L. 130. _Bailly_, a French astronomer (1736-1793). He wrote an _Histoire
de l'Astronomie_.
Ll. 133. _Une Cybèle._ Poetical for the earth, like _Nérèe_ the sea, p.
90, l. 95.
L. 138. _Cusco_ was once the capital of Peru. This shows that Chénier
was then meditating the poem _L'Amérique_, of which he wrote only
fragments.
L. 143. _Négligeât._ In colloquial French this would be, 'Pensez-vous
que leur main _négligerait_...?' In the same way, 'je ne pense pas qu'il
vienne' or 'pensez-vous qu'il vienne' would be '... qu'il viendra.'
L. 163. All the following passage is imitated from Petronius, _Satyr_,
v.
L. 170. _bassin pompeux._ See A. Rich, _Dict. of Roman and Greek
Antiq._, under _Naumachia_.
L. 178. Lucian, _Quomod. hist. conser. sit_, i, speaks of a kind of
summer-madness which seized the inhabitants of Abdera. After witnessing
the exciting performance of an actor, named Archelaüs, in Euripides'
_Andromede_, they went about shouting out this line from the play, 'O
Love, thou tyrant both of men and gods.'
L. 184. _Sur des pensers nouveaux faisons des vers antiques_, i.e. let
us express modern, personal thoughts in a form worthy of antiquity.