French · Spleen and Ideal

Les Phares

The Beacons

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1
Rubens, river of oblivion, garden of idleness,
RubensRubensRubens · proper noun, masculine, singularhead of the phrase
fleuveriverfleuve · noun, masculine, singularin apposition to Rubens
d'ofde · prepositionpreposition marking oubli
oublioblivionoubli · noun, masculine, singularmodifies fleuve
jardingardenjardin · noun, masculine, singularin apposition to Rubens
deofde · prepositionpreposition marking paresse
lathele · determiner, feminine, singulardeterminer of paresse
paresseidlenessparesse · noun, feminine, singularmodifies jardin
Word«le fleuve d'oubli» and Lethe «un fleuve» is a river (specifically one flowing to the sea); «l'oubli» is forgetting, oblivion. «fleuve d'oubli» — 'river of oblivion' — evokes Lethe, the underworld river whose waters erased memory. The whole poem is built this way: each painter is named, then defined by a sequence of bare appositive images («jardin de la paresse», garden of idleness) with no verb at all.
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Pillow of cool flesh where one cannot love,
GrammarIndefinite «on» and the euphonic «l'» «on» is the indefinite subject 'one / people / we': «on ne peut aimer» = 'one cannot love'. The «l'» in «l'on» is purely euphonic — French inserts it after «où», «et», «si» to avoid a hiatus, and it carries no meaning. The line names Rubens's lush bodies as a place of sensual plenty where true love is impossible.
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But where life floods in and stirs without cease,
GrammarPronominal «s'agiter» «s'agiter» is the pronominal form of «agiter» (to shake, to stir). Reflexive, it means 'to move about, to bustle, to churn'. Here «la vie ... s'agite sans cesse» = 'life stirs ceaselessly'. Paired with «afflue» (floods in, from «affluer»), it gives Rubens's canvases their restless, overflowing vitality.
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Like the air within the sky and the sea within the sea;
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Leonardo da Vinci, deep and somber mirror,
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Where charming angels, with a sweet smile
Word«le souris» — an archaic 'smile' «le souris» (masculine) is an old, poetic word for a smile, the noun behind the verb «sourire» (to smile). Modern French uses «le sourire»; «un souris» is deliberately archaic and elevated here. (Not to be confused with «la souris», the feminine noun meaning 'mouse'.) The smile belongs to the famous Leonardo expression — half-tender, «tout chargé de mystère».
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All laden with mystery, appear in the shadow
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Of the glaciers and pines that close off their land;
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Rembrandt, sad hospital all filled with murmurs,
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And adorned only with a great crucifix,
GrammarPassive «décoré de» and word order «décoré de» is the past participle of «décorer» (to decorate, adorn) governing «de» for the means: «décoré d'un grand crucifix» = 'adorned with a great crucifix'. The participle still modifies the «hôpital» of the line before. The trailing «seulement» (only) is held to the end of the line for the rhyme and to stress the room's bareness — a single cross, nothing more.
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Where the tearful prayer breathes up out of the filth,
GrammarPronominal «s'exhaler» «exhaler» is 'to breathe out, give off'; the pronominal «s'exhaler» means 'to rise, to waft, to escape' on its own. So «la prière ... s'exhale des ordures» = 'the prayer rises out of the filth'. The verb usually carries scents or vapors — applying it to «la prière» (prayer) makes devotion itself an exhalation drifting up from squalor («les ordures»).
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And pierced abruptly by a ray of winter light;
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Michelangelo, dim region where one sees Herculeses
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Mingle with Christs, and rise bolt upright
GrammarPronominal «se mêler à» «se mêler à (qqch.)» is 'to mingle with, to blend into'; the pronominal form of «mêler» (to mix). The infinitives «se mêler» and «se lever» (to rise) both depend on «on voit» from the line before — 'one sees Herculeses mingle with Christs and rise…'. Baudelaire fuses pagan demigods with the figure of Christ, the signature tension of Michelangelo's titanic bodies.
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Mighty phantoms who in the gathering dusk
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Tear their shroud as they stretch out their fingers;
GrammarGerund «en étirant» «en» + present participle (the gérondif) tells how or while an action happens: «en étirant leurs doigts» = 'while stretching out their fingers'. So the phantoms «déchirent leur suaire» (tear their shroud, «le suaire» = burial shroud) in the very act of reaching — the grammar makes the tearing and the stretching one continuous gesture of waking from death.
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Boxer's rages, fauns' insolences,
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You who knew how to gather up the beauty of louts,
Grammar«savoir» in the passé simple «sus» is the second-person passé simple of «savoir» (to know). Before an infinitive, «savoir» means 'to know how to, to manage to': «qui sus ramasser» = 'who knew how to gather up / who could capture'. The passé simple is the literary narrative past, almost never spoken today — its formality fits the high, oratorical address «Toi qui…» ('You who…') to the painter Puget.
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Great heart swollen with pride, frail and sallow man,
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Puget, melancholy emperor of the galley-slaves;
Word«le forçat» and Puget at Toulon «un forçat» is a convict sentenced to hard labour, especially a galley-slave or penal-colony prisoner. The sculptor Pierre Puget (1620–1694) worked at the naval arsenal of Toulon, modelling his straining, muscular figures on the convicts who hauled there — so Baudelaire crowns him «empereur des forçats», the 'emperor of the galley-slaves'.
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Watteau, that carnival where many an illustrious heart,
Grammar«bien des» = 'many' «bien des» before a plural noun means 'many, a good many': «bien des coeurs illustres» = 'many illustrious hearts'. It is more emphatic and literary than plain «beaucoup de». Here it crowds Watteau's painted carnival with throngs of glittering revellers who «errent en flamboyant» — drift about, blazing like the butterflies of the next line.
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Like butterflies, drift about, ablaze,
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Fresh and airy stage-sets lit by chandeliers
Word«le lustre» — chandelier «un lustre» is a chandelier, a hanging light fixture. (The same word can also mean a span of five years or a sheen, but here the «décors» — stage-sets — being lit make 'chandelier' unmistakable.) The candlelight that «verse la folie» (pours madness) over the «bal tournoyant» (whirling ball) gives Watteau's fêtes galantes their feverish, glittering unreality.
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That pour out madness over this whirling ball;
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Goya, nightmare full of unknown things,
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Of fetuses cooked in the midst of witches' sabbaths,
GrammarCausative «faire» + infinitive «faire» + infinitive expresses causing an action: «faire cuire» = 'to cook / to have (something) cooked', literally 'to make cook'. With indefinite «on» the agent stays vague: «des foetus qu'on fait cuire» = 'fetuses that are cooked / that they cook'. «un sabbat» is a witches' sabbath — the obscene nocturnal gathering Goya painted again and again.
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Of old women at the mirror and of children all naked,
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Who, to tempt the demons, smooth their stockings tight;
GrammarPresent participle «ajustant» «ajustant» is the present participle of «ajuster» (to adjust, fit, straighten); «les bas» are stockings. The participle modifies the «enfants» / «vieilles» of the lines above — they appear 'adjusting their stockings well to tempt the demons'. «pour tenter» = 'in order to tempt': «tenter» here is 'to tempt, to lure'. The grotesque coquetry caps the catalogue of Goyaesque horrors.
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Delacroix, lake of blood haunted by evil angels,
GrammarAgent with «de» after a past participle «hanté» is the past participle of «hanter» (to haunt). After a past participle French may mark the agent with «de» instead of «par», especially in literary or stative descriptions: «hanté des mauvais anges» = 'haunted by the evil angels'. The lake of blood is a standing image of Delacroix's violent, Romantic canvases, troubled by their dark spirits.
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Shadowed by an evergreen wood of firs,
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Where, beneath a doleful sky, strange fanfares
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Pass by, like a stifled sigh of Weber;
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These curses, these blasphemies, these laments,
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These ecstasies, these cries, these tears, these Te Deums,
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Are an echo re-told through a thousand labyrinths;
Word«redire» — to say again «redire» is «re-» + «dire» (to say): 'to say again, repeat, echo back'. The past participle «redit» modifies «un écho» — 'an echo repeated through a thousand labyrinths'. After eight stanzas of painters, this is the turn («Sont un écho…»): all those clamoring images are gathered into one sound bounced endlessly through the corridors of the world.
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It is for mortal hearts a divine opium!
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It is a cry repeated by a thousand sentinels,
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An order relayed by a thousand megaphones;
Word«un porte-voix» «un porte-voix» (literally 'carry-voice') is a speaking-trumpet or megaphone — and the word is invariable, the same in the plural: «mille porte-voix». The image extends the military relay of the line above («sentinelles», sentinels passing a cry): art is a watchword shouted from post to post, which the next line crowns with «un phare» — a beacon.
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It is a beacon lit upon a thousand citadels,
Word«un phare» — the title image «un phare» is a lighthouse or beacon, and «les phares» gives the poem its title. Only here, near the close, does the central image surface by name: the great painters are signal-fires «allumés sur mille citadelles» (lit on a thousand citadels), each a beacon by which humanity finds its bearings — the answer the eight portrait-stanzas were building toward.
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A call of hunters lost in the great woods!
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For it is truly, Lord, the finest testimony
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That we could give of our dignity
GrammarSubjunctive «puissions» after a superlative «puissions» is the present subjunctive of «pouvoir» (to be able). French uses the subjunctive in a relative clause after a superlative like «le meilleur» (the best): «le meilleur témoignage que nous puissions donner» = 'the finest testimony we could give'. The mood softens the claim to 'that we are able to', the human and tentative register of this closing prayer to «Seigneur» (Lord).
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Than this burning sob that rolls from age to age
Word«le sanglot» and «d'âge en âge» «un sanglot» is a sob, a convulsive cry of weeping. «d'âge en âge» means 'from age to age, down the generations' (the «de … en …» pattern of motion through time). The whole of art is reduced to one «ardent sanglot» (burning sob) handed on through history — the second half of the comparison opened by «le meilleur témoignage … que…» ('the finest testimony… than…').
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And comes to die at the edge of your eternity!
Grammar«venir» + infinitive «venir» + infinitive ('come to do') describes an action reached by a movement: «vient mourir au bord de votre éternité» = 'comes to die at the edge of your eternity'. The sob has rolled «d'âge en âge» and finally arrives, spent, at God's shore. «votre» (your, formal) addresses «Seigneur» — the poem ends, like a psalm, turned toward the divine.

The particulars

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