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TRANSLATIONS OF BAUDELAIRE
The Seven Old Men
for Victor Hugo
Teeming city, city of dreams,
Where ghosts in broad daylight grab at your sleeve!
Everywhere mysteries run like sap
Through the narrow conduits of the great metropolis.
One morning, in a dismal street,
Where the buildings, their height extended by the mist,
Seemed like the two banks of a river in spate,
And where, as on a stage set for some ham actor,
A dirty yellow fog oozed into every corner,
I entered, steeling my nerves like some hero in myth,
And coaxing my already-weary soul on,
The district served by the heavy dump trucks.
All of a sudden, an old man, whose yellowing rags
Mirrored the colour of the rainy sky,
And whose look would have made alms rain down on him,
Were it not for the mischief in his eyes,
Appeared before me. His eyes must’ve been dipped
In gall; his look sharpened the icy weather,
And his beard with its long trailing hairs, stiff as a sword,
Stuck out like that of Judas.
He wasn’t just stooped, but bent double, his spine
Made a perfect right angle with his legs, so that his stick,
Adding the finishing touch to his appearance,
Gave him the bearing and the clumsy gait
Of a crippled quadruped or a three-legged Jew.
He stumbled awkwardly through the mud and the slush,
As if he were crushing the dead beneath his worn-out boots,
Not just indifferent but hostile towards the universe.
His double folllowed him; beard, eye, back, stick, rags –
No distinguishing feature marked his centenarian twin,
Issuing from the same hell, and these outlandish spectres
Walked with the same pace towards some unknown goal.
What vile conspiracy had I been drawn into,
Or what strange coincidence was mocking me?
For I counted seven times, as the minutes passed,
This same sinister spectre, multiplying himself!
Some might laugh at my unease,
Some might not be seized at once by a shudder of sympathy,
But take my word for it, despite their decrepitude,
These seven hideous monsters had the air of eternity!
Could I, without dying, have set eyes on the eighth,
Inexorable double, ironic and inescapable,
Disgusting Phoenix, son and father of himself?
– But I turned my back on this infernal cortège.
Exasperated, like a drunk man who sees double,
I went home, I bolted my door, terrified,
Ill, and chilled to the bone, my spirit feverish and troubled,
Blessed by the mystery and the absurdity!
In vain my reason sought to take the helm;
The tempest mocked it and sabotaged its efforts,
And my soul tossed, tossed, an old barge,
Without masts, on a monstrous shoreless sea!
The Little Old Women
for Victor Hugo
I
In the sinuous folds of old cities,
Where everything, even horror, becomes enchanting,
Driven by my fatal inclinations, I search out
Strange creatures, decrepit and delightful.
These disjointed monsters were once women,
Like fair Laïs or proud Eponine who bossed the Romans!
Broken, hunchbacked, twisted, they are still souls –
Beneath torn petticoats and damp clothes
They crawl, whipped by vicious North winds,
Shudddering at the loud clatter of the omnibus,
And clutching at their sides, like relics,
A little purse embroidered with flowers or initials;
They trot along, just like marionettes;
Drag their limbs, like wounded animals,
Or dance, without any wish to dance – poor bells
On whose bell rope a pitiless demon swings! Broken
As they are, their eyes are as piercing as a gimlet,
Shimmering like potholes where water rests for the night;
They have the divine eyes of little girls,
Full of wonder, that laugh at anything that glitters.
– Have you ever noticed that old women’s coffins
Are almost as tiny as a child’s?
Death in its wisdom shows us in these matching biers
A strange but captivating symbol,
And when I catch sight of some frail ghost
Making its way across Paris’s swarming tableau
I always think this fragile creature
Is quietly making its way towards a new cradle;
Unless, thinking along geometrical lines,
I start to wonder, examining these jumbled limbs,
How many times the carpenter must have to change
The dimensions of the box where all these bodies end up.
– Those eyes are wells made of a million tears,
Crucibles spangled with metal now cold…
Those mysterious eyes have irresistible charms
For one who has been suckled by stern Misfortune!
II
The Vestal Virgin in love with boarded-up gaming houses;
The Priestess of Thalia, whose real name only the
Long-dead prompter knows; the faded celebrity
That the Tivoli gardens gave shade to in her springtime,
They all intoxicate me, but among these frail beings
There are some who, turning sorrow into sweetest honey,
Have whispered to Devotion, who lent them wings:
Mighty Hippogriff, carry me off to Heaven!
One schooled by her country for suffering,
Another overburdened with sorrows by a cruel husband,
Another a Madonna pierced through the heart by her own child,
All could have made a river with their tears!
III
Ah! I’ve followed so many of these little old women!
One, among others, at the hour when the setting sun
Bloodies the sky with rosy wounds,
Would sit to one side, pensively, on a bench,
To listen to one of those brass band concerts
With which soldiers sometimes flood our parks,
And which, on those revivifying and golden evenings,
Fill the passer-by with thoughts of heroism.
The woman, bolt upright, conscious of decorum,
Was eagerly devouring that brisk warlike melody;
Her eye opened now and then like the eye of an old eagle;
Her marble brow seemed made for a laurel wreath!
IV
So you wander, stoic and uncomplaining,
Through the chaos of the vast living city,
Mothers of bleeding hearts, courtesans or saints,
Whose names in past times were on everyone’s lips.
You glorious ones, you who were grace itself,
Nobody recognises you! As you walk by a filthy
Drunk asks if you want to touch him up;
At your heels mocking children cut a caper.
Shrivelled shadows, ashamed to be alive,
Terrified, backs bent, you hug the walls;
And no one greets you, strange destinies!
Debris of humanity, ripe for the muck heap!
But me, the one tenderly watching you from afar,
Eye twitching, locked on your stumbling footsteps,
As if I was your father, what strangeness is this?
I glut myself on secret pleasures without your knowing;
I see your first passions unfold;
Dark or flooded with light, I relive your lost days;
My heart, multiplied, exults in all your vices!
My soul shines with all your virtues!
Ruins! My family! O like minds!
Every evening I bid you a solemn farewell!
Where will you be tomorrow, octogenarian Eves,
Crouched under God’s terrible claw?
Philip Terry was born in Belfast, and is a poet and translator. The Penguin Book of Oulipo, which he edited, was published in Penguin Modern Classics in 2020, and Carcanet published his version of Dante’s Purgatorio, relocated to Mersea Island in Essex, in October 2024. His translations of Baudelaire are forthcoming from Pushkin Press.
Copyright © 2026 by Philip Terry, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
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