Chapter 14

'L'etcheco-sauna (le laboureur des montagnes) est rentré chez lui avec son chien; il a embrassé sa femme et ses enfants. Il a nettoyé ses flèches ainsi que sa corne de boeuf, et les ossements des héros qui ne sont plus blanchissent déjà pour l'éternité.'

In a note Jubinal says: 'Ces paroles sont empruntées au chant basque d'Altabicar.'

_Son cheval syrien_. In the _Chanson_ Charlemagne rides on a _mulet de Sulie (Syrie)_. Jubinal changed the mule into a horse. This is one of the points of detail which show that Hugo followed the modern author.

L. 25. The city, as we learn subsequently, was Narbonne. Narbonne is on the west coast of the Gulf of Lyons, near the eastern end of the Pyrenees. Originally a Roman colony, it was one of the chief seats of the Visigoths, from whom it was taken by the Saracens, when they overran Southern France. Charlemagne took it from the latter in 759. Till the fourteenth century it was a port, but the sand has blocked up the harbour and the town is now some distance from the sea.

_mâchicoulis_, battlements; or, more exactly, a gallery round the tower with openings in it from which projectiles could be hurled upon an enemy below.

_vermeil_. The word is one of Hugo's favourite adjectives, and is used to suggest a bright vivid red, and almost invariably in connexion with objects that have pleasurable associations.

The following are a few typical instances of its use:--

'L'aube vermeille.' (_Les Feuilles d'Automne: Madame, autour de vous_.)

'Les cônes vermeils' (du palais dans les nuages). (Ibid.: _Soleils Couchants_.)

'Les beaux rosiers vermeils.' (_Les Quatre Vents: L'Immense Étre_.)

'Les astres vermeils.' (Ibid.: _La Nuit_.)

'Aux soirs d'été qu'embrase une clarté vermeille.' (_Dieu L'Ange_.)

'Les plats bordés de fleurs sont en vermeil: (_Eviradnus_.)

'Et, vermeille,

Mahaud, en même temps que l'aurore, s'éveille.' (Ibid.)

The word seems to be used without any definite suggestion of colour in such phrases as 'des espaces vermeils' (_Plein Ciel_), 'quand le satyre fut sur la cime vermeille' (_Le Satyre_), 'des arbres vermeils' (of trees lit up by the setting sun) (_Le Crapaud_).

The word is used with a bold extension of meaning in _Les Voix Intérieures: A Eugène_, where the appetite of boyhood is called 'l'appétit vermeil.'

_dromon_, mediaeval warship, worked by oars and sail, the ancestor of the galley. The word is also used, as apparently here, for merchantmen.

_Béarnais_, inhabitant of Béarn, the province in the Pyrenees from which Henri IV came.

_Turcs_. This is of course a mistake for Saracens or Moors. The word occurs in the original poem, Jubinal copied it, and Hugo copied Jubinal. The original, it maybe noted, had 'trente mille Turcs,' Jubinal cut them down to 'vingt mille.' Hugo's 'vingt mille' is another detail which shows that his poem is based on Jubinal's adaptation.

_preux_. The Old French adjective meant 'valiant.' At the present time the word is only used in the phrase _preux chevalier. Preux_ as a noun is rare, but de Vigny has 'Charlemagne et ses preux.'

_je ne farde guère_: I speak without affectation. _Farder_ used absolutely in this way is rare.

_rendus_: knocked up, overdone.

_arbalètes_, crossbows.

L. 80, For the metaphor compare the _Chanson_ in _Les Châtiments_, Livre VII

Berlin, Vienne étaient ses maîtresses; Il les forçait, Leste, et prenant les forteresses Par le corset; Il triompha de cent bastilles Qu'il investit.-- Voici pour toi, voici des filles, Petit, petit.

These two passages are good specimens of what Brunetière called Hugo's barbarous and Merovingian humour, a species of humour which suits well the reproduction of a mediaeval _Chanson_, even if it offends the critical in a modern satire.

_gentil_, used in its original sense of 'noble'.

_maillot_, Old French form of _maillet_, a mace or club. _salade_, head-piece worn by knights, a word used in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.

_duché_, which is now masculine, was formerly of the feminine gender.

_liais_, lias; _pierre de liais_ is Portland stone.

_douve_, as a term in fortification, means the wall of a ditch.

_estramaçon_, a long, straight, two-edged sword. The word is of Italian origin and first came into use in the sixteenth century. In an adaptation of a thirteenth-century _Chanson_ it is out of place, as is _salade_ above.

_escarcelle_, a kind of large purse which was carried at the belt.

l 193. The reference to the Sorbonne, which was founded in 1252, is of course an anachronism.

_estoc_. See note on MARIAGE DE ROLAND.

_bachelier_. In the Middle Ages the word was used of a young man of good birth who, being too poor to raise his own standard, fought under the banner of a knight, but not as a squire. The juxtaposition of _Je suis bachelier_ with _Je sais lire en latin_ has given rise to the suspicion that Hugo, who found the word in one of Jubinal's articles, understood it in the modern sense. In the absence of further evidence, however, the poet may be considered entitled to a verdict of 'not proven'.

BIVAR.

_Bivar_, in Spanish _Vivar_, was the name of the ancestral home of the Cid. It is a castle near Burgos, in which the Cid was born in 1040.

_patio_ (Spanish), a court or open space in front of a house. The _ti_ is pronounced as in French _question_.

_buenos dias_=good day.

l 18. The full name of the Cid was Rodrigue Ruy Diaz de Bivar, or in Spanish Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar.

_campéador_. The Spanish word _campeador_, derived from _campear_, to be eminent in the field, signifies _excellent_, _pre-eminent_, and was the title given to their champion by the Spaniards, The Moors called him the Cid, i.e. Seid, an Arabic word for _chief_.

_pavois_, an old word for a large shield, which protected the whole body, and on which the Franks raised the king whom they had elected.

_richomme_, from the Spanish _ricohombre_, a title given to the Barons of Aragon.

_servidumbre_ (Spanish), an establishment of servants. In Spanish the last syllable is sounded.

EVIRADNUS. (PAGE 26.)

As far as is known, the story is of Hugo's own invention. The epoch may be supposed to be the later Middle Ages, the place anywhere in Teuton lands. The proper names are mostly of Hugo's own invention; some are, however, echoes from German mediaeval history. The poem and another called _Le Petit Roi de Galice_ form a section of the _Légende_ called _Les Chevaliers Errants_.

l 1. There was a Ladislaus, King of Poland, in the fourteenth, and a Sigismund, Emperor of Germany, in the fifteenth century. But the personages of the poem are in reality wholly imaginary.

_stryge_ (written also _strige_), a vampire or demon that wanders about at night. Derived from Latin _striga_, a bird of night, or a witch.

_lémure_: Lémures (the singular is very rare) is the Latin _lemures_, the disembodied spirits which haunted houses and caused terror to the living.

_val_, valley, The word is now little used and only in poetry, except in the phrase _par monts et par vaux_.

_preux_. See note on AYMERILLOT, l 54.

_munster_ (German), cathedral.

_bauges_, properly the lairs of wild boars.

_Amadis_, commonly called Amadis of Gaul, the hero of a celebrated mediaeval poem, written originally in Spanish, which recounts his heroism in war and constancy in love. He is the typical knight-errant and true lover.

_Baudoin_. This is Baldwin, brother of Godfrey of Bouillon. He became King of Jerusalem and died in 1118. During the Crusade he went on a pilgrimage to the Holy City.

Sir G.Young in his _Poems from Victor Hugo_ suggests that _Corbus_ may stand for _Cottbus_, the capital of Old or Lower Lusatia.

_burg_ (German), a castle.

_guivre_ (also written _givre_), a heraldic term meaning a serpent.

_drée_, a fantastic stone ornament.

_fôhn_ (German _Föhn_), the south wind.

_le Grand Dormant_: Frederick Barbarossa, who, tradition says, never died, but is still sleeping in a cave.

_roture_, i.e. his position as a peasant. _Roture_ is derived from the Latin _ruptura_, the action of breaking the earth, and is the base of the common word _roturier_.

_relève_, used in its feudal sense of 'to hold of'; the castle was not feudally dependent on the city.

L. 214, i.e. the castle reflects the history of the ancient kings.

_les deux haches de pierre_. This is said figuratively and alludes to the deeds of Attila, who ravaged the Eastern Empire and extended his dominions almost to the Ural Mountains, whilst later on, crossing the Rhine, he attacked the Goths of Southern France and Spain.

_Lusace_, Latin Lusatia, German Lausitz, was a district between the Elbe and the Oder, in what is now the kingdom of Saxony. But the name has no significance. The personages and places in the poem are in reality all imaginary.

_la griffe_ is the claw of a beast or bird of prey; _la serre_ is the foot of a bird of prey.

_Sortent de leur tenaille_. A somewhat obscure expression. Apparently _tenaille_ is used in the sense of 'vice', and the words mean 'are of their manufacture or moulding.'

L. 291. i.e. the Emperor is the superior in rank.

_dromons_. See note on AYMERILLOT, L. 39.

_l'ordre teutonique_, the Order of Teutonic Knights. Originally founded to protect the Christians in Palestine, the Teutonic Knights received domains in Italy and Germany from the Pope and Emperor, conquered Prussia (1228), and established there a military power which lasted four centuries.

_hydre_. In Greek legend the hydra was a serpent with seven heads, and, when one of them was cut off, two grew in its place. It is Hugo's favourite figure for cruelty or tyranny.

_Lusace_ consisted of two margraviates, the upper and the lower.

_elle a peur du fleuron_, i.e. she is afraid to be marchioness. The flower-shaped ornaments in a crown are called _fleurons_. A marquis's coronet was adorned with 'fleurons' alternating with pearls and the contrast between the pointed 'fleuron' and the round pearl suggests the figure employed in the next line.

_tribunaux d'amour_, or _cours d'amour_, were the celebrated courts of the Middle Ages, presided over by ladies of high rank, which gave judgement in cases of love and gallantry and laid down laws for lovers. They existed principally in France, especially in Southern France.

L. 369. The Wends were a Slav people who lived in Lusatia, but the name Thassilo is Bavarian.

_Nemrod_. See note on PLEINE MER, l.107.

_Fenris_: the great wolf of Scandinavian mythology whose growth was such that the gods in fear chained him to a rock. Some day his upper jaw will touch the sky, while his lower still rests on earth, and then Odin will tremble for his throne.

_le serpent Asgar_. This serpent is probably of Hugo's invention and its name taken from the mythical city of the Scandinavians, Asgard, built by the gods and in which they often resided.

_l'archange Attila_. This is not the king of the Huns, nor is he one of the known archangels. However, as the Scriptures mention only three archangels, Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, out of the seven, Hugo may or may not be right in speaking of an archangel of the name of Attila. _Le grand chandelier_ brought from the lower regions by the archangel is merely a poetic fancy and a reminiscence of the seven-branched candlestick of the tabernacle (Exod. XXV. 31-7).

_Actéon_. Actaeon in Greek mythology was a hunter who saw Diana bathing, and was in consequence changed by the goddess into a stag.

L. 437. _chanfrein_, the piece of armour which covered the head of the horse.

_Les chatons des cuissards sont barris de leurs clés_. A difficult line. The _chatons_ were the studs or screws which held the thigh-piece (_cuissard_) in its place, and the instrument which worked them was called _la clé_. _Barrés_ appears to mean simply 'fastened'. Sir G.Young translates:--

'Their cuissart-studs up to the socket braced'

_boutoir_, the sharp spike on the knee-piece.

_crible_. The word refers to the visor with seven bars, which was one of the marks of a marquis's rank.

_mortier_. The round cap which was the ancient emblem of sovereignty in France. It was worn by barons who possessed full powers of administering justice in their domains, also by the presidents of the 'parlements', and by the chancellors. A modified form is still part of the official dress of some of the judges of the highest courts.

It will be noted that the antiquities in this passage are French, not German.

_tortil_, a ribbon twisted round a crown, the special ornament of a baron, not of a duke. It also signifies in heraldry a circular band or pad to which heraldic negroes' heads were attached.

_rondache_, a round shield.

L. 492. The reference is to the coronet of a French marquis, which bore eight jewelled ornaments, four of which consisted each of three great pearls arranged as a trefoil, while the other four were 'feuilles d'ache,' the heraldic representation of the leaf of the wild parsley.

_hydre_: see note on L. 323.

_timbre_, in heraldry, signifies anything placed above the escutcheon to mark the rank of the person to whom it belonged. Here Hugo seems to use it of the shield, perhaps because the triangular shield was a mark of knightly rank.

_fauves_, here 'terrible'.

A chapter might be written on Hugo's bold and occasionally strange uses of this word. Its primary meaning is either 'dull red' or 'tawny', but in Hugo's poetry it is used rather as a somewhat vague epithet to suggest darkness, gloom, cruelty, savagery, or oppressive power. It never denotes merely a physical quality; in such expressions as 'leur fauve volée', speaking of the ravens in _La Fin de Satan_, 'le désert fauve' (_Androclès_), 'son bec fauve', of the vulture (_Sultan Mourad_), the suggestion of wildness or ruthlessness predominates. Usually the word is used in a wholly figurative sense. Thus in _La Fin de Satan_ the fallen archangel, flying from Jehovah, is 'fauve et hagard', Barabbas stumbling against the Cross is 'fauve', and of the lunatic in the tombs it is said: 'fauve il mordait'. In all these cases the meaning is 'wild','savage '. In _Dieu_ we have `Vénus, fauve et fatale' ('cruel'), in _L'Ane_ les canons dont les fauves gueulées' ('terrible'), in _L'Année Terrible_'un hallier fauve où des sabres fourmillent' ('wild'), and France is called upon to be 'franchement fauve et sombre' ('fierce'). In the following passages we have bolder uses still:

Le progrès a parfois l'allure vaste et fauve ('awe-inspiring') Et le bien bondissant effare ceux qu'il sauve. (_Dieu_.)

If man had been unselfish,

L'ombre immense serait son fauve auxiliaire. (Ibid.)

Of war,

Elle chantait, terrible et tranquille, et sa bouche Fauve bavait du sang dans le clairon farouche. (_Changement d'Horizon._) La fauve volupté de mourir. (_Mangeront-ils?_)

It is applied even to sound. 'Le fauve bruit' is used in _L'Ane_ of the battles of primeval monsters, and more mystically in _La Vision d'où sortit le livre_ of the passing of the Spirit of Fatality.

Also of smell

Que l'homme au ciel s'égare ou qu'il fanatise Avec la fauve odeur des bûchers qu'il attise. (_Religions et Religion_.)

Nor must the strange well-known line in _La Bouche d'Ombre_ be forgotten

Le fauve Univers est le forçat de Dieu.

_Fauve_ is always used of what is dark and gloomy, just as _vermeil_ is always applied to what is bright and pleasant.

_cimier_. See note on LE MARIAGE DE ROLAND.

_mélusine_. A heraldic figure, half woman, half serpent, bathing in a basin. Taken from the name of a fairy, celebrated in the folklore of Poitou.

_alérion_, a heraldic figure, representing an eagle without beak or claws.

_le manche d'une guitare_ is the small end.

_bourguignotte_, a small helmet without throat-piece, so called because it was first used by the Burgundians.

_Diane éblouissait le pâtre: a reference to the `old sweet mythos,' as Browning calls it, of Diana, the goddess of the Moon, stooping from heaven to kiss the shepherd Endymion, as he lay asleep on Mount Latmos.

_Rhodope_, the wife of Haemus, king of Thrace, who was changed into a mountain because she thought herself more beautiful than Hera.

1. 839. The allusions are to the quarrels between the Greek and Roman Churches.

_galoubet_. A little wind instrument in shape like a flageolet, with three holes. It was played with the left hand, while the right beat a tambourine. It was peculiar to Languedoc and Provence.

_marche_, German _Mark_, military frontier.

_L'idée._ In the original edition of 1859 the word was L'épée.

_Josaphat._ The valley of Josaphat or Jehosaphat is between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, and according to both Jewish and Moslem tradition is to be the place of the Last Judgment. This tradition may be based on Joel iii. 12, or on the meaning of the word Josaphat, which is, 'Jehovah will judge,' or on both.

_goules_, from Arabic _ghul_. English _ghoul_. The creatures who, according to Eastern superstition, devour dead bodies.

_lamies_, from Lat. _lamia_, a fabulous being possessing the head of a woman and the body of a sea-serpent, which was supposed to devour children.

_en rupture de ban_. _Rompre le ban_ is to set at defiance a decree of banishment, the punishment for which was death.

_un dogue en arrêt_. The name _dogue_ is given to a kind of large dog, akin to a bloodhound, but the term is not correctly used here, as _en arrêt_ means _pointing_.

_vermeille_. See note on AYMERILLOT.

SULTAN MOURAD.

In his preface to the volume of 1859 Hugo appeals to the history of the Turks by Cantemir as a justification for his picture of Sultan Mourad. This was Demetrius Cantemir (1673-1723), who had a remarkable history, and wrote a valuable book. Though not a Turk, he attached himself to the Turks, and fought under the banner of the Crescent during his early life. In 1710 he was made Waiwode, or Governor, of Moldavia, Then, deserting the setting for the rising sun, he allied himself with Czar Peter the Great, then at war with Turkey. But the campaign was unsuccessful, and Cantemir, flying from Moldavia, took refuge in the Ukraine. For the rest of his life he divided his time between study and instructing the Moldavians who had accompanied him. He is said to have spoken Persian, Turkish, Arabic, modern Greek, Russian, Moldavian, and Italian. The work to which Hugo refers was a history of the aggrandizement and decadence of the Ottoman Empire. Written in Latin, and translated subsequently into English, French, and German, it was long the standard work on the subject.

It does not seem probable that Hugo had any particular Sultan in mind when he delineated Sultan Mourad. Indeed the geography of the poem suggests that he is depicting an idealized Oriental tyrant.

The nearest approximation to the monster to be found in the pages of Cantemir is Ammath IV (r. 1623-40), of whose cruelty and bloodthirstiness the historian gives a vivid account. His principal exploit was the taking of Bagdad from the Persians, on which occasion he slaughtered 1,000 of the citizens in cold blood.

For Hugo's conception of the power and influence of the Turkish Empire when at its zenith, see _Le Rhin: Conclusion_, II, III.

_Liban_ is Lebanon.

_rampantes_. The word is used with the heraldic sense.

I. 19. The so-called Temple of Theseus (its real dedication is doubtful) stands on a low hill just outside Athens. It is in a state of almost perfect preservation. The nails which crowded its woodwork were doubtless those on which the heads of slaughtered Greeks were fastened. Of course in the Greek temple there was no woodwork, except possibly in the roof.

_cangiar_, a short Turkish sword, with an almost straight blade, having a single edge.

_Naxos_ is an island in the South Aegean Sea; _Ancyra_, a town in Asia Minor.

_épiques_. A curious use of the word. It appears to mean `worthy of epic poetry,' i.e. the spectres were those of great heroic men. In _Les Chants du Crépuscule_ Hugo has 'des grenadiers épiques' (_Napoléon II_).

Elea, Megara, are towns in Greece, Famagusta is in Cyprus.

Agrigentum was a well-known Greek colony in Sicily; Fiume, at the head of the Adriatic Sea, is now an Austrian port.

_Modon_, a maritime town in the Peloponnesus.

_Alep_, Aleppo. _Brousse_, a town in Anatolia.

_Damas_, Damascus.

_Tarvis_ (English Treviso) is a town in the province of Venice.

_boyard_. The boyards were the feudal nobles of Roumania and other Balkan countries.

_Rhamséion_, a sepulchral monument built by Ramses III, king of Egypt, in the fourteenth century B.C.

_Généralife_, the palace of the Moorish kings at Granada in Spain. It is scarcely necessary to say that no Turkish Sultan ever held any part of Spain.

_échouait_. The word is here used transitively (a rare use) in the sense of 'drove against.'

_soudan_, a word of Arabic origin, was a mediaeval name for certain Mahometan princes in Egypt and Asia Minor. The word seems here loosely to designate the Turkish sultans.

_turbé_, a kind of small round chapel, usually attached to a mosque, in which the tombs of Sultans and other great persons are placed.

LA CONFIANCE DU MARQUIS FABRICE. (PAGE 71.)

This is the third section of a poem called _L'Italie: Ratbert_. The story is of Hugo's own invention, and is intended to delineate on the one hand the savagery, and on the other the knight-errantry, of the Middle Ages.

_Pharamond_, a somewhat legendary Frankish chieftain of the fifth century A.D.

_Final_. The name, alone or in composition, is borne by three small towns or villages on or near the Genoese coast. There was a marquisate of Final in the Middle Ages.

_Witikind_. Hugo possibly had in mind the Saxon chief of this name (A.D. 750-807) who for five years successfully resisted the power of Charlemagne, and finally made an honourable peace with him. It does not appear that he ever bore the title of king. His country was the ancient Saxony, that is the country between the lower Rhine and the lower Elbe. He had no connexion with Genoa, whither Hugo has dragged the Saxons without justification.

_Albenga_: the name is taken from a small town on the Genoese coast, not far from Final.

_abbé du peuple_, a name of a popularly elected magistrate at Genoa. The office was in existence from 1270 to 1339.

_tribun militaire de Rome_: Latin, _tribunus militaris_; the officers of the legion, six in number, who in republican times commanded in turn, six months at a time.

_architrave_, the lower part of the entablature, that which rests immediately on the column. To understand the line, it must be remembered that the tower is conceived as a ruin.

_alleux_, a feudal term, signifying hereditary property. The word is misused here in the sense of feudal dues.

_censive_. Another feudal term, meaning the dues owed by an estate to the lord of whom it was held.

_balistes_ (from Latin _ballista_), mediaeval machines for hurling stones and darts.

_le puits d'une sachette_, a hole in which a recluse lived. _Sachette_ (masc. _sachet_) was the name given to certain nuns of the Augustinian order who wore a loose woollen garment (_sac_), whence the name was derived. It afterwards became used of any recluse. In _Notre-Dame de Paris_ Hugo applies it to the half-crazy inhabitant of the Tour-Roland.

_cruzade_, an old Portuguese coin, so called because it was marked with a cross. There was an old cruzade worth about 3 fr. 30, and a new cruzade worth not quite 3 fr.

_Narse_, or Narses, was king of Persia A.D. 294-303.

_Tigrane_, the name of an Armenian, not a Persian dynasty. There were seven kings of this name, and they occupied the Armenian throne from 565 to 161 B.C.

_nonce_. This word is in strictness used only of the emissaries of the Pope. Its use in any sense is an anachronism, as it was not introduced till the sixteenth century.

_Ratbert_ is thus described at the beginning of the poem:--

Ratbert, fils de Rodolphe et petit-fils de Charles, Qui se dit empereur et qui n'est que roi d'Arles.