French · Spleen and Ideal

Un Fantôme

A Phantom

60 lines · 20 notes

Tap a line to open its words.

1
I The Shadows
III · roman numeralsection number
Lesthele · determiner, pluraldeterminer of Ténèbres
TénèbresShadowsténèbres · noun, feminine, pluralhead of the phrase (title)
Wordténèbres (f. pl.) «ténèbres» is a plural-only noun meaning thick, total darkness — deeper and more literary than «obscurité». It carries a moral and funereal charge (the darkness of the tomb, of damnation), which is why the painter is condemned to paint «sur les ténèbres», on darkness itself.
2
In the vaults of unfathomable sadness
3
where Destiny has already banished me;
4
where never enters a ray rosy and gay;
5
where, alone with Night, that sullen hostess,
Wordmaussade «maussade» = 'sullen, surly, glum'. The personified Night is the poet's «hôtesse» (hostess), and a grim one — the adjective placed before the noun heightens the gloom and sets up the sentence whose main verb («brille») will not arrive until two stanzas later.
6
I am like a painter whom a mocking God
7
condemns to paint, alas! upon the shadows;
8
where, a cook with funereal appetites,
9
I boil and I eat my own heart,
Grammarfaire + infinitive (causative) «faire» + infinitive means 'to make / cause something to happen': «je fais bouillir» = 'I make (it) boil', i.e. 'I boil'. The cook causes the boiling, then eats the result — his own «coeur» — turning despair into a grotesque self-cannibalism.
10
At moments there gleams, and stretches, and spreads
GrammarPronominal verbs «s'allonger / s'étaler» Both are reflexive (pronominal): «s'allonger» = 'to stretch / lengthen oneself' and «s'étaler» = 'to spread out, sprawl'. The triple verb «brille… s'allonge… s'étale» belongs to «Un spectre» in the next line — French freely places the subject after a string of verbs, so read the spectre as the thing that gleams and unfurls.
11
a spectre made of grace and splendor.
12
By its dreamy oriental bearing,
13
when it attains its total grandeur,
14
I recognize my beautiful visitor:
15
It is She! dark and yet luminous.
Wordpourtant «pourtant» = 'yet, nevertheless'. The closing oxymoron — «noire et pourtant lumineuse», dark and yet luminous — defines the whole phantom: a radiant figure rising out of total darkness. It is the volta of this first sonnet, the apparition the long sentence has been building toward.
16
II The Perfume
17
Reader, have you sometimes breathed in,
GrammarInterrogative inversion in the passé composé A yes/no question by inversion: subject pronoun «tu» flips behind the auxiliary «as», giving «as-tu… respiré?» = 'have you breathed?'. An adverb like «quelquefois» ('sometimes') slips between the auxiliary and the past participle, as it does here.
18
with intoxication and slow greed,
19
that grain of incense which fills a church,
20
or, from a sachet, the inveterate musk?
21
Deep, magical charm, with which there intoxicates us
GrammarRelative «dont» + «griser» «dont» is the relative meaning 'with / of which', standing for the «charme». «griser» = 'to make tipsy, to intoxicate'; «nous» is its object. Word order is inverted for the verse: «dont nous grise… le passé restauré» = 'with which the restored past intoxicates us'.
22
in the present the restored past!
23
Thus the lover, on an adored body,
24
plucks from memory the exquisite flower.
25
From her hair, springy and heavy,
26
a living sachet, a censer of the alcove,
Wordencensoir (m.) «encensoir» is the swinging censer that scatters incense in church. Applied to the beloved's hair, the sacred object is carried into the «alcôve» (the bedroom recess) — the recurring fusion of the liturgical and the erotic that runs through this whole quatrain.
27
a scent would rise, savage and wild,
28
And from her clothes, muslin or velvet,
29
all steeped in her pure youth,
30
there breathed forth a perfume of fur.
GrammarPronominal «se dégager» + inverted subject «se dégager» = 'to be released, to emanate'. The verb opens the line and the real subject, «un parfum de fourrure», follows it — a common verse inversion. Read it as 'a perfume of fur emanated', the scent rising off the worn fabric.
31
III The Frame
32
As a fine frame adds to a painting,
33
though it be by a much-praised brush,
Grammar«bien que» + subjunctive «bien que» ('although') always governs the subjunctive: «soit» is the present subjunctive of «être». «Bien qu'elle soit d'un pinceau très-vanté» = 'although it [the painting] be by a much-praised brush' — even a masterpiece is set off by its frame.
34
an I-know-not-what of strangeness and enchantment,
Wordun je-ne-sais-quoi «je ne sais quoi» — literally 'I don't know what' — is a fixed expression for an indefinable, elusive quality. The frame lends the painting «je ne sais quoi d'étrange et d'enchanté», a strange, enchanted something, by isolating it from the vastness of nature.
35
by isolating it from the immense expanse of nature,
36
so jewels, furniture, metals, gilding,
37
fitted themselves exactly to her rare beauty;
38
nothing dimmed her perfect brightness,
Wordoffusquer Today «offusquer» means 'to offend, to shock', but in its older, literal sense — the one Baudelaire uses — it means 'to darken, to obscure, to overshadow'. «Rien n'offusquait sa parfaite clarté» = 'nothing dimmed her perfect brightness'.
39
and everything seemed to serve her as a border.
40
One might even have said at times that she believed
Grammar«on eût dit» (past conditional) «eût dit» is the past conditional (literary form, here in the «-eût» subjunctive shape): 'one would have said'. The idiom «on eût dit que…» means 'it was as if…', conveying a strong impression. The circumflex distinguishes «eût» (imparfait du subjonctif of avoir) from «eut» (passé simple of avoir, 3rd-person singular), which are homophones differing only in spelling.
41
that everything longed to love her; she drowned
42
her nakedness voluptuously
43
in the kisses of satin and of linen,
44
and, slow or abrupt, with each movement
45
she showed the childlike grace of the monkey.
Wordle singe «singe» = 'monkey, ape'. The startling final image likens the beloved's supple movements to a monkey's «grâce enfantine», childlike grace — playful and faintly animal at once. Baudelaire keeps the same simian comparison in «Au Lecteur», where vice has its menagerie.
46
IV The Portrait
47
Sickness and Death make ashes
48
of all the fire that blazed for us.
Grammarpassé simple «flamboya» «flamboya» is the passé simple (literary past tense) of «flamboyer», 'to blaze'. The passé simple seals the action as finished and remote — the fire «flamboya», blazed and is over — fitting the elegy: every flame of that love is now reduced to ash.
49
Of those great eyes so fervent and so tender,
50
of that mouth where my heart drowned,
GrammarPronominal «se noyer» in the passé simple «se noyer» = 'to drown (oneself)', a pronominal verb; «se noya» is its passé simple. «mon coeur se noya» = 'my heart drowned'. The anaphora «De ces… De cette… De ces…» piles up everything now lost before the question «Que reste-t-il?» finally arrives.
51
Of those kisses potent as a balm,
Wordle dictame «dictame» is dittany, an aromatic herb prized since antiquity for healing wounds; by extension it means a soothing balm or remedy. The kisses are «puissants comme un dictame» — potent as a balm — a cure now lost to sickness and death.
52
of those raptures more vivid than sunbeams,
53
what remains? It is dreadful, O my soul!
GrammarImpersonal «il reste» + inversion «il reste» is impersonal — 'there remains'. As a question it inverts to «reste-t-il?», with the euphonic «-t-» inserted between two vowels. «Que reste-t-il?» = 'what remains?' — the hinge of the sonnet, turning from the catalogue of splendors to the meager answer that follows.
54
Nothing but a very pale drawing, in three crayons,
55
which, like me, is dying in solitude,
56
and which Time, that insulting old man,
57
each day rubs away with his coarse wing...
58
Black assassin of Life and of Art,
59
you will never kill within my memory
GrammarFuture tense + «ne… jamais» «tueras» is the simple future of «tuer», 'to kill'; the negation «ne… jamais» = 'never'. Addressed to Time, «Tu ne tueras jamais» = 'you will never kill' — the defiant vow that closes the sequence: memory outlasts the assassin.
60
her who was my pleasure and my glory!
GrammarDemonstrative «celle» + passé simple «fut» «celle» = 'she, the one (feminine)', here the object of «tueras». «fut» is the passé simple of «être», 'was'. «Celle qui fut mon plaisir et ma gloire» = 'she who was my pleasure and my glory' — the beloved, named only by what she was, saved from Time in the poet's memory.

The particulars

The text: Les Fleurs du mal, Charles Baudelaire. Spleen and Ideal.
Words: Every word of the text, by letter.
Data: JSON · Markdown · A guide for agents