Baudelaire's Le Gout du Neant (Taste of Nothingness)(<虛無之味>

In an earlier blog, I said that Baudelaire was the author of a series of poems which he called the Flowers of Evil but so far, I have not introduced any his poems which give support to this description. I shall start today by translating one which to my mind indicates the direction in which he was going. It's his "Le Gout du Neant" or the "Taste of Nothingness". Here it is.

 

         Le Gout du Neant                                  The Taste of Nothingness                              虛無之味      

Mon esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte,   My mind, once in love with the strive.         我酷愛鬥爭的昔日思想，

L'Espoir, dont l'ésperon attisait ton ardeur,  Hope, whose hoping fanned its zeal,         你被冀望挑高的熱切希望，

Ne veut plus t'enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur, No longer wishes to mount you! Sleep without decency.已不再想騎你上！你可無須顧慮體面地睡了。

Vieux cheval dont le pied á chaque obstacle butte. Old horse whose foot stumbles at each obstacle.蹣跚於一步一障而行的老馬。

 

Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dons ton sommeil de brute. Resign, my heart; gifts, your animal sleep. 我的心，你退下吧  ，是野獸睡眠的禮物。

 

Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur,    Mind vanquished, foundered! For you, old marauder, 被打倒，水浸沈沒的思想！對你，年老的劫掠者，  

L'amour n'a plus de goût, non plus que la dispute;  Love has lost its flavor, no any more than quarrel,愛已乏味，口角也好不了多少；

Adieu donc, chants du cuivre et soupirs de la flúte! Farewell then, songs of copper and sighs of the flute!就此再見吧，銅鑄之歌與簫之歎息

Plaisirs, ne tentez plus un coeur sombre et boudeur! Pleasures, tempt a heart dark and sullen no more!歡樂，不用再引誘一個深沈而鬱鬱寂寡歡的心了！

 

Le Printemps adorable a perdu son odeur!          The adorable spring has lost its smell  可愛的春天已失去她的芳秀！     

 

Et le Temps m'engloutit minute par minute,             And Time engulfs me minute by minute.   而時間一分鐘 一分鐘的吞噬着我，      

Comme la neige immense un corps pris de roideur;  As the immense snow takes a stiff body,彷若巨雪一樣吞噬一僵直的身軀

Je contemple d'en haut le globe en sa rondeur,         I think about the roundess of the globe from on high我現在靜靜地從高處望下那圓圓的地球

Et je n'y cherche plus l'abri d'une cahute.                I look no more for the shelter of a bunp.  我不再向它索取碰撞的蔭庇。

             

Avalanche, veux-tu m'emporter dans ta chute?         Avalanche, will you take me in your fall?崩雪，你願否在你的下墮中携我而去？

In this poem, Baudelaire talks about nothingness. But to him, nothingness is not a void or an absence in the abstract. It is something most concrete. It involves a loss. That loss is the loss of his appetite for struggle, for quarrels, for fighting and for making love with women whom he likes. That loss involves the loss of his interest for Life itself. When a man loses interests for those things which makes life animating, vitalizing, exciting and thrilling, he will be a broken man. That is what Baudelaire is trying to tell us. And he does so with language which for his times could not have been more explicit. He suggests what he is really describing by providing us with the details of context of his sexual activities like the need for decency, derocum, modesty and the descripition of himself as a former marauder and the pleasures he formerly has as the "songs of copper" , a barely veiled reference to the hardness of the male organ and the "sighs of the flute".  Once he has lost the desire for physical love, he no longer wishes to live. He asks the avalanche to take him down with it in its tumbling towards oblivion and destruction.