XII. NON, JE NE L'AIME PLUS...

Ll. 5-8. Tibullus, II. iv. 13 ff.

L. 9. _Voilà donc comme on aime!_ This use of the indefinite _on_, at the same time familiar and poetical, occurs in Corneille, _Pol._ II. i: 'Est-ce là comme _on_ aime?' And in Molière, _Tart._ II. iv: 'C'est donc ainsi qu'_on_ aime?' The _nuance_ cannot pass into English.

L. 13. Tibullus, I. v. 21.

Ll. 14, 15. _Ignorés et contents... notre asile...._ This abridged construction, with the past participle or the adjective before which _étant_ is understood, is neat when not equivocal, that is, when the past participle or the adjective are clearly connected with a noun or pronoun in the principal clause (_notre_, in the present case). Ayer, § 278, 3.

L. 30. _Le vent...._ Tibul. I. v. 36. A frequent image in Latin writers. In French many are the variations on this original theme: 'Autant en emporte le vent' (= so much breath is wasted). 'Ses paroles miellées S'en étant aux vents envolées,' writes La Fontaine, _Fab._ X. xi, and Bertin, _Am._ II. i, imitating the passage of Tibullus, has 'Les vents, hélas! en tourbillons fougueux Sur l'océan ont emporté mes voeux' (a sentence, by the bye, in which it is difficult to see the logic of 'en tourbillons fougueux' and 'sur l'océan').

Ll. 33-54. Tibullus, i. 9. 17.

L. 33. _Garde d'être._ For _garde-toi d'être_. In the older language the pronoun object of reflexive verbs was frequently omitted. A trace of this ellipsis is still extant with _faire_ followed by a reflexive verb in the _infinitive_ (_faire taire_ = _faire se taire_). Haase, § 61. We still say _dépêchons_, _arrêtez_, for _dépêchons-nous_, _arrêtez-vous_.

L. 38. _J'allais couvrant._ See note to p. 27, l. 29.

L. 42. _Qui font jeu de..._, a simplification of the phrase 'se faire un jeu de.'

L. 48. _avec le lin._ _Mouchoir_ would have appeared too prosaic in those days.

Ll. 52. _a monté ma lyre avec ma voix._ Another instance of 'one word passing under favour of another,' for a voice can hardly be said to be _strung_. See note to p. 64, X, ll. 15, 16.

Ll. 53, 54. Vulcan, the god of fire, for 'fire'. _L'onde où tout s'oublie_ is misleading as suggesting Lethe. _Consumer_, though representing chiefly the action of fire, originally means 'to use up destructively,' and so can apply to the action of water. (Cf. this English instance: 'The horses were partly (the ships being broken) _consumed_ in the sea.'--Usher, _Aun._ vi. 424, in _N.E.D._) The verb is moreover in the singular according to Chénier's practice (see note to p. 25, l. 74).