairing for 'some ... others'. Here it sorts the travelers into three kinds across the stanza — «Les uns» fleeing a homeland, «D'autres» fleeing their cradles, «quelques-uns» ('a few') drowned in a woman's eyes — before the next stanza explains how they keep from turning to beasts.
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astrologers drowned in the eyes of a woman,
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the tyrannical Circe of dangerous perfumes.
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So as not to be changed into beasts, they get drunk
GrammarReflexive «s'enivrer» «s'enivrer» is the pronominal verb 'to get drunk, to intoxicate oneself' (from «ivre», 'drunk'); the reflexive «s'» turns active «enivrer» ('to make drunk') back on the subject. They intoxicate themselves «de» — on space, light, and burning skies — the «de» marking what they drink in.
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on space and light and skies set ablaze;
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the ice that bites them, the suns that bronze them,
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slowly efface the mark of kisses.
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But the true travelers are those alone who leave
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to leave; light hearts, like balloons,
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from their fate they never swerve aside,
GrammarReflexive «s'écarter de» + inversion «s'écarter de» = 'to move away from, to deviate from'. The object is fronted for emphasis — «De leur fatalité ... ils ne s'écartent» ('from their fate ... they never swerve') — so the prepositional phrase leads and the verb follows: the true travelers never stray from the doom that drives them.
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and, without knowing why, always say: Let's go!
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Those whose desires have the shape of clouds,
GrammarRelative «dont» «dont» is the relative pronoun standing for «de qui / de quoi» — 'whose, of whom, of which'. «Ceux-là dont les désirs...» = 'those whose desires...'; it returns in line 4 as «dont l'esprit humain n'a jamais su le nom» ('whose name the human mind has never known'), binding the cloud-shaped longings to their namelessness.
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and who dream, as a conscript dreams the cannon,
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of vast delights, shifting, unknown,
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and whose name the human mind has never known!
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II
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We imitate, what horror! the top and the ball
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in their waltz and their bounds; even in our slumbers
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Curiosity torments us and rolls us along
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like a cruel Angel whipping suns onward.
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Strange fortune, where the goal keeps shifting,
GrammarReflexive «se déplacer» «se déplacer» = 'to move (itself), to shift'; the pronominal «se» makes the goal move of its own accord rather than being moved. Being «nulle part» ('nowhere'), it «peut être n'importe où» — 'may be anywhere' — the pun on «peut-être» ('perhaps') and «peut être» ('may be') leaves the destination forever just ahead.
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and, being nowhere, may be anywhere at all!
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where Man, whose hope is never weary,
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to find rest forever runs like a madman!
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Our soul is a three-master seeking its Icaria;
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a voice rings out on the deck: "Keep watch!"
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a voice from the masthead, ardent and wild, cries:
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"Love... glory... happiness!" Hell! it is a reef!
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Each islet signaled by the lookout man
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is an Eldorado promised by Destiny;
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Imagination, setting up its orgy,
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finds only a reef in the light of morning.
GrammarRestrictive «ne ... que» «ne ... que» is not a negation but a restriction — 'only, nothing but'. «Ne trouve qu'un récif» = 'finds only a reef'. The promised «Eldorado» of the night before dwindles, by the «clartés du matin» (morning light), to a bare «récif» (reef): the voyage's deflation in one construction.
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O the poor lover of chimerical lands!
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Must he be clapped in irons, thrown into the sea,
GrammarImpersonal «falloir» + inversion «il faut» (from «falloir», 'to be necessary') is impersonal — 'one must, it is necessary'. Inverted to «Faut-il...?» it asks 'must one...?'. With infinitives «le mettre aux fers» / «le jeter à la mer» ('put him in irons' / 'throw him into the sea'), it weighs whether to punish the deluded sailor whose mirage makes the gulf more bitter.
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this drunkard sailor, inventor of Americas
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whose mirage makes the gulf more bitter?
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Like the old vagabond, tramping in the mud,
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dreams, nose in the air, of brilliant paradises;
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his bewitched eye discovers a Capua
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everywhere a candle lights up a hovel.
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III
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Astonishing travelers! what noble histories
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we read in your eyes deep as the seas!
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Show us the caskets of your rich memories,
GrammarImperative with attached pronoun In a positive command the object pronoun follows the verb, joined by a hyphen: «Montrez-nous» = 'show us'. The stay-at-homes address the returned voyagers directly here («Montrez-nous», then «Faites... passer»), begging them to display their «écrins» (jewel-caskets) of memory — the demand that the whole section is built on.
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those marvelous jewels, made of stars and ethers.
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We wish to travel without steam and without sail!
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Make, to brighten the tedium of our prisons,
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pass over our minds, stretched like a canvas,
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your memories with their frames of horizons.
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Tell us, what have you seen?
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IV
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"We have seen stars
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and waves, we have seen sands as well;
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and, despite many shocks and unforeseen disasters,
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we have often been bored, just as here.
GrammarReflexive passé composé «s'ennuyer» «s'ennuyer» = 'to be bored, to get bored'. Pronominal verbs form the «passé composé» with «être», and the past participle agrees: «Nous nous sommes ... ennuyés» — 'we have been bored', masculine plural. The travelers' verdict, «comme ici» ('just as here'), is the poem's hinge: everywhere abroad reproduces the boredom of home.
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The glory of the sun on the violet sea,
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the glory of cities in the setting sun,
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kindled in our hearts a restless ardor
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to plunge into a sky of alluring reflection.
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The richest cities, the grandest landscapes,
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never held the mysterious allure
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of those that chance makes out of the clouds.
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and always desire left us full of care!
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— Enjoyment adds strength to desire.
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Desire, old tree for which pleasure serves as manure,
Wordservir de «servir de» = 'to serve as, to act as'; «engrais» is 'fertilizer, manure'. Pleasure «sert d'engrais» — serves as manure — to the old tree Desire: each gratification only feeds the trunk, thickening the bark while the branches reach for the sun. The image makes satisfaction the cause, not the cure, of further wanting.
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while your bark grows thick and hardens,
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your branches long to see the sun from closer still!
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Will you keep growing forever, great tree more hardy
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than the cypress? — Yet we have, with care,
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gathered a few sketches for your voracious album,
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brothers who find beautiful all that comes from afar!
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We have greeted idols with trunks;
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thrones spangled with luminous jewels;
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wrought palaces whose fairy-tale pomp
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would be for your bankers a ruinous dream;
GrammarConditional «serait» «serait» is the conditional of «être» — 'would be'. The wrought palaces' «féerique pompe» (fairy-tale pomp) «serait... un rêve ruineux» — 'would be a ruinous dream' for the stay-at-home bankers: a hypothetical cost, the splendor priced in money the travelers mock. The conditional keeps it a supposition, not a fact.
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costumes that are an intoxication to the eyes;
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women whose teeth and nails are dyed,
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and cunning jugglers caressed by the serpent."
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V
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And then, and then what more?
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VI
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"O childish brains!
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So as not to forget the capital thing,
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we have seen everywhere, and without having sought it,
Grammar«sans» + past infinitive «sans» + a past infinitive («avoir cherché») = 'without having + verb': «sans l'avoir cherché» means 'without having looked for it'. The «l'» is the object pronoun standing for the spectacle to come. The construction underlines that the «immortel péché» (immortal sin) was met unsought, the same everywhere on the «échelle fatale» (fatal ladder).
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from the top down to the bottom of the fatal ladder,
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the wearisome spectacle of immortal sin:
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Woman, vile slave, haughty and stupid,
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without laughter adoring herself and loving herself without disgust;
GrammarReflexive present participles «s'adorer» / «s'aimer» = 'to adore oneself' / 'to love oneself'; the present participles «s'adorant» and «s'aimant» carry the reflexive «s'» with them. Woman worships and loves herself «sans rire» ('without laughing') and «sans dégoût» ('without disgust') — self-regard taken with deadly seriousness, the first exhibit in the catalogue of «immortel péché».
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Man, greedy tyrant, lewd, hard and grasping,
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slave of the slave and a streamlet in the sewer;
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The executioner who takes pleasure, the martyr who sobs;
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the feast that blood seasons and perfumes;
GrammarInverted relative clause In the relative clause «que le sang assaisonne et parfume» the subject «le sang» follows its verbs by poetic inversion: 'the feast that blood seasons and perfumes'. «que» is the direct object (the feast), «le sang» the subject doing the seasoning. Read the verbs back to their trailing noun to untangle these lines — Baudelaire inverts often in this catalogue.
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the poison of power unnerving the despot,
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and the people in love with the brutalizing whip;
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Several religions like our own,
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all scaling the heavens; Sanctity,
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as a man of refinement wallows in a feather bed,
Wordse vautrer «se vautrer» = 'to wallow, to sprawl, to roll about' (often with a sense of self-indulgence). The comparison is biting: just as a «délicat» (a fastidious, pampered man) wallows «en un lit de plume» (in a feather bed), so Sanctity seeks its «volupté» (sensual pleasure) «Dans les clous et le crin» — in nails and hair-shirt. Asceticism unmasked as another appetite.
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seeking voluptuous pleasure in nails and horsehair;
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Humanity, garrulous, drunk on its own genius,
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and, mad now as it was of old,
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crying to God, in its furious agony:
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"O my fellow, my master, I curse you!"
Wordmaudire «maudire» = 'to curse, to damn'; «je te maudis» = 'I curse you' (the familiar «te» addressing God). «mon semblable, mon maître» ('my fellow, my master') turns «Au Lecteur»'s closing line — «mon semblable, mon frère» — inside out: where the reader was a brother, God is here both likeness and master, and humanity damns him in its agony. Note the reversed guillemets «»...«» Baudelaire uses for this inset cry.
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And the least foolish, bold lovers of Madness,
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fleeing the great herd penned in by Destiny,
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and taking refuge in the immensity of opium!
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— Such is the whole globe's eternal report."
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VII
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Bitter knowledge, that which one draws from travel!
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The world, monotonous and small, today,
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yesterday, tomorrow, always, shows us our own image:
GrammarCausative «faire» + infinitive «faire» + an infinitive forms the causative — 'to make / have (something) be done'. «nous fait voir notre image» = 'makes us see our image, shows us our image'. The world, the same across «aujourd'hui, Hier, demain», can only mirror the traveler back to himself — the bitter conclusion of all the wandering.
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an oasis of horror in a desert of tedium!
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Must one leave? stay? If you can stay, stay;
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leave, if you must. One runs, and another crouches
GrammarImperative «pars» / «reste» «Pars» and «reste» are second-person singular imperatives of «partir» ('to leave') and «rester» ('to stay'). The line stages the poem's choice as two bare commands — «Si tu peux rester, reste; / Pars, s'il le faut» ('if you can stay, stay; leave, if you must') — before revealing that both runner and hider are only dodging the same enemy, Time.
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to cheat the watchful and deadly enemy,
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Time! There are, alas! runners without respite,
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like the Wandering Jew and like the apostles,
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for whom nothing suffices, neither railway car nor ship,
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to flee that vile net-fighter; there are still others
Wordrétiaire A «rétiaire» (Latin «retiarius») was the Roman gladiator who fought with a net and trident, snaring his opponent before the kill. Time is that «rétiaire infâme» ('vile net-fighter'): no «wagon» or «vaisseau» outruns his cast net. «il en est d'autres» is literary for «il y en a d'autres» — 'there are others' — who kill Time without leaving their cradle.
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who know how to kill it without leaving their cradle.
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When at last he sets his foot upon our spine,
GrammarFuture after «lorsque» After «lorsque» ('when') French uses the future for a future event, where English prefers the present: «Lorsque ... il mettra le pied» is literally 'when ... he will set his foot', rendered 'when he sets his foot'. The poem turns here from Time the hunter to Death the liberator — the moment he treads on our spine becomes a release, «En avant!»
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we shall be able to hope and cry: Forward!
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just as long ago we set out for China,
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eyes fixed on the open sea and hair in the wind,
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We shall embark upon the sea of Darkness
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with the joyous heart of a young passenger.
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Do you hear those voices, charming and funereal,
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that sing: "This way, you who wish to eat
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the perfumed Lotus! it is here that one harvests
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the miraculous fruits your heart hungers for;
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come and get drunk on the strange sweetness
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of this afternoon that never has an end!"
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By the familiar accent we guess the specter;
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our Pyladeses yonder stretch their arms toward us.
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"To refresh your heart swim toward your Electra!"
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says she whose knees we once used to kiss.
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VIII
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O Death, old captain, it is time! let us weigh anchor!
GrammarFirst-person plural imperative «levons» is the «nous» imperative of «lever» ('to raise') — 'let us raise / weigh', as in «levons l'ancre» ('let us weigh anchor'). The final stanza is a chain of such summons — «levons l'ancre», «Appareillons!» ('let us set sail!'), «Plonger» — the crew turning to Death as captain to launch the last voyage.
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This land wearies us, O Death! Let us set sail!
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If the sky and the sea are black as ink,
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our hearts, which you know, are filled with rays of light!
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Pour us your poison so that it may comfort us!
Grammar«pour que» + subjunctive «pour que» ('so that, in order that') always takes the subjunctive: «réconforte» is the present subjunctive of «réconforter» ('to comfort'). The travelers ask Death to pour out its poison «pour qu'il nous réconforte» — 'so that it may comfort us' — purpose, not fact: the longed-for solace lies on the far side of the plunge into the «Inconnu».
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We wish, so much does this fire burn our brain,
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to plunge to the bottom of the gulf, Hell or Heaven, what does it matter?
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to the depths of the Unknown to find something new!
Worddu nouveau «du nouveau» = 'something new' — the partitive «du» turning the adjective «nouveau» into 'some newness'. The book ends on this word: after a whole poem proving that travel only mirrors the self, the last hope is for «du nouveau» in death, «Au fond de l'Inconnu» ('in the depths of the Unknown') — novelty sought where it cannot be reported back.

The particulars

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