Chapter 14

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. 48.

L. 29. _Leurs mains vont caressant._ _Aller_ with the gerund of a verb was a periphrase much in vogue in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and meaning nothing more than the verb itself. It is now of rare use, except in poetry (Haase, §70 A). Palsgrave says that 'que je vous yraye devisant' amounts to 'que vous deviseroye,' Littré, however, in his dictionary (s. v. 'aller,' 21), says that it expresses continuity.

L. 30. _étamine._ This is, Sainte-Beuve observes, the _prima lanugine malas_ of the Latins. Cf. 'Flaventem prima lanngine malas... 'Clytium,' _Aen._ x. 324, 'downy-cheeked Clytius'; or 'Clytius in his beardless bloom,' as Dryden, not very accurately, renders it. For _étamine_ see note to p. 50, l. 38.

Ll. 38, 39. Virgil, _Ecl._ vi. 43.

Ll. 46-52. The syntax of this sentence would incur the blame of a strict grammarian. He would first observe that in the wording, 'pour te paraître belle, l'eau pure...,' it is pure water that is represented as wanting to appear at its best, and that, in order to avoid this absurdity, the author should have written 'pour te paraître belle, elle (_the idyll_ a...)--in short, the construction that reappears in the following clause, 'elle a pressé ses flancs....' Next he might perhaps object to 'Et des fleurs sur son sein ... et sa flûte à la main,' a clause in which he would miss the verb. But say '_elle met_ des fleurs sur son sein, etc., et _elle prend_ sa flûte à la main,' and notice the loss in vivacity. As the young person bustles, so does the sentence.

L. 51. _les pipeaux de Segrais._ Segrais (1624-1701) wrote idylls praised by Boileau. He also had a hand in the composition of the two novels of Mme de la Fayette, _Zaïde_ and _La Princesse de Clèves_, and gave a metrical translation of the _Aeneid_, now forgotten.

L. 52. _connus... aux nymphes._ Both _connu à_ and _connu de_ are said, though the latter is more common at the present day.

VI. LA JEUNE TARENTINE.

This touching elegy, Becq de Fouquières observes, was suggested to Chénier by the following funereal epigram of Xenocritus of Rhodes in the _Greek Anthology_: 'Thy locks are still dripping, unfortunate maid, O Lysidice, poor shipwrecked creature, dead in the salt flood. As the waves leapt wild, thou, dismayed by the violence of the sea, fellst out of the ship; and now on a tombstone are read thy name and that of Cyme, the place of thy birth, but thy remains have been washed to some chill shore; a bitter grief to thy father Aristomachus, who, accompanying thee to the house of thy husband, brought him neither a bride nor a corpse.'

L. 2. _Oiseaux chers à Thétis._ 'Dilectae Thetidi alcyones,' Virgil, _Georg._ i. 399.

L. 3. _Elle a vécu._ A euphemism, adopted from the Latin, for _elle est morte_, used in elevated style. Thus Corneille: 'Non, non; avant ce coup Sabine _aura vécu_.'--_Horace_, II. vi.

L. 4. _Camarine_, a town in Sicily.

L. 5. _l'hymen_, the hymeneal song.

L. 8. _Dans le cèdre_: an accurate detail. Cf. Euripides, _Alc._ 160.

L. 11. _invoquant les étoiles._ A reminiscence, happily adapted, of Virgil, _Aen._ vi. 338: 'Palinurus... who, while he steering viewed the stars,... Fell headlong down.'--DRYDEN.

L. 13. _étonnée._ _Étonner_, whence E. _astun_, _stun_, _astony_, _astonish_, _astound_, from L. _extonare_ class. L. _attonare_, to strike with a thunderbolt, originally 'to strike senseless, powerless.' It is here nearer this sense than weakened sense of 'to surprise'.

L. 21. _dans ce monument._ We here find that we are reading a 'funerary epigram' or epitaph.

L. 22. _cap du Zéphyr._ Cape Zephyrium at the southern end of Brutium.

L. 25. _traînant un long deuil._ Chénier thus renews, with advantage to the meaning, the current phrase: 'mener (=_carry on_) un deuil,' to make dole, mourn. This use of _mener_ (cf. L. _ducere_ in same sense) may be paralleled in English by the _archaic_ 'lead great joy' (Caxton, _Sonnes of Aymon_, xx. 446), 'lead sorrow,' _Partenay_, 3785 (_N.E.D._, s. v. lead, 11 and 12 b).

VII. SUR UN GROUPE DE JUPITER ET D'EUROPE.

This piece, Becq de Fouquières remarks, is imitated from an idyll of Moschus (ii. 95 ff.).

L. 3. Anacreon, xxxv.

Ll. 5-7, Ovid, _Met._ ii. 874.

L. 7. _les pleurs dans les yeux._ The current phrase is _les larmes aux yeux_.

Ll. 9, 10. Ovid, _Fast._ v. 611.

L. 10. _sous soi._ In _The Public School Elementary French Grammar_ by Brachet we read (par. 96): 'In modern French, _soi_ is only used when the subject is _on_, _tout le monde_, _chacun_, etc., or after an impersonal verb.' But this is contradicted by the practice of the best authors. See Littré, _Dict._, s. v. 'Soi,' Remarque; Haase, §13. Cf. note to p. 19, l. 38.

L. 20. _le flatte._ This sense of F. _flatter_ was adopted in English, but has long been obsolete. Under the date 1599 there is a curious instance of this use in the _N. E. D._: 'Trout is a fish that loveth to be _flattered_ and clawed in the water.'

L. 22. Ovid. _Met._ ii. 868.

VIII. PASIPHAÉ.

Ll. 3-12. Virgil, _Ecl._ vi. 41 ff.

L. 4. Four lines are missing here, which, being omitted in most editions, had escaped us. We here give them:

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.'

L. 5. As in Ovid, _Met._ xiii. 841, the giant Polyphemus compares himself to Jupiter, so here the child compares himself to his young goat.

Ll. 19-24. A translation of the fourteenth epigram of Anytus, p. 200, vol. i. [of the _Anthology_]. See also the twenty-ninth of Argentarius, vol. ii, p. 273. (_Note of A. Chénier._) Anytus of Tegea lived 300 years before the Christian era.

L. 20. _verte cigale._ The cicada is brown. Chénier is here thinking of the large green grasshopper (_Locusta viridissima_).

L. 21. _les honneurs._ The honours of this tomb, that is, this tomb and its adjuncts destined to honour thy memory.

X. DRYAS.

André Chénier had purposed to write sea-bucolics or idylls, which his notes, in which he indicates the _genre_ of his poems by Greek abbreviations, designate as [Greek: Bouk. enal.] (that is, [Greek: Boukolika enalia]), [Greek: Eid. enal.] (i.e. [Greek: Eidullia enalia]). Dryas is one of them. It appeared for the first time in G. de Chénier's edition, 1874.

L. 4. _aux mains._ See note to p. 16, l. 308.

L. 6. _tout se jette._ _Tout_, i.e. _tout le monde_, as in 'Femmes, moines, vieillards, _tout_ était descendu.'--La Fontaine, _Fables_, VIII. ix. 4. The verb agrees with _tout_, which sums up the enumeration. Ayer, §217, 3 _b_.

L. 8. _Il remplit et couronne._ Not of course in the sense in which Milton writes: 'Eve... their flowing cups With pleasant liquors _crown'd'_ (_Paradise Lost_, v. 444). This sense is unknown in French. But see Rich, _Dict. of Roman and Greek Antiq._, s.v. 'coronatus.'

L. 19. _dieux humides_, water-gods. Thus Boileau: 'Il [le Rhin] voit fuir à grands pas ses naïades craintives Qui toutes accourant vers leur _humide_ roi...'--_Ep._ iv. This invocation is taken from Propertius, III. vii. 57.

L. 23. _les ondes avares._ The greedy waves.

Ll. 29. _et ses efforts nombreux_... The sentence has been left unfinished.

L. 36. Virgil, _Aen._ iv. 304.

XI. BACCHUS.

This piece is imitated from Ovid, _Met._ iv. II ff. It also contains reminiscences of Ovid, _De Arte Am._ i. 541; Catullus, lxiv. 225.

L. 1. _Thyonée_ Thyoneus, i.e. son of Thyone, another name of Semele.

L. 2. Dionysius, Evan, Iacchus, Lenaeus, names of Bacchus. The origin of the first three is obscure, while Lenaeus is from [Greek: lêmos], a wine-press.

L. 9. _étoilé._ The fur of the lynx is spotted.

L. 11. _aux axes de tes chars._ Lat. _axis_ (Fr. _axe_) is properly Fr. _essieu_ (from Lat. _axiculus_), Eng. _axle_ which has also been sometimes replaced by _axis_. (The O. E. word was _ax_ (_æx_), related to Lat. _axis_.) But here _axe_ is used, as in Latin, for _roue_, i.e. 'wheel.' See also note p. 65, XI, l. 2.

L. 17. _Et le rauque tambour._ _Et_ does duty for _ainsi que_.

L. 18. _Les hautbois tortueux_--'tibia curva' Tibul, ii. I. 86.--_les doubles crotales_:, crotals, or crotala, are a sort of castanets. They are called _doubles_ because they consisted of _two_ little brass plates, or rods.

XII. LE CHÈNE DE CÉRÈS.

This short fragment is taken from Ovid, _Met._ viii. 743.

L. 3. _porte un immense ombrage._ I am under the impression that this happy use of _porter_ has been suggested to Chénier by the term used in painting of _ombre portée_, defined by Littré (s.v. _porté_), 'ombre qu'un corps projette sur une surface.' Chénier frequented painters, and himself painted.

L. 5. _bandeaux_, fillets. See _vittae_ in Rich, _Dict. of Roman and Greek Antiq._

XIII. HERCULE.

Ll. 2-4. Imprudent in being too credulous, Dejanira became the innocent cause of Hercules' death; for, fearing his infidelity, she sent her husband a robe or shirt that the Centaur Nessas had given her, and which he had said would preserve her husband's love to her. No sooner had Hercules put on the garment his wife gave him than he suffered terrible agony, under which he ordered a funeral pile to be kindled, and placed himself in its flames, thus falling a victim to the Centaur, Nessus, whom he had slain. Hercules killed Nessus because, carrying Dejanira over a river, he attempted to run away with her.

Ll. 5, 6. _ta cime... amoncelle._ Literally, 'thy top heaps up,' for 'thy top is heaped up with.'

L. 9. _du vieux lion_, the Nemean lion.

XIV. ÉRICHTHON.

L. 2. _Érichthon._ Erichtonius, fourth king of Athens, son of Vulcan and the Earth, was a cripple, invented chariots, and, after his death, became the constellation of Auriga, or the Waggoner.

L. 5. _axe_, for _char._ See note to p. 65, XI, l. 2. For this line and the following see Virgil, _Georg._ iii. 113 ff.

Ll. 11-14. Virgil, _Georg._ iii. 191, 192.

L. 14. _Agiter... leurs pas._ Hurry (cf. _agitato_, in music=hurried) their pace, in opposition to _mesurer_, 'compose, moderate.'

XV. NÉÈRE.

L. 1.... _Mais_... This beginning shows that the piece is only a fragment. For this comparison see Ovid, _Heroid._ vii. 1, 2.

L. 7. _Sébéthus_. The river Sebetus runs through Campania. It is often mentioned by Sannazaro in his elegies, from which Chénier has borrowed the idea.

Ll. 9, 10. _moi, celle qui te plus, moi, celle qui t'aimai._ In this instance the agreement of the verbs with _moi_ is condemned by modern grammarians. It would occur in the older language, and Bossuet himself has said, speaking of God, 'Je suis celui qui suis' (Lat. _sum qui sum_, Eng. 'I am that am,' Wyclif, _Ex._ iii. 14). See Littré, s.v. 'celui,' Rem. 4.

L. 16. A reminiscence of Catullus, lxiv. 117 ff.

L. 19. _l'astre pur des deux frères d'Hélène._ It is the 'fratres Helenae, lucida sidera' of Horace (_Od._ i. 3), namely Castor and Pollux. The constellation was said to be propitious to seafarers.

L. 21. _Pæstum._ A town in Lucania famous for its roses. See Virgil, _Georg._ iv. 118, 119.

L. 29. _du sein de la mer._ _Il._ i. 359-361. Thetis 'instantly appeared up from the grey sea like a cloud.'--CHAPMAN.