# Les Chats · Cats

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/les-chats. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/les-chats.json.

**1** Les amoureux fervents et les savants austères  
Fervent lovers and austere scholars

**2** Aiment également, dans leur mûre saison,  
love alike, in their ripened season,
> «mûr(e)» — ripe, mature: «mûr» literally means 'ripe' (of fruit); applied to a «saison» (season) it turns figurative — the ripe, mature time of life. «dans leur mûre saison» = 'in their mature years'. The word quietly equates the lovers and the scholars: both have reached the same settled, autumnal stage.

**3** Les chats puissants et doux, orgueil de la maison,  
love the cats, powerful and gentle, pride of the house,

**4** Qui comme eux sont frileux et comme eux sédentaires.  
who, like them, are chilly creatures and, like them, stay-at-homes.
> «frileux» and «sédentaire»: «frileux» = 'sensitive to the cold, fond of warmth' — the cat curled by the fire. «sédentaire» = 'settled, homebound, sedentary'. The repeated «comme eux» ('like them') stitches cat to human: the same love of warmth and stillness binds the beast to the lover and the scholar.


**5** Amis de la science et de la volupté  
Friends of knowledge and of sensual delight,

**6** Ils cherchent le silence et l'horreur des ténèbres;  
they seek out silence and the horror of the dark;

**7** L'Erèbe les eût pris pour ses coursiers funèbres,  
Erebus would have taken them for his funereal steeds,
> «Érèbe» — Erebus: «Érèbe» (Erebus) is the primordial darkness of Greek myth, a region of the underworld between earth and Hades. Casting the cats as the «coursiers funèbres» ('funereal steeds') that might draw the chariot of Erebus lifts the housecat into a creature of the night and the dead — sphinx, oracle, and familiar of the dark.
> «eût pris» — the literary conditional: «eût pris» is the pluperfect subjunctive of «prendre», used here as the second-form literary conditional ('would have taken'). It pairs with «S'ils pouvaient» in the next line to form a counterfactual: Erebus would have harnessed them — if only they could bend their pride to servitude. The whole hinge of the sentence is this unreal 'if'.

**8** S'ils pouvaient au servage incliner leur fierté.  
if they could bend their pride to bondage.


**9** Ils prennent en songeant les nobles attitudes  
Dreaming, they take on the noble attitudes
> «en» + present participle (gerund): «en songeant» is the gerund of «songer» (to dream, to muse): «en» + present participle gives 'while / by doing'. So «ils prennent en songeant» = 'they take on, as they dream'. The cats do not strike a pose deliberately; the sphinx-like stillness simply settles over them in the act of dreaming.

**10** Des grands sphinx allongés au fond des solitudes,  
of great sphinxes stretched out in the depths of solitude,

**11** Qui semblent s'endormir dans un rêve sans fin;  
who seem to fall asleep in an endless dream;
> Pronominal «s'endormir»: «s'endormir» is the pronominal verb 'to fall asleep' (vs. «dormir», 'to sleep'). The reflexive «se» marks the change of state — drifting off — not a sleep already settled. The sphinxes are caught in the act of sinking into «un rêve sans fin», an endless dream, forever on the edge of sleep.


**12** Leurs reins féconds sont pleins d'étincelles magiques,  
Their fertile loins are full of magic sparks,
> «les reins»: «les reins» (always plural) are the loins, the lower back — the seat of generative and sexual force. «féconds» = 'fertile, teeming'. The image turns the cat's body into a hidden reservoir of energy — the «étincelles magiques» ('magic sparks') that the final line scatters into its eyes as flecks of gold.

**13** Et des parcelles d'or, ainsi qu'un sable fin,  
and flecks of gold, like a fine sand,

**14** Etoilent vaguement leurs prunelles mystiques.  
faintly star their mystic pupils.
> «étoiler» — to star, to spangle: «étoiler» is a verb coined from «étoile» (star): 'to spangle, to scatter with star-like points'. The flecks of gold «étoilent» the cats' «prunelles» (pupils) — they sow the eyes with tiny stars. The sonnet ends by turning the animal's gaze into a small night sky, mystic and faintly glittering.

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