Plein ciel. – Victor Hugo

Analysis.

The vision of a ship in the sky. What is it? It is man, who has burst
the bonds that held him to earth and risen into the clouds. It is matter
soaring through the heavens.

First lyrical passage. The passage of the ship through the sky.

Description of the life in the ship; the absence of arms; the feeling of
power and joy. Description of the ship’s movement.

Second lyrical passage. The voyage amongst the stars.

Whither will man go? He has thrown off his oid nature, his past history
is buried, he aspires to immortality.

Third lyrical passage. Is man to reach Heaven without death?

No, man must remain man, but the weight has been taken from his feet.
War has vanished; man is good and just.

Fourth lyrical passage. The ship is moving towards Virtue, Knowledge,
Right, Reason, Brotherhood, Justice and Love, and is carrying with it
man, who will find liberty and unity in the light.

La Fable, i.e. the myth of Aeolus.

Eole. Aeolus was the god of the Winds, which he kept fastened up in a
bag.

fausse clef, skeleton key.

fatal, ‘charged with destiny.’

pesanteur. Not ‘weight’ but ‘the force of gravity’.

Nadir is the point in the heavens which would be reached if a line
were drawn through the centre of the earth and carried on till it
reached the sky. But here it seems to be used loosely for any distant
point in the heavens. The meaning is that from a remote distance the
round earth, as it came into view beneath the ship, would have the
appearance of a dusky comet.

aéroscaphe. A word once proposed, but never widely accepted, as a
designation for an airship. It is derived from the Greek aer (air) and
skaphe (a vessel).

humaine, i.e. made by man.

treuil, ‘windlass.’

moufle, ‘block.’

moteur, ‘driving power.’

L. 171. i.e. by mathematics and poetry, that is by reason and
imagination combined.

Euler was a Swiss geometrician (1707-83) who made great contributions
to mathematics and mechanics.

Délos. Tradition says that Delos in the Aegean Sea was once a
wandering island, and that Zeus fastened it down that it might be a home
for Latona, who was about to give birth to Apollo and Diana.

Leibniz (English Leibnitz), the German mathematician, chemist, and
philosopher (1646-1716).

Fulton, the American inventor (1765-1815), who was one of the first
mechanicians to construct a steamboat.

Képler. The German Kepler (1571-1630) was one of the founders of
modern astronomy.

These three men are chosen as typical embodiments of the spirit of
progress.

Simoun. See note on PLEINE MER.

mistral. In the South of France the north-east wind is so called.

Sous le renversement de l’urne. The urn is the symbol of that
‘Fatalité’ which to Hugo was the dark shadow over human life. Cf.
LA TROMPETTE.

Andromeda, Orion, and the Pleiades are well-known constellations.
Arcturus is a star of the first magnitude in Bootes.

The Scorpion and the Archer are next each other in the heavens. The
lines express in a somewhat bizarre manner the effect of the outpouring
of life on the stars.

Aldebaran, a reddish star of the first magnitude in the constellation
of Taurus.

Céphée. Cepheus is the name of a constellation, as also is Perseus.

des espaces vermeils. See note on AYMERILLOT.

L. 232. Zoroastre. Zoroaster was the founder of the Persian religion.
He was a great observer of the stars.

L. 245. Fatalité. In Victor Hugo the word denotes, not so much
destiny, as the feeling or the doctrine that man is the helpless victim
of an unseen and cruel power. It is a gloom which overhangs human life,
from which in the progress of the ages man will be delivered. Compare
La Vision d’où sortit ce livre, where the spirit of ‘Fatalité’ is
associated with paganism and contrasted with the spirit of religion. In
Dieu again ‘Fatalité’ is one of the three sombre deities of paganism,
the other two being Venus, the goddess of pleasure, and Hecate, the
goddess of death. Cf. also the following lines from La Fin de Satan,
put into the mouth of man’s evil angel:–

Je suis Lilith-Isis, l’âme noire du monde.
Tremble! l’être inconnu, funeste, illimité,
Que l’homme en frémissant nomme Fatalité,
C’est moi. Tremble! Ananké, c’est moi. Tremble! Le voile
C’est moi.

And again in Satan’s speech to the Almighty:–

Tu seras Providence et moi Fatalité.

Notre-Dame de Paris is based upon this theme. See especially Livre
VII. iv.

L. 255. For the metaphor compare ‘la fausse clef du fatal gouffre bleu’,
l. 37, and the following passage in L’Ane about the prison of life:–

La porte en est massive et la voûte en est dure;
Tu regardes parfois au trou de la serrure,
Et tu nommes cela science; mais tu n’as
Pas de clef pour ouvrir le fatal cadenas.

L. 273. Cf. the well-known line in Les Contemplations: Ce que dit la
Bouche d’Ombre:–

Le fauve univers est le forçat de Dieu.

Man is likened to a convict, in that he is undergoing punishment, not in
that he deserves it.

Allioth, a star of the first magnitude in the Great Bear.

J’en arrive: ‘Tis from there I come.

la pesanteur. Gravity symbolizes the forces which keep man down.

guèbres, fire-worshippers, i.e. the Persians, who still adhere to the
ancient religion of Zoroaster. The word itself is Persian.

Thalès (English Thales), one of the seven wise men of Greece.

L. 317. An allusion to the well-known doctrine of the music of the
spheres, enunciated by Plato.

chouette. The owl, as a bird of darkness, was to Hugo suggestive of
evil things. Cf. La Confiance.

frisson des roseaux, i.e. a trembling like that of reeds.

Spinosa (English Spinoza) (1632-77), the Jewish philosopher, whose
rationalistic views would be evidence to Hugo of his need of faith.

Hobbe. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the famous English philosopher, is
best known by his defence of absolute monarchy. In ethics he held that
man is swayed only by the desire for pleasure and the fear of pain.
Either of these views would be to Hugo a system of despair.

Erèbe (Erebus) was originally one of the Titans who was cast by Zeus
into Tartarus. The word is thus used as a synonym for the lower world,
especially those regions where evil deeds are expiated.

fatalité. See note on l. 245.

géhenne. Gehenna was the valley near Jerusalem where crimmals were
executed. In the New Testament it is used as a synonym for hell.

Nimrod is again the embodiment of the spirit of war. Aaron typifies
ecclesiastical resistance to progress.

Beccaria was an Italian publicist (1738-94) who worked for the reform
of the penal law. His principal work was a small volume called Treatise
on Crime and Punishment, which was translated into nearly every
language in Europe. His opposition to the use of torture, to the
infliction of the death penalty, and to arbitrary arrest no doubt
appealed specially to Hugo.

Dracon, i.e. Draco, the Athenian legislator, the memory of the
excessive severity of whose laws lingers in our adjective draconian.

Empédocle. Empedocles was a Greek philosopher who was born in Sicily
about 450 B.C. He is best remembered from the tradition that he threw
himself down Etna in despair at his incapacity to solve the problem of
its action.

Prométhée. Prometheus was the Titan who stole fire from heaven and
gave it to men, for which Zeus chained him to a rock in the Caucasus. In
legend and poetry he figures as the benefactor and civilizer of mankind.

pesanteur. See note on l. 305.

l’antique idéal, the ancient visions,
as for instance those of Isaiah and Virgil, of a golden age.

farouche, i. e. that has never been realized.

L. 473. i. e. leaving the old humanity farther and farther behind.