Sur les débuts d'Amina Boschetti Au Théâtre de la Monnaie à Bruxelles
Amina bondit, — fuit, — puis voltige et sourit;
Le Welche dit: «Tout ça, pour moi, c'est du prâcrit;
Je ne connais, en fait de nymphes bocagères,
Que celle de Montagne-aux-Herbes-potagères.»
Du bout de son pied fin et de son oeil qui rit,
Amina verse à flots le délire et l'esprit;
Le Welche dit: «Fuyez, délices mensongères!
Mon épouse n'a pas ces allures légères.»
Vous ignorez, sylphide au jarret triomphant,
Qui voulez enseigner la valse à l'éléphant,
Au hibou la gaieté, le rire à la cigogne,
Que sur la grâce en feu le Welche dit: «Haro!»
Et que, le doux Bacchus lui versant du bourgogne,
Le monstre répondrait: «J'aime mieux le faro!»
— Charles Baudelaire
Amina Boschetti
Amina bounds... is startled... whirls and smiles.
The Belgian says, "That's fraud, a pure deceit.
As for your woodland nymphs, I know the wiles
Only of those on Brussels' Market Street."
From shapely foot and lively, laughing eye
Amina spills light elegance and wit.
The Belgian says, "Be gone, ye joys that fly!
My wife's attractions have more merit."
Oh, you forget, nymph of the winsome stance,
That though you'd teach an elephant to dance,
Teach owls new melodies, make dull birds shine,
All glimmering grace brings but a Belgian sneer:
Bacchus himself could pour bright southern wine,
This Boor would say, "Give me thick Brussels beer."
— Kenneth O. Hanson, Flowrs of Evil (NY: New Directions, 1955)
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Two editions of Fleurs du mal were published in Baudelaire's lifetime — one in 1857 and an expanded edition in 1861. "Scraps" and censored poems were collected in Les Épaves in 1866. After Baudelaire died the following year, a "definitive" edition appeared in 1868.