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Charles Baudelaire - La Beauté (Beauty)
Work rating: Medium

Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où chacun s`est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour
Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière.

Je trône dans l`azur comme un sphinx incompris;
J`unis un coeur de neige à la blancheur des cygnes;
Je hais le mouvement qui déplace les lignes,
Et jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris.

Les poètes, devant mes grandes attitudes,
Que j`ai l`air d`emprunter aux plus fiers monuments,
Consumeront leurs jours en d`austères études;

Car j`ai, pour fasciner ces dociles amants,
De purs miroirs qui font toutes choses plus belles:
Mes yeux, mes larges yeux aux clartés éternelles!


Beauty

I am fair, O mortals! like a dream carved in stone, 
And my breast where each one in turn has bruised himself 
Is made to inspire in the poet a love 
As eternal and silent as matter.

On a throne in the sky, a mysterious sphinx, 
I join a heart of snow to the whiteness of swans; 
I hate movement for it displaces lines, 
And never do I weep and never do I laugh.

Poets, before my grandiose poses, 
Which I seem to assume from the proudest statues, 
Will consume their lives in austere study;

For I have, to enchant those submissive lovers,
Pure mirrors that make all things more beautiful:
My eyes, my large, wide eyes of eternal brightness!


— Translated by William Aggeler



Beauty 

I`m fair, O mortals, as a dream of stone; 
My breasts whereon, in turn, your wrecks you shatter,
Were made to wake in poets` hearts alone 
A love as indestructible as matter.

A sky-throned sphinx, unknown yet, I combine 
The cygnet`s whiteness with a heart of snow. 
I loathe all movement that displaces line, 
And neither tears nor laughter do I know.

Poets before my postures, which I seem 
To learn from masterpieces, love to dream 
And there in austere thought consume their days.

I have, these docile lovers to subject, 
Mirrors that glorify all they reflect — 
These eyes, great eyes, eternal in their blaze!


— Translated by Roy Campbell



La Beauté

fair as a dream in stone I loom afar
— mortals! — with dazzling breast where, bruised in turn
all poets fall in silence, doomed to burn
with love eternal as the atoms are.

white as a swan I throne with heart of snow
in azure space, a sphynx that none divine,
no hateful motion mars my lovely line,
nor tears nor laughter shall I ever know.

and poets, lured by this magnificence
— this grandeur proud as Parian monuments —
toil all their days like martyrs in a spell;

lovers bewitched are they, for I possess
pure mirrors harbouring worlds of loveliness:
my wide, wide eyes where fires eternal dwell!


— Translated by Lewis Piaget Shanks



Beauty

Conceive me as a dream of stone: 
my breast, where mortals come to grief, 
is made to prompt all poets` love, 
mute and noble as matter itself. 

With snow for flesh, with ice for heart, 
I sit on high, an unguessed sphinx 
begrudging acts that alter forms; 
I never laugh, I never weep. 

In studious awe the poets brood 
before my monumental pose 
aped from the proudest pedestal, 
and to bind these docile lovers fast 
I freeze the world in a perfect mirror: 
The timeless light of my wide eyes.

William A. Sigler
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