Page images
PDF
EPUB

wheels; then, to hold back the wheels of a wagon by obstructing the spokes with a chain, pole, etc.

Page 108, 1. 1: côte; cf. English coast, from Latin costam, a rib, and then side, slope.

Page 109. LE COIN DU FEU. -The line from Shakespeare which Gautier probably had in mind is As You Like It, II, 7 (song) : "Blow, blow, thou winter wind." The line from Villon (poet, b. 1431) means, Let it blow, freeze, hail, I have my bread baked, that is, I have enough to live on. It is taken from a poem entitled, Ballade de Villon et de la grosse Margot in a work called le Grand Testament. The other quotations are: Goldsmith, The Hermit XIV., and Tibullus (Latin poet, first century B. C.), I., I. 45.

Line 5: aboie, lit. bark, i. e., roar.

[ocr errors]

Line 11: chat. Gautier was very fond of cats, and at one time was surrounded with as many as twelve of the handsomest ones he could purchase. He commences the preface (1832) to his early poems by saying: L'auteur du présent livre est un jeune homme frileux et maladif qui use sa vie en famille avec deux ou trois amis et à peu près autant de chats." He is said to have seldom written anything without a cat or two in his lap.

Page 110, 1. 8: s'en vint, same meaning as vint.

COMPENSATION. The rhyme in this poem (as in some others of Gautier) is the terza rima (Italian, third or triple rhyme). It was a system of versification employed by the early Italian poets Dante and Petrarch. The poem or canto was divided into stanzas of three lines, the second line of each rhyming with the first and third lines of the following. A line was then added at the end to rhyme with the second of the previous triplet; so that the order of rhyme was: aba bcb-cdc... yzy- - z.

Page 111, 1. 10: fantaisie. Cf. English fancy, which is a corruption of the fuller form fantasy; Old French fantasie

Line 21: en croupe, behind (them)..

Line 24: carrefour, cross-roads (where four ways meet), from Latin *quadrifurcum; literally, something which has four forks. Page 112, 1. 8: avortements, defective formations.

Line 15: Des îles de la Sonde, the Sunda Islands in the Indian Ocean.

Page 113, 1. 11 · laboureur, plowman, husbandman (labourer, to plow); English laborer is in French ouvrier.

Page 114, 1. 6: Sournoisement, slyly, in secret.

Line 7: repasse, irons (i. e., makes). The verb repasser (transitive and intransitive) has other important meanings: (1) to look over, to review (of lessons), as ils vont repasser les leçons qu'on leur a données ; (2) to come back, to call again, as je repasserai chez lui ce soir.· collerettes. This word means small collar and also (as botanical term) involucre, a set of bracts surrounding a flower or umbel, and forming a sort of collar.

Line 11: houppe de cygne, powder puff.

Line 17: solfèges, equivalent to chansons.

Page 115, 1. 11: borne, curb-stone; cf. English bourn.

Line 14: se trompant de trou, striking the wrong hole. Cf. such expressions as je me suis trompé de maison, I made a mistake in the house, and je me suis trompé de tramway, I took the wrong

street car.

Line 15: vaudeville, a street song with easy or familiar air, and then a theatrical piece whose dialogue is intermingled with light songs. It is a word of historical origin, being a corruption of Vau-deVire, a region in Normandy where the poet Olivier Basselin, toward the end of the fourteenth century, composed such songs.

Line 21: bruire; cf. note to line 13, p. 106.

Page 116, 1. 3: grimoires, scrawls, scribbles.

Line 5 puits de Venise. These puits (in Italian pozzi) were gloomy dungeons in the prisons of the Palace of the Doges.

Page 117, 1. 11: steamer, a late borrowing from the English; the corresponding French term is un vapeur (la vapeur, steam); bateau à vapeur, steam-boat. The recent influence of the English is likewise seen in such words as clown, fashion, jockey, lunch, meeting, speech, sport, etc., appropriated by the French.

Page 118, 1. 8: souci, marigold. Souci, in Old French solcie, is from Latin solsequium (sol, sun, and sequi, to follow), at first the sunflower and then the marigold; cf. the English word heliotrope. Souci here is to be distinguished from souci, anxious care (cf. p. 99, 1. 9, and note).

Line 9: bulles, bubbles. Bulle (Latin bullam) is at first any rounded

object; then a small ball of metal appended to a seal or stamp, and so a letter of the pope (English bull); cf. boule (ball) and English bill. Line 11 conciliabules, here assemblies.

Line 18: métopes, spaces between the carved ornaments (called triglyphs) in the frieze of the Doric order of architecture. The metopes of the Parthenon (temple of Minerva) at Athens were filled with bas-reliefs.

Page 119, 1. 2: Smyrne, Smyrna, city of Asia Minor. plafond, ceiling, a word made up of plat (cf. German platt, flat, level) and fond (Latin fundum).

Line 3: Hadjis, a name usually given to Mohammedans who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. A large quantity of amber is purchased for consumption at the shrine of Mahomet, by pilgrims bound to Mecca.

Line 8: tarbouchs, a red cap worn by the Turks.

Line 9: triglyphe. Cf. note on métopes above (p. 118, l. 18). Line 10: Balbeck, town of Syria, to the north of Damascus, noted for its ruins.

Line 14: Rhodes, palais des chevaliers, the capital of the Island of Rhodes, in the Mediterranean, founded 408 B. C., celebrated for the so-called Colossus of Rhodes, a brazen statue of Helios which stood at the entrance of one of its harbors. The city was in the possession of the Knights of St. John from 1309 to 1522, a period of prosperity.

Line 19: Malte, Malta, an island in the Mediterranean, between Sicily and Africa, belonging to Great Britain. The surface is elevated and rocky. Excellent marble is quarried.

Line 22: Caire, Cairo, in Egypt.

Line 25: A la seconde cataracte, i. e., of the Nile.

Page 120, 1. 2: pschent, a sort of mitre placed on the heads of Egyptian divinities.

Line 16: Ruckert, Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866), a popular German poet. Gautier doubtless has reference to a well-known

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

L'ART. — Gautier here expresses his view of art. He was an advocate of the principle l'art pour l'art.

Line 19: œuvre. Euvre (Latin operam) is a finished work (a more abstract term than ouvrage). Travail (next line) is work, labor; cf. English travail and travel.

Page 121, 1. 4: cothurne, the buskin worn by the ancient tragic

actors.

Line 8: quitte. With quitter compare partir: Il faut que je vous quitte; je vais partir par le train de cing heures.

Line 13: carrare, a celebrated marble from Carrara in Italy. Line 14: paros, a marble from the island of Paros in the Aegean Sea.

Line 19: S'accuse, is brought out, is revealed. Cf. accuser réception d'une lettre, to acknowledge the receipt of a letter.

Page 122, 1. 1: aquarelle, water color, aquarelle. Cf. tableau à l'huile, oil painting; eau-forte, etching

[ocr errors]

Line 9 nimbe trilobe, alluding to the representation, in old paintings, of a halo around the head of the Virgin, having three lobes or rounded projections, which typified the Trinity.

Line 16 cité. Ville (Latin villam, cf. English villa) is the more general term, meaning simply a considerable assemblage of buildings and inhabitants. Cité (Latin civitatem, English city) usually adds the idea of city as a political body or organization.

Page 124

[blocks in formation]

LA JEUNE CAPTIVE.

André-Marie de Chénier (17621794) was born at Constantinople. His mother was a Greek, but his family returned to France while he was a child. His poetic tastes and standards were wholly classical. At the outbreak of the Revolution he sympathized with moderate measures and contributed to the Journal de Paris, the organ of the moderate royalist party. This attitude caused him at last to be arrested, in March, 1794. He was confined in the prison of Saint-Lazare, and some months later was guillotined. During his imprisonment he composed the present poem, and his Iambes (satirical poems against the Jacobins). Many of his pieces were left in an unfinished or fragmentary condition, and his

works were not published until long after his death (1819). In the edition of Chénier's poems, as edited by Moland (1878–9, 2 vols.) appears the following note: "La jeune captive était une demoiselle Franquetot de Coigny, qui avait épousé le duc de Fleury en 1784, et qui, incarcérée à Saint-Lazare avec M. de Montrond, devint, après divorce, Mme. de Montrond. Montrond et la citoyenne Franquetot (ex-duchesse de Fleury) furent effacés de la liste des prétendus conspirateurs moyennant une somme de cent louis en or." The critic Villemain calls the present poem un des chefs-d'œuvre de la poésie moderne."

[ocr errors]

Line 2: pampre, vine-branch, from Latin pampinum; n changes tor; cf. ordre (English order) from Latin ordinem.

Line 10: S'il est, for s'il y a

Line 18: Philomèle, Philomela, daughter of Pandion, a mythical king of Athens. It is related that, having been wronged by Tereus, king of the Thracians, and being afterwards pursued and overtaken by him, she appealed to the gods and was changed into a bird. Page 125, 1. 2: ma veille, my waking hours, moments.

Line 17: feux, equivalent to lumière, éclat.

[ocr errors]

Line 22: Palès, Pales, a Roman divinity of flocks and shepherds. Page 126. LA FEUILLE. Antoine-Vincent Arnault (1766-1834) is known as a dramatic poet and fabulist. He extolled Napoleon and was exiled in 1816 by the Bourbons (cf note on poem: Les Oiseaux, p. 33). Just before his departure he composed the present elegy, which has remained the most famous of his short moral poems. The oak alluded to (1. 13) is intended to typify the Emperor Napoleon.

Page 127. SOUVENIR DU PAYS DE FRANCE. François René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) was the leading literary spirit of his time, which was one of transition from the old or classical models to the new spirit of the Romantic movement. He reflects this transition, and did much to open the way for the new order of things. Among his works, in prose, were Atala (1801) and le Génie du Christianisme (1802), the latter being a defence of the Christian religion. He wrote several poems, of which the present is one that has become very popular. It was first composed as the words to a mountain air, and was later incorporated into his prose tale le Dernier des Abencerages (1807). It is sometimes given under other titles: Le Montagnard émigré, La Patrie, Stances, etc.

« PreviousContinue »