This touching elegy, Becq de Fouquières observes, was suggested to
Chénier by the following funereal epigram of Xenocritus of Rhodes in the
_Greek Anthology_: 'Thy locks are still dripping, unfortunate maid,
O Lysidice, poor shipwrecked creature, dead in the salt flood. As the
waves leapt wild, thou, dismayed by the violence of the sea, fellst out
of the ship; and now on a tombstone are read thy name and that of Cyme,
the place of thy birth, but thy remains have been washed to some chill
shore; a bitter grief to thy father Aristomachus, who, accompanying thee
to the house of thy husband, brought him neither a bride nor a corpse.'
L. 2. _Oiseaux chers à Thétis._ 'Dilectae Thetidi alcyones,' Virgil,
_Georg._ i. 399.
L. 3. _Elle a vécu._ A euphemism, adopted from the Latin, for _elle est
morte_, used in elevated style. Thus Corneille: 'Non, non; avant ce coup
Sabine _aura vécu_.'--_Horace_, II. vi.