Baudelaire's La Beauté (Beauty) (波德來爾之美)

Yesterday, I published my translations of one of Baudelaire's poem on beauty. But in fact, he had another which was simply called "La Beauté" (Beauty). Compared to the previous one, the latter sets out even more clearly what Baudelaire's ideas about poetic beauty were. So it pays to study this poem. Here it is with my translations.

      La Beauté                                                          Beauty                                                                  美

Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre I'm beautiful, O mortals! like a dream of stone  噢，凡人，我多美！如夢幻寶石

Et mon sein, où chacun sést meurti tour à tour,   And my breast, where each is dead one by one,  在哪人們逐一死去的我胸，

Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour              Is made to inspire in the poet a love              為挑起詩人心中某種

Eternel et muet ansi que matière.                       as eternal and silent as matter.         如物質般永恆而悄靜之愛而造。

 

Je trone dan lázur comme un sphinx incompris; I sit enthroned in the blue like a incomprehensible sphinx,我像高空迷樣的獅身人面獸

J'únis un coeur de neige à la blancheur des cynes; I unite an icy heart to the swan's whiteness;   我把冰心與天鵝之白溶為一體； 

ja hais le mouvement que déplace les lignes,       I hate the motion which moves the lines     我痛恨那把線條移位之動靜，

Et jamais je ne pleusre et jamais je ne ris.          and I never cry and never laugh.              而我從不哭亦從不笑。

 

Les poètes, devant mes grandes attitudes,          Poets, in front of my lordly attitudes,    在我那彷從極高傲的紀念碑借來的

Que jái láir démprunter aux plus fiers monumentss, which I appear to have borrowed from prouder monuments,莊嚴態度前，詩人

Consumeront leurs jours en dáustères études;      spend their days in austere studies;           整天埋首於苛刻的研究。

 

Car jái, pour fasciner ces dociles amants,           'Cause I have, to fascinate these docile lovers 皆因我擁有那些能為我眼，我那大眼

De purs miriors qui font toutes choses plus belles:from pure mirrors which make things more beautiful以那些使一切更漂亮的純潔鏡子

Mes yeux, mes larges yeux aux clartés éternelles!  My eyes, my big eyes with eternal lights!  添上永恆的光芒以使這些馴服的愛侶着迷！

In this poem, Baudelaire expresses his idea about what he thinks is poetic beauty. Many will die at the breast of beauty. These are the poets. Beauty is there to inspire the poet to love it for an entire eternity or forever. To look for beauty, one must really be calm and rational. Beauty, as Baudelaire says, never laughs. Nor does it cry. Beauty is there, high above, sitting on a celestial throne. The poets spend all his waking hours trying to work out how he is going to write his poems. Beauty, for its lovers, merely help its lovers by providing them with a new pair of eyes to look at the world and through such a new perspective, it may add to what we see in this world by showing to us its eternal aspect and shine upon it the light of eternity. The poets are therefore our travel agents, perhaps even our pilots, for eternity. We take their planes and they'll bring us there. Their planes are their poems. Their planes take us into the unknown: the realm of mystery and of eternity. To Baudelaire, the poem is its own object, which is the pursuit of beauty. It does not take any order from any one. No one is its master. It does not have to concern itself with matters of conventional morality. Baudelaire's ideas about the role of poetry influenced his successors like Mallarmé and Verlaine etc. which I hope to introduce later. It was Baudelaire who first sought to make use of the sound of the words he used to create a certain mood, a certain atmosphere, something with application not only to poetry. The later impressionist painters and impressionist composers all borrowed this idea to create their "impressions" in their painting and in their music. The work of art became thus an object which does not point to anything beyond itself. We can see a whole tradition of French thinkers and writers and composers who followed this line of thought: the primacy of the object, complete, proud, independent, beautiful and not at all concerned with what social or other functions its spectators, its audience, its readers expect of it. It has only one object. Its object is purely esthetic. This is the so-called "art for art" sake tradition. It was Baudelaire who started it all.