See Webster, The White Devil (note 44) 5.4.96-105. This is Cornelia’s song as she lay flowers around a corpse, giving the impression that she has lost her mind:
“Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole
The ant, the fieldmouse, and the mole,
To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm
And, when gay tombs are robb'd, sustain no harm;
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.”
Compare this to Ophelia’s final actions in Shakespeare*, Hamlet 4.7.166-169:
“Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.”
See note 172. The “long purples” in her garland are hyacinths; see notes 36 and 71.
76. HYPOCRITE LECTEUR: Eliot*: “V. Baudelaire, Preface to Fleurs du Mal.” See Baudelaire, Flowers of Evil (note 60): Au Lecteur (To the Reader; tr. J. Vold) (full translation at the end of this section):
“See Boredom’s eye hold back a wanton tear
Welled up from gallows dreams and hookah smoke.
You’ve met him, reader, the consummated monster:
You! Hypocrite lecteur! My twin! My brother!”
See also Eliot, The Lesson of Baudelaire (1921):
“All first-rate poetry is occupied with morality: This is the lesson of Baudelaire. ...English poetry, all the while, either evaded the responsibility, or assumed it with too little seriousness. ...On the other hand, the poets ...who know a little French, are mostly such as could imagine the Last Judgement only as a lavish display of Bengal lights, Roman candles, catherine-wheels and inflammable fire-balloons. Vous, hypocrite lecteur!”
For other takes on the hypocrite reader, see the fortune teller at note 55, and recall the editor’s role at note 69. See also “you” as reader, at note 311.5.
LITERARY CRITICISM, a la Eliot as lecteur, is also discussed at notes 130, 165, 172.5, 331, 403, 417 and 419.
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* see note 0.1
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AU LECTEUR, by Charles Baudelaire
To the Reader
(Translated by J. Vold)
Stupidity, error, sin and stinginess
Busy our minds and grind our bodies down,
And we, like beggars nourishing their lice,
Keep our remorse in comfort and well-fed.
Our sins are stubborn, our confessions weak
And for admissions we demand a price;
Then, with a smile, we’re on our muddy way
Believing that cheap tears will make us clean.
We rest our heads upon an evil pillow
With Satan Trismegiste at the cradle,
And in the vapor of his chemistry
We lose the noble metal of our will,
And with the Devil as our babysitter
Charming us with his repulsive toys,
Each day we’re lured another step away
From fear, into the dark and stench of hell.
And like the poor bum who would kiss and nibble
The battered nipple of an ancient whore
We steal the secret pleasures of our passing
And squeeze the last drop from each shriveled orange.
Tightened, swarming, like a million tapeworms
Within us are the Demons who throw parties,
Dropping the breath of death into our lungs
Like an unseen river and a mute complaint.
If the artistry of rape, drugs, knives and fire
Has not yet stitched sweet lines into our souls,
Have pity on our empty canvases
And sorry fates: we are too cowardly,
And yet among the jackals, panthers, apes,
The bitches, scorpions, vultures, serpents, beasts,
Of all the vile menagerie of our vices
That bark, howl, grunt and crawl upon the ground,
There’s one more ugly, wicked and unclean
Who without dramatic gestures or great cries
Would easily turn our planet into trash
And swallow up the world with just a yawn:
See Boredom’s eye hold back a wanton tear
Welled up from gallows dreams and hookah smoke.
You’ve met him, reader, a consummated monster:
You! Hypocrite lecteur! My twin! My brother!
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