[L. 10.] Pâlit. Pâlir sur des livres is a French idiom whose English equivalent would be 'to pore over books.'
[L. 23.] caresses d'amours. The s in amours is for the rime.
ÉLÉGIES.
I.
[Ll. 1-4.] Horace, Od. iii, 12.
[Ll. 7, 8.] Tibulius, I. viii. 7.
[L. 20.] Le suit encor. This hyperbole, frequent in poetry, Chénier seems to have been particularly fond of. Cf. note to p. 62, l. 39.
[L. 22.] nymphes. Nymphe, as well as coursier (l. 24), belonging to the poetic diction of those days, strike us as blemishes. But if we were to demur at such details we could hardly read anything written in the now accepted style.
II.
[Ll. 1-8.] Imitated from Horace, Od. iii. 4.