Analysis of Bohémiens En Voyage (Gypsies On The Road)
Charles Baudelaire 1821 (Paris) – 1867 (Paris)
La tribu prophétique aux prunelles ardentes
Hier s'est mise en route, emportant ses petits
Sur son dos, ou livrant à leurs fiers appétits
Le trésor toujours prêt des mamelles pendantes.
Les hommes vont à pied sous leurs armes luisantes
Le long des chariots où les leurs sont blottis,
Promenant sur le ciel des yeux appesantis
Par le morne regret des chimères absentes.
Du fond de son réduit sablonneux, le grillon,
Les regardant passer, redouble sa chanson;
Cybèle, qui les aime, augmente ses verdures,
Fait couler le rocher et fleurir le désert
Devant ces voyageurs, pour lesquels est ouvert
L'empire familier des ténèbres futures.
The prophetical tribe, that ardent eyed people,
Set out last night, carrying their children
On their backs, or yielding to those fierce appetites
The ever ready treasure of pendulous breasts.
The men travel on foot with their gleaming weapons
Alongside the wagons where their kin are huddled,
Surveying the heavens with eyes rendered heavy
By a mournful regret for vanished illusions.
The cricket from the depths of his sandy retreat
Watches them as they pass, and louder grows his song;
Cybele, who loves them, increases her verdure,
Makes the desert blossom, water spurt from the rock
Before these travelers for whom is opened wide
The familiar domain of the future's darkness.
— Translated by William Aggeler
Gipsies on the Road
The tribe of seers, last night, began its match
With burning eyes, and shouldering its young
To whose ferocious appetites it swung
The wealth of hanging breasts that nought can parch.
The men, their weapons glinting in the rays,
Walk by the convoy where their folks are carted,
Sweeping the far-off skylines with a gaze
Regretful of Chimeras long-departed.
Out of his hole the cricket sees them pass
And sings the louder. Greener grows the grass
Because Cybele loves them, and has made
The barren rock to gush, the sands to flower,
To greet these travellers, before whose power
Familiar futures open realms of shade.
— Translated by Roy Campbell
They set out yesterday, the tribe of ragged seers
With burning eyes — bearing their little ones in nests
Upon their backs, or giving them, to stop their tears,
The teats of inexhaustible and swarthy breasts.
The men walk shouldering their rifles silently
Beside the hooded wagons with bright tatters hung,
And peer into the sky, as if they hoped to see
Some old mirage that beckoned them when they were young.
No matter where they journey through the meager land,
The cricket will sing louder from his lair of sand,
And Cybele, who loves them, will smile where they advance:
The desert will be fruitful, the arid rock will flow
Before the footsteps of these wayfarers, who go
Eternally into the lightless realm of chance.
— Translated by George Dillon
The prophetic tribe of the ardent eyes
Yesterday they took the road, holding their babies
On their backs, delivering to fierce appetites
The always ready treasure of pendulous breasts.
The men stick their feet out, waving their guns
Alongside the caravan where they tremble together,
Scanning the sky their eyes are weighted down
In mourning for absent chimeras.
At the bottom of his sandy retreat, a cricket
Watched passing, redoubles his song,
Cybele, who loves, adds more flower,
Makes fountains out of rock and blossoms from desert
Opening up before these travelers in a yawn—
A familiar empire, the inscrutable future.
— Translated by William A. Sigler
Scheme | AAAA AAAA BBA CCA DBAA ACEA CFG XCA G C XHHX ACAC AAC GGC D AAAA EHAH CCA IIA B AAAA AGBA CFG CBG G |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111 10101111111 111111111 011111111 11111111 01110011111 1101111 101011111 111111101 111001011 10111111 1101011011 11111011 11001111110 011110110 1111100110 11111011110 010101011001 011011111010 011010111110 010010111010 101001110010 010101111001 101111010111 111101001 101010101101 011100111101 001001101010 0101101 1101 0111110111 1101010011 110101011 0111011111 0111010001 1101111110 100111101 010111010 1111010111 0101010101 01111011 01011101110 11110001110 0101010111 0101110 11110011101 110110110101 011111011111 011001000101 011100110100 010101011101 010101111111 110111011101 110111010101 010111011111 01111111101 0101110010111 010111111 01000101111 0101110 0010110101 10110110110 11101001110 01101011001 0111111011 0110101110010 1001111101 0101101 1010111001010 110111 1111110 110111010110 1001011100001 00101000010010 0101100100 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 3,724 |
Words | 587 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 25 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 3, 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 1, 1, 4, 4, 3, 3, 1, 4, 4, 3, 3, 1, 4, 4, 3, 3, 1 |
Lines Amount | 75 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 110 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:57 min read
- 159 Views
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"Bohémiens En Voyage (Gypsies On The Road)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4901/boh%C3%A9miens-en-voyage-%28gypsies-on-the-road%29>.
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