# Une Charogne · A Carcass

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/une-charogne. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/une-charogne.json.

**1** Rappelez-vous l'objet que nous vîmes, mon âme,  
Remember the thing we saw, my soul,
> «se rappeler» (pronominal imperative): «se rappeler qqch.» means 'to remember, to recall something'. In the affirmative imperative the reflexive pronoun follows the verb and is hyphenated: «Rappelez-vous» = 'recall (to yourself)'. The poem opens by commanding the beloved — addressed as «mon âme» (my soul) — to remember a shared walk.
> «voir» in the passé simple: «vîmes» is the first-person plural passé simple (literary past tense) of «voir» (to see): 'we saw'. The passé simple sets the remembered scene firmly in a finished, narrated past — the tense of storytelling rather than speech.

**2** Ce beau matin d'été si doux:  
that beautiful summer morning so mild:

**3** Au détour d'un sentier une charogne infâme  
at the bend of a path, a vile carcass
> «charogne»: A «charogne» (f.) is a carcass — the rotting carrion of a dead animal. The word is also a coarse insult ('filthy beast'), and Baudelaire keeps that double charge alive: the title object is both literal decay and, by the poem's end, a figure for the beloved's body and for love itself.

**4** Sur un lit semé de cailloux,  
on a bed strewn with pebbles,


**5** Les jambes en l'air, comme une femme lubrique,  
legs in the air, like a lustful woman,

**6** Brûlante et suant les poisons,  
burning and sweating out its poisons,

**7** Ouvrait d'une façon nonchalante et cynique  
opened in a nonchalant and cynical way

**8** Son ventre plein d'exhalaisons.  
its belly full of foul exhalations.
> «exhalaison»: An «exhalaison» (f.) is a vapour or stench given off by something — here the gases rising from the swollen «ventre» (belly). The verb of the sentence, «Ouvrait» (was opening), reaches back to «une charogne» two lines earlier: the carcass lewdly opens its belly to the air.


**9** Le soleil rayonnait sur cette pourriture,  
The sun blazed down on this rottenness,

**10** Comme afin de la cuire à point,  
as if to cook it through to a turn,
> «afin de» + infinitive (purpose): «afin de + infinitive» expresses purpose, 'in order to'. Softened by «Comme» it becomes 'as if to': «Comme afin de la cuire à point» = 'as if to cook it to just the right point'. «la» is the object pronoun for «cette pourriture» (this rottenness). «à point» is a cookery term — meat cooked 'just right', medium.

**11** Et de rendre au centuple à la grande Nature  
and to give back a hundredfold to great Nature
> «au centuple»: «au centuple» means 'a hundredfold, a hundred times over'. The infinitive «rendre» (to give back) still depends on «afin de» from the line above: the sun seems to cook the carcass so as to return to «la grande Nature» — a hundredfold — everything she had once «joint» (joined together).

**12** Tout ce qu'ensemble elle avait joint;  
all that she had joined together;


**13** Et le ciel regardait la carcasse superbe  
And the sky watched the magnificent carcass

**14** Comme une fleur s'épanouir.  
open out like a flower.
> «s'épanouir» after «regarder»: «s'épanouir» is a pronominal verb meaning '(of a flower) to bloom, open out; to blossom'. The verb of perception «regardait» (was watching) takes a direct infinitive: «le ciel regardait la carcasse ... s'épanouir» = 'the sky watched the carcass blossom'. The obscene image of putrefaction blooming «comme une fleur» is the engine of the whole poem.

**15** La puanteur était si forte, que sur l'herbe  
The stench was so strong that on the grass

**16** Vous crûtes vous évanouir.  
you thought you would faint.
> «croire» (passé simple) + «s'évanouir»: «crûtes» is the second-person plural passé simple of «croire» (to believe, to think): 'you thought'. It takes a direct infinitive here, the pronominal «vous évanouir» (to faint, to swoon): «Vous crûtes vous évanouir» = 'you thought you were about to faint'. Note the two «vous» — first the subject, then the reflexive of «s'évanouir».


**17** Les mouches bourdonnaient sur ce ventre putride,  
The flies were buzzing over that putrid belly,

**18** D'où sortaient de noirs bataillons  
out of which black battalions poured,
> Inverted subject after «d'où»: After the relative «d'où» (from which) the subject is inverted to follow its verb: «D'où sortaient de noirs bataillons» = 'from which black battalions were coming out'. The subject is «de noirs bataillons / De larves» (the next line) — squadrons of maggots. The inversion is normal, even preferred, after such adverbial relatives.

**19** De larves, qui coulaient comme un épais liquide  
of larvae, that flowed like a thick liquid

**20** Le long de ces vivants haillons.  
down the length of those living rags.


**21** Tout cela descendait, montait comme une vague  
All this sank, rose like a wave,

**22** Ou s'élançait en pétillant;  
or surged up, crackling and sparkling;
> «s'élancer» / «en» + gerund: «s'élancer» is a pronominal verb, 'to leap up, to surge forward'. «en pétillant» is the gerund of «pétiller» (to sparkle, crackle, fizz): «en + present participle» expresses a manner or simultaneous action — 'surged up while sparkling'. The seething mass moves like effervescent liquid.

**23** On eût dit que le corps, enflé d'un souffle vague,  
one would have said the body, swollen with a vague breath,
> «on eût dit» (past conditional): «on eût dit que ...» is a literary fixed expression, 'one would have said that ..., you would have thought that ...'. «eût dit» is the past conditional (here in its literary form, the conditionnel passé deuxième forme). It frames what follows as a vivid impression rather than fact — the corpse only seemed to live.

**24** Vivait en se multipliant.  
was living by multiplying itself.
> Pronominal verb in the gerund: «se multiplier» means 'to multiply, to increase in number'. In the gerund «en se multipliant» the reflexive pronoun «se» is kept: 'by multiplying itself'. The paradox closes the stanza — the dead body «Vivait» (was living) only through the swarming life of the maggots that consume it.


**25** Et ce monde rendait une étrange musique,  
And this world gave off a strange music,

**26** Comme l'eau courante et le vent,  
like running water and the wind,

**27** Ou le grain qu'un vanneur d'un mouvement rythmique  
or the grain that a winnower, with a rhythmic motion,
> «vanneur» / «van»: A «vanneur» is a winnower — a worker who tosses threshed grain in a «van» (a wide winnowing basket or fan) so the wind carries off the chaff. The simile likens the sound of the seething carcass to grain hissing as it is shaken — a homely, almost pastoral image set against the horror.

**28** Agite et tourne dans son van.  
shakes and turns in his winnowing-basket.


**29** Les formes s'effaçaient et n'étaient plus qu'un rêve,  
The forms were fading and were now no more than a dream,
> «ne ... plus que» (no more than): «ne ... plus que» means 'no longer anything but, no more than': «n'étaient plus qu'un rêve» = 'were no more than a dream'. It combines «ne ... plus» (no longer) with the restrictive «ne ... que» (only). «s'effaçaient» is the pronominal «s'effacer», 'to fade, to wear away, to blur'.

**30** Une ébauche lente à venir  
a sketch slow in coming
> «ébauche»: An «ébauche» (f.) is a rough draft or preliminary sketch — the first blocking-out of a painting before it is finished. Baudelaire turns decay into an art metaphor: the dissolving forms are an unfinished canvas that the artist (the next stanza's «artiste») completes only from memory.

**31** Sur la toile oubliée, et que l'artiste achève  
on the forgotten canvas, which the artist completes

**32** Seulement par le souvenir.  
only by memory.


**33** Derrière les rochers une chienne inquiète  
Behind the rocks an anxious bitch

**34** Nous regardait d'un oeil fâché,  
watched us with an angry eye,

**35** Epiant le moment de reprendre au squelette  
watching for the moment to take back from the skeleton
> «épier»: «épier» means 'to watch for, to spy on, to lie in wait for'; «Epiant» is its present participle (the source prints it without the accent: «Épiant»). «reprendre au squelette» = 'to take back from the skeleton' — «reprendre à qqn» is 'to take (something) back from someone', the «à» marking what is being taken from.

**36** Le morceau qu'elle avait lâché.  
the morsel she had let go.


**37** — Et pourtant vous serez semblable à cette ordure,  
— And yet you too will be like this filth,
> «semblable à»: «semblable à» means 'similar to, like, resembling'. The em-dash and «Et pourtant» (and yet) mark the poem's pivot: turning from the roadside scene to the beloved, the speaker warns «vous serez semblable à cette ordure» = 'you will be like this filth'. «serez» is the future of «être».

**38** À cette horrible infection,  
like this horrible infection,

**39** Etoile de mes yeux, soleil de ma nature,  
star of my eyes, sun of my being,

**40** Vous, mon ange et ma passion!  
you, my angel and my passion!


**41** Oui! telle vous serez, ô la reine des grâces,  
Yes! such you will be, O queen of graces,
> «tel» fronted for emphasis: «tel/telle» means 'such, of that kind'. Fronted before the verb for emphasis — «telle vous serez» = 'such you shall be' — it points back to the carrion just described. «telle» takes the feminine to agree with «vous», the woman addressed; «ô» is the lyric vocative O.

**42** Apres les derniers sacrements,  
after the last sacraments,

**43** Quand vous irez, sous l'herbe et les floraisons grasses,  
when you go, beneath the grass and the rank blossoms,
> Future after «quand»: After «quand» referring to future time, French uses the future tense where English uses the present: «Quand vous irez» = 'when you go (will go)'. «irez» is the future of «aller». «floraisons grasses» are the lush, fat blossoms — «gras» here meaning rich, rank, fed by the decay below.

**44** Moisir parmi les ossements.  
to moulder among the bones.
> «moisir»: «moisir» means 'to grow mouldy, to rot, to moulder'. It is the infinitive completing «vous irez ... Moisir» = 'you will go ... to moulder'. «les ossements» (m. pl.) are bones, especially the dry bones of the dead — the destination of even «la reine des grâces».


**45** Alors, ô ma beauté! dites à la vermine  
Then, O my beauty! tell the vermin
> Imperative «dire à qqn»: «dites» is the second-person plural imperative of «dire» (to say, to tell), continuing the address to «ma beauté». «dire à quelqu'un» = 'to tell someone', the «à» marking the person told — here «la vermine» (the vermin, the worms). The whole command runs across the final stanza to its triumphant «Que ...» clause.

**46** Qui vous mangera de baisers,  
that will devour you with kisses,

**47** Que j'ai gardé la forme et l'essence divine  
that I have kept the form and the divine essence
> Reported speech «que» after «dites»: This «Que» introduces what the beauty is told to say — the content of «dites» from two lines above: 'tell the vermin ... that I have kept ...'. «j'ai gardé» is the passé composé of «garder» (to keep, to preserve). Against bodily rot the poet asserts that art has kept «la forme et l'essence divine» of his love.

**48** De mes amours décomposés!  
of my decomposed loves!

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