Symptmes de ruine. Btiments immenses. Plusieurs, l'un sur l'autre. Des appartements, des chambres, des temples, des galeries, des escaliers, des coecums, des belvdres, des lanternes, des fontaines, des statues... Fissures. Lzardes, humidit provenant d'un rservoir situ prs du ciel.
Comment avertir les gens, les nations? Avertissons l'oreille les plus intelligents.
Tout en haut, une colonne craque et ses deux extrmits se dplacent. Rien n'a encore croul. Je ne peux plus retrouver l'issue. Je descends, puis je remonte. Une tour labyrinthe. Je n'ai jamais pu sortir. J'habite pour toujours un btiment qui va crouler, un btiment travaill par une maladie secrte.
Je calcule, en moi-mme, pour m'amuser, si une si prodigieuse masse de pierres, de marbres, de statues, de murs, qui vont se choquer rciproquement seront trs souills par cette multitude de cervelles, de chairs humaines et d'ossements concasss...
Je vois de si terribles choses en rve, que je voudrais quelquefois ne plus dormir.
And now the translation:
...symptoms of decay... immense buildings: ... many, one over another.
Apartments, rooms, temples, galleries, stairs, dead ends, belvederes, lanterns, fountains, statues... cracks, crevices, wet stains from a water tank nested near the sky.
How could I warn people... peoples? Let's whisper a warning to the most intelligent among them.
All above, a column creaks, and slide both ends. Nothing has collapsed yet. I can't find the exit anymore. I step down, then up. A labyrinth-tower. I couldn't get out, ever. I'm locked forever in a building about to crumble, a building that secret injures undermine.
I'm trying to figure out, for myself... to pass the time... if such a prodigious bulk of stone, marble, sculptures, walls, all of them about to collide, would look much soiled by that amount of human brains, viscerae, crushed bones that...
-I see such terrible things, in my dreams, sometimes I wish I'll never sleep anymore.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (1821-1867)
(Oneirocrit)
The translation was made by Yours Truly... if faulty, my apologies...
Comment avertir les gens, les nations? Avertissons l'oreille les plus intelligents.
Tout en haut, une colonne craque et ses deux extrmits se dplacent. Rien n'a encore croul. Je ne peux plus retrouver l'issue. Je descends, puis je remonte. Une tour labyrinthe. Je n'ai jamais pu sortir. J'habite pour toujours un btiment qui va crouler, un btiment travaill par une maladie secrte.
Je calcule, en moi-mme, pour m'amuser, si une si prodigieuse masse de pierres, de marbres, de statues, de murs, qui vont se choquer rciproquement seront trs souills par cette multitude de cervelles, de chairs humaines et d'ossements concasss...
Je vois de si terribles choses en rve, que je voudrais quelquefois ne plus dormir.
And now the translation:
...symptoms of decay... immense buildings: ... many, one over another.
Apartments, rooms, temples, galleries, stairs, dead ends, belvederes, lanterns, fountains, statues... cracks, crevices, wet stains from a water tank nested near the sky.
How could I warn people... peoples? Let's whisper a warning to the most intelligent among them.
All above, a column creaks, and slide both ends. Nothing has collapsed yet. I can't find the exit anymore. I step down, then up. A labyrinth-tower. I couldn't get out, ever. I'm locked forever in a building about to crumble, a building that secret injures undermine.
I'm trying to figure out, for myself... to pass the time... if such a prodigious bulk of stone, marble, sculptures, walls, all of them about to collide, would look much soiled by that amount of human brains, viscerae, crushed bones that...
-I see such terrible things, in my dreams, sometimes I wish I'll never sleep anymore.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (1821-1867)
(Oneirocrit)
The translation was made by Yours Truly... if faulty, my apologies...
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
(I wrote that mostly to see the words "dude!" & "Les Fleurs de Mal" in the same sentence, more or less.)
"How shall we kill this old, this long remorse
which writhes continually
& feeds on us as worms upon a corse,
Maggots upon a tree?
How stifle this implacable remorse?
What wine, what drug, what philtre known of man
will drown this ancient foe,
Ruthless & ravenous as a courtesan,
Sure as an ant, & slow?
What wine? what drug? what philtre known of man?"
from the irreperable
tr. Sir John Squire