Analysis of Le Flacon (The Perfume Flask)
Charles Baudelaire 1821 (Paris) – 1867 (Paris)
II est de forts parfums pour qui toute matière
Est poreuse. On dirait qu'ils pénètrent le verre.
En ouvrant un coffret venu de l'Orient
Dont la serrure grince et rechigne en criant,
Ou dans une maison déserte quelque armoire
Pleine de l'âcre odeur des temps, poudreuse et noire,
Parfois on trouve un vieux flacon qui se souvient,
D'où jaillit toute vive une âme qui revient.
Mille pensers dormaient, chrysalides funèbres,
Frémissant doucement dans les lourdes ténèbres,
Qui dégagent leur aile et prennent leur essor,
Teintés d'azur, glacés de rose, lamés d'or.
Voilà le souvenir enivrant qui voltige
Dans l'air troublé; les yeux se ferment; le Vertige
Saisit l'âme vaincue et la pousse à deux mains
Vers un gouffre obscurci de miasmes humains;
II la terrasse au bord d'un gouffre séculaire,
Où, Lazare odorant déchirant son suaire,
Se meut dans son réveil le cadavre spectral
D'un vieil amour ranci, charmant et sépulcral.
Ainsi, quand je serai perdu dans la mémoire
Des hommes, dans le coin d'une sinistre armoire
Quand on m'aura jeté, vieux flacon désolé,
Décrépit, poudreux, sale, abject, visqueux, fêlé,
Je serai ton cercueil, aimable pestilence!
Le témoin de ta force et de ta virulence,
Cher poison préparé par les anges! liqueur
Qui me ronge, ô la vie et la mort de mon coeur!
The Perfume Flask
There are strong perfumes for which all matter
Is porous. One would say they go through glass.
On opening a coffer that has come from the East,
Whose creaking lock resists and grates,
Or in a deserted house, some cabinet
Full of the Past's acrid odor, dusty and black,
Sometimes one finds an antique phial which remembers,
Whence gushes forth a living soul returned to life.
Many thoughts were sleeping, death-like chrysalides,
Quivering softly in the heavy shadows,
That free their wings and rise in flight,
Tinged with azure, glazed with rose, spangled with gold.
That is the bewitching souvenir which flutters
In the troubled air; the eyes close; Dizziness
Seizes the vanquished soul, pushes it with both hands
Toward a darkened abyss of human pollution:
He throws it down at the edge of an ancient abyss,
Where, like stinking Lazarus tearing wide his shroud,
There moves as it wakes up, the ghostly cadaver
Of a rancid old love, charming and sepulchral.
Thus, when I'll be lost to the memory
Of men, when I shall be tossed into the corner
Of a dismal wardrobe, a desolate old phial,
Decrepit, cracked, slimy, dirty, dusty, abject,
Delightful pestilence! I shall be your coffin,
The witness of your strength and of your virulence,
Beloved poison prepared by the angels! Liqueur
That consumes me, O the life and death of my heart!
— Translated by William Aggeler
Perfumes there are which through all things can pass
And make all matter porous, even glass;
Old coffers from the Orient brought, whose locks
Grind sullenly when opening the box,
Or, in an empty house, some ancient chest,
Where time and dust and gloom were long compressed,
May yield a flask where memory survives,
And a soul flashes into future lives.
A thousand thoughts, funereal larvae, laid
Shuddering softly under palls of shade,
May suddenly their soaring wings unfold,
Stained azure, glazed with rose, or filmed with gold.
Intoxicating memory now flies
Into the dusk, and makes us close our eyes:
Vertigo draws the spirit which it grips
Towards some dark miasma of eclipse:
Beside an ancient pit he makes her fall,
Where Lazarus, sweet-scented, tears his pall
And wakes the spectral corpse of some now-cold,
Rancid, sepulchral love he knew of old.
So when I'm lost to human memory, thrown
In some old gloomy chest to fie alone,
A poor decrepit flask, cracked, abject, crusty
With dirt, opaque and sticky, damp and dusty,
I'll be your pall and shroud, beloved pest!
The witness of your venom, and its test,
Dear poison, angel-brewed with deadly art —
Life, death, and dear corrosion of my heart.
— Translated by Roy Campbell
The Perfume Flask
All matter becomes porous to certain scents; they pass
Through everything; it seems they even go through glass.
When opening some old trunk brought home from the far east,
That scolds, feeling the key turned and the lid released —
Some wardrobe, in a house long uninhabited,
Full of the powdery odors of moments that are dead —
At times, distinct as ever, an old flask will emit
Its perf
Scheme | aabb cabb ddax eedd aaff acff ddgx H gdid xxdj ddxk dddx dxgf lgfx xdgm a dddd nndd ookk dddd ffkk ppll nnmm f H ddii xxxj |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101110111111 01111111101 111111110 11111111 1111011110 1111111111 111111111 111111111 111111 111111111 111111111 1111111111 1001111 11111110101 111111111 1111111 1111111111 10101001111 111111011 111111111 111111111 111011110 1111011111 1111110111 11111100 011111111100 1101111101 11111111111 0011 1110111110 1101111111 1100010111101 11010101 10001011100 110110101001 011110111010 110101010111 101010111 1001000101 11110101 11101111011 110101110 00101011100 100101101111 0101001110010 1111101111001 111010010111 111111010010 1010111001 1111110100 111111101010 10101010011 010110101010 010100111110 010111011100 011001101001 101110101111 0101101 0111111111 0111010101 1101010111 11110001 1011011101 1101010101 1101110001 0011001101 01011101 1001010111 1100110101 1101111111 010010011 01010111101 101010111 0111010101 0111011101 1100110111 010111111 10111111 11111101001 0111011101 01010111010 11010101010 111101011 0101110011 1101011101 1101010111 0101110 0011 1100110110111 11011110111 1100111111011 111001100101 1100110100 11010010110111 1101110111101 11 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 4,497 |
Words | 741 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 27 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1, 1, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 96 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 125 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 27 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 19, 2023
- 3:47 min read
- 218 Views
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"Le Flacon (The Perfume Flask)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4958/le-flacon-%28the-perfume-flask%29>.
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