# Spleen (Je suis comme le roi) · Spleen (I Am Like the King)

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/spleen-je-suis-comme-le-roi. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/spleen-je-suis-comme-le-roi.json.

**1** Je suis comme le roi d'un pays pluvieux,  
I am like the king of a rainy land,

**2** Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant très vieux,  
rich, but powerless, young and yet very old,

**3** Qui, de ses précepteurs méprisant les courbettes,  
who, scorning the bowing and scraping of his tutors,
> Inverted 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.

**4** S'ennuie avec ses chiens comme avec d'autres bêtes.  
is bored among his dogs as among any other beasts.
> «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).

**5** Rien ne peut l'égayer, ni gibier, ni faucon,  
Nothing can cheer him, neither game nor falcon,

**6** Ni son peuple mourant en face du balcon.  
nor his people dying in sight of the balcony.

**7** Du bouffon favori la grotesque ballade  
The favourite jester's grotesque ballad
> Fronted 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.

**8** Ne distrait plus le front de ce cruel malade;  
no longer distracts the brow of this cruel invalid;

**9** Son lit fleurdelisé se transforme en tombeau,  
His fleur-de-lis bed turns into a tomb,

**10** Et les dames d'atour, pour qui tout prince est beau,  
and the ladies of the wardrobe, for whom every prince is handsome,

**11** Ne savent plus trouver d'impudique toilette  
no longer know how to find an immodest enough costume

**12** Pour tirer un souris de ce jeune squelette.  
to draw a smile from this young skeleton.
> «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.

**13** Le savant qui lui fait de l'or n'a jamais pu  
The scholar who makes him gold has never been able

**14** De son être extirper l'élément corrompu,  
to root out of his being the corrupted element,

**15** Et dans ces bains de sang qui des Romains nous viennent,  
And in those baths of blood that come down to us from the Romans,

**16** Et dont sur leurs vieux jours les puissants se souviennent,  
and which, in their old age, the powerful remember,
> «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.

**17** Il n'a su réchauffer ce cadavre hébété  
he has not been able to warm this dazed cadaver

**18** Où coule au lieu de sang l'eau verte du Léthé  
in whose veins, instead of blood, runs the green water of Lethe

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