French · Spleen and Ideal

Obsession

14 lines · 10 notes

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1
Great woods, you frighten me like cathedrals;
Grandsgreatgrand · adjective, masculine, pluralmodifies bois
boiswoodsbois · noun, masculine, pluralvocative address
vousyouvous · pronoun, pluralsubject of effrayez
m'meme · pronoun, singulardirect object of effrayez
effrayezfrighteneffrayer · verb, present, indicative, second-person, pluralmain verb of the sentence
commelikecomme · prepositionpreposition marking cathédrales
dessomeun · determiner, pluraldeterminer of cathédrales
cathédralescathedralscathédrale · noun, feminine, pluraloblique argument of effrayez
2
You howl like the organ; and in our cursed hearts,
Word«hurler» — to howl «hurler» is to howl, to roar, to shriek — the cry of a wolf or a storm, not a human voice. Applied to the wind in the trees and likened to «l'orgue» (the church organ), it fuses the forest's natural roar with sacred music, so that nature itself seems to thunder a hymn over the «coeurs maudits» ('cursed hearts').
3
Chambers of eternal mourning where old death-rattles tremble,
GrammarVerb-subject inversion after «où» The order inverts: «vibrent» (tremble, resonate) comes before its subject «de vieux râles» ('old death-rattles') — literally 'where tremble old rattles'. This poetic inversion, common after a relative «où» ('where'), keeps the long sound «râles» at the line's end. Note «de» before the fronted adjective: «de vieux râles», not «des vieux râles».
4
The echoes of your De profundis answer back.
5
I hate you, Ocean! your surges and your tumults,
Grammar«haïr» — to hate «haïr» is 'to hate'; «je te hais» = 'I hate you', with the familiar «te» ('you') now addressing the sea directly. The diaeresis in the infinitive «haïr» splits «a» and «i» into two sounds, but in this present-tense «hais» the vowels merge into one. The blunt opening reverses «L'Homme et la mer», where the poet loved the sea as a mirror; here that mirror is loathed.
6
My spirit finds them again within itself; that bitter laugh
Grammar«retrouver» + the pronoun «les» «retrouver» means 'to find again, to rediscover'; «les» refers back to the sea's «bonds» and «tumultes» (surges and tumults) of the line above, while «en lui» ('in it / within himself') points back to «mon esprit» (my spirit). The mind discovers the ocean's violence already inside it: the obsession is internal, not out at sea.
7
Of the vanquished man, full of sobs and of insults,
Word«vaincu» — defeated «vaincu» is the past participle of «vaincre» (to conquer, to defeat), used as an adjective: 'the conquered, vanquished man'. His «rire amer» ('bitter laugh') is the laughter of one already beaten, mixed «de sanglots et d'insultes» — with sobs and insults — the broken sound the poet hears echoed in the laughing sea.
8
I hear it in the enormous laughter of the sea
9
How you would please me, O night! without these stars
GrammarConditional «plairais» + «plaire à» «plaire» means 'to please' and governs an indirect object: «tu me plairais» = 'you would please me' (literally 'you would be pleasing to me'). The conditional «plairais» marks a wish set against reality — the night would delight him, if only it were starless. The contrary-to-fact yearning is the engine of the closing tercets.
10
Whose light speaks a language I know!
11
For I seek the void, and the black, and the bare!
WordAdjectives turned into nouns Each adjective is nominalized with «le»: «le vide» ('the void / emptiness'), «le noir» ('the black / darkness'), «le nu» ('the bare / nakedness'). French turns adjectives into abstract nouns this way far more readily than English. The triple «et … et … et …» ('and … and … and …') piles the absolutes together — the poet craves a clean, unwritten nothing.
12
But the darkness is itself a canvas
GrammarEmphatic «elles-mêmes» «les ténèbres» ('the darkness, the shadows') is grammatically plural and feminine in French, so the emphatic pronoun agrees: «elles-mêmes» = 'themselves' (the English 'itself' collapses the plural). The turn lands here: even the dark he begged for is not blank — it is «des toiles», canvases, a screen onto which his ghosts are already painted.
13
Where there live, springing from my eye by the thousand,
GrammarPresent participle «jaillissant» «jaillir» means 'to gush, to spurt, to spring forth'; the present participle «jaillissant» = 'springing, gushing'. It modifies the «êtres» of the next line, who pour «de mon oeil par milliers» ('from my eye by the thousands'). Note the inversion: the verb «vivent» ('there live') again precedes its subject, holding the vision back until the final line.
14
Vanished beings with familiar gazes.
Word«les regards familiers» «un regard» is a 'look, gaze, glance' (not the eye itself); «familier» is 'familiar, intimate'. The closing «regards familiers» deliberately echoes the «regards familiers» that watched man in «Correspondances» — but where there the symbols of nature gazed kindly, here the familiar eyes belong to «des êtres disparus», the vanished dead. The obsession is that the world will not stop looking back.

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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