IV. l’art d’aimer. – André Chénier

Ll. 6, 7. Et qui pense… Il pense… This is a feature of old syntax.
Instances of the construction occur in the seventeenth century: ‘Qui
dit prude, il dit laide,’ LA FONTAINE. Sometimes the repetition may be
made with a demonstrative pronoun: ‘Qui ne mourrait pour conserver son
honneur, celui-là serait infâme, PASCAL.

L. 8. un durable sillon. Cf. ‘… having driven his plough through a
morass which must close again behind it.’ Froude, Oceana, iii.

Ll. 29-34. Alpheus, in Elis (Peloponnesus), ‘that renowned flood, so
often sung, Divine Alpheus, who, by secret sluice, Stole under seas to
meet his Arethuse.’–Milton, Arcades, 29 ff. The nymph Arethusa, one
of Diana’s nymphs, was by the goddess changed into a fountain, to save
her from the pursuit of Alpheus, a hunter, while Alpheus himself became
a river. Enna is a town in Sicily. The fact that the river Alpheus ran
in a subterranean channel at several points in its course probably gave
rise to the myth.

L. 34. amer, an obvious misprint for amère. Besides, with amer the
line is deficient by one foot.

L. 44. ils s’écrivent des fleurs. This is as happy as it is bold.
As much may be said of: ‘Lit en bouquet la lettre…,’ l. 50. All this
fragment is gracefully ingenious.

L. 46. sa durée. The duration of the ‘flame,’ of course.