[L. 48.] Ils versent... The verb verser, 'to cause a liquid to flow out of a vessel,' is extended to solids, e.g. 'verser du blé dans un sac' (LITTRÉ).
[Ll. 49, 50.] les olives huileuses,... et les figues mielleuses. 'The honied fig and unctuous olive smooth.'—Cowper, Od. vii. 139.
[L. 56.] venus de Jupiter. In the sense in which Nausicaa, Od. vi. 207, says: 'From Jove come all strangers, and the needy of a home.'—CHAPMAN.
[Ll. 57-67.] Od. vi. 154.
[L. 62.] ce palmier de Latone. In Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses, the hero says to Nausicaa: 'Lately at Delos (where I touched) I saw a young palm which grew beside Apollo's temple; it exceeded all the trees which ever I beheld for straightness and beauty: I can compare you only to that.' Under this palm-tree Latona gave birth to Apollo and Diana. See also Solomon's Song, vii. 7: 'This thy stature is like to a palm-tree.'
[L. 69.] aura vu... The future is here used in order to express an hypothesis, as in this: 'Comment se fait-il qu'il ne soit pas encore arrivé?—Il aura oublié.' See Ayer, Gram. comp. de la langue française, § 203. For another similar use of the future see p. 25, l. 95.
[Ll. 73-5.] Od. i. 169-73. But Telemachus addresses Athene in more naïve words, saying: 'I do not think thou couldst come to this island on foot.'
[l. 74.] Comment, et d'où viens-tu? Boldly elliptical for 'comment es-tu venu ici et d'où viens-tu?' l'onde maritime. A rare use of the adj. maritime. La Fontaine has an instance of it: Ce maritime empire, VIII, ix; cf. 'la vague marine,' p. 29, l. 16.
[Ll. 81, 82.] Mais pauvre... Ils m'ont... jeté: a bold ellipsis as in 'Je t'aimais inconstant, qu'aurais-je fait fidèle!'—RACINE.
[L. 88.] âme ouverte à sentir. There are numerous instances in Chénier of the use of à in the sense of pour, a somewhat archaic feature which, no doubt, was one of the grounds on which his early critics based their reproach of incorrectness. But this is really racy French. The employment of à = pour may be traced throughout French literature: thirteenth century, 'Les dismes furent establies et donées anciennement a sainte église soustenir'; fourteenth century, 'Amis leur sont nécessaires a leurs bonnes actions acomplir'; sixteenth century, 'Il le somma de partir à parlementer'; seventeenth century, 'La couronne n'a rien à me rendre content,' Molière, D. Garc. V. vi; 'A lui rendre service elle m'ouvre la voie,' Corneille, Sertorius, II. v.; eighteenth century, 'A faire d'un tel gentilhomme un Achille au pied léger, l'adresse de Chiron même eût eu de la peine à suffire,' J.-J. Rousseau, Émile, ii.; nineteenth century, 'Que cette place est bonne à le bien poignarder,' V. Hugo, Cromwell, V. iii; 'Il en faudrait un monde à faire un grain de sable,' Lamartine, Jocelyn, quatrième époque (see the Jocelyn of this series, p. 75, l. 308). It is not strange that this should have been thought incorrect, when we see the French Academy, in their judgement on the Cid, and Voltaire, in his notes to Corneille, make the same mistake. See Haase, § 124, 2°, and F. Godefroy, Lexique comparé de la Langue de Corneille. For a similar instance see p. 6, l. 183.