‹ Poésies choisies d'André ChénierChapitre 125 sur 132 · IV. L'ART D'AIMER.

IV. L'ART D'AIMER.

Ll. 6, 7. Et qui pense... Il pense... This is a feature of old syntax. Instances of the construction occur in the seventeenth century: 'Qui dit prude, il dit laide,' LA FONTAINE. Sometimes the repetition may be made with a demonstrative pronoun: 'Qui ne mourrait pour conserver son honneur, celui-là serait infâme, PASCAL.

L. 8. un durable sillon. Cf. '... having driven his plough through a morass which must close again behind it.' Froude, Oceana, iii.

Ll. 29-34. Alpheus, in Elis (Peloponnesus), 'that renowned flood, so often sung, Divine Alpheus, who, by secret sluice, Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse.'--Milton, Arcades, 29 ff. The nymph Arethusa, one of Diana's nymphs, was by the goddess changed into a fountain, to save her from the pursuit of Alpheus, a hunter, while Alpheus himself became a river. Enna is a town in Sicily. The fact that the river Alpheus ran in a subterranean channel at several points in its course probably gave rise to the myth.

L. 34. amer, an obvious misprint for amère. Besides, with amer the line is deficient by one foot.

L. 44. ils s'écrivent des fleurs. This is as happy as it is bold. As much may be said of: 'Lit en bouquet la lettre...,' l. 50. All this fragment is gracefully ingenious.

L. 46. sa durée. The duration of the 'flame,' of course.

Page 1