Baudelaire's "Alchimie de la Douleur" (痛苦煉金術)

I mentioned earlier that Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil dealt with certain aspects of reality not deemed suitable subjects for poetry: the seamier side of life in Paris: all the pain and suffering, death in life, the paraodoxes of life without any hope for transcendence. Two of such poems are  his Alchimie de la Douleur and Horreur Sympathique . Here they are with my translations.

Alchimie de la Douleur          Alchemy of Pain                            痛苦煉金術

 

L' un t'éclaire avec son ardeur,     One brightens you with his ardor  大自然，一個以其熱情照亮你

L'autre en toi met son deuil, Nature!The other puts you to grief, Nature!    另一個使你哀悼！

Ce qui dit à l'un: Sépulture!          He who tells one: sepulchre!              那對一人說：牆塚的

Dit à l'autre: Vie et splendeur!      tells the other: Life and splendour!   對另一人說：生命與壯麗！

 

Hermès inconnu qui m'assistes     Unknown Hermes who helps me             在協助我並

Et qui toujours m'intimidas,          and who always intimidates me, 不斷唬嚇我而我不認識的赫爾墨斯

Tu me rends l'égal de Midas,       You make me the like of Midas,      你把我化成彌達斯的替身

Le plus triste des alchimistes;        The saddest of the alchemists;      煉金術士中最悽惨的那位

 

Par toi je change l'or en fer          By you I turn gold into iron            透過你我點金成鐵

Et le paradis en enfer;                  and the paradise into hell;               化天堂成地獄；

Dans le suaire des nuages             In the shroud of the clouds              在雲層的壽衣中

 

Je découvre en cadavre cher,    I find the dear cadavre                  我找到心愛的屍體

Et sur les célestes rivages            and in the shores of heaven            在天際的岸旁

Je bâtis de grands sarcophages,  I'm building some huge sarcophagi 我正建造一些雄偉的石棺

 

Horreur Sympathique                   Sympathetic Horror                        同情的可佈

 

De ce ciel bizarre et livide,          From this strange and pale sky,   在這荒誕與蒼白的天空，

Tourmenté comme ton destin,     tormented like your fate.                 如你命運般被折磨，

Quels pensées dans ton âme vide what thoughts drop into               在你那虛空之靈魂中

Descendent? réponds, libertin.     your empty soul? anwer. libertine.掉下什麼想法？浪人，答我。

 

--Insatiablement avide                 --insatiably greedy                        --懷着對朦朧與不確   

De l'obscur et de l'incertain,         from what's obscure and uncertain   永不滿足之貪婪，

Je ne geindrai pas comme Ovide  I shall not moan like Ovid           我不會像那被逐出

Chassé du paradis latin.               driven from the Latin paradise.  拉丁天堂的奧維德般呻吟

 

Cieux déchirés comme des grèves, Heavens torn as if by strikes   像罷工般被撕毀的諸天

En vous se mire mon orgueil;          in you I see my own pride;       在你身上我看見我的自豪；

Vos vastes nuages en deuil             Your vast clouds in mourning  你哀悼中浩瀚的雲

 

Sont les corbillards de mes rêves,  Are the hearses of my dreams,  當是我美夢的靈車

Et vos lueurs sont le reflet              And your lights the reflection   而你的光芒則為地獄之反映

De l'Enfer où mon coeur se plâit.   of Hell where my heart finds delight.  在哪我窩心。

Hermes is the god in Greek mythology who is the patron of boundaries and of travellers who wish to cross all kinds of boundaries, of shepherds, cowherds, of thieves and liars, of orators, of wit, of literature and of poets, of athletics and sports, of inventions and commerce. His symbol is the cock, the tortoise, the winged cap and winged shoes and caduceus (a short staff of two entwined snakes with wings). In the Roman tradition, he is the bringer of dreams, a watcher of the night, a thief at the gates. He is the patron of all travellers, thieves, robbers, whores and a messenger of the gods to men. He is portrayed as wearing shoes with wings to facilitate his travels between the world of the immortal gods and the world of mortal men. He is also the inventer of fire, like Prometheus who is supposed to have stolen fire from heaven and given it to man. He is also supposed to have invented the lyre, the traditional instrument to accompany the songs written by poets and also the escort and guide of the dead on their way to the underworld. Greeks usually offer him sacrifices before they make any voyage or trip. In one of the myths, he is depicted to have put to sleep Argus Panoptes, the hundred-eyed giant who guarded over the heifer-nymph Io in the sanctuary of Queen Hera in Argos, with a spell and then slew him. He then placed the eyes of Argus Panoptes on the tail of the peacock, symbol of the goddess Hera. By using this classical allusion, Baudelaire saves himself a lot explanation because of the rich connotations of this Greek God.

In Greek mythology, Midas was a king who restored peace back to Phrygia after a period of civil stife. He later found a satyr Silenus, the old schoolmaster and foster father of Bacchus, the god of wine, drunk and lost. Silenus was found by some peasants and brought to King Midas who recognized him and treated him with great hospitality. To reward him, Bacchus offered him whatever he wanted. Midas told her that he wanted that what he touched be turned to gold. But only later did he realize that that meant he could not eat nor drink or touch his daughter. He then begged Bacchus to take away this gift. After that, he hated wealth and splendour and preferred to live in the countryside and became a worshipper of Pan, the god of the fields and the satyrs. He sided with Pan in the latter's lyre-playing competition with Apollo and complained that the other judge of the competition was being unfair to Pan. Apollo was so angry that he punished him by turning his ears into donkey's ears which he had to hide from everybody by covering them beneath a turban. He told his barber never to reveal this secret but the latter could not bear to hold such a secret, went to a meadow, dug a hole and whispered the secret into it and then a bed of reeds grew and whispered into the air the story that King Midas had donkey ears! But in this poem, Baudelaire was apparently only interested in Midas's touch of gold.

Ovid's full name is Publius Ovidus Naso (43 BC to  18 AD ) and wrote three volumes of elegiac erotic poetry Heroides, Amores and Ars Amatoria. He was rather popular but was exiled from Rome by Emperor Augustus in 8 AD. In his exile to Tomis, where he died after 10 years, he wote two collections of works called Tristia (Sadness) and Epitulae ex Ponto (Letters from Ponto) in which he asked his friends to intervene on his behalf so that he could return to Rome. Hence the reference to his being driven away from the Latin world in the poem. There is great disputes as to the true cause of his exile. Hence the reference to uncertainty and obscurity in the poem.