Translating Baudelaire
A small sampling representing my style
I’m reading Nina Schuyler’s really wonderful The Translator, which speaks so lovingly and accurately about the love of translation, and I was inspired to share a very small foray I made in translating Baudelaire, just for the fun of it. (I do much less glamorous translating every day in my subtitling work.)
There are two more traditional translations first, and then mine, which reflects my personal translation style. Simply said: I take liberties. (But I love my version.)
CORRESPONDANCES
Original: Baudelaire
La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.
Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent
Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,
Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,
Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.
II est des parfums frais comme des chairs d’enfants,
Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,
— Et d’autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,
Ayant l’expansion des choses infinies,
Comme l’ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l’encens,
Qui chantent les transports de l’esprit et des sens.
Translation 1: A.Z. Foreman
Nature is a temple, where, from living pillars, a flux
of confused words is, sometimes, allowed to fall:
Man travels it, through forests of symbols, that all
observe him, with familiar looks.
Like far echoes that distantly congregate,
in a shadowy and profound unity,
vast as the night air, in its clarity,
perfumes, colours, sounds reverberate.
There are fresh perfumes, like the flesh of children,
mellow as oboes, green as prairies,
and others, rich, glorious and forbidden,
having the expansive power of infinities,
amber, musk, benjamin and incense,
that sing of the ecstasies of spirit and sense.
Translation - Unknown
Nature’s a shrine where living columns stand
And now and then breathe a confounded phrase,
Man wanders there amid a forestland
Of symbols, followed by their intimate gaze.
As long-drawn echoes blent from far away
together into dark deep unison,
As vast as night and like the light of day,
colors, sounds and perfumes respond as one.
There are scents fresh as flesh of any child,
Meadow-green, mellow as an oboe tone,
- and others: rich, corrupt, triumphant, wild
expanding like the infinite alone
like ambers, musks and orient frankincense
that sing the ecstasies of soul and sense.
Translation: Mark Olmsted
From the temple of nature mutter the trees
Pillars, surprised they can speak in tongues
When men walk by they know to freeze
Their gaze upon him is intimate enough
Then come the echoes from far away
Blending into a singular depth
Dark as night, light as day
They compose a symphony of senses
The fragrant scent of an infant’s breath
The green of the forest roof
The lush corruption of meadows fresh
The color of music, rich and aloof
The smell of incense, forbidden
that anoints the soul, unbidden
with the musk of ecstasy
and power of infinity.
MCO 2026