Scène I

29 23 — Misérable: Unhappy man. Notice. — Il faut

être bien misérable pour faire une pareille chose, he must indeed be a villain to do such a thing ; C'est un misérable, he is a knave ; Il a fait un discours misérable, he made a wretched speech.

> 30 - * 6— Mon honneur de ma main a voulu cet effort : My honour exacted the deed from my reluctant hand.

•30 17 — Dérobe ta présence 5 Conceal your présence, steal away from hère. Dérober, lit. to steal, from de and robe, Provençal rauôa, from Lat.

raubare (sixth century, A.D.), to spoil, to pillage ; Cf. Ital. roàa, which means merchandise, articles of food and clothing, moveable and landed property ; Cf. also Engl. to rob ; ferm. rauben t with which the Lat. rapio f I sfcze, is perhaps connected. Notice. — Il s'est dérobé à toutes les poursuites, he stole away /rom ail pursuits ; Deux hommes passèrent le 'pont à lk dérobée, two men stole over the bridge.

30 18 — Premiers mouvements que poussera l'ardeur de ses

ressentiments : The first outbursts of passion

excited by her spirit of revenge.

30 20 — Ce cher objet : This beloved one.

30 22— Et j'évite cent morts ... : And I save myself

from a hundred livingdeaths, if I can redouble

her anger so as to die sooner.

Pa$e 30 #«125— Ne ... point que. Expression nsed several times by Corneille for ne . • • que, not . . . " but, only, is now considered as incorrect

30 26— ôte-moi de soiici : Deliver me from my anxiety.

30 28 — Pour comble à sa misère :' To crown her misery.

30 30 — Voi, instead of vois. M. Brachet says : " Both in French and in Latin the letter s is characteristic of the second person singular: amat, aimes ; amabas, aimais, etc. . . • The first person singular never bas an s in Latin : amo 9 credo, video, teneo, hence in Old French j'aime, je croi, je voi, je tien. In the fourteenth century there came in a habit (unreasonable because not based on etymology) of adding s to the first person, and of writing je vieux, je tienx, je voix. The correct form, je croi, îe voi, je tien, is found in Corneille, Molière, La Fontaine, and Racine (seventeenth century) ; and Voltaire, in the eighteeath century, wrote —

La mort a respecté* ces jours que je te doL

— Alâre ii. s.

But thèse forms, whose historical foundation was unknown,appeared to be poetical licences." Certainly ; but is not the name of " poetical licence" the right one to give to a form -winch is two or three centuries old, and which the poets above mentioned use at the end of the Une where it is considered necessary to rhyme to the eye as well as to the ear, but which they abandon in the body of the Une for the form then and now recognised as the correct one, je crois, etc.

Cest ce qu'à dire vrai je voi* fort difficile.

— Cinna iïi. x.

Je tient leur culte impie et je le tien* funeste. — Polyeucte.

Et que dolr-jc espérer qu'un tourment éternel . . — Cidiïi. 3.

D'Olivet, the celebrated grammarian (1682— 1768), saysr "Les poètes commencèrent par ajouter un s aux premières personnes du singulier des verbes terminés par une consonne, afin d'éviter des hiatus. N'ayant rien à craindre pour les verbes qui finissent par un e muet,

notes. 9 r

parce que ceux-là s'élident, JU les laissèrent sans s. Insensiblement l'usage des poètes est devenu générai."

Scenb II.

Page 31 Une 3— À force de parler : By dint of words, by mère words.

31 9— Malheureuse : Unhappy me !

31 18— Et que de mes malheurs cette pitié vous dure : And if your pity for my misfortune endure.

Notice. — Leur amitié n'a guère duré, their friendship has not lasted long; Je veux une étoffe qui dure, I want astuff that wears well : Le temps lui dure, time hangs heavy upon him. The use of que instead of H repeated ; some grammarians say that que may stand for a conjunction expressed in the preceding sentence, such as si,, lorsque, comme, etc. ; others maintain that que cannot stand for any other con* junction, and that there is an ellipsis which justifies the use of que, that: the former would consider que to be équivalent to si t the latter to et s'il arrivait que ; cnsuppotant que . • •

31 ' 20 —Où mon âme prétend : To which I aspire (with ail my soûl).