Poésies choisies de André Chénier
IX. Pannychis.
Certe, aux antres d'Amnise, assez votre Lucine Donnait de beaux neveux aux mères de Gortyne; Certes, vous élevez, aux gymnases crétois, D'autres jeunes troupeaux plus dignes de ton choix.
L. 6. son antique pâture. Antique here means 'former' as in: 'Dieu de Sion, rappelle, Rappelle en sa faveur tes antiques bontés,'—Racine, Athalie, III. vii. The same use of antique occurs in Chénier's prose.
Ll. 11. Si peut-être... Virgil's 'Si qua forte ferant oculis sese obvia nostris Errabunda bovis vestigia' (Ecl. vi. 57)—i.e., that we may see whether scattered traces will not meet our eyes.
Ll. 13-22. Ovid, De Arte Am. i. 313 ff.
L. 15. superbe amant. Virgil's 'superbos amantes,' Georg. iii. 217, 218.
L. 21. à la flamme lustrale. By the lustral or purificatory flame.
IX. PANNYCHIS.
This idyll is imitated from Gessner's Clymene and Damon (or Daphne and Micon in some editions): 'Tell me, love, what wilt thou do with this little altar?... Dost thou not remember that in the days of our childhood it was our favourite resort? Then were we no taller than this young columbine. About the altar will I plant myrtle and rose bushes. If Pan protect them, their branches will soon overarch the altar and form a small temple of verdure.... Dost thou see these bushes? they still grow in the shape of an arbour, though untrimmed now; they were our bower. We built the vault as high as we could reach.... Had I not planted a little garden before the bower? Had we not hedged it in with rush? A sheep might have browsed off the hedge in a moment, it was so large.... Thou wast lucky to find a small mutilated image of Cupid. As a fond mother, thou wouldst lavish care and caresses on him; a nutshell was his cradle, where, lulled by thy songs, he would lie on rose leaves.' A cicada is also mentioned, which gets hurt in flying away. Then Damon: 'Thus passed the days of our childhood, when in our games thou wast my wife and I was thy husband.'