[L. 14.] et soupire. The first editor has corrected this into et l'attire. But the nymph first attracts the attention of the boy and then sighs out her desire (as again on l. 19).
[L. 15.] jette des fleurs. Jeter is said of plants and trees (E. shoot), whence rejeton (E. shoot).
[L. 20.] il l'admire couler. See note to p. 8, l, 260.
[L. 26.] Sur leur sein, dans leurs bras, assis... Elliptical: 'he sitting on their knees,' For this sense of sein see note to p. 24, l. 48.
[L. 29.] Leurs mains vont caressant. Aller with the gerund of a verb was a periphrase much in vogue in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and meaning nothing more than the verb itself. It is now of rare use, except in poetry (Haase, §70 A). Palsgrave says that 'que je vous yraye devisant' amounts to 'que vous deviseroye,' Littré, however, in his dictionary (s. v. 'aller,' 21), says that it expresses continuity.
[L. 30.] étamine. This is, Sainte-Beuve observes, the prima lanugine malas of the Latins. Cf. 'Flaventem prima lanngine malas... 'Clytium,' Aen. x. 324, 'downy-cheeked Clytius'; or 'Clytius in his beardless bloom,' as Dryden, not very accurately, renders it. For étamine see note to p. 50, l. 38.
[Ll. 38, 39.] Virgil, Ecl. vi. 43.
[Ll. 46-52.] The syntax of this sentence would incur the blame of a strict grammarian. He would first observe that in the wording, 'pour te paraître belle, l'eau pure...,' it is pure water that is represented as wanting to appear at its best, and that, in order to avoid this absurdity, the author should have written 'pour te paraître belle, elle (the idyll a...)—in short, the construction that reappears in the following clause, 'elle a pressé ses flancs....' Next he might perhaps object to 'Et des fleurs sur son sein ... et sa flûte à la main,' a clause in which he would miss the verb. But say 'elle met des fleurs sur son sein, etc., et elle prend sa flûte à la main,' and notice the loss in vivacity. As the young person bustles, so does the sentence.
[L. 51.] les pipeaux de Segrais. Segrais (1624-1701) wrote idylls praised by Boileau. He also had a hand in the composition of the two novels of Mme de la Fayette, Zaïde and La Princesse de Clèves, and gave a metrical translation of the Aeneid, now forgotten.
[L. 52.] connus... aux nymphes. Both connu à and connu de are said, though the latter is more common at the present day.