French · Spleen and Ideal

Réversibilité

Reversibility

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Angel full of gaiety, do you know anguish,
AngeAngelange · noun, masculine, singularvocative, head of the phrase
pleinfullplein · adjective, masculine, singularmodifies Ange
deofde · prepositionpreposition marking gaieté
gaietégaietygaieté · noun, feminine, singularmodifies plein
connaissezdo knowconnaître · verb, present, indicative, second-person, pluralmain verb of the sentence
-vousyouvous · pronoun, pluralsubject of connaissez
l'thele · determiner, singulardeterminer of angoisse
angoisseanguishangoisse · noun, feminine, singulardirect object of connaissez
GrammarInversion + formal «vous» address «connaissez-vous?» is a question by subject-verb inversion: «vous connaissez» ('you know') flips to «connaissez-vous» ('do you know?'), joined by a hyphen. The poet keeps the formal, distant «vous» throughout — addressing his radiant «ange» with reverence, not intimacy. «connaître» here is to know by acquaintance, to have experienced: 'have you ever known anguish?'
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shame, remorse, sobbing, weariness,
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and the vague terrors of those dreadful nights
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that crush the heart like a sheet of paper one crumples?
GrammarIndefinite «on» in a relative clause «qu'on froisse» = 'that one crumples / that gets crumpled'. «on» is the indefinite subject ('one, people, you-in-general'), often best rendered as an English passive: 'a sheet of paper being crumpled'. «froisser» is to crease or crumple; the simile makes the terrors a fist closing on the heart as on a wad of paper.
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Angel full of gaiety, do you know anguish?
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Angel full of kindness, do you know hatred,
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the fists clenched in the shadow and the tears of gall,
Word«le fiel» — gall, bitterness «le fiel» is gall or bile, and figuratively bitterness, rancour, venom. «les larmes de fiel» = 'tears of gall' — tears so embittered they scald. «crispé» («les poings crispés») means clenched, tensed, drawn tight; the line pairs the clenched fists of fury with the bitter weeping of impotent rage.
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when Vengeance beats its infernal call to arms,
Word«battre le rappel» — to beat the muster «le rappel» is the drumbeat that calls soldiers to assemble, and «battre le rappel» is the military idiom 'to beat the muster, to call to arms'. Personified «la Vengeance» beats her own «infernal rappel», summoning the passions like troops — answered in the next line, where she becomes their «capitaine».
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and makes herself the captain of our faculties?
GrammarPronominal «se faire» = to make oneself «se faire» + a noun means 'to make oneself (into), to become': «se fait le capitaine» = 'makes herself the captain / becomes the captain'. «de nos facultés» is fronted for emphasis — read «se fait le capitaine de nos facultés». Vengeance does not merely stir the faculties; she takes command of them, seizing the will like an officer mustering his company.
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Angel full of kindness, do you know hatred?
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Angel full of health, do you know the Fevers,
WordCapitalized, personified «les Fièvres» «la fièvre» is fever; the plural «les Fièvres», capitalized, personifies sickness itself, like «la Vengeance» above. The capital letter turns an illness into an allegorical figure — the Fevers that shuffle along the hospice walls in the lines that follow. Baudelaire often raises abstractions to proper nouns to give his torments a face.
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who, along the great walls of the pallid almshouse,
Word«l'hospice» + «blafard» «un hospice» is an almshouse or poorhouse — a charitable refuge for the sick, aged, and destitute, not a modern hospital. «blafard» means wan, pallid, sickly-pale (of light or complexion). «l'hospice blafard» = 'the wan almshouse', its very walls drained of colour, where the Fevers drift like exiles toward whatever pale sun they can find.
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like exiles, go off with a dragging step,
GrammarPronominal «s'en aller» — to go off «s'en aller» is the pronominal verb 'to go away, to leave, to depart'; «s'en vont» is its third-person plural ('they go off / drift away'). The «en» is fixed inside the idiom and not separately translated. «un pied traînard» is a dragging, shuffling foot — «traîner» is to drag — so the Fevers shuffle off down the walls like footsore exiles.
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seeking the rare sunlight and moving their lips?
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Angel full of health, do you know the Fevers?
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Angel full of beauty, do you know wrinkles,
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and the fear of growing old, and that hideous torment
Grammar«peur de» + infinitive «la peur de» + a bare infinitive = 'the fear of (doing something)': «la peur de vieillir» = 'the fear of growing old'. «vieillir» ('to age, to grow old') is an intransitive verb of change of state. The construction lets a single infinitive carry the whole dread of aging that the next two lines unfold.
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of reading the secret horror of devotion
GrammarInfinitive «de lire» in apposition to «tourment» «De lire…» is an infinitive clause that explains «ce hideux tourment» of the line before: the torment consists in reading something. «lire» governs «la secrète horreur du dévouement» — the hidden dread that selfless love (le dévouement, 'devotion, self-sacrifice') has become a duty, read in eyes that once burned with desire. The «de» links torment to the act that is its content.
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in eyes where our own greedy eyes long drank!
GrammarPast historic «burent» + inversion «burent» is the third-person plural «passé simple» (literary past historic) of «boire», 'to drink': «nos yeux burent» = 'our eyes drank'. The subject «nos yeux» follows its verb after the relative «où», a poetic inversion. The drinking is metaphorical — eyes drinking in eyes. «avides» is plural, agreeing with «nos yeux», and rhymes with «les rides» two lines above.
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Angel full of beauty, do you know wrinkles?
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Angel full of happiness, of joy and of lights,
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the dying David would have asked for health
Word«David mourant» — the dying King David «mourant» is the present participle of «mourir» ('dying'), used here as an adjective: «David mourant» = 'the dying David'. The phrase alludes to 1 Kings 1, where the aged, ailing King David was warmed by the young Abishag laid against him to revive his failing body. The construction sets up a contrast — David would have asked health «aux émanations» of such a body, where the poet (next lines) asks his angel «que tes prières», only her prayers.
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from the emanations of your enchanted body;
GrammarConditional perfect + «demander qch à» «aurait demandé» is the «conditionnel passé» (conditional perfect), 'would have asked for'. The verb «demander» takes its source with «à»: «demander la santé aux émanations de ton corps» = 'to ask health of / from the emanations of your body'. So David would have sought his cure from her body's warmth — but the next line turns that wish aside.
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but from you, angel, I implore only your prayers,
GrammarRestrictive «ne … que» — only «ne … que» is the restrictive 'only, nothing but': «je n'implore que tes prières» = 'I implore only your prayers'. It is not a true negation — «implorer» keeps its full force, 'to beg, to entreat'. «de toi» ('from you') is fronted against «aux émanations» above: not David's warmth from her body, but only her prayers — the poem's quiet pivot from flesh to grace.
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Angel full of happiness, of joy and of lights!

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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