The full text of L'Homme et la mer in the original French with an English rendering, what a man really looks at when he looks at the sea, and why these two end up as brothers at war.
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The four quatrains, laid out as in an old edition: the poet's name in italics, the number XIV the poem bears in Les Fleurs du mal, the title in capitals, and the poem. Printed on thick matte eco-friendly paper.
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Homme libre, toujours tu chériras la mer !La mer est ton miroir ; tu contemples ton âmeDans le déroulement infini de sa lame,Et ton esprit n'est pas un gouffre moins amer.
Tu te plais à plonger au sein de ton image ;Tu l'embrasses des yeux et des bras, et ton cœurSe distrait quelquefois de sa propre rumeurAu bruit de cette plainte indomptable et sauvage.
Vous êtes tous les deux ténébreux et discrets :Homme, nul n'a sondé le fond de tes abîmes ;Ô mer, nul ne connaît tes richesses intimes,Tant vous êtes jaloux de garder vos secrets !
Et cependant voilà des siècles innombrablesQue vous vous combattez sans pitié ni remord,Tellement vous aimez le carnage et la mort,Ô lutteurs éternels, ô frères implacables !
A plain English rendering, offered as a reading aid. The poster keeps the original French.
Free man, you will always cherish the sea! The sea is your mirror; you contemplate your soul in the endless unrolling of its waves, and your mind is no less bitter an abyss.
You delight in plunging into your own image; you embrace it with your eyes and arms, and your heart is sometimes distracted from its own clamor by the sound of that untamable, savage lament.
Both of you are secretive and full of shadow: man, no one has sounded the bottom of your depths; sea, no one knows your innermost riches, so jealously do you guard your secrets!
And yet for countless centuries you have fought each other without pity and without remorse, so much do you love slaughter and death, eternal wrestlers, implacable brothers!
Four quatrains, one face-off. Baudelaire does not describe the sea: he sets it against man and shows that the two resemble each other too closely to bear each other. The sea is first a mirror, then an accomplice, then an adversary.
The poem first appeared in 1852 in the Revue de Paris, under a longer title: L'Homme libre et la Mer, The Free Man and the Sea. Baudelaire shortened the title when he brought it into Les Fleurs du mal, but the adjective stayed in the first line, and that is the word everyone remembers.
The movement is a slow decline. It opens on a declaration of love, "toujours tu chériras la mer," you will always cherish the sea, passes through an embrace, and ends in carnage. What the man loves in the sea is himself, and that is exactly why he fights it. The first line is often read on its own as praise of freedom; the poem as a whole ends on a battlefield.
Four quatrains of alexandrines with enclosed rhymes. The poem advances in stages: the mirror, the embrace, the shared secret, then the war.
"La mer est ton miroir ; tu contemples ton âme"
The first line is a direct address, almost a command. Then comes the image that holds the whole poem together: what the man contemplates in the sea is his own soul. The last line applies the word bitter to the human mind as well: the two abysses are equal.
"Tant vous êtes jaloux de garder vos secrets !"
The man plunges into his image and embraces it with his eyes and arms: the vocabulary is that of love, but the beloved remains a reflection. Then a single phrase unites them, dark and discreet. No one has sounded the one, no one knows the other.
"Ô lutteurs éternels, ô frères implacables !"
The reversal comes all at once with "and yet." For centuries these two have fought without pity. The last line names them for what they are: kinship does not prevent the war, it explains it.
Wherever there is room to dream a little: above a desk, in a house by the sea, in the entryway of someone who travels often. Sixteen alexandrines in four blocks make a page that reads from afar and rewards a closer look.
In 50x70 cm (20x28 in), the first line becomes a horizon. It is also the poem to give a father, a sailor, anyone who spends a long time looking at the water without being able to say what they are searching for.
With Abstract Watercolor, an exclusive studio creation: washes of blue and peach watercolor layered like waves. It is the sea of the poem, the endless unrolling of its waves where the man searches for his soul.
Side by side in 50x70 cm, the text and the watercolor answer each other: the words on one side, the water on the other. The deep blue echoes the abyss, the peach light softens the whole.
In 30x40, 40x50 or 50x70 cm (12x16, 16x20 or 20x28 in).
From Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) by Charles Baudelaire, where it is number XIV in the section Spleen et Idéal. It first appeared in 1852 in the Revue de Paris, under the title L'Homme libre et la Mer.
The sea is man's mirror: both are unfathomable and keep their secrets, and it is that very resemblance that has set them against each other forever.
Because the man who contemplates the sea is contemplating his own soul: the endless unrolling of the waves reflects back his depth, his bitterness and his secrets.
Four quatrains of alexandrines with enclosed rhymes. The first three stanzas draw man and sea together, the fourth sets them against each other as eternal wrestlers.
Baudelaire wrote "Vous êtes tous les deux ténébreux et discrets" in every edition of Les Fleurs du mal. Without "les," the line loses a syllable and is no longer an alexandrine.
Yes: Heure d'été sets it like a page from a book, in 30x40, 40x50 or 50x70 cm (12x16, 16x20 or 20x28 in), on thick matte eco-friendly paper.
Man and the Sea is a short poem that holds an ocean. If it is one of yours, give it a place where you can see it every day. To stay out at sea, read The Albatross, or find the line that sounds like your father in our poetry gift guide for dads.
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