Poésies choisies de André Chénier
XXXIII. Mnaïs.
L. 10. The subject might tempt a sculptor.
XXXIII. MNAÏS.
A translation of the ninety-eighth epitaph of Leonidas of Tarentum, Anal. t. i, p. 246 (note of André Chénier). The abbreviation means: Analecta veterum poetarum, published by Brunck, in three vols.
L. 4. rendez, grant. E. render once had this sense. N.E.D., s.v. 7.
L. 5. Par Cérès. Only women swore by Ceres. Spanheim in Callimachus,p. 655 (note of André Chénier).
L. 6. légère, slight.
L. 10. Me bêler les accents.... Cf. note to p. 41, l. 28.
L. 16. le sein. Sein is said of a woman, mamelle of an animal. The word pis (Lat. pectus, E. dug) would be the proper word here.
L. 17. Et sera.... This inversion following the conjunction et was very frequent in the older language. In the seventeenth century it is to be met with only, and but seldom, in Malherbe and La Fontaine. See Haase, § 153 B. André Chénier is right in reviving old forms of expression when they come in handy. And here it cannot be denied that there is a gain in solemnity. Cf. note to p. 64, IX, l. 17.
XXXIV. LES JARDINS.
L. 1. Secrets observateurs. Prying into the secrets of nature.
L. 7. les plaintives dryades. Is this mere poetic diction, as when Byron writes: 'the palm, the loftiest dryad of the woods,' Island, II, xi. 17. Though the garden described is one seen by a Frenchman of the eighteenth century, yet it is viewed with the eyes of a Greek pantheist.