Charles Baudelaire
Correspondances
La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.
5
Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent
Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,
Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,
Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.
10
Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,
Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,
--Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,
15 Ayant
l'expansion des choses infinies,
Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens
Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens.
page 2
Charles Baudelaire
Correspondences
Nature is a temple where the living pillars
Permit, from time to time, confused words to escape;
Here mankind will cross by, where symbols take the shape of
forests gazing on his progress like familiars.
As distant, verberating echoes can resound
Together, mingling deep and shadowed harmony
As vast as midnight and as vast as clarity,
so can each scent and hue and sound to each respond.
Some perfumes are as fragrant as an infant's flesh,
Sweet as an oboe's cry, and greener than the spring;
--While others are triumphant, decadent or rich,
Having the expansion of infinite things,
Like ambergris and musk, benzoin and frankincense,
Which sing the transports of the mind and every sense.
The Flowers of Evil and Paris Spleen. Translated by William H.
Crosby. Indroduction by Anna Balakian. Brockport, NY. BOA
Editions. 1991. p.29
page 3
Charles Baudelaire
CORRESPONDENCES
Nature is a temple from whose living columns
Commingling voices emerge at times;
Here man wanders through forests of symbols
Which seem to observe him with familiar eyes.
Like long-drawn echoes afar converging
In harmonies darksome and profound,
Vast as the night and vast as light,
Colors, scents and sounds correspond.
There are fragrances fresh as the flesh of children,
Sweet as the oboe, green as the prairie,
--And others overpowering, rich and corrupt,
Possessing the pervasiveness of everlasting things,
Like benjamin, frankincense, amber, myrrh,
Which the raptures of the senses and the spirit sing.
Translated by Kate Flores
An Anthology of French Poetry From Nerval To Valery in English
Translation. Ed. Angel Flores. Trans. Kate Flores. Doubleday
Anchor Books, 1958. pp. 21-22.
page 4
Charles Baudelaire
Correspondences
The pillars of Nature's temple are alive
and sometimes yield perplexing messages;
forests of symbols between us and the shrine
remark our passage with accustomed eyes.
Like long-held echoes, blending somewhere else
into one deep and shadowy unison
as limitless as darkness and as day,
the sounds, the scents, the colors correspond.
There are odors succulent as young flesh,
sweet as flutes, and green as any grass,
while others - rich, corrupt and masterful possess the power of such infinite things
as incense, amber, benjamin and musk,
to praise the senses' raptures and the mind's.
Translated by Richard Howard
Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal.
1983. p. 15.
Boston: David R. Godine,
page 5
Charles Baudelaire
Correspondences
In Nature's temple, living pillars rise,
Speaking sometimes in words of abstruse sense;
Man walks through woods of symbols, dark and dense,
Which gaze at him with fond familiar eyes.
5
Like distant echoes
In unity, in a deep
Vast as black night
Perfumes and sounds
blent in the beyond
darksome way,
and vast as splendent day,
and colors correspond.
10
Some scents are cool as children's flesh is cool,
Sweet as are oboes, green as meadowlands,
And others rich, corrupt, triumphant, full,
15
Expanding as infinity expands:
Benzoin or musk or amber that incenses,
Hymning the ecstasy of soul and senses.
Translated by Jacques Leclercq
page 6
Charles Baudelaire
Correspondences
Nature is a temple of living pillars
where often words emerge, confused and dim;
and man goes through this forest, with familiar
eyes of symbols always watching him.
Like prolonged echoes mingling far away
in a unity tenebrous and profound,
vast as the night and as the limpid day,
perfumes, sounds, and colors correspond.
There are perfumes as cool as children's flesh,
sweet as oboes, as meadows green and fresh;
--others, triumphant and corrupt and rich,
with power to fill the infinite expanses,
like amber, incense, musk, and benzoin, which
sing the transports of the soul and senses.
Translated by C. F. MacIntyre
French Symbolist Poetry. translator, C. F. MacIntyre.
University of California Press, 1966. p. 13.
page 7
Charles Baudelaire
Correspondences
Nature's a temple where the pilasters
Speak sometimes in their mystic languages;
Man reaches it through symbols dense as trees,
That watch him with a gaze familiar.
As far-off echoes from a distance sound
In unity profound and recondite,
Boundless as night itself and as the light,
Sounds, fragrances and colours correspond.
Some perfumes are, like children, innocent,
As sweet as oboes, green as meadow sward,
--And others, complex, rich and jubilant,
The vastneess of infinity afford,
Like musk and amber, incense, bergamot,
Which sing the senses' and the soul's delight.
Translated by Joanna Richardson
Baudelaire, Charles. Selected Poems. Penguin Books,
1975. p. 43.
page 8
Charles Baudelaire
Correspondences
Nature is a Temple where we live ironically
In the midst of forests filled with dire confusions;
Man, hearing confused words, passes symbolically
Under the eyes of the birds watching his illusions.
Like distant echoes in some tenebrous unity,
Perfumes and colours are mixed in strange profusions,
Vast as the night theymix inextricably
With seas unsounded and with the dawn's delusions.
And there are the perfect perfumes of the Flesh,
That are as green as the sins in the Serpent's mesh,
And others as corrupt as our own senses,
Having the strange expansion of things infinite,
Such as amber, musk, benzoin and sweet incenses,
That seize the spirit and the senses exquisite.
Translated by Arthur Symons
baudelaire, rimbaud, verlaine. Selected verse and prose
poems. Ed. Joseph M. Bernstein. The Citadel Press,
1974. p. 12.
page 9
Charles Baudelaire
Correspondences
Nature is a temple where living pillars
Let sometimes emerge confused words;
Man crosses it through forests of symbols
Which watch him with intimate eyes.
5
Like those deep echoes that meet from afar
In a dark and profound harmony,
As vast as night and clarity,
So perfumes, colours, tones answer each other.
10
There are perfumes fresh as children's flesh,
Soft as oboes, green as meadows,
And others, corrupted, rich, triumphant,
15
Possessing the diffusion of infinite things,
Like amber, musk, incense and aromatic resin.
Chanting the ecstasies of spirit and senses.
Translated by Geoffrey Wagner
(Selected Poems of Charles Baudelaire. Translated from the
French by Geoffrey Wagner. Introduction by Enid Starkie. New
York: Grove Press, Inc., 1974. p. 23.)
page 10
Charles Baudelaire
Correspondences
Nature is a temple whose living colonnades
Breathe forth a mystic speech in fitful sighs;
Man wanders among symbols in those glades
Where all things watch him with familiar eyes.
5
Like dwindling echoes gathered far away
Into a deep and thronging unison
Huge as the night or as the light of day,
All scents and sounds and colors meet as one.
10
Perfumes there are as sweet as the oboe's sound,
Green as the prairies, fresh as a child's caress,
--And there are others, rich, corrupt, profound
15
And of an infinite pervasiveness,
Like myrrh, or musk, or amber, that excite
The ecstasies of sense, the soul's delight.
Translated by Richard Wilbur
(Charles Baudelaire. The Flowers of Evil. Edited by
Marthiel and Jackson Mathews. New York. New Directions.
1955, 1962, 1989. p.12)