Baudelaire's Sonnet d'automne ( Autumn Sonnet) 波德萊爾的『秋詩』

In this second of Baudelaire's poem on autumn, he describes autumn, like the first, again, not in terms of the physical autumn that we experience as the third season of the year. To him, autumn has become a foreboding, a feeling of the autumn of his life. It depicts not an objective but a subjective world. In that world, what is important is his love, his relationship with a woman called Marguerite whom he loves. Here it is:

Sonnet d'automne                                                          Sonnet of Autumn                                            秋詩

Ils me disent, tes yeux, clairs comme le cristal:               They tell me, your eyes, clear as crystal:           你的眼暗，清如水晶，對我說：

'Pour toi, bizarre amant, quel es donc mon mérite?''       "For you, strange lover, what then is my merit?"「依你，奇異的愛人，我究竟好在哪?」

--Sois charmante et tais-toi! Mon coeur, que tout irrite, --Be charming and shut up! My heart, which annoys everybody--衹須像現在般可愛，不用多說！我的心，徐了那古老野獸的坦率外

Excepté la candeur de l'antique animal,                          excepting only the candour of the ancient animal.  它微激怒一切其他人

 

Ne veut pas te montrer son secret infernal,                   Does not wish to show you its hellish secret            它不欲向你披露它那地獄般的秘密            

Berceuse dont la main aux longs sommeils m'ínvite,      the cradle with which the hand invites me to long sleeps,搖籃之手正敫請我長眠，

Ni sa noire légende avec la flamme écrite.                    nor to write its black legend with flame.  也不願以其火焰書寫它黑色的傳說

Je hais la passion et lésprit me fait mal!                         I hate passion and my mind makes me sick!我恨情慾而精神使我生病。

 

Aimons-nous doucement. L'amour dans sa guérite,      Let's love one another gently. Love inside its sentry box 讓我們温柔地相戀。愛情在她的陰暗被伏擊的哨亭內

Ténébreux, embusqué, bande son arc fatal.                  shadowy, ambushed, bandages its fatal arc.  為她那致命的圓拱包上紗布 。  

Je connais les engins de son vieil arsenal:                      I know the engines of its ancient arsenal:    我認識他古老事械庫的器械。

 

Crime, horreur et folie!--O pâle marguerite!                 Crime, horror and madness!--O pale daisy!  刑事，恐佈及瘋狂！噢蒼白的菊花！

Comme mois n'es-tu pas un soleil automnal,                 Like me, you're not an autumnal sun            像我一樣，妳不也是一秋天的太陽，

O ma si blanche, ô ma si froide Marquerite?                 O my Margaret, so white and so cold?   噢我的瑪嘉烈，這麼蒼白，這麽冰冷？

 

In this poem, Baudelaire plays with the word "marguerite" and "Marguerite" and rhymes it with the word "guerite" , as supplemented by all the end rhyme with all the other words ending with "ite". "Marguerite" in French is a daisy but in this poem it is also the name of his aging lover, Marguerite.

The autumn in this poem therefore describes her condition: "so white, so pale", and so like the autumnal sun and as he says, so like himself.  He refers to his own sex organ obliquely as the "engines" of his "ancient arsenal".  The "fatal arc" may be his oblique reference to the female sex organ. It is fatal for it is a cradle which may put the engine of his ancient arsenal to a long sleep. The crime, the horror, the madness may all be references to the mad orgies he had with Maguerite. Maybe his lover may have agreed to his unusual sexual demands. That may explain why she angered everyone except the "candour" of his ancient beast! And when he talked of his ïnfernal secrets", was that a reference to his syphillis from which he eventually died. In his days, these veiled references to what went on in the bedroom were already too explicit and too radical. That may be why some his poems were banned by court order.

In short, Baudelaire looks with regret upon the failing charm of his lover, just like autumn may signal the passing of the summer. To him, both himself and his lover are now like the sun in autumn: no more fire, no more passion, no more heat. He also regrets the struggle between his feeling and his reason. He uses the word "espirt". In French, "esprit" has a number of meanings. It may refer to our "mind". It may also mean "spirit", as distinguished from the body. It therefore may also be linked to the human soul and also to reason.