# Spleen (J'ai plus de souvenirs) · Spleen (I Have More Memories)

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/spleen-j-ai-plus-de-souvenirs. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/spleen-j-ai-plus-de-souvenirs.json.

**1** J'ai plus de souvenirs que si j'avais mille ans.  
I have more memories than if I had lived a thousand years.
> «si» + imperfect (counterfactual): «si» plus the imperfect «avais» frames an unreal hypothesis: 'than if I had a thousand years'. The comparison is impossible by design — the speaker claims more memories than a thousand-year life could hold, opening the poem on a mind crushed under its own accumulated past.


**2** Un gros meuble à tiroirs encombré de bilans,  
A great chest of drawers cluttered with balance-sheets,
> «un meuble à tiroirs»: «un meuble» is any piece of furniture; «à tiroirs» ('with drawers') specifies a chest or bureau. «un bilan» is an accountant's balance-sheet or statement. The image opens a long catalogue of dead paperwork — accounts, verses, love-notes, lawsuits — crammed into furniture that still hides fewer secrets than the speaker's brain.

**3** De vers, de billets doux, de procès, de romances,  
of verses, love-letters, lawsuits, and ballads,
> «un billet doux» / «une romance»: «un billet doux» is a love-note (literally a 'sweet note'); «une romance» is a sentimental ballad or song. Note «de vers» here means 'verses, lines of poetry' — a different word from «les vers» ('worms') that crawl through stanza two below. Baudelaire will let that pun do quiet work.

**4** Avec de lourds cheveux roulés dans des quittances,  
with heavy locks of hair rolled up in receipts,

**5** Cache moins de secrets que mon triste cerveau.  
hides fewer secrets than my mournful brain.
> Held-back verb and «moins... que»: The single verb «cache» ('hides') governs the whole sentence and is held back across four lines, arriving only here: it is the chest of drawers that 'hides'. «moins de secrets que» = 'fewer secrets than' — the furniture, for all its crammed papers, conceals less than «mon triste cerveau», the speaker's own sorrowful brain.

**6** C'est une pyramide, un immense caveau,  
It is a pyramid, an immense burial-vault,

**7** Qui contient plus de morts que la fosse commune.  
that holds more dead than the common grave.

**8** — Je suis un cimetière abhorré de la lune,  
— I am a graveyard loathed by the moon,
> Past participle + «de» (agent): «abhorré» ('abhorred, loathed') is a past participle agreeing with «cimetière»; the agent is introduced by «de» rather than «par», an elevated literary usage common with verbs of feeling. So 'a graveyard loathed by the moon' — even the moon turns its face from this burial-ground of the self.

**9** Où comme des remords se traînent de longs vers  
where, like pangs of remorse, long worms drag themselves
> «se traîner» (pronominal) + the «vers» pun: «se traîner» = 'to drag oneself, to crawl' — the pronominal «se» makes the worms creep of their own accord. With inversion the subject «de longs vers» ('long worms') follows its verb. «vers» now means 'worms', echoing «de vers» ('verses') in the chest above: the poet's lines and the grave's worms are the same word, both gnawing his cherished dead.

**10** Qui s'acharnent toujours sur mes morts les plus chers.  
that forever set upon my dearest dead.
> «s'acharner sur»: «s'acharner sur» = 'to set upon relentlessly, to torment without let-up' — the pronominal verb carries an idea of dogged, savage persistence. The worms (and the remorse they stand for) fasten on «mes morts les plus chers», the memories the speaker loves most, never sparing them.

**11** Je suis un vieux boudoir plein de roses fanées,  
I am an old boudoir full of withered roses,

**12** Où gît tout un fouillis de modes surannées,  
where lies a whole jumble of outmoded fashions,
> «gésir» / «suranné»: «gît» is from the defective verb «gésir» ('to lie'), the verb of tombstones — «ci-gît» means 'here lies'. «suranné» = 'outdated, antiquated, gone out of fashion'. So the boudoir's clutter of old gowns and styles does not merely sit there but 'lies' as the dead lie — the room is one more grave.

**13** Où les pastels plaintifs et les pâles Boucher  
where plaintive pastels and pale Bouchers,

**14** Seuls, respirent l'odeur d'un flacon débouché.  
alone, breathe in the scent of an unstoppered flask.


**15** Rien n'égale en longueur les boiteuses journées,  
Nothing equals in length the limping days,
> «boiteux» — limping: «boiteux/boiteuse» = 'lame, limping, halting'. The days do not pass so much as hobble. «en longueur» = 'in length, drawn out'. Nothing drags longer than these crippled days when boredom swells, under winter's snows, to the size of eternity.

**16** Quand sous les lourds flocons des neigeuses années  
when, beneath the heavy flakes of the snowing years,

**17** L'ennui, fruit de la morne incuriosité,  
ennui, the fruit of dismal incuriosity,
> «l'ennui» and «l'incuriosité»: «ennui» is far stronger than English 'boredom': a soul-deep, listless despair — the «spleen» the whole section is named against. «l'incuriosité» = the want of all curiosity, indifference to everything. Boredom is its 'fruit': born of caring about nothing, it ripens until it swells «aux proportions de l'immortalité» in the next line.

**18** Prend les proportions de l'immortalité.  
takes on the proportions of immortality.

**19** — Désormais tu n'es plus, ô matière vivante!  
— Henceforth you are no more, O living matter!
> «ne... plus» + apostrophe: «ne... plus» = 'no longer, no more'. «désormais» = 'from now on, henceforth'. The speaker turns to address himself as «ô matière vivante» ('O living matter') in the second person «tu» — a self-apostrophe. What follows («Qu'un granit...») completes the thought: you are no longer anything but a block of granite.

**20** Qu'un granit entouré d'une vague épouvante,  
but a block of granite ringed by a vague dread,
> «ne... plus que» — nothing more than: This «Qu'» completes «tu n'es plus» from the line above: the construction «ne... plus que» means 'no longer anything but'. So 'you are now nothing but a granite block, ringed by a vague terror' — the living man has hardened into inert stone in a fog-bound desert.

**21** Assoupi dans le fond d'un Sahara brumeux;  
drowsing in the depths of a misty Sahara;

**22** Un vieux sphinx ignoré du monde insoucieux,  
an old sphinx unknown to the heedless world,

**23** Oublié sur la carte, et dont l'humeur farouche  
forgotten on the map, and whose sullen mood
> Relative «dont» (= of which / whose): «dont» is the relative meaning 'of which, of whom, whose', standing in for «de» + antecedent — here referring to the sphinx: 'whose sullen mood'. «farouche» = 'wild, shy, fierce, unsociable'. The clause runs on into the last line: this sphinx's mood «ne chante qu'aux rayons du soleil qui se couche».

**24** Ne chante qu'aux rayons du soleil qui se couche.  
sings only in the rays of the setting sun.
> «ne... que» — only: «ne... que» means 'only, nothing but' — not a negation but a restriction. So «ne chante qu'aux rayons du soleil qui se couche» = 'sings only in the rays of the setting sun'. «se coucher» (pronominal) is the verb for the sun 'going down'. The forgotten sphinx finds voice at one moment alone — the dying of the light — and the poem ends there.

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