# Remords posthume · Posthumous Remorse

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/remords-posthume. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/remords-posthume.json.

**1** Lorsque tu dormiras, ma belle ténébreuse,  
When you shall sleep, my dark and shadowy beauty,
> «ténébreux» — shadowy, dark, murky: «ténébreux» (from «les ténèbres», 'darkness, shadows') means 'dark, shadowy, murky', and figuratively 'mysterious, obscure'. «ma belle ténébreuse» = 'my dark beauty / my beautiful woman of shadows' — an address charged with both her black hair and her sinister allure. «Lorsque tu dormiras» uses the future ('when you shall sleep'), and the whole poem turns on that euphemism: this sleep is death.

**2** Au fond d'un monument construit en marbre noir,  
Deep in a monument built of black marble,

**3** Et lorsque tu n'auras pour alcôve et manoir  
And when you shall have, for alcove and for manor,
> «alcôve» and «manoir» — bower and manor: «une alcôve» is the recessed bedchamber or bower of love, «un manoir» a manor-house or dwelling. Pairing them — 'for bower and manor' — names exactly what the grave replaces: the seductress's bed and home shrink, in the next line, to «un caveau pluvieux» and «une fosse creuse». The sentence runs on across the line, so «n'auras … Qu'un caveau» is one «ne … que» ('shall have only').

**4** Qu'un caveau pluvieux et qu'une fosse creuse;  
But a rain-soaked vault and a hollow grave;
> «ne … que» — to have only: Spanning lines 3–4, «tu n'auras pour alcôve et manoir / Qu'un caveau … et qu'une fosse» is the restrictive «ne … que» — 'you shall have only a vault and a grave'. The «que» is repeated before the second noun for emphasis. «pluvieux» ('rainy, rain-soaked') and «creuse» ('hollow, dug-out') close the quatrain on dank, empty earth.


**5** Quand la pierre, opprimant ta poitrine peureuse  
When the stone, crushing your timorous breast

**6** Et tes flancs qu'assouplit un charmant nonchaloir,  
And your flanks that a charming languor renders supple,
> Verb–subject inversion in the relative clause: Inside the relative clause «que … assouplit …», the verb «assouplit» ('makes supple, softens') comes before its subject «un charmant nonchaloir». Read straight: «un charmant nonchaloir assouplit tes flancs» — 'a charming languor makes your flanks supple'. «le nonchaloir» is an archaic, poetic word for nonchalance, listless ease — the indolent grace of her body that the crushing stone will end.

**7** Empêchera ton coeur de battre et de vouloir,  
Shall keep your heart from beating and from desiring,
> «empêcher … de» + infinitive: «empêcher quelqu'un de faire quelque chose» = 'to keep / prevent someone from doing something', always with «de» before the infinitive. «Empêchera ton coeur de battre et de vouloir» = 'shall stop your heart from beating and from willing'. «Empêchera» is the future, the main verb the whole «Quand …» clause has been waiting for: stone stilling both pulse and desire at once.

**8** Et tes pieds de courir leur course aventureuse,  
And your feet from running their adventurous course,


**9** Le tombeau, confident de mon rêve infini  
The tomb, the confidant of my unending dream

**10** (Car le tombeau toujours comprendra le poète),  
(For the tomb will always understand the poet),

**11** Durant ces grandes nuits d'où le somme est banni,  
Throughout those great nights from which sleep is banished,
> «le somme» — slumber (masculine): «le somme» (masculine) is 'slumber, a spell of sleep' — distinct from «la somme» (feminine, 'the sum'). «les grandes nuits d'où le somme est banni» = 'the great nights from which sleep is banished': the long, sleepless nights of the dead in the grave. The earlier «tu dormiras» called death a sleep; here that sleep is denied, and the tomb speaks instead.


**12** Te dira: «Que vous sert, courtisane imparfaite,  
Shall say to you: "What good is it to you, imperfect courtesan,
> «À quoi cela vous sert-il?» — what good is it?: «Que vous sert …?» is an elevated, archaic way of asking «À quoi cela vous sert-il …?» — 'What good does it do you …? / What use to you is …?'. The verb «servir» here means 'to be of use, to profit'. Note the shift to formal «vous»: the tomb addresses the dead seductress with cold ceremony as «courtisane imparfaite» ('imperfect courtesan').

**13** De n'avoir pas connu ce que pleurent les morts?»  
To have never known what the dead lament?"
> «ce que» + inversion — what the dead weep for: «ce que» is 'that which / what' (the object form). Within it the verb «pleurent» precedes its subject «les morts» — inversion natural in verse: read «ce que les morts pleurent», 'what the dead weep for / mourn'. «De n'avoir pas connu …» completes the tomb's taunt: what does it profit her to have never known, in life, the thing the dead now grieve they let pass?

**14** — Et le ver rongera ta peau comme un remords.  
— And the worm shall gnaw your skin like a remorse.
> «le ver» — the grave-worm, and «ronger» — to gnaw: «le ver» is the worm (here the grave-worm); «ronger» is 'to gnaw, to eat away'. «le ver rongera ta peau comme un remords» = 'the worm shall gnaw your skin like a remorse'. The simile closes the poem on its title, «Remords posthume»: the literal worm of the corpse becomes the figurative worm of conscience, the remorse the unfeeling beloved would not feel in life now eating her in death.

---

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