[L. 2.] L'axe, the wheel. Thus Homer, Il. xvi. 378, uses [Greek: axôn] for [Greek: trochos], Chénier was particularly fond of this word, and a note of his lets us into the secret of his affection for it. Having written, in a sketch of another piece, 'Si d'un axe brûlant le soleil nous éclaire,' he observes, 'I like axe better than char. It is less trivial. The Latins say it everywhere: "Volat vi fervidus axis," Virg. (Georg. iii. 107); "Spoliis onerato Caesaris axe" Propert. (ii. 3. 13).' Anacreon, Od. iv, compares human life to a wheel. Cf. BUCOLICS, XIV, p. 35, l. 5.
[L. 4.] Horace, Od. ii. 9: a reminiscence already met with, see p. 14, l. 209.
[Ll. 17, 18.] Moi qui...mon réveil. Cf. this other instance occurring in Chénier, 'Moi, l'espérance amie est bien loin de mon coeur.' As we say, 'mon coeur à moi,' for the sake of emphasis, we can also, somewhat more disconnectedly; say 'moi, mon coeur est sans espoir,' 'elle, son coeur est libre.' The thought expressed here is a reminiscence of La Fontaine, Fabl. VII. xii.
[L. 20.] Le nocher... Nocher (from Lat. nauclerus, Greek [Greek: nauklêros]), formerly a master's mate or a skipper, is, with nautonier, a poetic word for pilote.
[L. 21.] d'esclaves abondant. Abondant en esclaves would be more accordant with modern usage. La Bruyère writes, 'Si les hommes abondent de biens' (in LITTRÉ), and Haase, § 114, illustrates the construction with a quotation from a letter of La Fontaine.
[L. 23.] du Potose. Cerro de Potosi, a mountain of Bolivia, rich in metallic ores.
[L. 28.] libre de chaîne. Chaîne ought to have taken an s. But then it would not have rhymed for the eye.
[L. 34,] les sables brûlants. See note to p. 61 l. 19.
[L. 37.] nonchalant du terme. This use of nonchalant de shows Chénier to have been familiar with Montaigne, in whose writings it occurs frequently, e.g. 'Je veux... que la mort me trouve plantant mes choulx, mais nonchalant d'elle,' I. xix. Nonchalant = non + chalant, pres. part. of chaloir (Lat. calere, to be hot, hence, desire ardently), an obsolescent verb now only used impersonally in the third person singular of the present indicative: 'Il ne me chaut de cela.'