502 Cf. Gen. xvi., 12; "his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him."
504 Note Haman's concluding appeal to the greed of human nature. He is a crafty counsellor, as unscrupulous as he is clever.
511 For enfin, see l. 160; for the Latin construction of le trépas différé, see l. 139.
519-520 There is here a slight confusion in construction. If a comma preceded terrible, souvent would then be regularly dependent on combien. But there is no authority for this punctuation, and we must supply a repeated combien, thus: _tu sais combien terrible . . . [il est it combien] souvent, etc.
521 à cannot be consequent to trop, which always takes pour. Tr. "in tormenting me."
523 Que. See App. IV, ii. A.
527 The imperfect for the conditional past, for greater vividness. Cf. "One moment more and he was a dead man" = he would have been . . .
529 veux bien. See l. 232, N. It is condescension on the king's part to make a confession at all.
530. Note that the king views himself as the father of his people: a piece of flattery on Racine's part towards Louis XIV.
533 succès, conformably with its derivation, is here without the usual favorable connotation. Cf. "luck" = "good luck."—Fureur expresses aggressive madness (cf. ira furor brevis est), which the king assumes could alone prompt such an attempt.