Dear indolent, I love to see,
in your body bright,
How like shimmering silk the skin
Reflects the light!
[…]
When you walk in rhythm, lovely
With abandonment,
You seem to be swayed by a wand,
A dancing serpent.Que j’aime voir, chère indolente,
De ton corps si beau,
Comme une étoffe vacillante,
Miroiter la peau!
[…]
À te voir marcher en cadence,
Belle d’abandon,
On dirait un serpent qui danse
Au bout d’un bâton.Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) French poet, essayist, art critic
Les Fleurs du Mal [The Flowers of Evil], Part 1, #29 “Le Serpent qui danse [The Dancing Serpent],” st. 1, 5 (1857) [tr. Gibbs (1947)]
(Source)
These phrases use very similar imagery to the previous poem in the collection. (Source (French)). Alternate translations:
I love to watch, while you are lazing,
Your skin. It iridesces
Like silk or satin, smoothly-glazing
The light that it caresses.
[...]
To see you rhythmically advancing
Seems to my fancy fond
As if it were a serpent dancing
Waved by the charmer’s wand.
[tr. Campbell (1952), #28 "The Snake That Dances"]
Indolent darling, how I love
To see the skin
Of your body so beautiful
Shimmer like silk!
[...]
To see you walking in cadence
With fine abandon,
One would say a snake which dances
On the end of a staff.
[tr. Aggeler (1954) "The Dancing Serpent"]
Indolent love, with what delight
I watch the tawny flesh
Of your sweet body shimmer bright
As a bright silken mesh.
[...]
Your sinuous cadenced walk enhancing
Your slim proud gait, a frond
Swaying, you are, or a snake dancing
Atop a fakir's wand.
[tr. LeClercq (1958) "Dancing Serpent"]
How I love to watch, dear indolent creature,
The skin of your so
Beautiful body glisten, like some
Quivering material!
[...]
Seeing your harmonious walk,
Abandoned beauty,
One would say a snake was dancing
At the end of a stick.
[tr. Wagner (1974) "The Dancing Serpent"]
Dear indolent! I love to see
with every move you make
the iridescence of your skin
gleam like watered silk.
[...]
And when you walk to cadences
of sinuous nonchalance,
it looks as if a serpent danced
in rhythm to a wand.
[tr. Howard (1982) "As If A Serpent Danced"]
How I adore, dear indolent,
Your lovely body, when
Like silken cloth it shimmers --
Your sleek and glimmering skin!
[...]
Viewing the rhythm of your walk,
Beautifully dissolute,
One seems to see a serpent dance
Before a wand and flute.
[tr. McGowan (1993), "The Dancing Serpent"]
How love to look, dear indolent one, at your beautiful body and see, like a shot silk, the changing gleam of your skin! [...]
Seeing your rhythmic walk, beautiful in its abandon, one thinks of a serpent dancing at the head of a stick.
[tr. Clark (1995), #18 "The Dancing Serpent"]
How I love, dear lazybones, to see how the skin of your beautiful body sparkles like cloth billowing [...]
To see you walk in cadence, fair unconstrained, brings to mind a serpent dancing at the prodding of a stick.
[tr. Waldrop (2006), "Dancing Serpent"]
Quotations about:
snake
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
With waving opalescence in her gown,
Even when she walks along, you think she’s dancing.
Like those long snakes which charmers, while entrancing,
Wave with their wands, in cadence, up and down.[Avec ses vêtements ondoyants et nacrés,
Même quand elle marche on croirait qu’elle danse,
Comme ces longs serpents que les jongleurs sacrés
Au bout de leurs bâtons agitent en cadence.]Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) French poet, essayist, art critic
Les Fleurs du Mal [The Flowers of Evil], Part 1, #28 “Avec ses vêtements ondoyants et nacrés,” st. 1 (1857) [tr. Campbell (1952)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
Robed in a silken robe that shines and shakes,
She seems to dance whenever she treads the sod,
Like the long serpent that a fakir makes
Dance to the waving cadence of a rod.
[tr. Sturm (1905)]
With pearly robes that wave within the wind,
Even when she walks, she seems to dance,
Like swaying serpents round those wands entwined
Which fakirs wave in rhythmic elegance.
[tr. Scott (1909)]
with all her undulant pearly draperies,
she moves in measures lovelier than a dance,
as in the fakirs' Indian sorceries
tall cobras 'neath a moving rod advance
[tr. Shanks (1931)]
With her pearly, undulating dresses,
Even when she's walking, she seems to be dancing
Like those long snakes which the holy fakirs
Set swaying in cadence on the end of their staffs.
[tr. Aggeler (1954)]
With her dresses undulating, pearly,
Even walking one would think her dancing,
Like those long serpents which holy charmers
Move in harmony at the tips of their batons.
[tr. Wagner (1974)]
Even when she walks she seems to dance!
Her garments writhe and glisten like long snakes
obedient to the rhythm of the wands
by which a fakir wakens them to grace.
[tr. Howard (1982)]
With her undulating, iridescent clothes, even when she walks you would think she is dancing, like those long snakes that sacred jugglers shake rhythmically on the ends of their sticks.
[tr. Clark (1995), #17]
She doesn’t walk; she rather dances through salons
Within her buoyant gowns of glittering, silver nacre,
Curling like the snake of a turbaned Hindu fakir,
Unrolled from in between his undulant batons.
[tr. Eriksson]
Even when she walks one would believe that she dances.
[Common rendering]