Scene I

3 1 — Eobe pour V épée : The study of law for the

military career.

3 4 — Et fai fait banqueroute à ce fatras de lois : And I

hâve been a bankrupt to (that is to say, I gave up). Dorante jests in the style of the Courts of Law.

3 5 — Dedans les Tuileries : Instead of dans les Tui-

leries. In the actual language dedans means within, and is not to be used with an object : It may also be taken as a noun — le dedans , the inside ; but the poets of the seventeenth century often used it as a préposition. Voltaire calls it a mistake. — Les Tuileries, a palace in Paris, so called from the tile-fields which existed there in 1342. Francis I. purchased the original small house called the Hôtel des Tuileries, 1518, for his mother, and Catherine de Medicis chose it for the site of a new palace. It was completed by Louis XIII. ; captured by the people of Paris, August lOth, 1792, 28th July, 1830, and 24th February, 1848. The central part was destroyed by fire during the last days of the Paris Commune (May 24th, 1871). .

3 15 — Et jamais comme vous on ne peignit Barthole , or

Bartole : Italian jurist (1313-1356).

4 2 — Faire le fin : To act the sly one ; to finesse.

Compare the proverb,“à fin fin et demi,” with the English saying, “ diamond eut diamond.”

4 9 — De passer pour un homme à donner tablature : To

eut out work, for the word tablature means some indication in the teaching of music, presented in the shape of a table ; fig. it means a difficult or embarrassing question.

NOTES

Fage 4 line 16 — Tu prends mon sens â gauche : You mistake my idea ; lit., you take my idea left-handed, in the wrong way.

4 21 — Débiter leurs fleurettes : To talk soft nonsense, to

make love.

4 23 —Vous êtes d'encolure à vouloir un peu mieux :

You are of a figure to aim at something better ; encolure derived from cou , neck, means the general appearance.

4 25 — Et le jeu comme on dit n'en vaut pas les chandelles :

It is not worth trying ; it is not worth powder and shot; it is not worth while. This proverbial locution is very old, and was used originally about the games of cards when the stakes were not worth the candie which lighted the players.

5 10 — Et là , faute de mieux , un sot passe à la montre :

And there, by default of something better, a mere fool attracts attention ; lit., is exposed in show. This word montre meant at the time of Corneille a review of troops. It is what a certain Italian translator of “ l’illustre Bassa ” did not know, who “pour dire que Soliman donna deux montres à son armée a mis due orologi." — Tallemant “ Historiettes,” vii.,

5 20 — Il y croît des badauds autant et plus qu' ailleurs :

Badaud , deriv. bailler9 vieux français béer, Italian badare , Latin badare , originally to open the mouth, to gape ; hence to look at a thing with astonishment and stupidity.

6 25 — Chacun s'y fait de mise = S’y fait valoir. See

“Lexique de la langue de Corneille” (édition Begnier). Voltaire says, “Peut-être cette expression pouvait passer autrefois. ”

5 26 — Autant comme il se prise : The correct form would

now be autant que ; priser — estimer . Cf.

Act iv., v. 146 ... “Ce faible bonheur ne vaut pas qu’on le prise.”

5 34 — Tel donne à pleines mains qui n'oblige personnel

“ Many give much whose liberality deserves no gratitude.” Voltaire says on that passage : “ Molière n’a point de tirade plus parfaite. Terence n’a rien écrit de plus pur que ce morceau.”

6 6 — L'un contre-temps : It ought to be tellement â

contre-temps ; the idiom is not faire d'un contretemps, but faire à contre-tempsy as Voltaire justly reraarks.

Page 6 line 14 — Penses-tu qu'il t'en die : Instead of dise .