Poésies choisies de André Chénier
XX. Sans Parents, Sans Amis....
Ll. 2. Douvre. Dover is, in French, Douvres, with an s, which has been left out for the requirements of the metre.
L. 3. noir, dark.
L. 12. This periphrastic line is a blemish amidst the precision of the rest. Tapis did very well as a Latinism in the BUCOLICS. It is quite out of place here.
L. 17. sa main faible et lente.... I should take lente here as meaning 'limp' in the same Latin sense in which we found it before. See note to p. 45, XXXI, l. 8.
XX. SANS PARENTS, SANS AMIS....
L. 4. sur ma bouche.... The current phrase is à la bouche, sometimes dans la bouche. Sur is used in sur les lèvres, sur la langue, and in avoir le sourire sur la bouche.
L. 5. noir, dark, melancholy.
XXII. SUR LA MORT D'UN ENFANT.
L. 1. L'innocente victime. A child of Mme Laurent Lecoulteux, who, living at Lucienne, was often visited by André Chénier during his stay at Versailles in 1793, and sung by him under the name of Fanny; only a fragment of the elegy is here given.
L. 6. Adieu, dans la maison d'où l'on ne revient pas. There is here a bold ellipsis: 'Adieu, toi qui es dans la maison....' Maison is Biblical; John xiv. 2. D'où l'on ne revient pas, cf. Job vii, 9.
L. 13. L'axe de l'humble char. For axe see note to p. 65, xi, l. 2. The phrasing now seems very old-fashioned indeed.
L. 22. Où ta mère... She died, in fact, an untimely death, after having lost her children.