Epigraph for a Condemned Book, Poem by Charles Baudelaire

Peaceful and bucolic reader,
Sober and naive man of good,
Throw away this saturnian book,
Orgiastic and melancholic.

If you have not done your rhetoric
With Satan, the cunning dean,
Throw it away! you would understand nothing,
Or you would think me hysterical.

But if, without letting itself be charmed,
Your eye can plunge into the abysses,
Read me, to learn to love me;

Curious soul who suffers
And goes seeking your paradise,
Pity me!… otherwise, I curse you!

Charles Baudelaire

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-epigraph-for-a-condemned-book-charles-baudelaire/