Get Drunk!
Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
Get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:
"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"
Commentary
A wonderful celebration of the fact of being alive, shot through with excitement and exhilaration and sheer unbridled joy: it is good to get off the wagon and get drunk, all right - especially if you drink of life the way Baudelaire does. I used to think that Keats’ “the blushful Hippocrene” in Skylark was the epitome of getting drunk poetically, but this is even better
- it’s not merely a longing for joy (as Keats’ poem was) but a gorgeous expression thereof…
— Suresh
PS. Credits to Deepa Balakrishnan for suggesting this poem to me.
Thomas adds
I wasn’t able to find a completely satisfying translation of this poem on the Web; this version is the best of a distinctly average lot. Here’s the original, for the French-speakers among you:
‘Enivrez-Vous’
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."
– Charles Baudelaire
Another translation, with an interesting visual, is available at http://www-as.phy.ohiou.edu/~rouzie/fall153/final_projects/final_project/absolut.html
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Suresh Ramasubramanian · 5 June 2003
Yes, Salon has written about me - though “famed” is not the word I’d use to describe myself :) And I got that translation out of google somewhere.
This was two years ago, so I don’t really remember any more details.
srs
Jeremy Adams · 16 February 2004
The translation at
[broken link] http://www-as.phy.ohiou.edu/~rouzie/fall153/final_projects/final_project/absolut.html was done by Geoffrey Grigson. It can be found in the book Unrespectable_Verse, edited by Grigson.
Steve Dutky · 19 May 2005
I have always liked this version quoted in Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”:
“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, or 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.’”
Steve Dutky