[L. 22.] le doux oubli d'une vie. Horace's Oblivia vitae.
[L. 31.] dans Sichem. This is the wording of the older translation of the Bible. Ostervald's translation has 'à Sichem.'
[L. 33.] un amoureux courage. We here touch the point where courage = 'l'ensemble des passions qu'on rapporte au coeur' merges into courage = 'fermeté qui fait supporter ou braver le péril, la souffrance,' as Littré defines the two meanings.
[L. 35.] Horace's well-known wish (Sat. II. vi).
[L. 42.] aux champs. For the substitution of à for dans see note to p. 16, l. 308.
[L. 45.] Avoir amis, enfants, épouse. The omission of the indefinite article before épouse is quite normal in an enumeration. It is a feature of the old language. Besides 'avoir femme et enfant,' which is also an enumeration, we still say 'prendre femme.'
[L. 49.] aimable mensongère. Chénier avails himself of a source of derivation always open. He turns the adjective mensonger into a noun. This had already been done by Marot: 'De moi n'aura mensonger ne buveur Bien ne faveur,' iv. 308, in Littré, Hist.
[Ll. 49-62.] In this passage, a critic observes, we have, as it were, an earnest of the Lamartinian melancholy reverie.
[L. 66.] Julie. The heroine of Rousseau's Nouvelle Héloïse.
[L. 67.] Clarisse. Clarissa Harlowe in Richardson's novel of this name.