Andromeda, Orion, and the Pleiades are well-known constellations. Arcturus is a star of the first magnitude in Bootes.
The Scorpion and the Archer are next each other in the heavens. The lines express in a somewhat bizarre manner the effect of the outpouring of life on the stars.
Aldebaran, a reddish star of the first magnitude in the constellation of Taurus.
Céphée. Cepheus is the name of a constellation, as also is Perseus.
des espaces vermeils. See note on AYMERILLOT.
L. 232. Zoroastre. Zoroaster was the founder of the Persian religion. He was a great observer of the stars.
L. 245. Fatalité. In Victor Hugo the word denotes, not so much destiny, as the feeling or the doctrine that man is the helpless victim of an unseen and cruel power. It is a gloom which overhangs human life, from which in the progress of the ages man will be delivered. Compare La Vision d'où sortit ce livre, where the spirit of 'Fatalité' is associated with paganism and contrasted with the spirit of religion. In Dieu again 'Fatalité' is one of the three sombre deities of paganism, the other two being Venus, the goddess of pleasure, and Hecate, the goddess of death. Cf. also the following lines from La Fin de Satan, put into the mouth of man's evil angel:—
Je suis Lilith-Isis, l'âme noire du monde.
Tremble! l'être inconnu, funeste, illimité,
Que l'homme en frémissant nomme Fatalité,