# Semper eadem · Always the Same

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/semper-eadem. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/semper-eadem.json.

**1** «D'où vous vient, disiez-vous, cette tristesse étrange,  
"Where does it come from, you would ask, this strange sadness,
> Inversion in «d'où vous vient cette tristesse»: Read in plain order this is «d'où cette tristesse vous vient» = 'from where does this sadness come to you'. The verb «venir» is placed before its subject «cette tristesse» — a poetic inversion — and «vous» is the dative ('to you'), so the sadness 'comes to you'. «disiez-vous» ('you would say / you kept asking') is itself inverted as a quotative aside, the standard form for reporting speech mid-sentence.

**2** Montant comme la mer sur le roc noir et nu?»  
rising like the sea over the black and naked rock?"

**3** — Quand notre coeur a fait une fois sa vendange  
— Once our heart has gathered in its vintage,
> «la vendange» — the grape harvest: «la vendange» is the grape-harvest, the gathering of the vintage; «faire sa vendange» = 'to bring in one's harvest'. «Quand notre coeur a fait une fois sa vendange» = 'once the heart has done its vintage', i.e. has lived through its season and reaped what it will ever reap. «une fois» here means 'once, once and for all'. The metaphor turns a life of feeling into a single harvest after which only the bitterness of line 4 remains.

**4** Vivre est un mal. C'est un secret de tous connu,  
to live is an evil. It is a secret known to all,


**5** Une douleur très simple et non mystérieuse  
a very plain grief, and not mysterious,

**6** Et, comme votre joie, éclatante pour tous.  
and, like your joy, glaring plain to everyone.
> «éclatant» — dazzling, blazing out: «éclatant» (from «éclater», 'to burst, to break out') means 'dazzling, blazing, conspicuous' — light or sound that bursts upon everyone. «éclatante pour tous» = 'blazingly obvious to all'. The word answers «votre joie» ('your joy'): the woman's happiness is as loud and visible as the speaker's sorrow is — both are out in the open, «pour tous», for everyone to see.

**7** Cessez donc de chercher, ô belle curieuse!  
Stop searching, then, O lovely inquisitive one!

**8** Et, bien que votre voix soit douce, taisez-vous!  
and, though your voice be sweet, be silent!
> Subjunctive after «bien que»: «bien que» ('although, though') always governs the subjunctive. «soit» is the present subjunctive of «être» — «bien que votre voix soit douce» = 'although your voice is (may be) sweet'. The mood marks the sweetness as conceded, set aside: granted as true only to be overruled by the command «taisez-vous!» ('be silent!'), the pronominal «se taire» given in the imperative.


**9** Taisez-vous, ignorante! âme toujours ravie!  
Be silent, you who know nothing! soul forever enraptured!
> «ravi» — carried away, enraptured: «ravi» is the past participle of «ravir», literally 'to seize, to carry off' (as in 'ravish'), and so 'delighted, enraptured'. «âme toujours ravie» = 'soul forever enraptured / forever carried away'. The praise is half a warning: the woman's bliss depends on her not knowing — «ignorante» — what the speaker knows, and «toujours» ('always') quietly echoes the Latin title, «Semper eadem».

**10** Bouche au rire enfantin! Plus encor que la Vie,  
Mouth of childlike laughter! More even than Life,

**11** La Mort nous tient souvent par des liens subtils.  
Death often holds us by subtle bonds.


**12** Laissez, laissez mon coeur s'enivrer d'un mensonge,  
Let, let my heart get drunk on a lie,
> Pronominal «s'enivrer» under «laisser»: «laisser» + infinitive = 'to let / allow (something) to', so «laissez mon coeur s'enivrer» = 'let my heart get drunk'. «s'enivrer» is pronominal — 'to make oneself drunk, to grow intoxicated' (from «ivre», 'drunk') — and takes «de» for the thing one is drunk on: «s'enivrer d'un mensonge» = 'to get drunk on a lie'. The doubled imperative «Laissez, laissez» turns the command into a plea, and the lie is the woman's own untroubled joy.

**13** Plonger dans vos beaux yeux comme dans un beau songe  
to plunge into your lovely eyes as into a lovely dream,

**14** Et sommeiller longtemps à l'ombre de vos cils!  
and slumber a long while in the shadow of your lashes!
> «les cils» — the eyelashes: «les cils» are the eyelashes (the eyelids are «les paupières»). «à l'ombre de vos cils» = 'in the shadow of your lashes'. The sonnet's three closing infinitives — «s'enivrer», «plonger», «sommeiller» — all hang on «laissez» of line 1, a single drawn-out wish: to drink the lie, sink into the eyes as into a dream, and sleep long under the shade those lashes throw. The chosen lie is preferred to the death-truth of the tercet above.

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