IX. tel j’étais autrefois… – André Chénier

L. 1. et tel… See note to p. 40, l. 15.

L. 2. Quand ma main… A quaint periphrasis for ‘When I am out of
cash.’

L. 4. m’a fermé le seuil. Chénier had first written, ‘Je vois qu’on
m’a fermé la porte inexorable.’ On reconsidering it, he must have
thought fermer le seuil a more novel alliance of words, giving more
force to the whole group fermer le seuil inexorable. Cf. élever sa
langue for élever la voix, p. 14, l. 203.

L. 7. O soins… Persius, Sat. i. ‘O curas hominum! O quantum est in
rebus inane.’

Ll. 11-14. Persius, Sat. iii. 109-111; Horace, Od. i. 9. 21.

L. 15. les grands discours. Big words.

L. 16. Et le sage Lycée, et l’auguste Portique: the Lyceum, i.e. the
Aristotelian philosophy; the Porticus, i.e. the Stoic school.

L. 17. Et reviennent… See note to p. 46, l. 17.

L. 17. et soupirs et billets… This departure from current usage
in omitting the definite article, which gives more rapidity to an
enumeration, cannot be imitated in English. It is a feature of the
older syntax which has been most fortunately preserved. The use of the
definite article in Old and Middle French was much the same as in modern
English. It was often omitted (as also the indefinite article) before
homme, chose, femme, before nouns taken in a general sense and
abstract nouns. The English student knows that Old English said
se mann for man (in general), tha godan menn for good men (in
general), seo gesceadwisnes for wisdom (even when personified).
Is it not likely that the present usage in English, established in the
Middle English period, was much influenced by contemporary French usage?