Analysis of The Litanies Of Satan
Charles Baudelaire 1821 (Paris) – 1867 (Paris)
O you, the most knowing, and loveliest of Angels,
a god fate betrayed, deprived of praises,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
O, Prince of exile to whom wrong has been done,
who, vanquished, always recovers more strongly,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who know everything, king of the underworld,
the familiar healer of human distress,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who teach even lepers, accursed pariahs,
through love itself the taste for Paradise,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
O you who on Death, your ancient true lover,
engendered Hope – that lunatic charmer!
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who grant the condemned that calm, proud look
that damns a whole people crowding the scaffold,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who know in what corners of envious countries
a jealous God hid those stones that are precious,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You whose clear eye knows the deep caches
where, buried, the race of metals slumbers,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You whose huge hands hide the precipice,
from the sleepwalker on the sky-scraper’s cliff,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who make magically supple the bones
of the drunkard, out late, who’s trampled by horses,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who taught us to mix saltpetre with sulphur
to console the frail human being who suffers,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who set your mark, o subtle accomplice,
on the forehead of Croesus, the vile and pitiless,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who set in the hearts and eyes of young girls
the cult of the wound, adoration of rags,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
The exile’s staff, the light of invention,
confessor to those to be hanged, to conspirators,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
Father, adopting those whom God the Father
drove in dark anger from the earthly paradise,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
Scheme | abCdcCefCbgChhCijCklCmaClnCobChpCllCqrCdpChgC |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011001110 0110101110 110110111100 1111111111 1101010110 110110111100 1111011010 00101011001 110110111100 11110101010 110101110 110110111100 11111110110 010111010 110110111100 1110011111 11011010010 110110111100 1110110110010 01011111110 110110111100 111110110 110011101 110110111100 111110100 1010101101 110110111100 11110001001 101011110110 110110111100 1111111110 110011010110 110110111100 11111110010 101011010100 110110111100 11100101111 0110101011 110110111100 011011010 11111110100 110110111100 10010111010 10110101010 110110111100 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,923 |
Words | 360 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 45 |
Lines Amount | 45 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,516 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 358 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 30, 2023
- 1:48 min read
- 317 Views
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