French · Spleen and Ideal

Spleen (Je suis comme le roi)

Spleen (I Am Like the King)

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I am like the king of a rainy land,
JeIje · pronoun, singularsubject of suis
suisamêtre · verb, present, indicative, first-person, singularcopula linking to roi
commelikecomme · prepositionpreposition marking roi
lethele · determiner, masculine, singulardeterminer of roi
roikingroi · noun, masculine, singularhead of the phrase
d'ofde · prepositionpreposition marking pays
unaun · determiner, masculine, singulardeterminer of pays
payslandpays · noun, masculine, singularmodifies roi
pluvieuxrainypluvieux · adjective, masculinemodifies pays
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rich, but powerless, young and yet very old,
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who, scorning the bowing and scraping of his tutors,
GrammarInverted word order around «mépriser» Untangled, the phrase is «méprisant les courbettes de ses précepteurs» — 'scorning the bows of his tutors'. Baudelaire fronts «de ses précepteurs» before the present participle «méprisant» for the verse, a poetic inversion. «une courbette» is a fawning, exaggerated bow (literally a horse's 'curvet'), here the obsequiousness the bored king holds in contempt.
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is bored among his dogs as among any other beasts.
Grammar«s'ennuyer» (pronominal) — to be bored «s'ennuyer» = 'to be bored, to grow weary' — the reflexive «se» turns «ennuyer» ('to bother someone') inward, so the boredom settles on the subject himself. This is the keyword of the poem: «l'ennui», the listless, world-weary tedium at the heart of «spleen». The king is bored even by his hunting dogs, lumping them with «d'autres bêtes» (any other beasts).
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Nothing can cheer him, neither game nor falcon,
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nor his people dying in sight of the balcony.
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The favourite jester's grotesque ballad
GrammarFronted possessor: «la ballade du bouffon» In ordinary order this is «la grotesque ballade du bouffon favori» — 'the grotesque ballad of the favourite jester'. The possessive «du bouffon favori» is pushed to the front of the line, a Latinate inversion that suspends the subject «ballade» until later and lets the verb «ne distrait plus» land in the next line. «un bouffon» is a court fool or jester.
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no longer distracts the brow of this cruel invalid;
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His fleur-de-lis bed turns into a tomb,
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and the ladies of the wardrobe, for whom every prince is handsome,
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no longer know how to find an immodest enough costume
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to draw a smile from this young skeleton.
Word«un souris» — an (archaic) smile «un souris» is an old masculine form of «le sourire» ('smile'); note it is not «une souris» ('a mouse'), which is feminine. The archaism suits the poem's faded-royal register. «tirer un souris de...» = 'to draw a smile out of...' — and not even immodest finery can wring one from «ce jeune squelette» (this young skeleton), the king already half a corpse.
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The scholar who makes him gold has never been able
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to root out of his being the corrupted element,
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And in those baths of blood that come down to us from the Romans,
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and which, in their old age, the powerful remember,
Grammar«se souvenir de» — to remember «se souvenir de quelque chose» = 'to remember something' — a pronominal verb whose «de» complement is carried here by the relative «dont» ('of which'): «dont... les puissants se souviennent» means 'which the powerful remember'. «sur leurs vieux jours» is an idiom, 'in their old age, in their declining years' — when «les puissants» (the mighty) recall the old blood-cure.
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he has not been able to warm this dazed cadaver
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in whose veins, instead of blood, runs the green water of Lethe

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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