Pleine mer. (page 118.) – Victor Hugo

Analysis. The vision of a gigantic derelict vessel on a boundless sea.
This is the old world, the past of grandeur and horror.

In the nineteenth century a monster warship was built on the Thames,
type of the spirit of that age. It carried two thousand guns; its
topmast was higher than St. Paul’s; now it has become this derelict.

The old world was subject to many plagues and scourges. Its moving
spirit was Hatred, its characteristic, Division. Race strove with race;
vice, ignorance, superstition, cruelty prevailed.

Now the old world has vanished, the ship is deserted. What has become of
man? Look upwards!

cachalot. The cachalot or sperm-whale is one of the largest cetaceans,
often attaining a length of more than 80 ft.

le grand mât, the mainmast.

déferle (of a wave), ‘breaks.’

l.38. See the remarks, in the Introduction, on Hugo’s treatment of
shadows.

étrave, the stern of a vessel.

étambot, the stern-post.

l.53. The vessel pitches as she meets the waves (le tangage qui
brave); the rolling throws up most foam (le roulis qui fume).

éclat, splinter.

fauve, savage, barbarous. See note on ÉVIRADNUS.

Le dernier siècle. « Pleine Mer » and « Plein Ciel » form a section of the
Légende, entitled Vingtiérne Siècle.

sur la Tamise. Hugo was hostile to England. He regarded the British
Empire as one of the two great dominions the shadow of which was
oppressing the world in the middle of the nineteenth century, the
other being Russia. England embodied « l’esprit de commerce, de ruse
et d’aventure ». He developed this theme with a nervous and forcible
eloquence, if not with great political insight, in Le Rhin: Conclusion
(published in 1842).

portemanteaux, davits, on which the boats are slung.

grelin, a hawser or warp.

palans, tackle for raising heavy weights; block and pulley.

amure, rope by means of which the lower corners of a sail are held,
‘tack.’

se le passaient, passed it along, i.e. the ship.

Nemrod. Nimrod is in Hugo the incarnation of the spirit of war. Cf.
especially La Fin de Satan: Le Glaive.

pavois, as a naval term, ‘bulwarks.’

vrille, gimlet. The conception is of some immense spiked ram.

alcoran, the Koran. Al is the Arabic definite article.

L. 191 refers to the texts in the Koran which order the death of those
who do not accept Mahometanism.

simoun, simoon, the hot wind of the Sahara.