Les Plaintes d’un Icare

by Charles Baudelaire

Most likely recalling the story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a great nineteenth-century poet turns to the legend of Icarus. Icarus flew on artificial wings, which failed him when he flew too close to the sun: Charles Baudelaire feels that he has failed as a poet to soar to the heights to which he aspired, and, like Icarus, has been seared and brought low by the experience. It is another example of the impossibility of engaging with great European writers of the modern era without paying attention to the classical Roman and Greek literature which was one of their most powerful influences.

The reader is Béatrice Damamme-Gilbert.

See and hear Ovid’s version of the Icarus legend here.

See the illustrated blog post here.

To listen, press play:

To scroll the original and English translation of the poem at the same time - tap inside one box to select it and then scroll.

Les amants des prostituées
Sont heureux, dispos et repus;
Quant à moi, mes bras sont rompus
Pour avoir étreint des nuées.

C’est grâce aux astres nonpareils,
Qui tout au fond du ciel flamboient,
Que mes yeux consumés ne voient
Que des souvenirs de soleils.

En vain j’ai voulu de l’espace
Trouver la fin et le milieu;
Sous je ne sais quel oeil de feu
Je sens mon aile qui se casse;

Et brûlé par l’amour du beau,
Je n’aurai pas l’honneur sublime
De donner mon nom à l’abîme
Qui me servira de tombeau.

The lovers of the prostitutes
Are happy, lively, satisfied;
As for me, my arms are rent
By folding clouds in their embrace.

It’s thanks to the incomparable stars,
Which blaze far in the depths of heaven,
That my shrivelled eyes can see
Nothing but the memories of suns.

In vain have I wished to find
The centre and the end of space;
Under I know not what eye of fire,
I feel my wing that breaks asunder;

And, burnt up by the love of beauty,
I shall not have the accolade sublime
To give my name to the abyss
Which is to serve me as a tomb.

More Poems by Charles Baudelaire

More poems by this author will be added shortly.

View French poems