Vous pouvez mépriser les yeux les plus célèbres, 
Beaux yeux de mon enfant, par où filtre et s'enfuit 
Je ne sais quoi de bon, de doux comme la Nuit ! 
Beaux yeux, versez sur moi vos charmantes ténèbres ! 

Grands yeux de mon enfant, arcanes adorés, 
Vous ressemblez beaucoup à ces grottes magiques 
Où, derrière l'amas des ombres léthargiques, 
Scintillent vaguement des trésors ignorés ! 

Mon enfant a des yeux obscurs, profonds et vastes, 
Comme toi, Nuit immense, éclairés comme toi ! 
Leurs feux sont ces pensers d'Amour, mêlés de Foi, 
Qui pétillent au fond, voluptueux ou chastes.

Confirmed with Charles Baudelaire, Les Épaves, Amsterdam: À l'enseigne du Coq, 1866, in Galanteries, pages 67-68. 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 230.

First published by À l'enseigne du Coq in Les Épaves, 1866; also appears under Spleen et Idéal as number 96 in the 1868 edition of Les Fleurs du mal.

Text Authorship:

• by Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867), "Les Yeux de Berthe", appears in Les Épaves, in 2. Galanteries, no. 9, appears in Les Fleurs du mal, in 1. Spleen et Idéal, no. 96, Amsterdam, À l'enseigne du Coq, first published 1866 [author's text checked 2 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 Gustave Charpentier (1860 - 1956), "Les yeux de Berthe", 1895 [ voice and piano ], from Les Fleurs du Mal, no. 1, Paris, Éd. 'Au Ménestrel', Heugel [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Colette Delatour (b. 1936) and by Ruth Matarasso , "Les yeux de Berthe", 1996 [ medium voice and piano ], from Les miroirs profonds, no. 15 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Gaston Doin (1878 - 1962), "Les yeux de Berthe", published 1950 [ high voice and piano ], from Mélodies romantiques, no. 3, Éd. Alphonse Leduc [sung text not yet checked]
• by Tonio Doni , "Les Yeux de Berthe", published 1932 [ voice and piano ], from Cinq mélodies, no. 4, Paris, Éd. Alphonse Leduc [sung text not yet checked]

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

• CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Haasz) , "Bertiny oči"
• ENG English (Cyril Meir Scott) , "Bertha's Eyes", appears in The Flowers of Evil, London, Elkin Mathews, first published 1909
• GER German (Deutsch) (Stefan George) , "Bertas Augen", appears in Die Blumen des Bösen, in Trübsinn und Vergeisterung, first published 1901

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

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 94

The loveliest eyes you can scorn with your wondrous glow:
O! beautiful childish eyes there abounds in your light,
A something unspeakably tender and good as the night:
O! eyes! over me your enchanting darkness let flow.

Large eyes of my child! O Arcana profoundly adored!
Ye resemble so closely those caves in the magical creek;
Where within the deep slumbering shade of some petrified peak,
There shines, undiscovered, the gems of a dazzling hoard.

My child has got eyes so profound and so dark and so vast,
Like thee! oh unending Night, and thy mystical shine:
Their flames are those thoughts that with Love and with Faith combine,
And sparkle deep down in the depths so alluring or chaste.