The Flowers of Evil

What his friends set down to eccentricity and his enemies attributed to the promptings of a mind diseased and unclean was in truth merely a well-calculated pose.

Why do you act like that? Asked a prefect of police in Paris of the poet Baudelaire, author of Les Fleurs du Mal and the translator into French of Poe's Tales.

Pour épater les bourgeois, to astound the public, answered the poet.

Most literary men pose as extraordinary, at least until their success, social and financial, is assured.

And that's one of the things I find most interesting about coming back to Baudelaire is to read the, the poems, what I call constellations, different groups of, you know, five or seven poems in which, you know, the one poem can look totally different in light of, of the others.

And Correspondence is, of course, often read in, in light of its sort of, you know, companion poem, Obsession, that sort of demystifies all the, all what's going on in, in, in Correspondence.

But what's interesting about Correspondence is that you have a totally passive human subject, right? The, the human does nothing.

"Laissez-moi passer par les forêts de, de symboles." And, uh, you have that uncanny moment where the, um, uh, the forest of symbols observe the, the human being, but there's really no interpreting going on.

We had the champagne going.

We were going up the river, and I made somebody stand at the front, sort of, and he had a copy of Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal, and he was reading this, this poetry off the front of this thing.

And, and, and I totally remember going under King's College, and all the Japanese tourists were there, and they're saying, "Ah, kind of common Cambridge students.

This is it." I was like, "Yeah, this is what we're, this is what we do every day, you know.

A little more Fleurs du Mal, please." And anyway, but, um, yeah, so I'm still pretentious.

But anyway, it's a very sad and harrowing story about how I rose from nothing, uh, to, to actually live in a much and less nice place now.

[laughs]

There are others enclosed in the melody of a single vibrating outline.

Rodin, acceding to the wish of a collector, has illustrated with his drawings one copy of the Fleurs du Mal.

To speak of expressing a fine understanding of Baudelaire's verses conveys no meaning.

More is conveyed if it is recalled that these poems in their fullness do not admit of supplement.

Je l'avale, et le sang qui brûle mon poumon et l'emplit d'un désir éternel et coupable.

Les Fleurs du Mal.

When Alphonse Daubert had laid down his book for the fifth time, having taken it up five times in his wrestle with his thoughts, he decided that even l'ennemi de l'oie could not distract him.

And so, at four o'clock in the morning, he went into the streets.

I will never shake Sappho, and I will never shake Marcus Aurelius' voice.

I have to confess, the one time I translated French, I translated Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil.

Baudelaire was also a hard voice to shake, right? I felt myself drawn toward decadent images in the city of squalor, for example, and taint.

It took me a while to recover from translating Baudelaire.

There are others enclosed in the melody of a single vibrating outline.

Rodin, acceding to the wish of a collector, has illustrated with his drawings one copy of the Fleurs du Mal.

To speak of expressing a fine understanding of Baudelaire's verses conveys no meaning.

More is conveyed if it is recalled that these poems in their fullness do not admit of supplement.

The Voyage

by charles baudelaire the world is equal to the child's desire who plays with pictures by his nursery fire how vast the world by lamplight seems how small when memory's eyes look back remembering all one morning we set forth with thoughts aflame or heart o'erladen with desire or shame and cradle to the song of surge and breeze our own infinity on the finite seas some flee the memory of their childhood's home and others flee their fatherland and some star-gazers drowned within a woman's eyes flee from the tyrant circe's witcheries and lest they still be changed to beasts take flight for thee embrasured heavens and space and light till one by one the stains her kisses made in biting cold and burning sunlight fade but the true voyagers are they who part from all they love because a wandering heart drives them to fly the fate they cannot fly whose call is ever on they know not why their thoughts are like the clouds that veil a star they dream of change as warriors dream of war and strange wild wishes never twice the same desires no mortal man can give a name two we are like whirling tops and rolling balls for even when the sleepy night-time falls old curiosity still thrusts us on like the cruel angel who goads forth the sun the end of fate fades ever through the air and being nowhere may be anywhere where a man runs hope waking in his breast for ever like a madman seeking rest our souls are wandering ships outwearied and one upon the bridge asks what's ahead the topman's voice with an exultant sound cries love and glory then we run aground each isle the pilot signals when tis late is el dorado promised us by fate imagination spite of her belief finds in the light of dawn a barren reef o the poor seeker after lands that flee shall we not bind and cast into the sea this drunken sailor whose ecstatic mood makes bitterer still the water's weary flood such as an old tramp wandering in the mire dreaming the paradise of his own desire discovering cities of enchanted sleep where'er the light shines on a rubbish heap three strange voyagers what tales of noble deeds deep in your dim sea weary eyes one reads open the casket where your memories are and show each jewel fashioned from a star for i would travel without sail or wind and so to lift the sorrow from my mind let your long memories of sea-days far fled pass o'er my spirit like a sail outspread what have you seen for we have seen waves and stars and lost sea-beaches and known many wars and notwithstanding war and hope and fear we were as weary there as we are here the lights that on the violet sea poured down the suns that set behind some far-off town lit in our hearts the unquiet wish to fly deep in the glimmering distance of the sky the loveliest countries that rich cities bless never contained the strange wild loveliness by fate and chance shaped from the floating cloud and we were always sorrowful and proud desire from joy gains strength in weightier measure desire old tree who draw'st thy sap from pleasure though thy bark thickens as the years pass by thine arduous branches rise towards the sky and wilt thou still grow taller tree more fair than the tall cypress thus have we with care gathered some flowers to please your eager mood brothers who dream at distant things are good we have seen many a jewel glimmering throne and bow to idols when wild horns were blown in palaces whose fairy pomp and gleam to your rich men would be a ruinous dream and robes that were a madness to the eyes women whose teeth and nails were stained with dyes wise jugglers round whose neck the serpent whines five and then and then what more six o childish minds forget not that which we found everywhere from top to bottom of the fatal stair above beneath around us and within the weary pageant of immortal sin we have seen woman stupid slave and proud before her own frail foolish beauty bowed and man a greedy cruel lascivious fool slave of the slave a ripple in a pool the martyrs groan the headsman's merry mood and banquets seasoned and perfumed with blood poison that gives the tyrant's power the slip and nations amorous of the brutal whip many religions not unlike our own all in full flight for heaven's resplendent throne and sanctity seeking delight in pain like a sick man of his own sickness vain and mad mortality drunk with its own power as foolish now as in a bygone hour shouting in presence of the tortured christ i curse thee mine own image sacrificed and silly monks in love with lunacy fleeing the troops herded by destiny who seek for peace in opiate slumber furled such is the pageant of the rolling world seven o bitter knowledge that the wanderers gain the world says our own age is little and vain for ever yesterday to-day to-morrow tis horror's oasis in the sands of sorrow must we depart if you can rest remain part if you must some fly some cower in vain hoping that time the grim and eager foe will pass them by and some run to and fro like the apostles or the wandering jew go where they will the slayer goes there too and there are some and these are of the wise who die as soon as birth has lit their eyes but when at length the slayer treads us low we will have hope and cry tis time to go as when of old we parted for cathay with wind-blown hair and eyes upon the bay we will embark upon the shadowy sea like youthful wanderers for the first time free hear you the lovely and funereal voice that sings o come all ye whose wandering joys are set upon the scented lotus flower for here we sell the fruit's miraculous boon come ye and drink the sweet and sleepy power of the enchanted endless afternoon eight o death o captain it is time put forth we have grown weary of the gloomy north though sea and sky are black as ink lift sail our hearts are full of light and will not fail o pour thy sleepy poison in the cup the fire within the heart so burns us up that we would wander hell and heaven through deep in the unknown seeking something new end of the flowers of evil by charles baudelaire translated by frank pierce

The hardest part was figuring out where to go.

I didn't want to explain military life before talking about what I needed.