[Ll. 250, 251.] Hesiod, Op. et Dies, 285.
[L. 260.] qu'avait tissus l'Euphrate. Tissu is the past participle of the obsolete verb tistre, now replaced by tisser.
[L. 264.] Seul maintenant—a sort of ablative absolute.
[L. 275.] Et sans que nul mortel. Nul, though of itself a negative, occurs after sans: 'Sans nuls égards pour les petits.'—La Bruyère, xiv. True it is that La Bruyère might have said, with Malherbe and La Fontaine, 'sans point d'égards...,' which nobody would think of using at the present day. 'Sans qu'aucun mortel'—aucun=aliquis unus, and so is no negative—would have been more logical, but harsh.
[L. 282.] By the device of concluding the long period with these three sad syllables, the pathos of the statement is heightened.
[L. 284.] a tombé. Tomber, generally used with the auxiliary être, also admits of the auxiliary avoir. Littré, Dict., s.v. 'Tomber,' 61°.
[L. 287.] je ne revois. The present used instead of the future tense imparts more emphasis to the asseveration. See Ayer, p. 466.
[L. 289.] vapeurs, fumes.
[L. 291.] Od. xiv. 42.
[L. 308.] au même précipice. In Old French ou (=en le) got confused with au (=à le), whence a constant substitution of au for ou in the masculine, and, by extension, of à la for en la in the feminine. See Meyer-Lübke, § 417, and Haase, § 120, and cf. p. 33, l. 4.