[Ll. 25, 26.] quelque front... qui te nomme, one of those incoherent metaphors which our (in this respect) delicate taste demurs at, but which the old writers—Shakespeare being among the greatest sinners—indulged in freely.
These two lines display imperfect rimes, the o in couronne being short, whilst the o in trône is long.
[L. 34.] Tremblante. The 'rejet' helps the meaning. The reader's voice, arrested by the unavoidable pause at the end of the preceding line, is forced into imitating the hesitation that he is told was discernible in the maid's utterance. But perhaps this is more perceptible to a Frenchman used to more rigidity in the rimed versification of his great classics than to an Englishman with the freedom of blank verse in his ear.
[L. 35.] quand la nuit descend, the present for the future. See Haase, § 67, Remark I; Ayer, p. 466.
[L. 42.] il pleure aux pleurs... This is neatly said. Notice the use of the preposition à expressing a relation of cause, as in 'A l'orgueil de ce traître, De mes ressentiments je n'ai pas été maître' (Molière, Tartufe, v. 3. 1709). See Haase, § 123. Cf. p. 7, l. 211.
[Ll. 51, 52.] au devoir... Rangent... Ranger à = soumettre à, réduire à.
[L. 54.] ses mains sur ce visage. This was one of the rites observed by suppliants. See Euripides, Hecuba, 344.
[L. 55.] Indulgente. Becq de Fouquières remarks that the adjective is used in its Latin sense of complaisant. This is the English meaning: 'disposed to gratify by compliance with desire or humour,' whilst the French meaning is restricted to that of being 'ready to overlook or forgive faults or failings.'
[L. 58.] sur l'autre bord. Across the bridge.
[L. 62.] n'insulte à sa misère. Insulter à, still in use by the side of transitive insulter, is the equivalent of obsolete English 'insult over, on, at.'