The Flowers of Evil / Les Fleurs du Mal
by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Roy Campbell
First published in 1857 and 1861 (revised), translated by Roy Campbell in 1952
This edition published by Reading Essentials
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
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[i]
[ii]
[iii]
A translation of
LES FLEURS DU MAL and other poems
by
ROY CAMPBELL
[iv]
Translator’s Note
These poems have been known to four generations, ever since they were first popularised by Swinburne, as the Flowers of Evil, but “Flowers of Sickness,” “Flowers of Anguish” or “Flowers of Pain” would better describe a great many of them than “Flowers of Evil,” since the word mal covers all these interpretations.
Having had considerable success with my translation of a Saint, St. John of the Cross, I determined to translate a fellow-sinner who is hardly less a believer, even in his rebellious and blasphemous moments, than the Saint himself. I have been reading Baudelaire since I was fifteen, carried him in my haversack through two wars, and loved him longer and more deeply than any other poet. I translated St. John of the Cross because he miraculously saved my life in Toledo in 1936. I am translating Baudelaire because he lived my life up to the same age, with similar sins, remorses, ostracisms, and poverty and the same desperate hope of reconciliation and pardon: and I may say to him as Manuel Barbosa du Bocage said to Luis de Camoes,
“And though in shame and all precarious shiftsYou were my Model—mine’s the crowning sorrow,
To share your luck, but lack your towering gifts.”
I have tried to be as colloquial as possible, though I had to come down to Thou and Thee in the translation of his Latin poem in imitation of a Mediaeval hymn. I have also avoided Cockney rhymes as far as was possible for an r-less colonial to do. Poetic abbreviations like o’er, ere, mid, etc., I have generally avoided, in spite of their metrical convenience, since they long ago fell out of vernacular use, and therefore impair the sense of reality in a poem or the translation of one.
[vi]
I beg the reader’s indulgence if I have erred on the slangy side: but I feared to offend my great original who had a horror of the pompously poetic.
If I have not made as good a translation of Baudelaire as in the case of San Juan it will not be so much from lack of striving but for want of supernatural aid for in the latter case the Saint only needed to raise his stick and say “Arré burro!” (“Gee up, donkey!”) to me—and the Donkey trotted.
ROY CAMPBELL
[vii]
EDITORIAL NOTE
This volume contains:
1. The complete second edition of FLEURS DU MAL (1861), the last to be published in Baudelaire’s lifetime.
2. The PIECES CONDAMNEES which were in the first (1857) edition of FLEURS DU MAL, but were eliminated from the second.
3. Le Coucher du Soleil Romantique.
4. Epigraphes.
5. Pieces Diverses.
6. ‘Le Jet d’Eau,’ ‘Les Yeux de Berthe,’ ‘L’Hymne’ and ‘Le Monstre’ from Galanteries.
N.B.—LES EPAVES, printed in Belgium in 1866, contained Numbers 2 to 6.
7. LES NOUVELLES FLEURS DU MAL printed in 1866 in Le Parnasse Contemporain.
8. ‘Priere d’un Payen,’ ‘La Lune offensee’ and ‘A Theodore de Banville’ printed in the third, posthumous, edition of LES FLEURS DU MAL (1868).
The poems have been arranged in the order followed by Y. G. Le Dantec in Baudelaire, Oeuvres, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, N.R.F., Paris, 1934, except for the poem ‘L’Imprevu’: by Mr. Campbell’s request this has been placed as the concluding poem of the book, instead of in the section Pieces Diverses.
[viii]
Dedication
This translation is dedicated to
ROB AND FELICIA LYLE
[ix]
Contents
LES FLEURS DU MAL (1861)
To the Reader
page
1
Spleen et Idéal
I.
Benediction
3
II.
The Albatross
6
III.
Elevation
7
IV.
Correspondences
8
V.
I Love the Thought of those old naked Days
9
VI.
The Beacons
11
VII.
The sick Muse
13
VIII.
The venal Muse
14
IX.
The evil Monk
15
X.
The Enemy
16
XI.
Ill Luck
17
XII.
Former Life
18
XIII.
Gipsies on the Road
19
XIV.
Man and the Sea
20
XV.
Don Juan in Hell
21
XVI.
The punishment of Pride
22
XVII.
Beauty
23
XVIII.
The Ideal
24
XIX.
The Giantess
25
XX.
The Mask
26
XXI.
Hymn to Beauty
28
XXII.
Exotic Perfume
29
[x]
XXIII.
Her Hair
30
XXIV.
More than the night’s vault it’s you that I adore
32
XXV.
You’d stick the world into your bedside lane
33
XXVI.
Sed non Satiata
34
XXVII.
With waving opalescence in her gown
35
XXVIII.
The Snake that dances
36
XXIX.
The Carcase
38
XXX.
De profundis clamavi
40
XXXI.
The Vampire
41
XXXII.
One night when near a fearful Jewess lying
42
XXXIII.
Posthumous Remorse
43
XXXIV.
The Cat
44
XXXV.
The Duel
45
XXXVI.
The Balcony
46
XXXVII.
The Possessed
48
XXXVIII.
A Phantom
49
XXXIX.
For you this poem: if my name should reach
52
XL.
Semper Eadem
53
XLI.
All in one
54
XLII.
What can you say, poor lonely soul of mine
55
XLIII.
The living Torch
56
XLIV.
Reversibility
57
XLV.
Confession
58
XLVI.
Spiritual Dawn
60
XLVII.
Evening Harmony
61
XLVIII.
The Flask
62
XLIX.
Poisons
64
L.
Misty Sky
65
LI.
The Cat
66
LII.
The splendid Ship
68
[xi]
LIII.
Invitation to the Voyage
70
LIV.
The Irreparable
72
LV.
Conversation
74
LVI.
Song of Autumn
75
LVII.
To a Madonna
77
LVIII.
Song of Afternoon
79
LIX.
Sisina
81
LX.
Praises of my Francisca
82
LXI.
To a colonial Lady
84
LXII.
Moesta et Errabunda
85
LXIII.
The Ghost
87
LXIV.
Autumn Sonnet
88
LXV.
Sorrow of the Moon
89
LXVI.
Cats
90
LXVII.
The Owls
91
LXVIII.
The Author’s Pipe
92
LXIX.
Music
93
LXX.
The Burial of an accursed Poet
94
LXXI.
Fantastic Engraving
95
LXXII.
The Joyous Dead
96
LXXIII.
The Cask of Hate
97
LXXIV.
The cracked Bell
98
LXXV.
Spleen
99
LXXVI.
Spleen
100
LXXVII.
Spleen
101
LXXVIII.
Spleen
102
LXXIX.
Obsession
103
LXXX.
The Thirst for the Void
104
LXXXI.
Alchemy of Sorrow
105
LXXXII.
Sympathetic Horror
106
LXXXIII.
Heautontimoroumenos
107
LXXXIV.
The Irremediable
109
LXXXV.
The Clock
111
Tableaux Parisiens
LXXXVI.
The Landscape
112
LXXXVII.
The Sun
113
[xii]
LXXXVIII.
The red-haired Beggar Girl
114
LXXXIX.
The Swan
116
XC.
The seven old Men
118
XCI.
The little old Women
120
XCII.
The Blind
123
XCIII.
A Passer by
124
XCIV.
The skeleton Navvy
125
XCV.
Evening Twilight
127
XCVI.
The Gamblers
129
XCVII.
The Dance of Death
130
XCVIII.
Love of Lies
133
XCIX.
Neighbouring on the city, I recall
134
C.
Now the great-hearted servant, who aroused
135
CI.
Mist and Rain
136
CII.
Parisian Dream
137
CIII.
Morning Twilight
140
Le Vin
CIV.
The Soul of Wine
141
CV.
The Wine of the Rag Pickers
142
CVI.
The Wine of the Murderer
144
CVII.
The Wine of the solitary Man
146
CVIII.
The Wine of Lovers
147
Les Fleurs du Mal
CIX.
Destruction
148
CX.
The Martyr
149
CXI.
Damned Women
152
CXII.
The two good Sisters
153
CXIII.
The Fountain of Blood
154
CXIV.
Allegory
155
CXV.
Beatrice
156
CXVI.
Voyage to Cytherea
157
CXVII.
Love and the Skull
160
Révolte
CXVIII.
The Denial of St. Peter
161
CXIX.
Abel and Cain
163
[xiii]
CXX.
Litanies of Satan
164
La Mort
CXXI.
The Death of Lovers
166
CXXII.
The Death of Paupers
167
CXXIII.
The Death of Artists
168
CXXIV.
The End of the Day
169
CXXV.
Dream of a curious Person
170
CXXVI.
The Voyage
171
LES EPAVES 1866
I.
Romantic Sunset
179
Pièces condamnées tirées des
Fleurs du Mal
II.
Lesbos
180
III.
Damned Women
183
IV.
Lethe
187
V.
To one who is too gay
188
VI.
The Jewels
190
VII.
The Metamorphoses of the Vampire
192
Galanteries
VIII.
The Fountain
193
IX.
Bertha’s Eyes
195
X.
Hymn
196
XI.
The Monster
197
Epigraphes
XII.
Verses for Honoré Daumier’s Portrait
200
XIII.
On Manet’s picture ‘Lola of Valencia’
201
XIV.
On Delacroix’ picture of Tasso in prison
202
Pièces Diverses
XV.
The Voice
203
XVI.
The Ransom
204
[xiv]
XVII.
To a Girl from Malabar
205
SUPPLEMENT AUX FLEURS DU MAL
1866-1868
Nouvelles Fleurs du Mal
I.
Midnight Enquiry
209
II.
Epigraph for a condemned Book
211
III.
Sad Madrigal
212
IV.
The Fang
214
V.
The Rebel
215
VI.
Far away from here
216
VII.
Meditation
217
VIII.
The Gulf
218
IX.
Complaint of an Icarus
219
X.
The Lid
220
Poèmes ajoutés à l’édition
posthume
XI.
Pagan Prayer
221
XII.
The Moon offended
222
XIII.
To Théodore de Banville
223
Conclusion
The Unforeseen
227
[xv]
LES FLEURS DU MAL 1861
[1]
To the Reader
Folly and error, avarice and vice,Employ our souls and waste our bodies’ force.As mangey beggars incubate their lice,We nourish our innocuous remorse.
Our sins are stubborn, craven our repentance.For our weak vows we ask excessive prices.Trusting our tears will wash away the sentence,We sneak off where the muddy road entices.
Cradled in evil, that Thrice-Great Magician,The Devil, rocks our souls, that can’t resist;And the rich metal of our own volitionIs vaporised by that sage alchemist.
The Devil pulls the strings by which we’re worked:By all revolting objects lured, we slinkHellwards; each day down one more step we’re jerkedFeeling no horror, through the shades that stink.
Just as a lustful pauper bites and kissesThe scarred and shrivelled breast of an old whore,We steal, along the roadside, furtive blisses,Squeezing them, like stale oranges, for more.
Packed tight, like hives of maggots, thickly seething,Within our brains a host of demons surges.It is because we are not bold enough!
[2]
Amongst the jackals, leopards, mongrels, apes,Snakes, scorpions, vultures, that with hellish din,Squeal, roar, writhe, gambol, crawl, with monstrous shapes,In each man’s foul menagerie of sin—
There’s one more damned than all. He never gambols,Nor crawls, nor roars, but, from the rest withdrawn,Gladly of this whole earth would make a shamblesAnd swallow up existence with a yawn . . .
Boredom! He smokes his hookah, while he dreamsOf gibbets, weeping tears he cannot smother.You know this dainty monster, too, it seems—Hypocrite reader!—You!—My twin!—My brother!
[3]
SPLEEN ET IDEAL
I
Benediction
When by an edict of the powers supremeA poet’s born into this world’s drab space,His mother starts, in horror, to blasphemeClenching her fists at God, who grants her grace.
“Would that a nest of vipers I’d abortedRather than this absurd abomination.Cursed be the night of pleasures vainly sportedOn which my womb conceived my expiation.
Since of all women I am picked by YouTo be my Mate’s aversion and his shame:And since I cannot, like a billet-doux,Consign this stunted monster to the flame,
I’ll turn the hatred, which You load on me,On the curst tool through which You work your spite,And twist and stunt this miserable treeUntil it cannot burgeon for the blight.”
She swallows down the white froth of her ireAnd, knowing naught of schemes that are sublime,Deep in Gehenna, starts to lay the pyreThat’s consecrated to maternal crime.
Yet with an unseen Angel for protectorThe outcast waif grows drunken with the sun,And finds ambrosia, too, and rosy nectarIn all he eats or drinks, suspecting none.[4]
He sings upon his Via Crucis, playsWith winds, and with the clouds exchanges words:The Spirit following his pilgrim-waysWeeps to behold him gayer than the birds.
Those he would love avoid him as in fear,Or, growing bold to see one so resigned,Compete to draw from him a cry or tear,And test on him the fierceness of their kind.
In food or drink that’s destined for his tasteThey mix saliva foul with cinders black,Drop what he’s touched with hypocrite distaste,And blame themselves for walking in his track.
His wife goes crying in the public way—“Since fair enough he finds me to adore,The part of ancient idols I will playAnd gild myself with coats of molten ore.
I will get drunk on incense, myrrh, and nard,On genuflexions, meat, and heady wine.Out of his crazed and wondering regard,I’ll laugh to steal prerogatives divine.
When by such impious farces bored at length,I’ll place my frail strong hand on him, and start,With nails like those of harpies in their strength,To plough myself a pathway to his heart.
Like a young bird that trembles palpitating,I’ll wrench his heart, all crimson, from his chest,And to my favourite beast, his hunger sating,Will fling it in the gutter with a jest.”[5]
Skyward, to where he sees a Throne blaze splendid,The pious Poet lifts his arms on high,And the vast lightnings of his soul extendedBlot out the crowds and tumults from his eye.
“Blessèd be You, O God, who give us pain,As cure for our impurity and wrong—Essence that primes the stalwart to sustainSeraphic raptures that were else too strong.
I know that for the Poet You’ve a post,Where the blest Legions take their ranks and stations,Invited to the revels with the hostOf Virtues, Powers, and Thrones, and Dominations.
That grief’s the sole nobility, I know it,Where neither Earth nor Hell can make attacks,And that, to deck my mystic crown of poet,All times and universes paid their tax.
But all the gems from old Palmyra lost,The ores unmixed, the pearls of the abyss,Set by Your hand, could not suffice the costOf such a blazing diadem as this.
Because it will be only made of light,Drawn from the hearth of the essential rays,To which our mortal eyes, when burning bright,Are but the tarnished mirrors that they glaze.”
[6]
II
The Albatross
Sometimes for sport the men of loafing crewsSnare the great albatrosses of the deep,The indolent companions of their cruiseAs through the bitter vastitudes they sweep.
Scarce have they fished aboard these airy kingsWhen helpless on such unaccustomed floors,They piteously droop their huge white wingsAnd trail them at their sides like drifting oars.
How comical, how ugly, and how meekAppears this soarer of celestial snows!One, with his pipe, teases the golden beak,One, limping, mocks the cripple as he goes.
The Poet, like this monarch of the clouds,Despising archers, rides the storm elate.But, stranded on the earth to jeering crowds,The great wings of the giant baulk his gait.
[7]
III
Elevation
Above the valleys and the lakes: beyondThe woods, seas, clouds and mountain-ranges: farAbove the sun, the aethers silver-swannedWith nebulae, and the remotest star,
My spirit! with agility you moveLike a strong swimmer with the seas to fight,Through the blue vastness furrowing your grooveWith an ineffable and male delight.
Far from these foetid marshes, be made pureIn the pure air of the superior sky,And drink, like some most exquisite liqueur,The fire that fills the lucid realms on high.
Beyond where cares or boredom hold dominion,Which charge our fogged existence with their spleen,Happy is he who with a stalwart pinionCan seek those fields so shining and serene:
Whose thoughts, like larks, rise on the freshening breeze,Who fans the morning with his tameless wings,Skims over life, and understands with easeThe speech of flowers and other voiceless things.
[8]
IV
Correspondences
Nature’s a temple where each living column,At times, gives forth vague words. There Man advancesThrough forest-groves of symbols, strange and solemn,Who follow him with their familiar glances.
As long-drawn echoes mingle and transfuseTill in a deep, dark unison they swoon,Vast as the night or as the vault of noon—So are commingled perfumes, sounds, and hues.
There can be perfumes cool as children’s flesh,Like fiddles, sweet, like meadows greenly fresh.Rich, complex, and triumphant, others roll
With the vast range of all non-finite things—Amber, musk, incense, benjamin, each singsThe transports of the senses and the soul.
[9]
V
I love the thought of those old naked daysWhen Phoebus gilded torsos with his rays,When men and women sported, strong and fleet,Without anxiety or base deceit,And heaven caressed them, amorously keenTo prove the health of each superb machine.Cybele then was lavish of her guerdonAnd did not find her sons too gross a burden:But, like a she-wolf, in her love great-hearted,Her full brown teats to all the world imparted.Bold, handsome, strong, Man, rightly, might evincePride in the glories that proclaimed him prince—Fruits pure of outrage, by the blight unsmitten,With firm, smooth flesh that cried out to be bitten.
Today the Poet, when he would assessThose native splendours in the nakednessOf man or woman, feels a sombre chillEnveloping his spirit and his will.He meets a gloomy picture, which he loathes,Wherein deformity cries out for clothes.Oh comic runts! Oh horror of burlesque!Lank, flabby, skewed, pot-bellied, and grotesque!Whom their smug god, Utility (poor brats!)Has swaddled in his brazen clouts “ersatz”As with cheap tinsel. Women tallow-pale,Both gnawed and nourished by debauch, who trailThe heavy burden of maternal vice,Or of fecundity the hideous price.
We have (corrupted nations) it is trueBeauties the ancient people never knew—Sad faces gnawed by cancers of the heart[10]And charms which morbid lassitudes impart.But these inventions of our tardy museCan’t force our ailing peoples to refuseJust tribute to the holiness of youthWith its straightforward mien, its forehead couth,The limpid gaze, like running water bright,Diffusing, careless, through all things, like the lightOf azure skies, the birds, the winds, the flowers,The songs, and perfumes, and heart-warming powers.
[11]
VI
The Beacons
Rubens, the grove of ease, Nepenthe’s riverCouch of cool flesh, where Love may never be,But where life ever flows and seems to quiverAs air in heaven, or, in the sea, the sea.
Da Vinci, dusky mirror and profound,Where angels, smiling mystery, appear,Shaded by pines and glaciers, that surroundAnd seem to shut their country in the rear.
Rembrandt, sad hospital of murmurs, whereAdorned alone by one great crucifix,From offal-heaps exhales the weeping prayerThat winter shoots a sunbeam to transfix.
Vague region, Michaelangelo, where TitansAre mixed with Christs: and strong ghosts rise, in crowds,To stand bolt upright in the gloom that lightens,With gristly talons tearing through their shrouds.
Rage of the boxer, mischief of the faun,Extracting beauty out of blackguards’ looks—The heart how proud, the man how pinched and drawn—Puget the mournful emperor of crooks!
Watteau, the carnival, where famous heartsGo flitting by like butterflies that burn,While through gay scenes each chandelier impartsA madness to the dancers as they turn.
[12]
Goya’s a nightmare full of things unguessed,Of foeti stewed on nights of witches’ revels.Crones ogle mirrors; children scarcely dressed,Adjust their hose to tantalise the devils.
A lake of gore where fallen angels dwellIs Delacroix, by firwoods ever fair,Where under fretful skies strange fanfares swellLike Weber’s sighs and heartbeats in the air.
These curses, blasphemies, and lamentations,These ecstasies, tears, cries and soaring psalms—Through endless mazes, their reverberationsBring, to our mortal hearts, divinest balms.
A thousand sentinels repeat the cry.A thousand trumpets echo. Beacon-tossedA thousand summits flare it through the sky,A call of hunters in the jungle lost.
And certainly this is the most sublimeProof of our worth and value, Oh Divinity,That this great sob rolls on through ageless timeTo die upon the shores of your infinity.
[13]
VII
The Sick Muse
Alas, poor Muse, what ails you so today?Your hollow eyes with midnight visions burn,And turn about, in your complexion playMadness and horror, cold and taciturn.
Green succubus and rosy imp—have theyPoured you both fear and love into one glass?Or with his tyrant fist the nightmare, say,Submerged you in some fabulous morass?
I wish that, breathing health, your breast might nourishEver robuster thoughts therein to flourish:And that your Christian blood, in rythmic flow,
With those old polysyllables would chime,Where, turn about, reigned Phoebus, sire of rhyme,And Pan, the lord of harvests long ago.
[14]
