I. l’invention. – André Chénier
L. 1. fis du Mincius: Virgil, born at Mantua, on the banks of the
river Mincius (now Mincio).
L. 2. peuple-roi, Latin populus-rex, people-king.
L. 4. l’onde Égée. Tibullus’ Aegeas undas, i. 3.
L. 7. A most happy line. Cf. Horace, Ep. ad Pis., 323.
L. 9. Pope, Essay on Criticism, 181.
Ll. 20, 21. Pope, Essay on Criticism, 715.
Ll. 25-34. Horace, Ep. ad Pis., 1 ff.
L. 37. D’Ormus et d’Ariman. Ahriman, the spirit of darkness or evil
genius; Ormuzd, the spirit of light or good demon in Persian mythology.
L. 46. Cf. Boileau: ‘Une pensée neuve est une pensée qui a dû venir à
tout le monde et que quelqu’un s’avise le premier d’exprimer.’
L. 56. Xénophon, Memorab. iii. 10, makes Socrates set forth the same
theory.
L. 62. Marot. Clément Marot, a French poet of the sixteenth century,
who excelled in badinage.
Ll. 69. Sophocle et Eschyle–and Euripides, whom Chénier forgets.
L. 71. Des hommes immortels, Corneille and Racine.
L. 73. instruits. The s of instruits should be deleted.
L. 92. pour nord. Nord here stands for étoile du nord or étoile
polaire. ‘Perdre la tramontane (the Mediterranean name of the Pole
Star), la boussole, le nord,’ are familiar expressions, meaning ‘to be
puzzled, not to know which way to turn, to lose one’s head.’
L. 95. du plus lointain Nérée. Poetical for Océan. Nereus, an
ancient sea-god. Cf. une Cybèle neuve below, p. 91, l. 133.
L. 100. Horace, Ep. ad Pis., 156.
L. 130. Bailly, a French astronomer (1736-1793). He wrote an Histoire
de l’Astronomie.
Ll. 133. Une Cybèle. Poetical for the earth, like Nérèe the sea, p.
90, l. 95.
L. 138. Cusco was once the capital of Peru. This shows that Chénier
was then meditating the poem L’Amérique, of which he wrote only
fragments.
L. 143. Négligeât. In colloquial French this would be, ‘Pensez-vous
que leur main négligerait…?’ In the same way, ‘je ne pense pas qu’il
vienne’ or ‘pensez-vous qu’il vienne’ would be ‘… qu’il viendra.’
L. 163. All the following passage is imitated from Petronius, Satyr,
v.
L. 170. bassin pompeux. See A. Rich, Dict. of Roman and Greek
Antiq., under Naumachia.
L. 178. Lucian, Quomod. hist. conser. sit, i, speaks of a kind of
summer-madness which seized the inhabitants of Abdera. After witnessing
the exciting performance of an actor, named Archelaüs, in Euripides’
Andromede, they went about shouting out this line from the play, ‘O
Love, thou tyrant both of men and gods.’
L. 184. Sur des pensers nouveaux faisons des vers antiques, i.e. let
us express modern, personal thoughts in a form worthy of antiquity.
L. 221. son vide, his empty mind.
L. 223, jette une rose. See note to p. 27, l. 15.
L. 243, Cf. Martial, VI. xv.
L. 248. ces larmes… Ovid, Met. ii. 584, explains the formation of
amber by the tears the sisters of Phaeton shed.
L. 262. et dressent tes cheveux. G. de Chénier, in his edition, prints
et dresser tes cheveux. But the correction is unnecessary, as the same
transitive employment of the verb occurs in a fragment of Chénier: ‘[Il]
verse une sueur froide et dresse ses cheveux.’
L. 272. le docte ciseau. Docte, meaning ‘scholarly,’ rather than
‘skilful,’ is, in my opinion at least, not very apposite here.
L. 277. flanes invaincus aux travaux, i.e. dans les travaux. See
note to p. 16, l. 308. An allusion to Hercules.
L. 282. Apollo Belvedere.
L. 283. The Farnese Hercules.
L. 284. The Laocoon group.
L. 285. Michael Angelo’s Moses.
L. 294. Ce qu’eux-même. See note to p. 42, l. 15.
L. 298. Bailly, Hist. de l’Astronomie: ‘On ajoute qu’Épicure croyait
que le soleil s’allumait le matin et s’éteignait le soir dans les eaux
de l’Océan.’
Ll. 302. Bailly, Hist. de l’Astronomie: ‘La poésie, que nous appelons
le langage des Dieux, était jadis la langue consacrée aux merveilles de
la nature.’
Is it not illustrative of the force of habit that Chénier should
denounce the exploitation of Fable and gods by poets in the very
conventional language he might be expected to object to? In reading l.
297 one would think that he purposed to drop Tethys for ever, but then
come Apollo, Calliope, Urania!
L. 307. Ou si. A very quaint interrogative turn which one is surprised
to see Voltaire condemn in this line of Corneille: ‘Tombé-je dans
l’erreur, ou si j’en vais sortir?’ Heracl. IV. iv. See LITTRÉ Si,
17°.
L. 309. Il n’est sot traducteur… This is a feature of old syntax
still extant in modern French. La Fontaine, in the seventeenth century,
still writes, in accordance with older usage, ‘Fille se coiffe
volontiers,’ Fabl. IV. i. 39. We still omit the definite article after
jamais: ‘Jamais homme ne reçut plus d’hommages.’ Haase, § 57.
L. 311. ambré. Perfumed with ambergris–in a figurative sense, of
course…. à la glace… ‘Être à la glace, LITTRÉ (s.v. 5°), is said
of such productions of the mind as the spectator or the reader, fail to
move him.’ ‘Si Corneille avait dans le Cid le plan de l’Académie, le Cid
était à la glace.’ Voltaire, Lettre d’Argental, 4 oct. 1760.
L. 313. d’abord. Synonyms: au premier abord, de prime abord, dès
l’abord. The original meaning is, ‘as soon as you accost him or it,
at the first contact.’ D’abordée is thus explained by Cotgrave: ‘At
first, at first sight; as soon as they touched, incountred, or came,
together.’ A synonymous expression d’arrivée, somewhat archaic.
L. 320. contraint d’être. See note to p. 102, l. 146.
L. 322. abuser. Deceive, disappoint, baffle.
L. 323. infidèle, an unfaithful interpreter of their meaning.
L. 327. Creusant dans les détours. In a figurative sense, as in
‘Les Anglais pensent profondément; Leur esprit, en cela, suit leur
tempérament; Creusant dans les sujets et forts d’expériences, Ils
étendent partout l’empire des sciences.’ La Fontaine, Fabl. xii. 23.
L. 329. Cf. Horace, Ep. ad Pis., 40, 311; Boileau, Art poét., i.
147-154. voit partout un nuage. So Montaigne: ‘Mes conceptions et
mon jugement ne marchent qu’à tastons…; je veois encores du païs au
delà, mais d’une veue trouble et en nuage, que je ne puis
desmesler.’–Essais, I. xxv.
L. 338. l’embrasse. The whole thought is wrapped or clasped by the
adequate expression.
L. 343. D’eux-même. See note to p. 42, l. 15.
L. 346. Io. The daughter of the river Inachus. Zeus, having fallen
in no French reader of to-day would notice the word. It is a good old
French word. We are thus made aware that it had been falling into disuse
in the seventeenth century (when it occurs several times in La Fontaine
and others), and especially in the eighteenth. E. reserene occurs in
Temple.
FRAGMENT II. This was to be an episode. Alonzo d’Ercilla was a Spanish
poet of the sixteenth century who, in a poem entitled Araucania, sang
the conquest, achieved by the Spaniards, of the country south of Chili.
Ll. 24. aréneuse, an old, somewhat out-of-the-way word. It occurs in
Rabelais.
L. 28. A climax inspired by Virgil, Aen. v. 319.
L. 52. le Dauphin. The Dolphin, a northern constellation,
Delphinius.
L, 53. la Couronne. The crown, Corona borealis.
