# Un Voyage à Cythère · A Voyage to Cythera

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Flowers of Evil

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/un-voyage-a-cythere. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/un-voyage-a-cythere.json.

**1** Mon coeur, comme un oiseau, voltigeait tout joyeux  
My heart, like a bird, was fluttering all joyful
> «voltiger»: «voltiger» means to flit, flutter, or wheel through the air, as a bird or insect does. Here it is in the imperfect («voltigeait»), painting an ongoing, weightless state. The buoyant opening is set up to be crushed by the gibbet at the poem's center.

**2** Et planait librement à l'entour des cordages;  
And soared freely about the rigging;
> «à l'entour de»: «à l'entour de» is a literary phrase meaning 'around, in the vicinity of' (modern French prefers «autour de»). «les cordages» (m. pl.) are a ship's ropes and rigging. The verb «planait» (imperfect of «planer», to glide/soar) continues the airborne mood of the first line.

**3** Le navire roulait sous un ciel sans nuages;  
The ship rolled along beneath a cloudless sky;

**4** Comme un ange enivré d'un soleil radieux.  
Like an angel made drunk on a radiant sun.
> «enivré de»: «enivré» is the past participle of «enivrer» (to intoxicate, to make drunk), here used adjectivally and governing «de»: «enivré d'un soleil radieux» = 'drunk on a radiant sun'. Drunkenness on light and beauty is a recurring Baudelairean image; «s'enivrer» ('get drunk') is the pronominal counterpart.


**5** Quelle est cette île triste et noire? — C'est Cythère,  
What is this island, sad and black? — It is Cythera,

**6** Nous dit-on, un pays fameux dans les chansons,  
We are told, a land famous in the songs,
> Inversion with «on»: «nous dit-on»: «on» is the impersonal subject ('one, they, people'). In a parenthetical aside the verb and subject invert: «nous dit-on» = 'we are told / so they tell us', literally 'tells-us-one'. The «t» liaison links «dit» to «on». It drops the speakers' enthusiasm into the line like hearsay.

**7** Eldorado banal de tous les vieux garçons.  
A hackneyed Eldorado for every old bachelor.
> «un vieux garçon»: «un vieux garçon» (literally 'an old boy') is the idiom for a confirmed bachelor, an aging single man. Calling Cythera — Venus's island of love — a 'banal Eldorado' for such men deflates its romance with a sneer before the horror arrives.

**8** Regardez, après tout, c'est une pauvre terre.  
Look closer: after all, it is a poor scrap of land.


**9** — Île des doux secrets et des fêtes du coeur!  
— Island of sweet secrets and of the heart's festivals!

**10** De l'antique Vénus le superbe fantôme  
Of ancient Venus the proud phantom
> Fronted «de» phrase: Prose order would be «le superbe fantôme de l'antique Vénus» ('the proud phantom of ancient Venus'). Baudelaire fronts the «de» complement to the head of the line — a verse inversion that suspends the grammatical subject «le superbe fantôme» until line's end, where it can flow into the verb «plane» of the next line.

**11** Au-dessus de tes mers plane comme un arôme  
Above your seas hovers like a perfume

**12** Et charge les esprits d'amour et de langueur.  
And laden the spirits with love and with languor.
> «charger qqch. de»: «charger quelque chose de» means 'to load / burden something with'. Here «charge les esprits d'amour et de langueur» = 'burdens the spirits with love and languor'. «la langueur» is a soft, dreamy weariness — a key word in Baudelaire's vocabulary of enervated desire.


**13** Belle île aux myrtes verts, pleine de fleurs écloses,  
Fair island of green myrtles, full of blossomed flowers,
> «le myrte»: «le myrte» is the myrtle, an evergreen shrub sacred to Venus and an ancient emblem of love. «écloses» is the past participle of «éclore» (to bloom, to hatch), so «fleurs écloses» are flowers that have opened. The lush imagery is the last beauty before the poem turns to carrion.

**14** Vénérée à jamais par toute nation,  
Forever revered by every nation,

**15** Où les soupirs des coeurs en adoration  
Where the sighs of hearts in adoration

**16** Roulent comme l'encens sur un jardin de roses  
Roll like incense over a garden of roses


**17** Ou le roucoulement éternel d'un ramier!  
Or the eternal cooing of a wood-pigeon!
> «le roucoulement»: «le roucoulement» is the cooing of a dove or pigeon (verb «roucouler»), by extension the murmur of lovers. «un ramier» is a wood-pigeon. This line completes the sentence begun in the previous stanza, then the dash snaps the reverie shut as the real island appears.

**18** — Cythère n'était plus qu'un terrain des plus maigres,  
— Cythera was now no more than a most meagre patch of ground,
> «ne ... plus que»: Two negations stack here. «ne ... plus» = 'no longer'; «ne ... que» = 'only, nothing but'. Combined, «n'était plus qu'un terrain» = 'was no longer anything but a patch of ground'. «des plus maigres» ('of the most meagre') is a superlative intensifier: 'extremely scrawny'.

**19** Un désert rocailleux troublé par des cris aigres.  
A stony desert troubled by harsh, shrill cries.

**20** J'entrevoyais pourtant un objet singulier!  
Yet I made out, dimly, a singular object!
> «entrevoir»: «entrevoir» (entre- 'between' + voir 'to see') means to glimpse or half-see, to make out indistinctly. The imperfect «entrevoyais» gives a lingering, uncertain peering. «pourtant» ('yet, nevertheless') marks the swerve from desolate landscape to the one strange thing that will dominate the rest of the poem.


**21** Ce n'était pas un temple aux ombres bocagères,  
It was not a temple in leafy, woodland shade,
> «bocager / bocagère»: «bocager» is a literary adjective from «le bocage» (a grove, leafy woodland). «aux ombres bocagères» = 'with grove-like shadows'. The whole stanza is a negation — what the object is not — building suspense before the gibbet is finally named.

**22** Où la jeune prêtresse, amoureuse des fleurs,  
Where the young priestess, in love with the flowers,

**23** Allait, le corps brûlé de secrètes chaleurs,  
Would walk, her body burning with secret heat,

**24** Entrebâillant sa robe aux brises passagères;  
Half-opening her robe to the passing breezes;
> «entrebâiller»: «entrebâiller» means to open partway, to leave ajar (a door, a window, here a robe). The present participle «entrebâillant» describes the priestess as she walks. The sensual, half-glimpsed gesture belongs to the imagined Cythera that the next stanza will violently replace.


**25** Mais voilà qu'en rasant la côte d'assez près  
But now, as we skimmed the coast close enough
> Gerund «en rasant»: «en» + present participle (the gérondif) gives the manner or timing of an action: «en rasant la côte» = 'while skimming / grazing the coast'. «raser» literally means to shave, here to pass very close to. «voilà que» ('and now / suddenly') announces the turn into the grisly discovery.

**26** Pour troubler les oiseaux avec nos voiles blanches,  
To startle the birds with our white sails,

**27** Nous vîmes que c'était un gibet à trois branches,  
We saw that it was a gallows with three arms,
> «un gibet»: «un gibet» is a gallows or gibbet, the wooden frame for hanging. «vîmes» is the passé simple (the literary past tense) of «voir» — 'we saw'. The island of Venus reveals not a temple but an instrument of execution, the image around which the whole poem pivots.

**28** Du ciel se détachant en noir, comme un cyprès.  
Standing out black against the sky, like a cypress.
> «se détacher» (pronominal): «se détacher» is the pronominal form meaning 'to stand out, to be silhouetted' against a background: «se détachant du ciel en noir» = 'standing out black against the sky'. The cypress is a traditional tree of mourning and graveyards, deepening the funereal image.


**29** De féroces oiseaux perchés sur leur pâture  
Ferocious birds, perched upon their feed,
> «la pâture»: «la pâture» is fodder, feed, or pasture — what an animal grazes on. Applied to scavengers on a corpse, «perchés sur leur pâture» ('perched on their feed') reduces the hanged man to mere meat, the first of many words in this stanza that strip away his humanity.

**30** Détruisaient avec rage un pendu déjà mûr,  
Were tearing apart with fury a hanged man already ripe,
> «un pendu déjà mûr»: «un pendu» is a hanged man (past participle of «pendre», to hang, used as a noun). «mûr» means ripe; «déjà mûr» ('already ripe') is a grim euphemism for a body well into decay. The fruit-imagery makes the rot almost appetizing to the birds — and unbearable to the reader.

**31** Chacun plantant, comme un outil, son bec impur  
Each one driving in, like a tool, its unclean beak

**32** Dans tous les coins saignants de cette pourriture;  
Into every bleeding corner of this rottenness;
> «la pourriture»: «la pourriture» is rot, putrefaction, decay (verb «pourrir», to rot). Demonstrating «cette pourriture» — 'this rottenness' — names the corpse by its corruption alone. The clinical, repellent diction here links the poem to Baudelaire's other great carrion piece, «Une Charogne».


**33** Les yeux étaient deux trous, et du ventre effondré  
The eyes were two holes, and from the caved-in belly
> «effondré»: «effondré» is the past participle of «effondrer» (to collapse, to cave in), here adjectival: «le ventre effondré» = 'the caved-in belly'. The «de» of «du ventre» is the partitive/source preposition ('from the belly'), leading into the entrails that spill in the next line.

**34** Les intestins pesants lui coulaient sur les cuisses,  
The heavy intestines spilled down over his thighs,
> Dative «lui» of the body part: French marks possession of a body part with an indirect-object pronoun rather than a possessive. «les intestins lui coulaient sur les cuisses» = 'the intestines spilled down over his thighs' (literally 'spilled to-him over the thighs'). The «lui» is what makes the gore belong to the hanged man.

**35** Et ses bourreaux, gorgés de hideuses délices,  
And his torturers, gorged on hideous delights,
> «le bourreau»: «un bourreau» is an executioner or torturer — calling the carrion-birds «ses bourreaux» ('his torturers') treats the dead man as if still capable of suffering. «gorgés de» (past participle of «se gorger», to gorge oneself) means 'gorged on, glutted with'.

**36** L'avaient à coups de bec absolument châtré.  
Had, with strokes of the beak, utterly castrated him.
> «à coups de»: «à coups de» means 'by repeated blows / strokes of': «à coups de bec» = 'with peck after peck of the beak'. The verb «châtrer» (to castrate) lands as the stanza's brutal climax; on the island of Venus, love's pilgrim is unmanned by scavengers.


**37** Sous les pieds, un troupeau de jaloux quadrupèdes,  
Below the feet, a pack of jealous four-footed beasts,

**38** Le museau relevé, tournoyait et rôdait;  
Snouts lifted high, wheeled about and prowled;
> Absolute construction «le museau relevé»: A noun plus past participle with no verb forms an absolute (descriptive) phrase: «le museau relevé» = 'with snout raised'. «le museau» is an animal's snout or muzzle. The singular collective subject «un troupeau» takes singular verbs «tournoyait» and «rôdait» (imperfect of «tournoyer», to wheel, and «rôder», to prowl).

**39** Une plus grande bête au milieu s'agitait  
A larger beast in their midst was stirring restlessly
> «s'agiter» (pronominal): «s'agiter» is the pronominal verb 'to move about, fidget, stir restlessly'. In the imperfect «s'agitait» it depicts continuous, agitated motion. The reflexive «se» turns the plain «agiter» (to shake something) inward onto the beast itself.

**40** Comme un exécuteur entouré de ses aides.  
Like an executioner surrounded by his assistants.


**41** Habitant de Cythère, enfant d'un ciel si beau,  
Dweller of Cythera, child of a sky so fair,

**42** Silencieusement tu souffrais ces insultes  
Silently you were suffering these outrages
> Apostrophe with «tu»: The poet now addresses the corpse directly with the intimate «tu» («souffrais», imperfect of «souffrir», to suffer). This rhetorical turn — apostrophe — pulls the hanged man from spectacle into companion. «les insultes» here keeps its older, stronger sense of 'outrages, assaults', not mere verbal insults.

**43** En expiation de tes infâmes cultes  
In expiation of your infamous rites
> «le culte»: «un culte» is a form of worship, rite, or devotion. «tes infâmes cultes» ('your infamous rites') frames the hanged man as punished for the cult of Venus — for love itself. «l'expiation» is atonement; the line reads the execution as penance demanded by a moralizing God.

**44** Et des péchés qui t'ont interdit le tombeau.  
And of the sins that have denied you the grave.
> «interdire qqch. à qqn»: «interdire quelque chose à quelqu'un» = 'to forbid / deny something to someone'. With a pronoun the dative comes first: «qui t'ont interdit le tombeau» = 'which have denied you the grave'. To be left hanging, unburied, was a final disgrace — the sins refuse him even rest.


**45** Ridicule pendu, tes douleurs sont les miennes!  
Ridiculous hanged man, your sufferings are mine!
> Possessive pronoun «les miennes»: «le mien / la mienne / les miens / les miennes» is the possessive pronoun ('mine'), agreeing in gender and number with the thing owned — here feminine plural «les douleurs» ('the sufferings'), hence «les miennes». This line is the poem's hinge: the poet claims the corpse's agony as his own.

**46** Je sentis, à l'aspect de tes membres flottants,  
I felt, at the sight of your dangling limbs,

**47** Comme un vomissement, remonter vers mes dents  
Like a fit of vomiting, rising back toward my teeth,

**48** Le long fleuve de fiel des douleurs anciennes;  
The long river of bile of old sorrows;
> «le fiel»: «le fiel» is gall or bile, and figuratively bitterness and rancour. «le long fleuve de fiel» — 'the long river of bile' — is the subject of the infinitive «remonter» ('to rise back up') two lines above, and the direct object of «je sentis»; the inversion makes the reader wait, like nausea, for the subject to surface.


**49** Devant toi, pauvre diable au souvenir si cher,  
Before you, poor devil whose memory is so dear,
> «un pauvre diable»: «un pauvre diable» is an idiom for a poor wretch, a hapless fellow — sympathy, not damnation. «au souvenir si cher» ('whose memory is so dear') uses «à» to attach a defining trait: the corpse has become a mirror the poet cherishes even as it sickens him.

**50** J'ai senti tous les becs et toutes les mâchoires  
I felt all the beaks and all the jaws

**51** Des corbeaux lancinants et des panthères noires  
Of the stabbing crows and the black panthers
> «lancinant»: «lancinant» means shooting, throbbing, stabbing — used of a sharp recurring pain (verb «lanciner», to torment). «des corbeaux lancinants» ('stabbing crows') fuses the bird's pecking with the throb of remembered anguish, so the scavengers become the poet's own torments.

**52** Qui jadis aimaient tant à triturer ma chair.  
That once so loved to grind away at my flesh.
> «triturer»: «triturer» means to grind, crush, or knead — a relentless working-over. «aimaient tant à triturer» uses «aimer à» + infinitive ('to be fond of doing'), a slightly archaic construction. «jadis» means 'formerly, long ago'; the imperfect makes the torment a lifelong habit.


**53** — Le ciel était charmant, la mer était unie;  
— The sky was charming, the sea was smooth;
> «uni / unie»: «uni(e)» means even, smooth, unbroken — of a sea, calm and flat. The dash and the return to the placid seascape («la mer était unie») coldly frame the horror: the world outside the poet stays serene while everything within him has gone black.

**54** Pour moi tout était noir et sanglant désormais,  
For me all was black and bloody from now on,

**55** Hélas! et j'avais, comme en un suaire épais,  
Alas! and I had, as though in a thick shroud,
> «le suaire»: «le suaire» is a shroud, the cloth that wraps a corpse for burial. «comme en un suaire épais» ('as though in a thick shroud') prepares «enseveli» ('buried') in the next line. The poet's heart is interred not in earth but in the allegory he has just witnessed.

**56** Le coeur enseveli dans cette allégorie.  
My heart buried within this allegory.


**57** Dans ton île, ô Vénus! je n'ai trouvé debout  
On your island, O Venus! I found standing upright

**58** Qu'un gibet symbolique où pendait mon image...  
Only a symbolic gallows where my own likeness hung...
> «ne ... que» across a line break: The restrictive «ne ... que» ('only, nothing but') is split across the line break: «n'» sits mid-line in «je n'ai trouvé debout», and only «qu'» (= que, elided) is carried onto this line. «je n'ai trouvé debout / Qu'un gibet» = 'I found standing upright only a gallows'. «pendait» (imperfect of «pendre», to hang) completes the image with the poet's likeness on the rope.

**59** — Ah! Seigneur! donnez-moi la force et le courage  
— Ah! Lord! give me the strength and the courage
> Imperative with attached pronoun «donnez-moi»: In an affirmative command the object pronoun follows the verb and is joined by a hyphen: «donnez-moi» = 'give me' (the stressed «moi» replaces «me» after the verb). The poem ends as a prayer to «Seigneur» (Lord), the first and only turn from horror toward God.

**60** De contempler mon coeur et mon corps sans dégoût!  
To contemplate my heart and my body without disgust!
> «le dégoût»: «le dégoût» is disgust, loathing, revulsion. The closing plea — to look on one's own heart and body «sans dégoût» ('without disgust') — completes the circle that began with a heart fluttering 'all joyful': the voyage to love's island ends in self-revulsion and a cry for grace.

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