[L. 4.] C'est ainsi qu'achevait l'aveugle... Et près des bois marchait. The inversion is quite usual, but what is less so is the absence of a subject before marchait. Here is, however, another instance of the same construction from Racine, Idylle de la Paix: 'Déjà marchait devant les étendards Bellone, les cheveux épars et se flattait d'éterniser les guerres'...
[L. 6.] S'asseyait. A very happy enjambement. The rhythm also stops as if for very weariness.
[L. 18.] à la prière. Is this a Latinism, a translation of the Latin ad preces, or an extension of the use of à=pour so common in French? See note to p. 3, l. 88.
[L. 26.] pures, i.e. sans mélange, 'unmixed, unalloyed.'
[Ll. 27, 28.] Cf. in the Odyssey (viii. 64): Demodocus, 'the blind singer, to whom, in recompense of his lost sight, the Muses had given an inward discernment, a soul and a voice to excite the hearts of men and gods to delight.'—Lamb, Advent. of Ulys., vii.
[Ll. 31, 32.] Menander in Stobaeus, Florilegium, xcvi.
[Ll. 33-38.] Od. vii. 208.
[L. 39.] Thamyris. The story is told in the Iliad (ii. 594): 'the muses.... Because he proudly durst affirm he could more sweetly sing than that Pierian race of Jove.... Bereft his eyesight, and his song that did the ear enchant, and of his skill to touch his harp disfurnished his hand.'—CHAPMAN.
[L. 45.] puisse... changer ta destinée, for puisse ta destinée changer. The same construction may be seen in: 'Puisse périr comme eux quiconque leur ressemble.'—Racine, Athalie, IV. ii.
[Ll. 46, 47.] ce que... tient la peau. For the inversion of the subject in relative clauses see Meyer-Lübke, iii. § 751, and A. Darmesteter-Sudre, Syntaxe, § 492.