SCENE III

31 23 — De mes vives douleurs te faire voir l’atteinte :

Lay bare to thee my stricken bosom’s wounds.

— W. F. Nokes.

Atteinte, participial substantive, from atteindre, to reach, strike, attain, Lat. attingere.

32 3 — A sa trame coupée, for a coupé sa trame : Has

eut his thread of life, has severed him from life.

32 4 — Et fondez-vous en eau : And dissolve yourselves

into tears.

32 5 — La moitié de ma vie a mis l’autre au tombeau ... :

(Rodrigue who is) One half of my life has slain (my father who was) the other half . . . Celle que je n’ai plus (my father) sur celle qui me reste (Rodrigue).

32 8 — Reposez-vous: Takerest — i.e., calm your feelings. .

Page 32 line 9 — . . . Ah ! que mal à propos : How unseasonably, improperly. Notice. — Vous voilà fort à propos, you are just corne in time ; Il n’est pas à propos qu’il le sache, it is not fit he should know it ; à propos , apposite, pertinent ; mal à propos , ill-timed, impertinent, unapt.

32 13 — Et que dois espérer qu’un . . . jor dois-je espérer

autre chose qu’un ... : What else can I expect but eternal torment (anguish).

32 23 — Combat de colère et de flamme : Strugglebetween

wrath and love.

32 24 — Il déchire mon cœur sans partager mon âme : He

rends my heart without breaking (dividing) my will (my spirit). Chimène means that it breaks her heart to hâve to revenge her father on her lover, but her will to do so remains unshaken.

3* 25 — Et, quoi que mon amour ait sur moi de pouvoir.

We should say now : Et quelque pouvoir que mon amour , etc . . . It is a pity that the concise expression used by Corneille should be considered obsolète, and should hâve as a substitute the somewhat clumsy one quelque . . . que .

32 28 -Son intérêt m’afflige: The interest I take in him

causes me pain (fam. I feel for him). The French Academy blâmes Corneille for bringing together intérêt and afflige , and adds that son intérêt me touche, or sa peine m 'afflige^ would hâve been correct: “Ce mot intérêt , étant commun au bien et au mal, ne s’accorde pas justement avec afflige , qui n’est que pour le mal.”

33 4 — Un dessein si tragique : A so direful course.

33 7 — Orrai, the future of ouïr , to hear ; formerly oirt

from Lat. audire. Notice. — Ouïr is obsolète except in the infinitive présent, preterite definite, and compound tenses with avoir . The English oyez (sometimes 0 yes , a call of attention given by the public criers) is the impérative of ouir ; oyez , hear ye ! A court of oyer and terminer is a judicature where causes are heard and determined (Norm. oyer , entendre), Dérivatives: Ouie, s.f, hearing, the faculty of hearing. Vous avez l’ouie fine, you hâve an acute, a sensitive ear. Ouï-dire, s. m. , hearsay. Je le sais par ouï-dire, I know it by hearsay. See Hachette’s “ Formes Idiomatiques Comparées,” chap. xviii., phrase 912.

NOTES

33 line 8 — Surpris par d’autres charmes : Seduced by other spells.

33 13 — D’avoir moins de chaleur: To hâve less wrath,

anger ; to burn less fiercely. Chaleur, heat, from Lat. calorem. The nominative cahr had formed the Old French caur (thirteenth century). Cf. To get into a heat, se mettre en colère.

33 15 — N’en pressez point l’effet : Do not urge him to

action ; lit. do not hurry the resuit of it (of your having seen the king and demanded redress).

33 17-n y va de ma gloire : My honour is at stake.