Thèse eight verses hâve a lyrical character

428 Achever ûT^-f infinitive usually means *' to do a thing completely," "put the last touches on"; hère it has hardly any translatable force.

432 désordre : agitation.

437 Vous vous échapperez : Y ou ivill lose control of yourself

441-451 The natural nobility of Sévère shows forth in thèse lines, in contrast to the somewhat effeminate lines 423-430 ^^ 435-436- I" 452 (cf. 436), by a device employed elsewhere (e.g. 75-76, 687-688; Tj- 78, 689-690 ; 645-646, 705-706), C. repeats, in whole or in part, a Une already used. Cf. 549.

446 Son devoir m'a trahi : i.e. " Sa fidélité au devoir a déçu mon espérance." (Jacquinet.) Cf. trahison^ 448.

448 trahison : apparently = déception ofmy hopes ; used rather loosely, perhaps for the sake of the rhyme, which is a common one in C.

450 l'un par l'autre : the référence is obscure. Ail éditions that I hâve seen either pass over the Une or quote V.'s-iftonjecture that it means " Félix par Pauline." With Professor Adolf Tobler we may at once reject this as " quite inadmissible," for Pauline once won there would hâve been no object in winning Félix; he was only the means, not the end. Probably l'un and l'autre refer to devoir and père, 447. Cf. 202 and note. Professor Tobler seems to refer l'un to père and l'autre to devoir : " Wàre mir ein bescheideneres Gluck etwas f riiher zu teil geworden, dann hàtte ihre PfUchterfiillung den Vater (fiir mich) und ihr Vater sie (fiir mich) gewonnen, und sie wàre mir geblieben." The most plausible explanation is that of Professor Grandgent of Harvard, — which is also that of M. Gustave Lanson, — which makes l'un refer to devoir and l'autre to père, devoir in this passage means " sensé of duty," — " Pflichterfiillung, Gehorsam," Professor Tobler translates it. ** Had Fortune smiled on me sooner, I should hâve won over Pauline's sensé of duty (and so her hand), through her father (who would hâve favored me if I had been famous)." M. Am. Hauvette interprets the passage in the same way in Revue universitaire, 1903, T. I, p. 371.

455 mouvements: impulses, or &\Qn violent feelings. (Hémon.)

456 vrais amants: "Expression romanesque assez fade mais fort usitée alors dans le langage de la galanterie." (P. de J.) Cf. parfait amant, 203 and 572.

458 l'objet présent: the présence of the beloved. In C. objet signifies commonly (i) "image" or "sight" of the loved one, as in Mélite, 259, Veuve, 593, etc.; (2) the "loved one" herself, as above, in 495, 571, Galerie du Palais, 73, Pompée, 655.

469 marques : qualities of distinction ; often used rather loosely by C. to rhyme with monarques. Cf. homme de marque.

477-478 Cf. note on 166; also Rodogune, 203-204: "Et ma raison sur moi gardera tant d'empire. Que je désavouerai mon cœur s'il en soupire."

483 De : —from, of course, as 484 shows, and not " with," as Hémon says. — esprits : heart. The plural esprits in C. and R. frequently signifies " reason," " heart," or «• soûl." Cf. 57'^.

487 humeur: character or disposition. Cf. 904, Menteur, 11 14 and II 17, and M.'s Dépit amoureux, 1777.

489 épandue: épandre, still used in verse, has been supplantée! in prose by répandre in most meanings.

490 M'aurait ... de: would already hâve cured my grief at.

494 var. un : for modem une. In early éditions C. continually uses un autre, féminine (e.g. Mélite, 1425 var., Clitandre, 1388, etc.; cf. R.'s tAndromaque, 1378), and several times even the pronoun Pun, féminine, before et and ou (e.g. Mélite, 909, Place Royale, 799 var., etc.). In thèse case? un was doubtless pronounced like une, as it still sometimes is before a vowel.

508 vœux: affection. For many instances of this use ci. Lexique de la langue de Molière, Gr. Écriv. ed. Cf. notes on 132 and 1182.

513 le: refers of course to mérite, 506. V. absurdly refers it to espoir.

514 me . . . lois: makes me obey the authority. dessous, like ^^jjaj, dedans, dehors, was commonlyjised as a préposition to the middle of the seventeenth century. ^01^497 v^, 1122 var., 1434 var.

517 à: = envers.

521 voyez : consider. So in 924 and 1504.

521 var. méritée. Seventeenth-century usage was far from settled on the complicated question of the agreement of the past participle, though Vaugelas (T. I, pp. 289-309) lays down substantially the modem rule. Hère C. makes the past participle agrée with a foUowing object, — a rare survival of earlier usage ; in 573 var., he fails to make it agrée with a preceding object, — a then common usage, when that object had a predicate modifier, e.g. " il nous a rendu puissants," Cf. H., §§ 92-94.

527 mes sens désolés: my despairing heart. Sens preceded by a possessive pronoun is often little more than a periphrasis for the Personal pronoun. So also âme and cœur.

532 avecque : used by C. for the last time in 1650, according to M.-L. C. substituted avec in many passages, in later éditions of early plays.