The Flowers of Evil & Paris Spleen

Selected Poems

Charles Baudelaire

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486113647
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Sex and death, rebellion, corruption — the themes of Charles Baudelaire's sensual poems sparked outrage upon their 1857 debut. His masterpiece, Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du Mal), was dismissed as decadent and obscene and banned in France for nearly a century. Although Baudelaire died in obscurity, today he is recognized as one of the nineteenth century's greatest and most influential poets, whose works were ahead of their time.
This unique collection captures the fevered spirit of the transition from Romanticism to Modernism with authoritative interpretations of fifty-one poems from Flowers of Evil. In addition, fourteen prose poems from the posthumously published Paris Spleen offer poignant reflections on the city and its humbler denizens. Noted scholar Wallace Fowlie provides definitive translations of these verses.

THE FLOWERS OF EVIL

To the Reader

Folly, error, sin and avarice
Occupy our minds and waste our bodies,
And we feed our polite remorse
As beggars feed their lice.

Our sins are stubborn, our repentance is cowardly;
We ask high prices for our vows,
And we gaily return to the muddy road,
Believing we will wash away all our spots with vile tears.

On the pillow of evil it is Thrice-Great Satan
Who endlessly rocks our bewitched mind,
And the rich metal of our will
Is vaporized by that wise chemist.

It is the Devil who pulls the strings that move us!
In repulsive objects we find enticing lures;
Each day we go down one more step toward Hell,
Without horror, through the darkness which smells rank.

Just as a lustful pauper who kisses and bites
The martyred breast of an aged whore,
We steal, as we move along, a clandestine pleasure
Which we squeeze hard like an old orange.

Packed tight and swarming like a million maggots,
A crowd of Demons carouse in our brains,
And, when we breathe, Death into our lungs
Descends, an invisible river, with heavy wailings.

If rape, poison, the knife and arson
Have not yet woven with their pleasing patterns
The banal canvas of our pitiful fate,
It is because our soul, alas, is not bold enough.

But among the jackals, panthers, bitches,
Monkeys, scorpions, vultures, serpents,
The monsters squealing, yelling, grunting, crawling
In the infamous menagerie of our vices

There is one uglier, more wicked and more foul than all!
Although he does not make great gestures or great cries,
He would gladly make the earth a shambles
And swallow the world in a yawn;

It is boredom! his eyes weeping an involuntary tear,
He dreams of gibbets as he smokes his hookah.
You know him, reader, this delicate monster,
—Hypocrite reader—my twin—my brother!

The Blessing

When, by a decree of the sovereign powers,
The Poet comes into this bored world,
His mother, terrified and full of blasphemy,
Clenches her fists toward God, who has pity on her:

“Ah, why didn’t I litter a nest of vipers,
Rather than give birth to this mockery?
A curse on that night with its fleeting pleasures
When my womb conceived my expiation!

Since you chose me from among all women
To be the disgust of my disappointed husband,
And since I cannot throw back into the fire
This weak monster, like a love letter,

I will make your hate which stifles me gush forth
On the accursed instrument of your plottings,
And I will twist this wretched tree so far
That its blighted buds will not grow!”

Thus she swallows the foam of her hate,
And, without understanding the eternal designs,
She prepares in the pit of Hell
The pyres consecrated to the crimes of a mother.

Meanwhile, under the invisible care of an Angel,
The disinherited Child is intoxicated with sunlight,
And in all he drinks and in all he eats
Discovers ambrosia and vermillion nectar.

He plays with the wind, talks with the cloud,
And singing revels in the way of the cross;
And the Spirit following him in his pilgrimage
Weeps at seeing him happy as a bird in the forest.

All those he would love look at him with fear,
Or, emboldened by his calm manner,
Vie with one another in drawing from him a complaint
And practice on him the experiments of their cruelty.

In the bread and wine destined for his mouth
They mingle ashes with filthy spittings;
Hypocritically they throw away what he touches,
And blame themselves for stepping where he stepped.

His wife cries in the public places:
“Since he finds me beautiful enough to worship,
I will take on the profession of ancient idols,
And like them I will cover my body with gold;

And I will get drunk on nard, incense, myrrh,
Genuflections, meats and wines,
To learn if I can from an admiring heart
Laughingly usurp the homage of the gods!

And, when I am bored with these impious farces,
I will lay on him my frail and strong hand;
And my nails, like the nails of harpies,
Will dig a path to his heart.

Like a very young bird trembling and palpitating
I will pull that red heart out from his breast,
And, in order to satiate my favorite beast,
Scornfully I will throw it to him on the ground!”

Toward Heaven, where his eyes see a shining throne,
The serene Poet raises his reverent arms,
And the vast visions of his lucid mind
Shut off from him the sight of cruel races:

“Be blessed, my Lord, who give suffering
As a divine remedy for our impurities
And as the best and the purest essence
Which prepares the strong for holy ecstasies!

I know that you keep a place for the Poet
In the blessed ranks of the holy legions,
And that you invite him to the eternal feast
Of Thrones, Virtues and Dominations.

I know that suffering is the one nobility
Where the earth and hell will have no effect,
And that in order to weave my mystic crown
All times and all worlds must be used.

But the lost jewels of ancient Palmyra,
The unknown metals, the pearls of the sea,
Mounted by your hand, could not suffice
For this handsome diadem shining and clear;

For it will be made only of pure light,
Drawn from the holy hearth of primal rays,
And to which mortal eyes, in their full splendor,
Are but tarnished and sad mirrors!”

The Albatross

Often, as an amusement, crewmen
Catch albatrosses, huge birds of the sea,
Who follow, indolent companions of the voyage,
The ship gliding over the salty deeps.

As soon as they have placed them on the deck,
These kings of the sky, awkward and ashamed,
Pitiably let their large white wings
Drag at their sides like oars.

This winged voyager, how gauche and weak he is!
Once so handsome, how comic and ugly he is!
One sailor irritates his beak with a pipestem,
Another mimes, as he limps, the invalid who once flew!

The Poet is like the prince of the clouds,
Who haunt...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Note
• Table of Contents
• THE FLOWERS OF EVIL
• PARIS SPLEEN
• Alphabetical List of Titles
• Alphabetical List of First Lines