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.