Spleen

By Charles Baudelaire

Spleen (Iii)

Je suis comme le roi d'un pays pluvieux,

Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant très vieux,

Qui, de ses précepteurs méprisant les courbettes,

S'ennuie avec ses chiens comme avec d'autres bêtes.

Rien ne peut l'égayer, ni gibier, ni faucon,

Ni son peuple mourant en face du balcon.

Du bouffon favori la grotesque ballade

Ne distrait plus le front de ce cruel malade;

Son lit fleurdelisé se transforme en tombeau,

Et les dames d'atour, pour qui tout prince est beau,

Ne savent plus trouver d'impudique toilette

Pour tirer un souris de ce jeune squelette.

Le savant qui lui fait de l'or n'a jamais pu

De son être extirper l'élément corrompu,

Et dans ces bains de sang qui des Romains nous viennent,

Et dont sur leurs vieux jours les puissants se souviennent,

II n'a su réchauffer ce cadavre hébété

Où coule au lieu de sang l'eau verte du Léthé 

Spleen

I am like the king of a rainy land, 

Wealthy but powerless, both young and very old, 

Who contemns the fawning manners of his tutors 

And is bored with his dogs and other animals. 

Nothing can cheer him, neither the chase nor falcons, 

Nor his people dying before his balcony. 

The ludicrous ballads of his favorite clown 

No longer smooth the brow of this cruel invalid; 

His bed, adorned with fleurs-de-lis, becomes a grave; 

The lady's maids, to whom every prince is handsome, 

No longer can find gowns shameless enough 

To wring a smile from this young skeleton. 

The alchemist who makes his gold was never able 

To extract from him the tainted element, 

And in those baths of blood come down from Roman times, 

And which in their old age the powerful recall, 

He failed to warm this dazed cadaver in whose veins 

Flows the green water of Lethe in place of blood.

— Translated by William Aggeler

Spleen 

I'm like the King of some damp, rainy clime, 

Grown impotent and old before my time, 

Who scorns the bows and scrapings of his teachers 

And bores himself with hounds and all such creatures. 

Naught can amuse him, falcon, steed, or chase: 

No, not the mortal plight of his whole race 

Dying before his balcony. The tune, 

Sung to this tyrant by his pet buffoon, 

Irks him. His couch seems far more like a grave. 

Even the girls, for whom all kings seem brave, 

Can think no toilet up, nor shameless rig, 

To draw a smirk from this funereal prig. 

The sage who makes him gold, could never find 

The baser element that rots his mind. 

Even those blood-baths the old Romans knew 

And later thugs have imitated too, 

Can't warm this skeleton to deeds of slaughter, 

Whose only blood is Lethe's cold, green water.

— Translated by Roy Campbell

Spleen

I'm like the king of a rain-country, rich

but sterile, young but with an old wolf's itch,

one who escapes his tutor's monologues,

and kills the day in boredom with his dogs;

nothing cheers him, darts, tennis, falconry,

his people dying by the balcony;

the bawdry of the pet hermaphrodite

no longer gets him through a single night;

his bed of fleur-de-lys becomes a tomb;

even the ladies of the court, for whom

all kings are beautiful, cannot put on

shameful enough dresses for this skeleton;

the scholar who makes his gold cannot invent

washes to cleanse the poisoned element;

even in baths of blood, Rome's legacy,

our tyrants' solace in senility,

he cannot warm up his shot corpse, whose food

is syrup-green Lethean ooze, not blood.

— Translated by Robert Lowell

The King of the Rainy Country

A rainy country this, that I am monarch of, — 

A rich but powerless king, worn-out while yet a boy; 

For whom in vain the falcon falls upon the dove; 

Not even his starving people's groans can give him joy; 

Scorning his tutors, loathing his spaniels, finding stale 

His favorite jester's quips, yawning at the droll tale. 

His bed, for all its fleurs de lis, looks like a tomb; 

The ladies of the court, attending him, to whom 

He, being a prince, is handsome, see him lying there 

Cold as a corpse, and lift their shoulders in despair: 

No garment they take off, no garter they leave on 

Excites the gloomy eye of this young skeleton. 

The royal alchemist, who makes him gold from lead,

The baser element from out the royal head 

Cannot extract; nor can those Roman baths of blood, 

For some so efficacious, cure the hebetude 

Of him, along whose veins, where flows no blood at all, 

For ever the slow waters of green Lethe crawl.

— Translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Spleen

I'm like a king of rainy lands and cold

— wealthy, but impotent: still young, but old —

who, scornful of his tutors' bows, prefers

his hounds and boredom to such grovellers.

nor stag nor falcon rouse his apathy,

nor starving subjects 'neath his balcony.

his favourite jester's wildest ballads now

no longer clear his cruel, sickened brow;

his royal bed's a coffin drowned in care,

and court-ladies, to whom all kings are fair,

— seeking a smile from that young skeleton — 

no longer find one shameless robe to don.

nor can the sage who makes him gold succeed

in purging him of Death's corruptive seed,

nor in the baths of blood the Romans knew,

wherein the agèd rich their strength renew,

learn how to warm that cold numb corpse, through whose

dull veins, for blood, green Lethe's waters ooze.

— Translated by Lewis Piaget Shanks

Spleen

I am like the king of a rainy country,

Rich, and yet powerless, young and yet most old,

Who, distrustful of the bows his tutors make,

Sits bored among his dogs as with his other beasts.

Nothing can lift his spirits: neither hawk nor game;

The dying subjects gathered to his balcony;

The grotesque ballad of his best-loved fool

--No more distracts him in this sickness cruel.

His lilied bed is changed into a tomb;

The ladies of his court all lords might love,

And yet they can no longer find shameless attire

To draw a smile from their young, wasted sire.

The alchemist who made him gold could not

Purge from his soul this corrupt element,

And in a blood bath, as in ancient Rome,

Remembered by the mighty in their latter days,

Knew not to warm this dazzled corpse

Where flows not blood but Lethe's waters green.

Translated by Anonymous