M. Dezeimeris (_Leçons diverses et remarques sur le texte de divers
auteurs_) has shown that Chénier, in this elegy, had borrowed not a few
hints from Ausonius, _Epistola_ X.
L. 1. _solitaires divines._ Which is the noun, which the adjective?
_Solitaire_ must be the noun (though certain critics have expressed the
opinion that it is _divine_ which is the noun). Firstly, there is the
masculine noun 'un solitaire,' and it is hard to see why there should
not be a feminine, 'une solitaire.' Secondly, the subsequent lines show
that Chénier addresses the Muses as lovers of solitude, and it is more
logical that the predominant idea should be embodied in the noun, not in
the epithet.
L. 3. _Nîme._ Nîmes (earlier Nismes), in the dep. Gard. The final _s_
has been dropped to admit the elision of the _e_. 'Nîmes égare' would
have sounded most unnatural.
L. 5. _aux bords de Loire._ The omission of the definite article
before Loire and Garonne is archaic. It was the current practice in
the sixteenth century, and still occurs occasionally in the
seventeenth.--Haase, § 3 B. It is to be noticed that in the next line
Chénier writes 'ces nymphes _du_ Rhône,' and, in fact, the omission of
_le_ before _Rhône_ seems hardly possible. It is difficult to account
for such anomalies. A few individual relics of former usage have thus
survived. One of these is the phrase 'entre Sambre et Meuse.'
L. 7. _son flambeau vous luit._ Such constructions, where _à_ followed
by an indirect object, or implicitly contained in the dative of the
unstressed personal pronoun, where the present language uses _pour_,
were quite current formerly, and, though uncommon, may still be
used.--Haase, § 125 B.
L. 8. _Dansantes._ The predilection of Chénier for the inflected present
participle has now been illustrated by many instances. See p. 24, l. 61;
p. 25, ll. 70, 89; p. 42, XXIV, l. 1.
Ll. 9-12. Cf. Cowley (_Essays: Of Agriculture_): 'One might as well
undertake to dance in a crowd, as to make good verses in the midst of
noise and tumult.'
'As well might corn as verse in cities grow;
In vain the thankless glebe we plough and sow,
Against th' unnatural soil in vain we strive,
'Tis not a ground in which these plants will thrive.'
L. 15. _les rapides chars._ Conventionally poetical for _carrosses_,
which, in those days, would have been the proper word. In the same way
_airain_ should have been _fer_ (_cercles_ = tires).