I. L'AVEUGLE.
L. 1.Iliad, i. 37: 'Hear, thou god that bear'st the silver bow, O Smintheus.'--CHAPMAN.
L. 3. cet aveugle, meaning 'himself,' is a Greek, and also Latin, idiom. Seneca, writing of himself, uses the phrase in hoc sene, which Montaigne (Ess. II. XXXV. translates en ce vieillard, followed by his own translator, Cotton, with: 'in this old fellow.' Corneille, Polyeucte, V. iii: 'C'en est assez: Félix, reprenez ce courroux Et sur cet insolent i.e. me) vengez vos dieux et vous.'
L. 4. C'est ainsi qu'achevait l'aveugle... Et près des bois marchait. The inversion is quite usual, but what is less so is the absence of a subject before marchait. Here is, however, another instance of the same construction from Racine, Idylle de la Paix: 'Déjà marchait devant les étendards Bellone, les cheveux épars et se flattait d'éterniser les guerres'...
L. 6. S'asseyait. A very happy enjambement. The rhythm also stops as if for very weariness.
L. 18. à la prière. Is this a Latinism, a translation of the Latin ad preces, or an extension of the use of à=pour so common in French? See note to p. 3, l. 88.
L. 26. pures, i.e. sans mélange, 'unmixed, unalloyed.'
Ll. 27, 28. Cf. in the Odyssey (viii. 64): Demodocus, 'the blind singer, to whom, in recompense of his lost sight, the Muses had given an inward discernment, a soul and a voice to excite the hearts of men and gods to delight.'--Lamb, Advent. of Ulys., vii.
Ll. 31, 32. Menander in Stobaeus, Florilegium, xcvi.
Ll. 33-38. Od. vii. 208.
L. 39. Thamyris. The story is told in the Iliad (ii. 594): 'the muses.... Because he proudly durst affirm he could more sweetly sing than that Pierian race of Jove.... Bereft his eyesight, and his song that did the ear enchant, and of his skill to touch his harp disfurnished his hand.'--CHAPMAN.
L. 45. puisse... changer ta destinée, for puisse ta destinée changer. The same construction may be seen in: 'Puisse périr comme eux quiconque leur ressemble.'--Racine, Athalie, IV. ii.
Ll. 46, 47. ce que... tient la peau. For the inversion of the subject in relative clauses see Meyer-Lübke, iii. § 751, and A. Darmesteter-Sudre, Syntaxe, § 492.
L. 48. Ils versent... The verb verser, 'to cause a liquid to flow out of a vessel,' is extended to solids, e.g. 'verser du blé dans un sac' (LITTRÉ).
Ll. 49, 50. les olives huileuses,... et les figues mielleuses. 'The honied fig and unctuous olive smooth.'--Cowper, Od. vii. 139.
L. 56. venus de Jupiter. In the sense in which Nausicaa, Od. vi. 207, says: 'From Jove come all strangers, and the needy of a home.'--CHAPMAN.
Ll. 57-67. Od. vi. 154.
L. 62. ce palmier de Latone. In Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses, the hero says to Nausicaa: 'Lately at Delos (where I touched) I saw a young palm which grew beside Apollo's temple; it exceeded all the trees which ever I beheld for straightness and beauty: I can compare you only to that.' Under this palm-tree Latona gave birth to Apollo and Diana. See also Solomon's Song, vii. 7: 'This thy stature is like to a palm-tree.'
L. 69. aura vu... The future is here used in order to express an hypothesis, as in this: 'Comment se fait-il qu'il ne soit pas encore arrivé?--Il aura oublié.' See Ayer, Gram. comp. de la langue française, § 203. For another similar use of the future see p. 25, l. 95.
Ll. 73-5. Od. i. 169-73. But Telemachus addresses Athene in more naïve words, saying: 'I do not think thou couldst come to this island on foot.'
L. 74. Comment, et d'où viens-tu? Boldly elliptical for 'comment es-tu venu ici et d'où viens-tu?' l'onde maritime. A rare use of the adj. maritime. La Fontaine has an instance of it: Ce maritime empire, VIII, ix; cf. 'la vague marine,' p. 29, l. 16.
Ll. 81, 82. Mais pauvre... Ils m'ont... jeté: a bold ellipsis as in 'Je t'aimais inconstant, qu'aurais-je fait fidèle!'--RACINE.
L. 88. âme ouverte à sentir. There are numerous instances in Chénier of the use of à in the sense of pour, a somewhat archaic feature which, no doubt, was one of the grounds on which his early critics based their reproach of incorrectness. But this is really racy French. The employment of à = pour may be traced throughout French literature: thirteenth century, 'Les dismes furent establies et donées anciennement a sainte église soustenir'; fourteenth century, 'Amis leur sont nécessaires a leurs bonnes actions acomplir'; sixteenth century, 'Il le somma de partir à parlementer'; seventeenth century, 'La couronne n'a rien à me rendre content,' Molière, D. Garc. V. vi; 'A lui rendre service elle m'ouvre la voie,' Corneille, Sertorius, II. v.; eighteenth century, 'A faire d'un tel gentilhomme un Achille au pied léger, l'adresse de Chiron même eût eu de la peine à suffire,' J.-J. Rousseau, Émile, ii.; nineteenth century, 'Que cette place est bonne à le bien poignarder,' V. Hugo, Cromwell, V. iii; 'Il en faudrait un monde à faire un grain de sable,' Lamartine, Jocelyn, quatrième époque (see the Jocelyn of this series, p. 75, l. 308). It is not strange that this should have been thought incorrect, when we see the French Academy, in their judgement on the Cid, and Voltaire, in his notes to Corneille, make the same mistake. See Haase, § 124, 2°, and F. Godefroy, Lexique comparé de la Langue de Corneille. For a similar instance see p. 6, l. 183.
L. 93. mobiles. The epithet will be more easily understood if we think of its contrary, 'inert'.
L. 98. j'étais misérable... Misérable is here used in the sense 'to be pitied,' a sense frequent in the seventeenth century. j'étais, the imperfect of the indicative for the conditional past, as in 'Hercule, ce dit-il, tu devois bien purger La terre de cette hydre,' La Fontaine, Fables, VIII. v, or in 'Sans vous, j'étais noyé.'
L. 100. N'eussiez. The more usual French construction would be, with repetition of the subject, 'vous n'eussiez.' armé... les pierres et les cris. A favourite phrase with Chénier (see p. 112, l. 105, and in Le Jeu de Paume, 'La tyrannie... arme... ses cent yeux...'). Racine, Les Frères Ennemis, I. iii, speaks of 'armer et le fer et la faim' against someone. An old translation of the Bible has 'J'armerai contre eux les dents des bêtes farouches,' Deut. xxxii. 24. Thus in the Odyssey, when the 'mastiffs' fly at Ulysses, the herdsman runs up, and 'his cry (with frequent stones flung at the dogs) repell'd this way and that their eager course they held.'--Chapman, Odyss. xiv. ll. 49-51.
L. 110. Ma bouche ne s'est point ouverte à leur répondre. See note to p. 3, l. 88.
L. 119. place is, of course, a subjunctive. The omission of que before subjunctives expressing a wish was the rule in Old French. The practice was still prevalent in seventeenth-century French. It is exceptional now, as in: Fasse le ciel! Puissiez-vous réussir! Vive la France!
Ll. 119-121. Un siège... sous la colonne. Cf. Odyss. (Chapman's transl., viii. p. 365): 'His place was given him in a chair all graced With silver studs, and 'gainst a pillar placed;... The herald on a pin above his head His soundful harp hung.'
L. 123. Ingénieux, here, seems to be used, not in its French sense of 'clever, having an aptitude for invention,' which would be but a poor compliment paid to the great Homer, but with its Latin meaning of 'gifted with genius.'
L. 135. vaillant. I take it to mean, not 'courageous,' but 'vigorous in body, robust, able-bodied,' a sense not recorded in Littré, though well known in everyday French, the sense of English valiant in 'the sturdy and valiant beggars' of the statute-book.
L. 140. douleurs, rheumatic pains.
Ll. 149-156. E. Faguet, in his Chénier, observes how like a picture this is composed. In the foreground the blind man sitting under a tree, with the shepherds and wayfarers pressing around him, while the background displays the deserted flocks and roads, and the intervening space is crowded with the attentive nymphs and sylvans enticed out of their abodes.
Ll. 149, 150. Virgil, Ecl. vi. 28 'tum rigidas motare cacumina quercus (videres).'
L. 157. Car en de longs détours... A long line. Its twelve syllables certainly take more time in the delivery than any other twelve. Hence the better adapted the line is to convey the poet's meaning.
L. 158. Il enchaînait. The meaning is that he gave a connected account of....
L. 162. Les amours immortelles for les amours des immortels. Virgil, Georg. iv. 347.
L. 164. Iliad, i. 528: 'He said; and his black eyebrows bent;... great heaven shook.'--CHAPMAN.
L. 166. The war of the Titans.
L. 167. The Trojan war is here entered upon.
L. 168. Cf, Homer, Iliad, iii. 13; xiii. 336; Virgil, Aeneid, ix, 63, 64.
L. 170. Iliad, ii, 455: 'And as a fire upon a huge wood, on the heights of hills; that far off hurls his light; so the divine brass shined on these.'--CHAPMAN.
L. 172. Iliad, xix. 405, Xanthus, one of Achilles' horses ('twas Juno's will to make vocal the palate of the one,' to use Chapman's words), answers his master's charge to acquit himself well with a prediction that 'not far hence the fatal minutes are Of his grave ruin.'
L. 177. mortels aux épouses... This must be an instance of those 'régimes inusités donnés aux adjectifs' which Raynouard censured in 1819. This is once more à in the sense of pour. 'Rechercher un trépas si mortel à ma gloire,' Corneille, Cid, I. ii. But compare the (perhaps) more modern construction: 'Cette mode durera peu; elle est mortelle pour les dents.'--Madame de Sévigné, 4 avril 1671 (in LITTRÉ).
L. 179. Laetas segetes. Virgil, Georg. i. I.
L. 182. Homer. Iliad, xviii. 491; Hesiodus, The Shield of Hercules, 274.
L. 183. à soulever les mers. à=pour. See note to p. 3, l. 88.
Ll. 185, 186. Il. xviii. 35-70.
L. 189. Ulysses' descent to Hades, Od. xi.
L. 190. les champs d'asphodèle. Od. xi, 539.
Ll. 191-194. Od. xi. 36. Aeneid, vi. 305. l. 192, and Dryden's translation of the corresponding line of Virgil may be compared: 'And youths entombed before their father's eyes.'
Ll. 197-200. Od. viii. 274. Ovid, Metam. iv. 175. Inconnus, here, for invisibles. The stricture of the first critic of A. Chénier, Népomucène Lemercier, that the poet 'dénature le sens des mots,' if generally unjust, may apply to this instance.
L. 201. il revêtait d'une pierre soudaine is very happily said for il revêtait soudainement de pierre.
L. 202. Il. xxiv. 602.
L. 203. Accents de douleurs would, in prose, be accents de douleur, without the s, which is here put that, as douleurs rhymes with pleurs, the eye may be satisfied.
L. 204. Od. xix. 518; Virgil, Ecl. vi. 78.
L. 208. Od. iv. 220.
L. 209. Od. x. 304.
Ll. 210-212. Od. ix. 94. See Tennyson's Lotos Eaters.
L. 211. à ce philtre charmés, an instance of à denoting a relation of cause--'Qui demeure surprise à l'éclat de ces lieux,' Molière, Psyché, III. i. 988. See Haase, § 123.
L. 212. Od. ix. 54.
L. 214. Od. xxi. 295; Il. i. 266, ii. 742; Ovid, Met. xii. 210. Chénier follows Ovid.
L. 217. enfants de la nue. The Centaurs were descended from Ixion and Nephele, the cloud.
L. 221. mon affront, i.e. the affront offered me. This is a frequent use. Thus Racine makes Athalie say: 'que je ne cherche point à venger mes injures,' i.e. the wrongs suffered by me.
L. 224. Ovid, Met. xii. 247.
L. 226. Aen. x. 730; Od. xviii. 99.
Ll. 241-252. E. Faguet in his Chénier quotes this passage as an instance of energetic precision. 'The problem, he writes, is to depict this: A centaur (bear in mind that a centaur is a creature half-beast, half-man, with the body of a horse, the bust and head of a man, four feet, two arms, all this you must bear in mind), a centaur, with his two fore-feet, is trying to bear down a man, while, with his right arm, armed with a club, he seeks to brain another man. A third man leaps on to the back of the centaur, whence, pulling back his enemy's head with one hand, he thrusts a burning brand down his throat. The problem is to put all this in clear, precise, energetic, picturesque lines, and in few lines too. Chénier has succeeded in putting it in twelve times twelve syllables, with the result that, as it is, it stands in sharp outline as in a piece of sculpture.'
L. 246. D'un érable noueux, a club of maple. Dryden, Aen. '[Hercules] tossed about his head his knotted oak.'
L. 250. chevelure horrible, in the Latin sense of 'horrid, bristling.'
Ll. 254-256. Et le bois porte au loin des hurlements... l'ongle frappant.... Of course, what the wood conveys far away are such sounds as the trample of hoofs, the cries of the wounded warriors, the crash of the broken vessels, &c.
L. 255. l'ongle, Lat. ungula, stands for le sabot. Cf. Aen. viii. 596 'quatit ungula campum.'
Ll. 260, 261. Admiraient... abonder les paroles. This use of admirer followed by a pure infinitive, though, so far as we know, unprecedented, has nothing shocking in it and tends to make the line more concise. The construction is on the analogy of that which is customary with such verbs as voir, entendre, and 'admiraient abonder' is here said for 'voyaient avec admiration abonder.' Everything here is striking in the matter of language. Admirer is somewhat archaic and means 'to wonder.' 'Abonder de sa bouche' is anything but a hackneyed phrase. The etymological meaning of abonder, Lat. abundare, to overflow, was surely in the mind of Chénier when he wrote this. Such novelties as these make his style exquisite. Some pains should be taken to make something pass into English of the felicitous phrasing. Shall we presume to submit this suggestion; 'they admired the divine words, how they flowed from his lips'?
L. 262. Comme en hiver la neige... Il. iii. 221, 'And words that flew about our ears, like drifts of winter's snow.'--CHAPMAN.
Ll. 263-265. Cf. Homer, Hymn to Apollo, 514.
L. 268. Convive du nectar (table-companion of the gods--Horace's 'Conviva Deorom,' Od. i. 28--at their nectar) is a novel collocation of words, and, though of difficult analysis, grammatically speaking, is perfectly satisfactory as being easily understood, 'Partaker of nectar' would be an easy English rendering.
L. 269. prospère renders the laetus of Virgil, Aen. i. 732. The English equivalent might be 'blest.' Chénier liked the word, as appears from his Commentary on Malherbe.
L. 270. Homère. The name of the blind bard, which, ever since the first lines of the poem, has been a mystery for no reader, has been kept for the last word of the poem.
