III. la liberté. – André Chénier

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.