Stanza 1, line 3. _Chef grison_=gray head. When he says "trente ans,"
that is all rubbish, he was getting on for forty-three: it was written
in 1567.
Stanza 2, line 1. _Nocher_=pilot; rare but hardly archaic.
Stanza 3, line 3. _Cependant_=meanwhile. The word is now seldom used in
prose, save in the sense of "notwithstanding", "nevertheless".
Stanza 5, line 1. _Loyer_=Condition of tenure.
Line 2. _Ores_=Now that. Should be "_ore_" (horam). The parasitic "s"
probably crept in by false analogy with the adverbs in "s."
Stanza 6, line 1. _Lame_=tombstone. The word is no longer used.
Line 4. See how, even in his lighter or prosaic manner, he cannot avoid
great lines.
Stanza 8, line 1. _Vela_=Voilà. Then follows that fine ending which I
have put on the title-page of this book.
"MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE."
Line 1. _Mignonne_ is, of course, his Cassandre: her personality was
always known through his own verse. She was fifteen when he met her and
her brown eyes: it was in 1546 at Blois, her birthplace, whither he had
gone to visit the Court, during his scholar's life in Paris. He met her
thus young when he himself was but in his twenty-third year, and all
that early, violent, not over-tilled beginning of his poetry was
illumined by her face. But as to who she was, by name I mean, remained
long a matter of doubt. Binet would have it that her true name was
Cassandre, and that its singularity inspired Ronsard. Brantôme called it
"a false name to cover a true." Ronsard himself has written, "false or
true, time conquering all things cannot efface it from the marble."
There need have been no doubt. D'Aubigné's testimony is sufficient. She
was a Mlle de Pie, and such was the vagary of Ronsard's life, that it
was her niece, Diane Salviati de Taley whom in later life he espoused
and nearly wed.
Line 3. Note _Pourpre_, and in line 5 _Pourprée_ so in line 9 _Beautez_,
and in the last line _Beauté_: so little did he fear repetition and so
heartily could his power carry it.
Line 4. _A point_: the language was still in flux. The phrase would
require a negative _n'_ in modern French.
Line 10, 11. _Marastre... puisqu'une..._ There is here an elliptical
construction never found in later French. Harsh stepmother nature (whom
I call harsh) since... etc.