V. hylas. – André Chénier

The subject of the poem is taken from Theocritus, Id. xiii., and
Virgil, Ecl. vi.

L. 1. Le navire éloquent. Argo, which Malherbe calls ‘le navire qui
parlait,’ Lebrun ‘la nef à voix humaine,’ and Chénier himself in a
fragment (XLIX., p. 118 of the first volume of the edition published in
1874 by G. de Chénier), ‘le vaisseau parleur.’

L. 2. Colchos. This Colchos has never had any existence except in the
imagination of French poets. It is, in fact, the accusative of Colchi,
the Colchians, or inhabitants of Colchis, mistaken for the name of a
town.

Ll. 12-14. Et leur onde… un… zéphire, un murmure… ‘l’avertit.
The verb is in the singular, agreeing with the last subject, as is the
constant practice with Chénier. Cf. note to p. 25, l. 74.

L. 14. et soupire. The first editor has corrected this into et
l’attire. But the nymph first attracts the attention of the boy and
then sighs out her desire (as again on l. 19).

L. 15. jette des fleurs. Jeter is said of plants and trees (E.
shoot), whence rejeton (E. shoot).

L. 20. il l’admire couler. See note to p. 8, l, 260.

L. 26. Sur leur sein, dans leurs bras, assis… Elliptical: ‘he
sitting on their knees,’ For this sense of sein see note to p. 24, l.
48.

L. 29. Leurs mains vont caressant. Aller with the gerund of a
verb was a periphrase much in vogue in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and meaning nothing more than the verb itself. It is now of
rare use, except in poetry (Haase, §70 A). Palsgrave says that ‘que je
vous yraye devisant’ amounts to ‘que vous deviseroye,’ Littré,
however, in his dictionary (s. v. ‘aller,’ 21), says that it expresses
continuity.

L. 30. étamine. This is, Sainte-Beuve observes, the prima lanugine
malas of the Latins. Cf. ‘Flaventem prima lanngine malas… ‘Clytium,’
Aen. x. 324, ‘downy-cheeked Clytius’; or ‘Clytius in his beardless
bloom,’ as Dryden, not very accurately, renders it. For étamine see
note to p. 50, l. 38.

Ll. 38, 39. Virgil, Ecl. vi. 43.

Ll. 46-52. The syntax of this sentence would incur the blame of a
strict grammarian. He would first observe that in the wording, ‘pour te
paraître belle, l’eau pure…,’ it is pure water that is represented
as wanting to appear at its best, and that, in order to avoid this
absurdity, the author should have written ‘pour te paraître belle, elle
(the idyll a…)–in short, the construction that reappears in the
following clause, ‘elle a pressé ses flancs….’ Next he might perhaps
object to ‘Et des fleurs sur son sein … et sa flûte à la main,’ a
clause in which he would miss the verb. But say ‘elle met des fleurs
sur son sein, etc., et elle prend sa flûte à la main,’ and notice the
loss in vivacity. As the young person bustles, so does the sentence.

L. 51. les pipeaux de Segrais. Segrais (1624-1701) wrote idylls
praised by Boileau. He also had a hand in the composition of the two
novels of Mme de la Fayette, Zaïde and La Princesse de Clèves, and
gave a metrical translation of the Aeneid, now forgotten.

L. 52. connus… aux nymphes. Both connu à and connu de are said,
though the latter is more common at the present day.