II. ami, chez nos français. – André Chénier

L. 16. Sans aller refers to me, the object in the principal clause.
Sans que j’aille would be better syntax. But the prepositional
infinitive was used in older French in a still more disconnected manner.
‘Rends-le-moi sans te fouiller,’ writes Molière, L’Avare I. iii.,
could easily be more explicit, with: ‘without me or my searching
you,’ See Haase, § 85 D.

Ll. 16-19. See Boileau, Sat. ix. 221-5, who is here excellently
satirized.

L. 28. An allusion to the fable of the Fox and the Grapes. La Fontaine,
Fab. III. xi.

L. 41. Non d’aller. An abrupt change in the construction. The meaning
is: ‘But it is not useful to go…’

Ll. 47-60. The germ of all this development is in a letter of Chénier to
his friend de Pange: ‘Tu sais combien mes muses sont vagabondes. Elles
ne peuvent achever promptement un seul projet; elles en font marcher
cent à la fois (a general marshalling his troops, ll. 49, 50). Elles
font un pied à ce poème et une épaule à celui-là. Ils boitent tous
et ils seront sur pieds tous ensemble (The image of the sculptor, ll.
51-6). Elles les couvent tous à la fois; ils sortiront tous à la fois’
(the simile of incubation, ll. 57-60).

L. 59. Sauront. This use of savoir, as also that of pouvoir, so
frequent in French, in sentences where the English translation is fain
to omit them, is a French idiom, especially noticeable in the language
of the seventeenth century. An Englishman cannot help being made aware
of this feature when reading Molière, for instance.

L. 71. des traits. Whatever there is that is salient, striking,
brilliant, in a literary composition, LITTRÉ says, s.v. 31°: fine
touches.

Ll. 73. inspire. For the verb in the singular see note to p. 25, l.
74.

Ll. 79-92. Here the simile of the founder has displaced that of the
potter in the letter quoted above: ‘L’argile que j’avais amollie et
humectée pour en faire un pot à l’eau, sous mon doigt capricieux,
devient une tasse ou une théière.’

L. 94. Cf. La Fontaine, Épître à Mgr de Soissons.

L. 96. et je crée avec eux. Thus happily does Chénier characterize his
attempt at original imitation. Another important declaration will be
found at ll. 117-9.

L. 105. une pourpre…. The purpureus pannus or purple patch of
Horace, Ars Poet. 15.

L. 109. brave, bold.

L. 124. fuit mes poétiques doigts. Once transformed by the poet’s
hand, prose goes and dances and sings. An easy improvement would be to
delete the ‘;’ after doigts and the ‘,’ after dansante.

L. 130. Les attache, i.e. les greffe, grafts them.

L. 140. Montaigne…. ‘Je veulx qu’ils donnent une nazarde à Plutarque
sur mon nez,’ Ess. I. x. ‘I will have them wound Plutarch through my
sides,’ Cotton’s translation.