Scène 3. — Page 77, 4 à mon secours ... à ma défaite, à for

pour (see line 8, p. 70).

10 Ne veuillez pas vous perdre, do not seek (self) destruction.

1 1 votre crime passe, your crime may go, may reach.

17 Je ne vous compte à rien. I count for nothing (see line 5, p. 66).

20 voyez notre espérance, consider what we are to expect (from so many advantages).

Page 78. 6 Aujourd'hui dans le trône, et demain dans la boue. A beautiful example of antithesis. Dans le trône,, taken in the 1 itérai meaning, in the throne.

14 tantôt, soon^ for bientôt.

16 Et ne peut m'assurer de celui qui le suit. This idea of the uncertainty of the future bas often been expressed by the poets, but nowhere with such force as by Victor Hugo {Chants du Crépuscule ^ "Napoléon II."): —

** Oh ! demain, c'est la grande chose ! De quoi demain sera-t-il fait.^ L'homme aujourd'hui sème la cause, Demain Dieu fait mûrir l'effet."

Page 79. 6 Tout beau, gently. This expression has been criticised as not being sufïîciently noble. It was used, hovvever, in most sublime style by ail the authors of the seventeenth century.

Page 80. 19 Tu ne la caches pas, tu veux que je la voie

The la refers to avec joie, We could not use now an inflected pronoun to represent a noun not taken in a defînite sensé.

Page 81. 13 Seigneur, de vos bontés il faut que je l'obtienne.

In his commentary. Voltaire makes hère a remark which shows what little attention was paid to the historical accuracy of the costumes in the seventeenth century and even in the eighteenth : " I remember that formerly the actor who played the part of Polyeucte, with whitc gloves and a large hat, took off his gloves and his hat to pray to God."

Page 82. 9 me séduire, to lead me astray. II Imaginations, ////^/<7«r/>j.

Page 83. 7 Je vais. . . . This dialogue between Pauline and Polyeucte is really grand. Polyeucte is sublime in defining his God, and explaining his faith ; and Pauline is tender and touching' in her pleading with her husband in his behalf. The latter seems to be inspired, and prophesies Pauline's conversion.

Scène 4. — Page 84. 6 Souffrez avant ma mort que je vous le résigne. Permit me to dcUver it to you before my death. Thèse words of Polyeucte shock a little ail who read this beautiful tragedy, and \ve cannot help finding, with Voltaire, that it was "a strange idea on Polyeucte's part to beg Sévère to corne, in order to yield his wife to him." We know that Polyeucte's résignation is complète, but the idea of bequeathing his wife, so to say, to a former lover, is not natural. Yet this brings out Sévère's noble character, and makes Pauline's efforts to save her husband so much more praiseworthy, if we consider Polyeucte's renunciation of her.