Poésies choisies de André Chénier
XIV. Aux Deux Frères Trudaine.
Ll. 21. aveugle d'espérance, blinded by hope.
XIV. AUX DEUX FRÈRES TRUDAINE.
Ll. 7, 8. Autant que l'univers... autant il a.... Autant que... autant... was displaced by autant... autant... only lately. See Haase, § 139, 4°, and Littré. s.v., 4°.
L. 9. sais-je voir. Sais-je is here more expressive than puis-je would be.
Ll. 15, 16. Qu'une bouche... peut cacher un serpent à l'ombre d'un sourire. An incoherent metaphor.
L. 26. vague. Vague, in the sense of Lat. vagus, 'wandering,' seems to have been of rare occurrence in French. There is only one instance of it in Littré: '[Moïse] qui, sage, commanda au vague peuple hébreu.'—RONSARD.
Ll. 37. ce lac enchanté. The Lake of Lucerne or the Vierwaldstättersee (the lake of the four forest cantons).
L. 38. trois pâtres—Stauffacher, Walther Fürst, and Arnold von Melchthal.
L. 39. leurs neveux. Their descendants a sense which the English 'nephew' retained till the end of the seventeenth century.
L. 43. Hasly. A valley in Switzerland, to the S.E. of the canton of Berne, through which the Aar runs.
L. 49. ce trésor indulgent, i.e. which she indulges them with: a Latinism.
L. 52. presser l'herbe. One would vainly look for another instance of the phrase in Littré, whereas the English 'press a couch, a bed,' is very common (cf. bed-presser), which illustrates the difficulty of realizing what is novel and invented in a foreign writer.