IV. LE MALADE.
M. Dezeimeris (_Leçons nouvelles et remarques sur le texte de divers auteurs_, Bordeaux, 1879) has shown how much this poem owed to a Greek versified romance by Theodoras Prodromus, entitled _The Adventures of Rhodanthe and Dosicles_. To this very indifferent and cold production he has traced both the scheme and most characteristic details of Chénier's _Malade_. We have deemed it unadvisable to crowd our notes with the numerous passages of the Byzantine writer which have inspired our poet.
Ll. 1-3. This invocation, a litany in form, may have been suggested by the Orphic hymn to Apollo.
L. 6. _qui meurt abandonnée_, i.e. _qui meurt si elle est abandonnée_.
L. 7. _Qui n'a pas dû rester_..., 'who surely has not been spared by death that she might see her own son die.'
Ll. 8, 9. _Assoupis, assoupis..._ Frequent repetitions occur throughout this piece, all with a most natural and pathetic effect. M. Dezeimeris that Chénier took the hint from Prodromus, in whose poem, however, the repetitions, for the most part irrelevant, are mere mannerism.
L. 15. _un jeune taureau blanc._ 'Iuvencum candentem,' _Aen._ ix. 627.
L. 22. _Aen._ x. 557.
Ll. 24, 25. _Il._ i. 362. Thetis says to Achilles; 'Why weeps my son? what grieves thee? Speak, conceal not what hath laid such hard hand on thee, let both know.'--CHAPMAN.
L. 34. See _tapes_ in A. Rich's _Dict. of Roman and Greek Antiq._
L. 36. _ô douleurs!_ The _s_ is required by the rhyme rather than by the sense.
L. 43. Euripides, _Hipp._ 135.
L. 44. _Sans connaître Cérès._ 'Non _Cereris_ placuere dapes, non pocula Bacchi' is Gaulmin's paraphrase of Prodromus (Paris, 1625). For a similar use of 'Ceres,' see Ovid, _Met._ iii. 437. Milton has: 'A field Of _Ceres_ ripe for harvest waving bends' (_Paradise Lost_, iv. 980, 981); and Byron: 'Beneath his ears of _Ceres_ groan the roads' (_Don Juan_, XII. ix).
L. 46. _ta vieille inconsolable mère_, not _ton inconsolable vieille mère_, which would be the more usual, but less forcible, order.
L. 48. _T'asseyait sur son sein._ _Sein_ (bosom) here stands for _giron_ (lap). This is the Latin phrase _in sinu_. The English Bible reads (Luke xvi. 23): 'He (the rich man) seeth Abraham... and Lazarus in his bosom,' whereas Langland, more explicit and accurate, says, 'Ich sauh hym [Lazarus] sitte... in Abraham's _lappe_' (_P. Pl._, C. ix, 283).
L. 53. _presse de ta lèvre._ She says this holding out the cup to him, so that there is no need for her to express the word 'cup,' which is therefore understood. Yet it appears that Chénier did not mean ll. 53, 54 to stand thus, as they are struck out in the MS. (Dezeimeris, p. 69).
Ll. 59, 60. _sur leur jeune sein... leur robe._ He says _leur_, as if everybody ought to understand him, because his own thought is full of them--those dancing fair ones mentioned in the following line. This, as well as the preceding 'presse' and 'la mienne' higher up, is of those true touches that carry us into the atmosphere of life.
L. 65. Reminiscences of Virgil, _Ecl._ v. 58; _Georg._ ii. 151.
L. 70. _cette vierge dansante._ The first editor had altered this into 'cette vierge _charmante_,' either because the epithet recurs at ll. 61, 89, or because he objected to this declension, or rather adjectival use, of the past participle. For this syntactical feature see Darmesteter et Hatzfeld, _Le seizième siècle en France_, §210; Haase, §91. See also note to p. 62, l. 19.
L. 71. Pallas (_Od._ i. 58) represents Ulysses as longing to see 'His country's smoke leap from her chimney tops.'--CHAPMAN.
L. 74. _enchante ta vieillesse._ An easy correction would be _enchantent_, which would not spoil the metre, but, as a rule, Chénier makes the verb agree with the last subject. See Ayer, §217.
Ll. 76, 77. Tibullus, i. 3. 8.
L. 80. _Viendras-tu point...?_ The omission of _ne_ in direct interrogation, very frequent in the seventeenth century, is still to be met with in modern poetry, e.g.: '_Viendras-tu pas_ voir mes ondines?'--V. Hugo, _Ballades_, 4. (Haase, §101 A.)
L. 84. Racine, _Phèdre_, I. iii: 'Ariane, ma soeur, de quel amour _blessée_...'
L. 93. Virgil, _Ecl._ vi. 21 'Aegle naiadum pulcherrima...'
L. 95. _ne sera-ce point._ A future of doubt.
L. 103. Ovid, _Met._ i. 481.
L. 105. _garde que jamais elle soit_... _Ne_ was generally omitted in the seventeenth century after expressions of fear and after _garde_, _gardez_, _prenez garde_ (Haase, §104 B).
L. 109. _va la trouver._ Cf. the first scene of the third act of Racine's _Phèdre_. The entire poem is to some extent the counterpart of Racine's play.
L. 126. _d'âge chancelante._ Cf. _Aen._ iv. 641.
L. 132. _L'insensé._ In the sense, Becq de Fouquières remarks, not of _demens_, but of _amens_, as in Ovid, _Am._ iii II. 25.