Les Hiboux (The Owls) by Charles Baudelaire

It's French Week at The Epicurean Vagabonds!

Welcome to French week at The Epicurean Vagabonds! Right now we are in Paris, and for our upcoming Mid-Week Libation (Wednesday) and Aesthetic Arrest Podcast (Friday) we decided to focus on all things French. But first, let’s commence with an audio reading (in both French and English) by Ryan Wildstar of a poem by one of our favorite French poets: Charles Baudelaire!

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Père Lachaise Cemetery - Division 30 - Grave of Adt-Plichon (Paris, France) [Pierre-Yves Beaudouin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons]

From The Flowers of Evil

Owls
by Charles Baudelaire
(translated by Cyril Scott)

Beneath the shades of sombre yews,
The silent owls sit ranged in rows,
Like ancient idols, strangely pose,
And darting fiery eyes, they muse.

Immovable, they sit and gaze,
Until the melancholy hour,
At which the darknesses devour
The faded sunset's slanting rays.

Their attitude, instructs the wise,
That he — within this world — who flies
From tumult and from merriment;

The man allured by a passing face,
For ever bears the chastisement
Of having wished to change his place.

Relief of Grand-Duc Owl on a building built by Viollet-le-Duc at 68 rue Condorcet (Paris, France) [Tangopaso, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]

From Les Fleurs du mal

Les Hiboux
by Charles Baudelaire

Sous les ifs noirs qui les abritent
Les hiboux se tiennent rangés
Ainsi que des dieux étrangers
Dardant leur oeil rouge. Ils méditent.

Sans remuer ils se tiendront
Jusqu'à l'heure mélancolique
Où, poussant le soleil oblique,

Les ténèbres s'établiront.
Leur attitude au sage enseigne
Qu'il faut en ce monde qu'il craigne
Le tumulte et le mouvement;

L'homme ivre d'une ombre qui passe
Porte toujours le châtiment
D'avoir voulu changer de place.

Ecole d'application Chanteclair-Debussy at 29-31 boulevard Paixhans (Metz, France) [Mossot, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons]