My friend Trudy recommended this poem.
The poem
Il faut être toujours ivre. Tout est là : c’est l’unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l’horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.
Mais de quoi ? De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous.
Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d’un palais, sur l’herbe verte d’un fossé, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous réveillez, l’ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l’étoile, à l’oiseau, à l’horloge, à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est ; et le vent, la vague, l’étoile, l’oiseau, l’horloge, vous répondront : « Il est l’heure de s’enivrer ! Pour n’être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps, enivrez-vous ; enivrez-vous sans cesse ! De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise. »
The naive translation I started with
Get Drunk
One must always be drunk. Everything is there: it is the only question. In order not to feel the horrible burden of Time that breaks your shoulders and bends you toward the earth, you must get drunk without respite.
But on what? On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you please. But get drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the bleak solitude of your room, you wake up, the drunkenness already lessened or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that flees, everything that groans, everything that rolls, everything that sings, everything that speaks, ask what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer you: “It is the hour to get drunk! In order not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk without ceasing! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you please.”
Before I read a good translation
This hit me immediately. Even in the naive version, I could relive those moments when—to use the cliché—I got to drink deep from the fountain of life.
Programmers call it being in the flow. I know it as those moments when paint and poetry came easily, dance moves came from inside me and songs moved me. You end up craving it and looking for the next “hit.” I love building things, and that’s how I get my rush.
So Baudelaire comparing it to being drunk makes sense to me. It isn’t the feeling of losing control. It’s the feeling of giving in to a higher control, and then being surprised and overjoyed by what you end up channeling.
Hearing it
I listened to Michel Garçon read the poem in French. I don’t speak French, but I could hear the repetition in a way that the naive version had flattened out. It felt almost trance-like. I could feel myself slipping into the drunken flow Baudelaire was talking about.
Listening to it, I felt calmer in my mind and more exhilarated by what is possible.
Two translations
Trudy’s was the first translation I read:
Get Drunk
One must be drunk always. That is the essential: it is the only question. So as not to feel the horrible burden of Time that shatters your shoulders and bends you to the ground, you must get drunk without respite.
But on what? On wine, on poetry or on virtue, as you choose. But get drunk.
And if, sometimes, on the steps of a palace, in the green grass of a ditch, in the drab solitude of your bedroom, you awake, drunkenness having already dissipated or disappeared, ask the wind, the waves, the stars, the birds, the clocks; ask all that groans, all that reels, all that sings, all that speaks; ask what time it is. And the wind, waves, stars, birds and clocks will answer you: “It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk without respite! On wine, poetry or virtue, as you choose.”
Then I read Arthur Symons’s version:
Be Drunken
Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually.
Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken.
And if sometimes, on the stairs of a palace, or on the green side of a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you, ask of the wind, or of the wave, or of the star, or of the bird, or of the clock, of whatever flies, or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks, ask what hour it is; and the wind, wave, star, bird, clock, will answer you: “It is the hour to be drunken! Be drunken, if you would not be martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will.”
After reading the translations
I love both, and they are surprisingly close. But I kept coming back to Trudy’s “shatters your shoulders.” It captures what it feels like when the high of being in flow disappears and I am left wanting it back.
What I learned
One thing I hadn’t known: “Enivrez-vous” is a prose poem. It first appeared in Le Figaro in 1864, then was collected after Baudelaire’s death in Petits Poëmes en prose in 1869.
Baudelaire wanted prose that could still be musical without conventional meter or rhyme. Once I had heard the French, I understood that better. The commands keep returning, and the wind, wave, star, bird and clock answer like a chorus.
There is a darker piece of context too. Four years before the poem appeared, Baudelaire published Les Paradis artificiels, about hashish and opium. He was drawn to the escape they offered, but wary of a shortcut that could weaken the will. That opens a darker reading of “stay drunk”: it could be desperate as well as liberating. That isn’t where I ended up.
Time has a capital T. In “L’Horloge,” an earlier poem, every second tells us to remember and Time always wins. Here, even the clock tells us to get drunk.
Rereading it
None of that changed my reading very much. I still hear drunkenness as the rush of creative flow even if I can sense how easily one can be seduced by the feeling. More than anything, the poem makes me want to go outside—to meet more people and make more of my life.
The line or image I kept thinking about
I keep repeating the last line to myself. In English, Trudy’s version is the one that stays with me:
Get drunk; get drunk without respite! On wine, poetry or virtue, as you choose.
Sources and versions
Trudy Agar, “Get Drunk” (shared privately)
Arthur Symons, “Be Drunken” (1913 edition)
Publication history: the poem’s 1864 appearance, Baudelaire’s handwritten ordering, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France catalogue
Intoxication: Baudelaire’s conclusion on hashish and E. S. Burt on Baudelaire and intoxicants