Baudelaire's Chant d'automne (Song of Autumn) (波德來爾的『秋之歌』)

After the interrruptions of a number of other blog articles when I first started my series of Spanish and French poems on autumn, I can now resume. As far as I am aware, Baudelaire has written two on the subject: Chant d'automne and Sonnet d'automne. I shall start with the translations of the first of the two.

Chant d'automne                                          Song of Autumn                                                   秋之歌

1.

Bientôt nous plongerons dans les froides ténèbres; Soon w'e'll plunge into cold shadows;     快陷入那冰冷的陰影中了；

Adieu, vive clarté de nos étés trop courts!  Bye, long live the light of our tsummers all too short!!再會，我們那太短夏天的光芒！

J'entends déjà tomber avec des chocs funèbres        I hear already falling with funenary shocks 我已聽見亭園石卵上樹枝響亮的 

Le bois retentissant sur le pavé des cours.  the wood resounding on the courtyard's cobblestones.下墮聲伴著殯葬的震盪。

 

Tout l'hiver va rentrer dans mon être: colère, The whole winter shall return to my being: anger, 整個冬天將返回我內：憤怒，

Haine, frissons, horreur, labeur dur et forcé,   hate, shivers, horror, work hard and forced.  憎恨，顫抖，恐怖，艱苦被逼的エ作。

Et, comme le soleil dans son enfer polaire,      And, like the sun in its polar hell,              像在地極地獄之太陽，

Mon coeur ne sera plus qu'un bloc rouge et glacé.  My heart will be nothing but a block red and frozen. 我心祇能會化作冷凝的紅塊。

 

J'écoute en frémissant chaque bûche qui tombe;    I hear trembling each log which falls;   我顫抖地聆聽每塊原木跌下

L'échafaud qu'on batit n'a pas d'écho plus sourd The gallows on srikes doesn't have a muter echo. 被拍打中的絞架迴響也沒這啞口無言。

Mon esprit est pareil à la tour qui succombe   My spirit is like a tower falling  我思想如被不懂疲累而沈重的撞棍之猛繫下

Sous les coups du bélier infatigable et lourd.    under the blows of battering ram untiring and heavy.   垮倒的塔子。

 

Il me semble, bercé par ce choc monotone,   It seems to me, rocked by this monotonous shock, 我彷如一個在某處被怱怱釘封的棺木，

Qu'on cloue en grande hâte en cercueil quelque part, which one nails in great heste in a coffin somewhere, 被這使人納悶的衝擊如嬰孩般輕搖

Pour qui?--C'était hier l'été; voici l'automne! for whom?--t'was summer yesterday, here's autumn! 為誰呢?--昨天還是夏季，現在己是秋季！

Ce bruit mystérieux sonne comme un départ. This mysterious noise sounds like a farewell.    這神秘之音似乎響着告別之聲 。

 

2.

J'aime de vos longs yeux la lumière verdàtre,     I love the greenish light of your longish eyes,     我愛你那長長眼中的綠光 

Douce beauté, mais tout aujourd'hui m'est amer, Sweet beuaty, but everything today is bitter to me 甜蜜的美麗，但對我來說今天一切都是苦澀

En rien, ni votre amour, ni le boudoir, ni l'âtre,   Nothing, not your love, not the boudoir, not the hearth,沒有什麽，沒有愛情，沒有閏房，沒有火爐，

Ne me vaut le soleil rayonnant sur la mer.           is worth more to me than the sun shining over the sea.比海上光芒四散的太陽更重要。

 

Et pourtant aimez-moi, tendre coeur! soyez mère,  Nonetheless, love me, tender heart! Be my mother,但無論怎樣温柔的心，愛我吧！做我母親

Même pour un ingrat, même our un méchant;       even for the ungrateful, even for the mean ;  儘管我忘思負義，儘管我卑劣      

Amante ou soeur, soyez la douceur éphémère        lover or sister, be the ephemeral sweetness 愛侶或姊妹，你得成為

D'un gloriex automne ou d'un soleil couchant.   of a glorious autumn or a setting sun.  光輝的秋天或夕陽稍鏡縱即逝的甜美。

 

Courte tâche! La tombe attend; elle est avide!   Short work! The grave awaits; she is avid! 舉手之勞的工作！墳墓在等待，他多貪婪！

Ah! laissez-moi, mon front posé sur vos genoux, Ah! leave me alone, my face over your knees, 呀！放手，讓我把臉龐放在你膝蓋上，

Goûter, en regrettant l'été blanc et torride,        Taste, regretting the summer white and torrid,  當懊悔白色與酷熱的夏季時

De l'arrière-saison le rayon jaune et doux!         From the last-seaon the ray yellow and sweet!   嚐一口上季那黄色與甜蜜的光芒。

Like Neruda's poem on the same subject, Baudelaire also both look back to the hot summer and look forward to the coming winter. But there the similarity ends. One can see immediately that the landscape which interests  Baudelaire is more that of internal than the external physical landscape.  He does not describe how autumn is in itself but only autumn insofar as it affects how he feels about the season. What does he feel?

Baudelaire thinks that autumn is associated with cold dark shadows. He hears autumn in the form of old twigs falling down on to the cobblestone floor of the court of the Parisian mansions. The sound transports him into his feelings about autumn: a mixture of anger, hatred and the unpleasant feeling of shivering, horror and hard work. Remember, Baudelaire is a dandy and lived off his father's inheritance, which he squandered most liberally. In any event, he felt helpless with the coming of autumn. His red heart became frozen. The falling logs in the courtyard remind him of the gallows and also of the coffin. He felt his spirit crumbling, like the falling logs. He mourns the shortness and transience of summer. He thinks of the green leaves and green trees, which are no longer there, And he engages in imaginative reconstruction of his past. But to him,the most important priority is to get some sunlight.

In this poem, Baudelaire dwells on one theme which preoccupies him the whole of his life, his devotion to her mother who was only 28 when she married Baudelaire's 60 year-old father. He could never accept the fact that his mother could marry another man within a year of the death of his father and that he had to share his mother with some other children not related to him. To compensate him for his fear of winter, he begs to be mothered, he wants to place his head on the knees of his love, like a child.  So in the second part of the poem, his needs become more explicit. To him emotions have their own color, white or gold.  He is torn between the past and the future! But in the present, he would like to be under the sun.There is nothing more he likes better. He likes it more than love, more than the boudoir and more than the hearth. Baudelaire was consumptive and did not have very good health.. Perhaps that may explain his need for the sun.