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
Éternel et muet ainsi que la matière.

Je trône dans l'azur comme un sphinx incompris ;
J'unis un cœur 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,
[Qu'on dirait que j'emprunte]1 aux plus fiers monuments,
Consumeront leurs jours en d'austères études ;

Car j'ai pour fasciner ces dociles amants
De purs miroirs qui font [les étoiles]2 plus belles :
Mes yeux, mes larges yeux aux clartés éternelles !

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal, Paris: Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, 1857, in Spleen et Idéal, pages 46-47. Also confirmed with Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal, Paris: Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, 1861, in Spleen et Idéal, pages 42-43. Also confirmed with Charles Baudelaire, Œuvres complètes de Charles Baudelaire, vol. I : Les Fleurs du mal, Paris: Michel Lévy frères, 1868, in Spleen et Idéal, page 111. Punctuation follows 1857 edition. Note: this was number 17 in the 1857 and 1861 editions of Les Fleurs du mal but number 18 in subsequent editions.

First published April 20, 1857 in Revue française.

The spellings "poète" in line 3 and "poètes" in line 11 is preferred over the historical spellings "poëte" and "poëtes" used in both the 1861 and 1868 editions.

¹ 1861 and 1868 editions: "Que j'ai l'air d'emprunter"
² 1861 and 1868 editions: "toutes choses"

Text Authorship:

• by Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867), "La Beauté", appears in Les Fleurs du mal, in 1. Spleen et Idéal, no. 17, Paris, Revue française, first published 1857 [author's text checked 3 times against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Benjamin C. S. Boyle , "La beauté", op. 24 no. 4, published 2011, first performed 2011 [ vocal duet for tenor and soprano with piano ], from Chansons de Diane, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Vincent Minazzoli (b. 1960), "La beauté", 1989 [ high voice and piano ], from Cinq Poèmes de Baudelaire, no. 5 [sung text not yet checked]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• ENG English (Cyril Meir Scott) , "Beauty", appears in The Flowers of Evil, London, Elkin Mathews, first published 1909

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2015-12-29
Line count: 14
Word count: 117

I am lovely, O mortals, like a dream of stone,
And my bosom, where each one gets bruised in turn,
To inspire the love of a poet is prone,
Like matter eternally silent and stern.

As an unfathomed sphinx, enthroned by the Nile,
My heart a swan's whiteness with granite combines,
And I hate every movement, displacing the lines,
And never I weep and never I smile.

The poets in front of mine attitudes fine
(Which the proudest of monuments seem to implant),
To studies profound all their moments assign,

For I have all these docile swains to enchant—
Two mirrors, which Beauty in all things ignite:
Mine eyes, my large eyes, of eternal Light!