Chapitre 274

L. 183. à soulever les mers. à=pour. See note to p. 3, l. 88.

Ll. 185, 186. Il. xviii. 35-70.

L. 189. Ulysses’ descent to Hades, Od. xi.

L. 190. les champs d’asphodèle. Od. xi, 539.

Ll. 191-194. Od. xi. 36. Aeneid, vi. 305. l. 192, and Dryden’s translation of the corresponding line of Virgil may be compared: ‘And youths entombed before their father’s eyes.’

Ll. 197-200. Od. viii. 274. Ovid, Metam. iv. 175. Inconnus, here, for invisibles. The stricture of the first critic of A. Chénier, Népomucène Lemercier, that the poet ‘dénature le sens des mots,’ if generally unjust, may apply to this instance.

L. 201. il revêtait d’une pierre soudaine is very happily said for il revêtait soudainement de pierre.

L. 202. Il. xxiv. 602.

L. 203. Accents de douleurs would, in prose, be accents de douleur, without the s, which is here put that, as douleurs rhymes with pleurs, the eye may be satisfied.

L. 204. Od. xix. 518; Virgil, Ecl. vi. 78.

L. 208. Od. iv. 220.

L. 209. Od. x. 304.

Ll. 210-212. Od. ix. 94. See Tennyson’s Lotos Eaters.

L. 211. à ce philtre charmés, an instance of à denoting a relation of cause—‘Qui demeure surprise à l’éclat de ces lieux,’ Molière, Psyché, III. i. 988. See Haase, § 123.

L. 212. Od. ix. 54.

L. 214. Od. xxi. 295; Il. i. 266, ii. 742; Ovid, Met. xii. 210. Chénier follows Ovid.

L. 217. enfants de la nue. The Centaurs were descended from Ixion and Nephele, the cloud.

L. 221. mon affront, i.e. the affront offered me. This is a frequent use. Thus Racine makes Athalie say: ‘que je ne cherche point à venger mes injures,’ i.e. the wrongs suffered by me.

L. 224. Ovid, Met. xii. 247.

L. 226. Aen. x. 730; Od. xviii. 99.

Ll. 241-252. E. Faguet in his Chénier quotes this passage as an instance of energetic precision. ‘The problem, he writes, is to depict this: A centaur (bear in mind that a centaur is a creature half-beast, half-man, with the body of a horse, the bust and head of a man, four feet, two arms, all this you must bear in mind), a centaur, with his two fore-feet, is trying to bear down a man, while, with his right arm, armed with a club, he seeks to brain another man. A third man leaps on to the back of the centaur, whence, pulling back his enemy’s head with one hand, he thrusts a burning brand down his throat. The problem is to put all this in clear, precise, energetic, picturesque lines, and in few lines too. Chénier has succeeded in putting it in twelve times twelve syllables, with the result that, as it is, it stands in sharp outline as in a piece of sculpture.’

L. 246. D’un érable noueux, a club of maple. Dryden, Aen. ‘[Hercules] tossed about his head his knotted oak.’

L. 250. chevelure horrible, in the Latin sense of ‘horrid, bristling.’

Ll. 254-256. Et le bois porte au loin des hurlements… l’ongle frappant…. Of course, what the wood conveys far away are such sounds as the trample of hoofs, the cries of the wounded warriors, the crash of the broken vessels, &c.

L. 255. l’ongle, Lat. ungula, stands for le sabot. Cf. Aen. viii. 596 ‘quatit ungula campum.’

Ll. 260, 261. Admiraient… abonder les paroles. This use of admirer followed by a pure infinitive, though, so far as we know, unprecedented, has nothing shocking in it and tends to make the line more concise. The construction is on the analogy of that which is customary with such verbs as voir, entendre, and ‘admiraient abonder’ is here said for ‘voyaient avec admiration abonder.’ Everything here is striking in the matter of language. Admirer is somewhat archaic and means ‘to wonder.’ ‘Abonder de sa bouche’ is anything but a hackneyed phrase. The etymological meaning of abonder, Lat. abundare, to overflow, was surely in the mind of Chénier when he wrote this. Such novelties as these make his style exquisite. Some pains should be taken to make something pass into English of the felicitous phrasing. Shall we presume to submit this suggestion; ‘they admired the divine words, how they flowed from his lips’?

L. 262. Comme en hiver la neige… Il. iii. 221, ‘And words that flew about our ears, like drifts of winter’s snow.’—CHAPMAN.

Ll. 263-265. Cf. Homer, Hymn to Apollo, 514.

L. 268. Convive du nectar (table-companion of the gods—Horace’s ‘Conviva Deorom,’ Od. i. 28—at their nectar) is a novel collocation of words, and, though of difficult analysis, grammatically speaking, is perfectly satisfactory as being easily understood, ‘Partaker of nectar’ would be an easy English rendering.

L. 269. prospère renders the laetus of Virgil, Aen. i. 732. The English equivalent might be ‘blest.’ Chénier liked the word, as appears from his Commentary on Malherbe.

L. 270. Homère. The name of the blind bard, which, ever since the first lines of the poem, has been a mystery for no reader, has been kept for the last word of the poem.

 

II. LE MENDIANT.

In this piece, illustrative of the rites of hospitality in ancient Greece, Chénier has drawn much of his inspiration from the arrival of Ulysses in Phaeacia; as it is described in the sixth book of the Odyssey. The reader will also notice, from the gaps in the text and unfinished lines, that the poem had not reached the stage of completion. Chénier, who himself published none but two of his poems, was prevented by death from giving the finishing touch to this and many other pieces.

L. 8. Od. 127, 137; Aen. iii. 590.

L. 15. Aspect, in the sense of ‘apparition, ghost,’ is a Latinism. Yet it is quite an allowable concretisation of the word, as in French and English ‘apparition, vision,’ in English ‘sight’ and in English ‘aspect’ itself, which we find used with the meaning of ‘a thing seen’ in the N.E.D.

L. 21. Od. vi. 150.

Ll. 23, 24. les voeux des… humains Ouvrent des immortels les bienfaisantes mains. If the maid is a goddess indeed, the beggar entertains some hopes of her mercy, for, says he, ‘oftentimes have the prayers of the unfortunate opened the bountiful hands of the immortals—obtained of those hands that they should “open their bounty” (Henry VIII, iii. 2. 184) to them.’

Ll. 25, 26. quelque front… qui te nomme, one of those incoherent metaphors which our (in this respect) delicate taste demurs at, but which the old writers—Shakespeare being among the greatest sinners—indulged in freely.

These two lines display imperfect rimes, the o in couronne being short, whilst the o in trône is long.

L. 34. Tremblante. The ‘rejet’ helps the meaning. The reader’s voice, arrested by the unavoidable pause at the end of the preceding line, is forced into imitating the hesitation that he is told was discernible in the maid’s utterance. But perhaps this is more perceptible to a Frenchman used to more rigidity in the rimed versification of his great classics than to an Englishman with the freedom of blank verse in his ear.

L. 35. quand la nuit descend, the present for the future. See Haase, § 67, Remark I; Ayer, p. 466.

L. 42. il pleure aux pleurs… This is neatly said. Notice the use of the preposition à expressing a relation of cause, as in ‘A l’orgueil de ce traître, De mes ressentiments je n’ai pas été maître’ (Molière, Tartufe, v. 3. 1709). See Haase, § 123. Cf. p. 7, l. 211.

Ll. 51, 52. au devoir… Rangent… Ranger à = soumettre à, réduire à.

L. 54. ses mains sur ce visage. This was one of the rites observed by suppliants. See Euripides, Hecuba, 344.

L. 55. Indulgente. Becq de Fouquières remarks that the adjective is used in its Latin sense of complaisant. This is the English meaning: ‘disposed to gratify by compliance with desire or humour,’ whilst the French meaning is restricted to that of being ‘ready to overlook or forgive faults or failings.’

L. 58. sur l’autre bord. Across the bridge.

L. 62. n’insulte à sa misère. Insulter à, still in use by the side of transitive insulter, is the equivalent of obsolete English ‘insult over, on, at.’

L. 66. mon élève, not my ‘pupil,’ but my ‘foster-child.’ A farmer or a nurseryman speaking of the cattle he breeds or the plants he raises will say mes élèves. But the term is here exceptionally applied to a human being.

L. 74. Le toit s’égaye et rit. This line, criticized by Ponsard (_Études antiques_) as non-Homeric, is a translation of Catullus, lxiv. 285 ‘queis permulsa domus iocundo risit odore.’ In fact, the attribution of feelings to inanimate things is as old as poetry itself. Countless instances in all languages might be adduced. For this use of laugh in English see N.E.D., s.v. laugh 1 c., and notice that Pope, in translating the Odyssey, has made Homer say, ‘In the dazzling goblet laughs the wine,’ iii. 601.

L. 75. au loin circule, i.e. forms a long circle.

L. 77. animées, appearing alive, of course, like the ‘animated marble’ of Pope, Temple of Fame, 73.

Ll. 77, 78. Od. vii. 100, ‘Youths forged of gold, at every table there, Stood holding flaming torches.’—CHAPMAN. Cf. Lucretius, ii. 24.

L. 84. lits teints. Aen. i. 708, which Dryden translates ‘The painted couches.’

L. 86. Est admise: exceptionally, for women, as a rule, did not sit at the same table with the men.

L. 89. Et déjà vins, &c. The ellipsis of the verb imparts greater vivacity to the narrative. The unexpected interruption is therefore made more abrupt.

L. 93. s’assied parmi la cendre. Od., vii. 153: ‘[Ulysses] went to the hearth, and in the ashes sat,’ CHAPMAN; ‘as the custom was in those days when any would make a petition to the throne,’ adds Lamb by way of commentary, Adventures of Ulysses, vi.

L. 94. Od. vii, 144, 145. ‘…His view With silence and with admiration strook The court quite through.’—CHAPMAN.

Ll. 97-100. Hesiod, Theog. 84. De l’Olympe envoyé, ibid. 97.

L. 98. Semblent d’un roi. Elliptical for semblent être d’un roi. Être de itself is elliptical for de être celui, ceux. The French idiom has its English equivalent in ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’

L. 100. Od. xiv. 205; Hesiod, Theog. 97.

L. 102. la main hospitalière, with the definite article, not ‘ta main…,’ as has sometimes been printed, nor, as the more current phrase runs, ‘une main.’ The beggar is then made to use, as it were, a technical phrase, to name a well-known rite. In the same way we say ‘the kiss of peace,’ ‘the stirrup-cup.’

L. 104. Od. xvii 347: ‘Bashful behaviour fits no needy man.’—CHAPMAN.

L. 110. Theognis, 649.

Ll. 111, 112. This seems to owe something to an extract from Menander in the Florilegium of Stobaeus, xcvi, which, together with a line of Theognis, quoted under the same heading, has partly inspired the following lines of Chénier, ll. 113, 114.

L. 115. plus que l’enfer, more than the gates of hell, is the phrase, Il. ix. 312; Od. xiv. 156.

L. 116. Le public ennemi, i.e. l’ennemi public. The inversion is awkward, as the collocation of the words is precisely that which would express ‘the hostile public.’

Ll. 122-4. Od. xvii. 485.

L. 123. traînés, of course, goes with haillons.

L. 125. Il. l. 22.

L. 127. et que puissent. The more modern phrase would be puissent tes voeux. Malherbe: ‘que puisses-tu, grand soleil de nos jours, Faire sans fin le même cours.’ See Haase, 73 B.

Ll. 127, 128. Od. xvii. 354.

L. 134. For these details see Od. iv. 290.

L. 139. nourrit un long amour: a very happy phrase, recalling La Fontaine’s ‘quittez le long espoir et les vastes pensées,’ Fables, XL viii. In Shakespeare’s ‘A long farewell to all my greatness.’ Henry VIII, iii. 2. 351, we have a similar use of ‘long’. Such epithets stand in lieu of a whole phrase.

L. 143. Od. vii. 174, 175: ‘And there was spread A table, which the butler set with bread,’—CHAPMAN.

L. 144. Sieds-toi. Se seoir, for instances of which we must go to the seventeenth century, its uses being confined to the present of the indicative, the imperative, and the infinitive, is an archaism. Such archaisms, like que puissent above, give more solemnity to the tone, make the scene recede, as it were, into the past.

L. 150. l’éponge. Od. i. 111: ‘Some… With porous sponges cleansing tables.’—CHAPMAN.

L. 151. S’approche, i.e. ‘is brought by the servants.’ The stranger does not sit at the common table, but, as when Ulysses is entertained by Alcinous, a table is spread for him.

L. 152. le disque: discus, platter for meat, whence O.E. ‘disc,’ E. ‘dish,’ and German Tisch, a table. d’airain; cf. Il. xi. 630: ‘a brass fruit-dish.’—CHAPMAN.

L. 153. l’amphore vineuse. An epithet of nature. Chénier, it will be noticed, used them freely, as the ancients did.

L. 155. leur lendemain… A thought akin to that in Homer, Od. xv. 400: ‘Betwixt his sorrows every humane joys.’—CHAPMAN.

Ll. 156-159. Od. vii. 178: ‘… command That instantly your heralds fill in wine, That to the god that doth in lightnings shine We may do sacrifice: for he is there Where these his reverend suppliants appear.’—CHAPMAN.

L. 158. Pour boire. An unexpected passage from indirect to direct speech, as in Homer, Il. xv. 348. The abrupt break in construction is more telling in French than in English, where it is a more common device.

L. 160. For this rite see Od. iii. 45.

L. 163, 164. Od. vii. 192.

L. 169. De sourire et de plainte would be de sourires et de plaintes in prose. But the two s‘s of the plural would prevent the two e‘s from being elided and so give two syllables more.

L. 170. tes nobles toits. The plural for the singular, that the form of the word, riming with abois, may satisfy the eye. A Latinism besides.

Ll. 174-179. Od. xiv. 462. I cannot refrain from giving here Chapman’s quaint equivalent for ce que… il eût mieux valu taire: ‘strong wine,’ he makes Ulysses say, ‘moves the wise to… prefer a speech to that were better in.’

L. 184. See Od. viii. 136.

L. 185. n’ai point passé l’âge ‘où l’on est robuste’ is understood.

L. 186. La force et le travail, que je n’ai point perdus, a hendyadis for ‘la force de travailler.’

Ll. 188 ff. In the same way Ulysses (Od. xv. 317) declares to Eumaeus that he is ready to do all kind of menial work to earn a livelihood.

L. 194. diriger, train.

L. 195. Et le cep et la treille. The low vine-plant, such as is seen in the vine-growing parts of France, and the espalier or trellis vine.

L. 196. la faux recourbée. One of those descriptive epithets so frequent in primitive poetry.

Ll. 199-201. Hesiod, Op. et Dies, 307, 303-5.

L. 201. à rien faire. Some purists censure the use of rien without ne on the ground that rien of itself means quelque chose (Lat. rem), as in: ‘Pourquoi consentez-vous à rien prendre de lui?’—Molière, Tartufe, V. vii; but the abuse, if it is really to be considered as one, is authorized by the best writers, Molière, Racine, &c. In answers rien is used by itself with the sense of ‘nothing.’ Add to this the phrases pour rien, réduire à rien, venir à rien, un homme de rien, rien que cela, si peu que rien, moins que rien, where rien actually means ‘nothing’. Also the substantive: un rien, des riens. Also un vaurien (=‘un homme qui ne vaut rien’). The objection to rien in the present sentence would be just if the omission of the negation ne entailed the least ambiguity, but such is not the case.

L. 202. Od. xix. 253 and 322.

L. 203. élever sa langue for élever la voix is decidedly indefensible. But Chénier carefully avoids obvious alliances of words. See note to p. 64, l. 4.

L. 205. Sans craindre qu’un affront ne trouble. The second negative ne had better have been left out. The strict rule is to omit it after sans. Yet several instances of sans que… ne and even sans que… ne… point occur in the seventeenth century, namely in Mme de Sévigné. See Haase, § 103 B.

L. 206. L’indigent se méfie. Menander in Stobaeus, Florilegium, xcvi. Od. vii. 307.

L. 209. A reminiscence of Horace, Od. ii. 9. The same thought occurs again at p. 66, l. 4.

L. 210. Propertius, ii. 28. 31; Theocritus, Idyll. iv. 4.

L. 211. Et tel pleure. Cf. ‘Tel qui rit vendredi, dimanche pleurera.’—Racine, Plaideurs, i. I. Observe the fitness of those two forms of the same proverb to their several contexts. The vendredi and dimanche, humorous precisions, would never do here.

L. 212. en tes discours préside—not ‘à tes discours.’ Chénier means, not ‘wisdom presides over thy discourses,’ but ‘wisdom rules, bears sway, prevails, is paramount in thy discourses,’ Cf. Od. xix. 352; xx. 37.

Ll. 228-231. Aen. i. 628.

Ll. 229, 230. n’a point à l’indigence fait…, ‘has not caused indigence to envy the destiny of the wealthy Lycus,’ The object of faire, which is at the same time the subject of the infinitive envier, is in the dative. See Littré, Dict., s. v. ‘Faire,’ Remarques 1-5; also Haase, 390.

L. 235. et te souviens. This peculiar form of the imperative is used only when another imperative goes before. Whereas in the ordinary form, souviens-toi, the stressed form of the pronoun is used (as is the rule when the pronoun is the object of an imperative or a prepositional object: écris-moi, nous avons songé à lui), in this construction the pronoun preceding the verb follows the rule of all pronouns placed before verbs and is in the unstressed form.

Ll. 250, 251. Hesiod, Op. et Dies, 285.

L. 260. qu’avait tissus l’Euphrate. Tissu is the past participle of the obsolete verb tistre, now replaced by tisser.

L. 264. Seul maintenant—a sort of ablative absolute.

L. 275. Et sans que nul mortel. Nul, though of itself a negative, occurs after sans: ‘Sans nuls égards pour les petits.’—La Bruyère, xiv. True it is that La Bruyère might have said, with Malherbe and La Fontaine, ‘sans point d’égards…,’ which nobody would think of using at the present day. ‘Sans qu’aucun mortel’—aucun=_aliquis unus_, and so is no negative—would have been more logical, but harsh.

L. 282. By the device of concluding the long period with these three sad syllables, the pathos of the statement is heightened.

L. 284. a tombé. Tomber, generally used with the auxiliary être, also admits of the auxiliary avoir. Littré, Dict., s.v. ‘Tomber,’ 61°.

L. 287. je ne revois. The present used instead of the future tense imparts more emphasis to the asseveration. See Ayer, p. 466.

L. 289. vapeurs, fumes.

L. 291. Od. xiv. 42.

L. 308. au même précipice. In Old French ou (=_en le_) got confused with au (=_à le_), whence a constant substitution of au for ou in the masculine, and, by extension, of à la for en la in the feminine. See Meyer-Lübke, § 417, and Haase, § 120, and cf. p. 33, l. 4.

L. 317. je revoi. The Old French spelling (_voi_ from video) has been retained in versification for rhyming purposes.

L. 323. J’ai honte à ma fortune, instead of: ‘J’ai honte de ma fortune’; as Molière writes: ‘J’aurais honte à la prendre.’—_Le Dépit amoureux_, I. ii.

L. 331. So Nausicaa does to Ulysses (Od. viii. 461).

 

III. LA LIBERTÉ.

L. 1. qui t’agite? Qui here is a neuter and means ‘what.’ See Darmesteter, § 416.

L. 8. parmi l’herbe. Delicately archaic. Thus Corneille has ‘parmi l’air,’ Mel. IV. vi. and La Fontaine ‘Parmi la plaine,’ Fables, XI. i. 4. See Haase, § 131 A.

Ll. 12, 13. Notice the fine effect of imitative harmony in these lines. They are as rough as the landscape they describe. Much of their harshness is due to the predominance of the sound of r.

Ll. 36, 37. Euripides, Hec. 332.

L. 38. rien à soi. Soi, which is now more especially used when the subject of the sentence is on, was formerly indiscriminately used with lui put for lui-même. See note to p. 29, VII, l. 10.

L. 49. Aen. iv. 487.

L. 54. les maux qu’on me fait. The plural of mal is not common with the verb faire. There is an instance of it in Régnier: ‘sa barbe… où certains animaux… luy faisoient mille maux,’ Satire x, 171-4.

L. 66. De qui les blés. This use of de qui, when the antecedent is an inanimate thing, was condemned by Vaugelas, whose rule has prevailed. Yet there is a tendency with many modern writers to return to the older practice.

L. 72. The horn of plenty, or cornucopia, or Amalthaea’s horn.

L. 73. Sans doute que. How are we to account for this que? The phrase is the result of an ellipsis, and stands for ‘il est sans doute que.’

L. 75. Je n’y vois. Y refers to la terre, l. 55.

L. 80. Elle est pour moi marâtre. Marâtre is an adjective here=inexorable.

L. 87. Je m’occupe à leurs jeux. For a distinction between s’occuper à and s’occuper de see Littré, Dict., s.v. ‘occuper,’ Remarque. The meaning here is: I occupy my mind in seeing them play.

L. 88. sur la rosée et sur l’herbe brillante, a hendiadys for sur l’herbe brillante de rosée.

L. 93. Deux fois… promenés. An ablative absolute. Promener, of course, is not the proper word for ‘driving’ a flock, but an expression of angry contempt for the tedious and, as it were, unprofitable work.

L. 101. injure, in the singular, for the sake of the metre.

L. 107. Du chaume. Calpurnius, Aegl. viii. 66.

L. 117. la mienne. This syntactical incorrectness—for la mienne cannot mean ma vierge—is in fact an elegance. The shepherd is full of the idea of his love, and most naturally says la mienne, meaning ma bien-aimée. This neglect of strict logic is most natural.

Ll. 151, 152. Some writers have printed si j’étais plus sage…, as if the sentence were unfinished, and explain that ‘I should not take them’ is understood. But the thought rather seems to be expressed elliptically: Were I wiser, these gifts forebode no good to me (and I should listen to these misgivings).

L. 156. j’aurai pu. The future expressing what is likely to have taken place. See Ayer, § 203.

 

IV. LE MALADE.

M. Dezeimeris (_Leçons nouvelles et remarques sur le texte de divers auteurs_, Bordeaux, 1879) has shown how much this poem owed to a Greek versified romance by Theodoras Prodromus, entitled The Adventures of Rhodanthe and Dosicles. To this very indifferent and cold production he has traced both the scheme and most characteristic details of Chénier’s Malade. We have deemed it unadvisable to crowd our notes with the numerous passages of the Byzantine writer which have inspired our poet.

Ll. 1-3. This invocation, a litany in form, may have been suggested by the Orphic hymn to Apollo.

L. 6. qui meurt abandonnée, i.e. qui meurt si elle est abandonnée.

L. 7. Qui n’a pas dû rester…, ‘who surely has not been spared by death that she might see her own son die.’

Ll. 8, 9. Assoupis, assoupis… Frequent repetitions occur throughout this piece, all with a most natural and pathetic effect. M. Dezeimeris that Chénier took the hint from Prodromus, in whose poem, however, the repetitions, for the most part irrelevant, are mere mannerism.

L. 15. un jeune taureau blanc. ‘Iuvencum candentem,’ Aen. ix. 627.

L. 22. Aen. x. 557.

Ll. 24, 25. Il. i. 362. Thetis says to Achilles; ‘Why weeps my son? what grieves thee? Speak, conceal not what hath laid such hard hand on thee, let both know.’—CHAPMAN.

L. 34. See tapes in A. Rich’s Dict. of Roman and Greek Antiq.

L. 36. ô douleurs! The s is required by the rhyme rather than by the sense.

L. 43. Euripides, Hipp. 135.

L. 44. Sans connaître Cérès. ‘Non Cereris placuere dapes, non pocula Bacchi’ is Gaulmin’s paraphrase of Prodromus (Paris, 1625). For a similar use of ‘Ceres,’ see Ovid, Met. iii. 437. Milton has: ‘A field Of Ceres ripe for harvest waving bends’ (_Paradise Lost_, iv. 980, 981); and Byron: ‘Beneath his ears of Ceres groan the roads’ (_Don Juan_, XII. ix).

L. 46. ta vieille inconsolable mère, not ton inconsolable vieille mère, which would be the more usual, but less forcible, order.

L. 48. T’asseyait sur son sein. Sein (bosom) here stands for giron (lap). This is the Latin phrase in sinu. The English Bible reads (Luke xvi. 23): ‘He (the rich man) seeth Abraham… and Lazarus in his bosom,’ whereas Langland, more explicit and accurate, says, ‘Ich sauh hym [Lazarus] sitte… in Abraham’s lappe‘ (_P. Pl._, C. ix, 283).

L. 53. presse de ta lèvre. She says this holding out the cup to him, so that there is no need for her to express the word ‘cup,’ which is therefore understood. Yet it appears that Chénier did not mean ll. 53, 54 to stand thus, as they are struck out in the MS. (Dezeimeris, p. 69).

Ll. 59, 60. sur leur jeune sein… leur robe. He says leur, as if everybody ought to understand him, because his own thought is full of them—those dancing fair ones mentioned in the following line. This, as well as the preceding ‘presse’ and ‘la mienne’ higher up, is of those true touches that carry us into the atmosphere of life.

L. 65. Reminiscences of Virgil, Ecl. v. 58; Georg. ii. 151.

L. 70. cette vierge dansante. The first editor had altered this into ‘cette vierge charmante,’ either because the epithet recurs at ll. 61, 89, or because he objected to this declension, or rather adjectival use, of the past participle. For this syntactical feature see Darmesteter et Hatzfeld, Le seizième siècle en France, §210; Haase, §91. See also note to p. 62, l. 19.

L. 71. Pallas (Od. i. 58) represents Ulysses as longing to see ‘His country’s smoke leap from her chimney tops.’—CHAPMAN.

L. 74. enchante ta vieillesse. An easy correction would be enchantent, which would not spoil the metre, but, as a rule, Chénier makes the verb agree with the last subject. See Ayer, §217.

Ll. 76, 77. Tibullus, i. 3. 8.

L. 80. Viendras-tu point…? The omission of ne in direct interrogation, very frequent in the seventeenth century, is still to be met with in modern poetry, e.g.: ‘Viendras-tu pas voir mes ondines?’—V. Hugo, Ballades, 4. (Haase, §101 A.)

L. 84. Racine, Phèdre, I. iii: ‘Ariane, ma soeur, de quel amour blessée…’

L. 93. Virgil, Ecl. vi. 21 ‘Aegle naiadum pulcherrima…’

L. 95. ne sera-ce point. A future of doubt.

L. 103. Ovid, Met. i. 481.

L. 105. garde que jamais elle soit… Ne was generally omitted in the seventeenth century after expressions of fear and after garde, gardez, prenez garde (Haase, §104 B).

L. 109. va la trouver. Cf. the first scene of the third act of Racine’s Phèdre. The entire poem is to some extent the counterpart of Racine’s play.

L. 126. d’âge chancelante. Cf. Aen. iv. 641.

L. 132. L’insensé. In the sense, Becq de Fouquières remarks, not of demens, but of amens, as in Ovid, Am. iii II. 25.

 

V. HYLAS.

The subject of the poem is taken from Theocritus, Id. xiii., and Virgil, Ecl. vi.

L. 1. Le navire éloquent. Argo, which Malherbe calls ‘le navire qui parlait,’ Lebrun ‘la nef à voix humaine,’ and Chénier himself in a fragment (XLIX., p. 118 of the first volume of the edition published in 1874 by G. de Chénier), ‘le vaisseau parleur.’

L. 2. Colchos. This Colchos has never had any existence except in the imagination of French poets. It is, in fact, the accusative of Colchi, the Colchians, or inhabitants of Colchis, mistaken for the name of a town.

Ll. 12-14. Et leur onde… un… zéphire, un murmure… ‘l’avertit. The verb is in the singular, agreeing with the last subject, as is the constant practice with Chénier. Cf. note to p. 25, l. 74.

L. 14. et soupire. The first editor has corrected this into et l’attire. But the nymph first attracts the attention of the boy and then sighs out her desire (as again on l. 19).

L. 15. jette des fleurs. Jeter is said of plants and trees (E. shoot), whence rejeton (E. shoot).

L. 20. il l’admire couler. See note to p. 8, l, 260.

L. 26. Sur leur sein, dans leurs bras, assis… Elliptical: ‘he sitting on their knees,’ For this sense of sein see note to p. 24, l.