boutoir, the sharp spike on the knee-piece.

crible. The word refers to the visor with seven bars, which was one of the marks of a marquis's rank.

mortier. The round cap which was the ancient emblem of sovereignty in France. It was worn by barons who possessed full powers of administering justice in their domains, also by the presidents of the 'parlements', and by the chancellors. A modified form is still part of the official dress of some of the judges of the highest courts.

It will be noted that the antiquities in this passage are French, not German.

tortil, a ribbon twisted round a crown, the special ornament of a baron, not of a duke. It also signifies in heraldry a circular band or pad to which heraldic negroes' heads were attached.

rondache, a round shield.

L. 492. The reference is to the coronet of a French marquis, which bore eight jewelled ornaments, four of which consisted each of three great pearls arranged as a trefoil, while the other four were 'feuilles d'ache,' the heraldic representation of the leaf of the wild parsley.

hydre: see note on l. 323.

timbre, in heraldry, signifies anything placed above the escutcheon to mark the rank of the person to whom it belonged. Here Hugo seems to use it of the shield, perhaps because the triangular shield was a mark of knightly rank.

fauves, here 'terrible'.

A chapter might be written on Hugo's bold and occasionally strange uses of this word. Its primary meaning is either 'dull red' or 'tawny', but in Hugo's poetry it is used rather as a somewhat vague epithet to suggest darkness, gloom, cruelty, savagery, or oppressive power. It never denotes merely a physical quality; in such expressions as 'leur fauve volée', speaking of the ravens in La Fin de Satan, 'le désert fauve' (Androclès), 'son bec fauve', of the vulture (Sultan Mourad), the suggestion of wildness or ruthlessness predominates. Usually the word is used in a wholly figurative sense. Thus in La Fin de Satan the fallen archangel, flying from Jehovah, is 'fauve et hagard', Barabbas stumbling against the Cross is 'fauve', and of the lunatic in the tombs it is said: 'fauve il mordait'. In all these cases the meaning is 'wild','savage '. In Dieu we have `Vénus, fauve et fatale' ('cruel'), in L'Ane les canons dont les fauves gueulées' ('terrible'), in L'Année Terrible'un hallier fauve où des sabres fourmillent' (' wild'), and France is called upon to be 'franchement fauve et sombre' ('fierce'). In the following passages we have bolder uses still:

If man had been unselfish,

Of war,

It is applied even to sound. 'Le fauve bruit' is used in L'Ane of the battles of primeval monsters, and more mystically in La Vision d'où sortit le livre of the passing of the Spirit of Fatality.

Also of smell

Nor must the strange well-known line in La Bouche d'Ombre be forgotten

Fauve is always used of what is dark and gloomy, just as vermeil is always applied to what is bright and pleasant.

cimier. See note on LE MARIAGE DE ROLAND.

mélusine. A heraldic figure, half woman, half serpent, bathing in a basin. Taken from the name of a fairy, celebrated in the folklore of Poitou.

alérion, a heraldic figure, representing an eagle without beak or claws.

le manche d'une guitare is the small end.

bourguignotte, a small helmet without throat-piece, so called because it was first used by the Burgundians.

Diane éblouissait le pâtre: a reference to the `old sweet mythos,' as Browning calls it, of Diana, the goddess of the Moon, stooping from heaven to kiss the shepherd Endymion, as he lay asleep on Mount Latmos.

Rhodope, the wife of Haemus, king of Thrace, who was changed into a mountain because she thought herself more beautiful than Hera.

1. 839. The allusions are to the quarrels between the Greek and Roman Churches.

galoubet. A little wind instrument in shape like a flageolet, with three holes. It was played with the left hand, while the right beat a tambourine. It was peculiar to Languedoc and Provence.

marche, German Mark, military frontier.

L'idée. In the original edition of 1859 the word was L'épée.

Josaphat. The valley of Josaphat or Jehosaphat is between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, and according to both Jewish and Moslem tradition is to be the place of the Last Judgment. This tradition may be based on Joel iii. 12, or on the meaning of the word Josaphat, which is, 'Jehovah will judge,' or on both.

goules, from Arabic ghul. English ghoul. The creatures who, according to Eastern superstition, devour dead bodies.

lamies, from Lat. lamia, a fabulous being possessing the head of a woman and the body of a sea-serpent, which was supposed to devour children.

en rupture de ban. Rompre le ban is to set at defiance a decree of banishment, the punishment for which was death.

un dogue en arrêt. The name dogue is given to a kind of large dog, akin to a bloodhound, but the term is not correctly used here, as en arrêt means pointing.

vermeille. See note on AYMERILLOT.

SULTAN MOURAD.

In his preface to the volume of 1859 Hugo appeals to the history of the Turks by Cantemir as a justification for his picture of Sultan Mourad. This was Demetrius Cantemir (1673-1723), who had a remarkable history, and wrote a valuable book. Though not a Turk, he attached himself to the Turks, and fought under the banner of the Crescent during his early life. In 1710 he was made Waiwode, or Governor, of Moldavia, Then, deserting the setting for the rising sun, he allied himself with Czar Peter the Great, then at war with Turkey. But the campaign was unsuccessful, and Cantemir, flying from Moldavia, took refuge in the Ukraine. For the rest of his life he divided his time between study and instructing the Moldavians who had accompanied him. He is said to have spoken Persian, Turkish, Arabic, modern Greek, Russian, Moldavian, and Italian. The work to which Hugo refers was a history of the aggrandizement and decadence of the Ottoman Empire. Written in Latin, and translated subsequently into English, French, and German, it was long the standard work on the subject.

It does not seem probable that Hugo had any particular Sultan in mind when he delineated Sultan Mourad. Indeed the geography of the poem suggests that he is depicting an idealized Oriental tyrant.

The nearest approximation to the monster to be found in the pages of Cantemir is Ammath IV (r. 1623-40), of whose cruelty and bloodthirstiness the historian gives a vivid account. His principal exploit was the taking of Bagdad from the Persians, on which occasion he slaughtered 1,000 of the citizens in cold blood.

For Hugo's conception of the power and influence of the Turkish Empire when at its zenith, see Le Rhin: Conclusion, II, III.

Liban is Lebanon.

rampantes. The word is used with the heraldic sense.

I. 19. The so-called Temple of Theseus (its real dedication is doubtful) stands on a low hill just outside Athens. It is in a state of almost perfect preservation. The nails which crowded its woodwork were doubtless those on which the heads of slaughtered Greeks were fastened. Of course in the Greek temple there was no woodwork, except possibly in the roof.

cangiar, a short Turkish sword, with an almost straight blade, having a single edge.

Naxos is an island in the South Aegean Sea; Ancyra, a town in Asia Minor.

épiques. A curious use of the word. It appears to mean `worthy of epic poetry,' i.e. the spectres were those of great heroic men. In Les Chants du Crépuscule Hugo has 'des grenadiers épiques' (Napoléon II).

Elea, Megara, are towns in Greece, Famagusta is in Cyprus.

Agrigentum was a well-known Greek colony in Sicily; Fiume, at the head of the Adriatic Sea, is now an Austrian port.

Modon, a maritime town in the Peloponnesus.

Alep, Aleppo. Brousse, a town in Anatolia.

Damas, Damascus.

Tarvis (English Treviso) is a town in the province of Venice.

boyard. The boyards were the feudal nobles of Roumania and other Balkan countries.

Rhamséion, a sepulchral monument built by Ramses III, king of Egypt, in the fourteenth century B.C.

Généralife, the palace of the Moorish kings at Granada in Spain. It is scarcely necessary to say that no Turkish Sultan ever held any part of Spain.

échouait. The word is here used transitively (a rare use) in the sense of 'drove against.'

soudan, a word of Arabic origin, was a mediaeval name for certain Mahometan princes in Egypt and Asia Minor. The word seems here loosely to designate the Turkish sultans.

turbé, a kind of small round chapel, usually attached to a mosque, in which the tombs of Sultans and other great persons are placed.

LA CONFIANCE DU MARQUIS FABRICE.

This is the third section of a poem called L'Italie: Ratbert. The story is of Hugo's own invention, and is intended to delineate on the one hand the savagery, and on the other the knight-errantry, of the Middle Ages.

Pharamond, a somewhat legendary Frankish chieftain of the fifth century A.D.

Final. The name, alone or in composition, is borne by three small towns or villages on or near the Genoese coast. There was a marquisate of Final in the Middle Ages.

Witikind. Hugo possibly had in mind the Saxon chief of this name (A.D. 750-807) who for five years successfully resisted the power of Charlemagne, and finally made an honourable peace with him. It does not appear that he ever bore the title of king. His country was the ancient Saxony, that is the country between the lower Rhine and the lower Elbe. He had no connexion with Genoa, whither Hugo has dragged the Saxons without justification.

Albenga: the name is taken from a small town on the Genoese coast, not far from Final.

abbé du peuple, a name of a popularly elected magistrate at Genoa. The office was in existence from 1270 to 1339.

tribun militaire de Rome: Latin, tribunus militaris; the officers of the legion, six in number, who in republican times commanded in turn, six months at a time.

architrave, the lower part of the entablature, that which rests immediately on the column. To understand the line, it must be remembered that the tower is conceived as a ruin.

alleux, a feudal term, signifying hereditary property. The word is misused here in the sense of feudal dues.

censive. Another feudal term, meaning the dues owed by an estate to the lord of whom it was held.

balistes (from Latin ballista), mediaeval machines for hurling stones and darts.

le puits d'une sachette, a hole in which a recluse lived. Sachette (masc. sachet) was the name given to certain nuns of the Augustinian order who wore a loose woollen garment (sac), whence the name was derived. It afterwards became used of any recluse. In Notre-Dame de Paris Hugo applies it to the half-crazy inhabitant of the Tour-Roland.

cruzade, an old Portuguese coin, so called because it was marked with a cross. There was an old cruzade worth about 3 fr. 30, and a new cruzade worth not quite 3 fr.

Narse, or Narses, was king of Persia A.D. 294-303.

Tigrane, the name of an Armenian, not a Persian dynasty. There were seven kings of this name, and they occupied the Armenian throne from 565 to 161 B.C.

nonce. This word is in strictness used only of the emissaries of the Pope. Its use in any sense is an anachronism, as it was not introduced till the sixteenth century.

Ratbert is thus described at the beginning of the poem:—

Arles, which Hugo spells with or without the s according to the exigencies of the metre, was the capital of the kingdom of Provence, one of the kingdoms formed out of the fragments of Charlemagne's empire. It embraced most of S.E. France, and lasted from A.D. 855 to 1032. This kingdom was frequently called le royaume d'Arle. Roy d'Arle is therefore a historical title, but the names Ratbert and Rodolphe, as grandson and son respectively of Charlemagne, are imaginary.

Macchabée. Judas Maccabaeus, the Jewish hero, who freed his country from the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Amadis See note on EVIRADNUS.

Aétius, a Roman general who lived in the fifth century A.D. One of the last heroes and defenders of ancient Rome, he fought Franks, Burgundians, Huns, and succeeded in uniting the German kings of Gaul against Attila, and inflicting a crushing defeat upon him (A. D. 451).

latobrige. The Latobriges were an ancient German tribe who lived in what is now Wurtemberg and Baden.

Platon: the Athenian philosopher Plato, justly placed amongst the poets.

Plaute: Plautus, the Roman writer of comedies, who lived in the second century B.C.

Scaeva Memor, a Roman poet and tragedian of the first century A.D., rescued from oblivion by this line. The three make a bizarre trio; see note on BOOZ ENDORMI.

Sicambre. The Sicambres were the German tribe who in Roman times lived on the Rhine.

incrusté d'érable, i. e. inlaid with maple.

bailli, i. e. governor.

reître, an old word, derived from the German Reiter, used of the German knights.

buccin, properly a whelk, is a name given to a musical instrument very similar to a trombone.

brassière, a little jacket or vest worn close round the body. The word is usually used in the plural. Likely enough Hugo intends simply the corset.

au penchant des mers, i. e. where the land slopes to the sea. A peculiar expression; au penchant de la terre would be more usual.

les chouettes félines. The epithet refers to their nocturnal habits.

L. 353. The antecedent of que is vautours. The reference is to gladiatorial combats in the Roman Circus, and the louve d'airain is the famous bronze wolf of the Capitol, a statue representing a wolf suckling two children.

fauve, here `savage'. See note on ÉVIRADNUS.

cru, i. e. unashamed.

faîte vermeil. See note on AYMERILLOT. where the same phrase occurs.

figurant, 'suggesting the form of". A highly characteritic touch. Hugo possessed a faculty of poetic vision which changed the shapes of things so as to bring them into harmony with the dominant ideas of the moment. Cf. LA ROSE DE L'INFANTE, and LA CONFIANCE.

Héliogabales. Heliogabalus was a Roman Emperor (r. 217-222) noted for his sensuality and his caprices.

cistre, cittern or cithern, a musical instrument resembling the guitar.

un Louvre: the Louvre is the well-known palace in Paris where many kings of France resided. Note the antithesis in the same line, antre de rois, Louvre de voleurs.

les ors, various kinds of gold. Sixte Malaspina, introduced as one of the counsellors of Ratbert in a poem entitled 'Ratbert' not given here.

chape is the Picard form of 'cape' (see note on LES PAUVRES GENS). It is the name for a long cloak, fastened in front, and worn by clergy and choristers when performing Divine Service. Formerly any long loose cloak was called a charpe. As is still the custom in the Greek Church, images of the Virgin or saints are largely used, and they are found as ornaments on pieces of furniture and sacerdotal vestments.

L. 455. A peacock roasted whole and served up ornamented with its feathers was a favourite dish at the banquets of the fifteenth century.

hypocras, an infusion of cinnamon, sweet almonds, amber, and musk in sweetened wine.

Le roi d'Arle. See note to L. 179.

l'araignée. See note under PUISSANCE ÉGALE BONTÉ.

jacque (also written jaque), a short close-fitting coat or tunic.

vair (English vair), the fur of the squirrel, a highly esteemed and costly material for dress in the later Middle Ages.

chevalier haubert, i. e. a knight who has the right to wear the haubert or cuirass.

Urbain quatre, Pope (1261-. 1264). He is rightly described as the son of a cobbler.

Afranus, introduced as the bishop of Fréjus, and one of Ratbert's evil counsellors, in the poem of 'Ratbert'. See note on L. 435 supra.

L. 721. For the element of supernatural vengeance on cruelty compare L'Aigle du casque, published in the 1877 series.

LA ROSE DE L'INFANTE.

A French critic has said happily of this poem: '"La Rose de l'Infante" est un chef-d'oeuvre, digne d'être illustré par Vélasquez.' (Gaston Deschamps in Petit de Julleville's Histoire de la langue et de la littérature françaises.)

The little princess, of whom such an enchanting picture is given in this poem, is an imaginary figure. There was no Infanta of five years of age at the epoch of the Armada.

basquine, a rich skirt worn by Spanish women.

point de Gênes, Genoese lace, which at one time rivalled that of Venice.

fil d'or florentin, gold thread of Florence.

Duc de Brabant was one of the many titles of the King of Spain.

L. 69. See note on LA CONFIANCE.

glas (pronounced glâ), 'passing bell.'

vitreux: 'glassy,' 'lack-lustre.' The sunken eyes seemed of an unfathomable depth.

Iblis. See note on PUISSANCE ÉGALE BONTÉ,

Escurial. The vast and gloomy palace near Madrid built by Philip II in the form of a gridiron in memory of St. Laurence, on whose feast-day he won the battle of St. Quentin.

L'Inde. The inclusion of India in Philip's dominions can hardly be justified. As King of Spain he possessed nothing in India, and as King of Portugal only a few trading stations and fortresses.

For Hugo's conception of the power and position of Spain at this epoch, see Le Rhin: Conclusion, II, III.

L. 130. Prescott describes Philip as being habitually grave in manner, unsocial and sombre, and always dressed in black. The Order of the Golden Fleece was the only jewel he ever wore.

L. 137. 'Better a ruined kingdom, true to itself and its king, than one left unharmed to the profit of the Devil and the heretics.'—Correspondence of Philip, quoted by Prescott in the History of Philip II.

Burgos, the ancient capital of Old Castile. Aranjuez, a town in the province of Toledo, where Philip had a summer residence.

la toison d'or, the Golden Fleece, an order of knighthood founded by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1420.

grincer un sourire: a bold and vivid expression, grincer meaning 'to gnash the teeth.'

gastadour, from the Lat. vastator, ravager, despoiler.

l'Escaut, the Scheldt. The Adour is a river in Southern France, but no ships for the Armada came from France. One suspects the influence of gastadour in the line above.

mestre de camp, an old term for commander of a regiment.

L. 182. There were no German vessels in the Armada. ourque, more usually written bourque, is a small Dutch or Flemish cargo-boat with two masts. It is something between the modern ketch and the old Flemish 'bilander'.

moço, Spanish word for 'cabin-boy'.

Pausilippe, a promontory near Naples.

LES RAISONS DU MOMOTOMBO.

Placed by itself under the heading L'Inquisition in the series of 1859, and preceded by the following note:—'Le baptême des volcans est un ancien usage qui remonte aux premiers temps de la conquête. Tous les cratères du Nicaragua furent alors sanctifiés, à l'exception du Momotombo, d'où l'on ne vit jamais revenir les religieux qui s'étaient chargés d'aller y planter la croix.' (SQUIER, Voyage dans l'Amérique du Sud.)

Momotombo is a volcano in the state of Nicaragua. E.G.Squier was an American antiquarian and author who was appointed chargé d'affaires to all the Central American States in 1849. He does not appear to have written any work with the title quoted by Hugo. The passage quoted occurs in his Nicaragua, its people, scenery, and monuments, published in 1852. He relates in this book an instance of a bishop being asked to baptize a volcanic vent which had suddenly opened in a mountain!

Torquemada (1420-1489) was the notorious inquisitor-general of Castile and Aragon, whose name has become a by-word for relentless persecution and cruelty.

LA CHANSON DES AVENTURIERS DE LA MER. (Page 101)

le golfe d'Otrante, between Italy and Albania.

au Phare: it is not clear what lighthouse is intended.

une Tarentaise, woman of Tarentum, in South Italy.

Gaëte, English Gaeta, a bay and town on the west coast of Italy, north of Naples.

L. 47. The historical allusion here is not clear. Prince Eugene of Savoy, Marlborough's colleague, and Cardinal Mazarin were not contemporaries.

Livourne, Leghorn. Spinola: the reference may or may not be to the famous Imperialist general in the Thirty Years War.

prames, big flat-bottomed boats, capable of carrying cannon, and used for coast defence.

Notre-Dame de la Garde, a sanctuary at Marseilles.

Palma, a town in Majorca.

APRÈS LA BATAILLE.

Victor Hugo's father was an officer in the army of the great Napoleon and fought in Spain as a general, but nothing is known of this incident except what is here told.

Caramba (Spanish), a colloquial interjection, implying surprise and astonishment.

LE CRAPAUD.

To Hugo ugliness was as much a subject for pity as degradation or misery. Compare the following passage from Les Contemplations: Ce que dit la Bouche d'Ombre:—

For Hugo's feeling for the brute creation, see Dieu: L'Ange.

Augustules. The last Emperor of Rome, Romulus, was given by the people the derisive nickname of Augustulus, or 'the little Augustus'. The capture of Ravenna in his reign by Odoacer marks the end of the Western Empire.

vermeils. See note on AYMERILLOT.

miroitait, glittered with light.

farouche, hard, cruel.

fauve, wild, shy. See note on ÉVIRADNUS, 1. 529.

L. 103. A difficult expression. Apparently it refers to the harsh grating of the wheel against the side of the rut.

connivence: the complicity of the burden upon his back with his master in keeping the ass in a straight course.

I. 134. i.e. the sad and melancholy, such as the ass, are equal to the angels, if they feel pity.

LES PAUVRES GENS.

musoir, the head of a pier or jetty.

vertes couleuvres. The serpent appealed to Hugo's poetic instinct, and he saw its shape and its glitter in many natural objects. Compare the following passages, for most of which I am indebted to Edmond Huguet's Métaphores et comparaisons dans l'oeuvre de Victor Hugo:

La ronce, le serpent, tord sur lui ses anneaux. (Eviradnus, 1. 98.)

cape, a cloak with hood, with which women protect their head and shoulders. Used in Modern French only in a few provinces, except in certain phrases such as sous cape, 'secretly'. The word is the same as the English 'cape'.

C'est la marine! Marine is often used as a nickname, as we say in English 'Jack'. On the French coast the word is often familiarly used in speaking to a man who is or has been a sailor, e.g. Dis-donc, la marine! Tiens, voilá la marine! In this case it means 'Here am I!'

bonnet de forçat, 'woollen cap worn by convicts and also by fishermen.'

chiffon: used colloquially for a child, especially for a little girl.

PLEINE MER.

Analysis. The vision of a gigantic derelict vessel on a boundless sea. This is the old world, the past of grandeur and horror.

In the nineteenth century a monster warship was built on the Thames, type of the spirit of that age. It carried two thousand guns; its topmast was higher than St. Paul's; now it has become this derelict.

The old world was subject to many plagues and scourges. Its moving spirit was Hatred, its characteristic, Division. Race strove with race; vice, ignorance, superstition, cruelty prevailed.

Now the old world has vanished, the ship is deserted. What has become of man? Look upwards!

cachalot. The cachalot or sperm-whale is one of the largest cetaceans, often attaining a length of more than 80 ft.

le grand mât, the mainmast.

déferle (of a wave), 'breaks.'

L.38. See the remarks, in the Introduction, on Hugo's treatment of shadows.

étrave, the stern of a vessel.

étambot, the stern-post.

L.53. The vessel pitches as she meets the waves (le tangage qui brave); the rolling throws up most foam (le roulis qui fume).

éclat, splinter.

fauve, savage, barbarous. See note on ÉVIRADNUS.

Le dernier siècle. "Pleine Mer" and "Plein Ciel" form a section of the Légende, entitled Vingtiérne Siècle.

sur la Tamise. Hugo was hostile to England. He regarded the British Empire as one of the two great dominions the shadow of which was oppressing the world in the middle of the nineteenth century, the other being Russia. England embodied "l'esprit de commerce, de ruse et d'aventure". He developed this theme with a nervous and forcible eloquence, if not with great political insight, in Le Rhin: Conclusion (published in 1842).

portemanteaux, davits, on which the boats are slung.

grelin, a hawser or warp.

palans, tackle for raising heavy weights; block and pulley.

amure, rope by means of which the lower corners of a sail are held, 'tack.'

se le passaient, passed it along, i.e. the ship.

Nemrod. Nimrod is in Hugo the incarnation of the spirit of war. Cf. especially La Fin de Satan: Le Glaive.

pavois, as a naval term, 'bulwarks.'

vrille, gimlet. The conception is of some immense spiked ram.

alcoran, the Koran. Al is the Arabic definite article.

L. 191 refers to the texts in the Koran which order the death of those who do not accept Mahometanism.

simoun, simoon, the hot wind of the Sahara.

PLEIN CIEL.

Analysis.

The vision of a ship in the sky. What is it? It is man, who has burst the bonds that held him to earth and risen into the clouds. It is matter soaring through the heavens.

First lyrical passage. The passage of the ship through the sky.

Description of the life in the ship; the absence of arms; the feeling of power and joy. Description of the ship's movement.

Second lyrical passage. The voyage amongst the stars.

Whither will man go? He has thrown off his oid nature, his past history is buried, he aspires to immortality.

Third lyrical passage. Is man to reach Heaven without death?

No, man must remain man, but the weight has been taken from his feet. War has vanished; man is good and just.

Fourth lyrical passage. The ship is moving towards Virtue, Knowledge, Right, Reason, Brotherhood, Justice and Love, and is carrying with it man, who will find liberty and unity in the light.

La Fable, i.e. the myth of Aeolus.

Eole. Aeolus was the god of the Winds, which he kept fastened up in a bag.

fausse clef, skeleton key.

fatal, 'charged with destiny.'

pesanteur. Not 'weight' but 'the force of gravity'.

Nadir is the point in the heavens which would be reached if a line were drawn through the centre of the earth and carried on till it reached the sky. But here it seems to be used loosely for any distant point in the heavens. The meaning is that from a remote distance the round earth, as it came into view beneath the ship, would have the appearance of a dusky comet.

aéroscaphe. A word once proposed, but never widely accepted, as a designation for an airship. It is derived from the Greek aer (air) and skaphe (a vessel).

humaine, i.e. made by man.

treuil, 'windlass.'

moufle, 'block.'

moteur, 'driving power.'

L. 171. i.e. by mathematics and poetry, that is by reason and imagination combined..

Euler was a Swiss geometrician (1707-83) who made great contributions to mathematics and mechanics.

Délos. Tradition says that Delos in the Aegean Sea was once a wandering island, and that Zeus fastened it down that it might be a home for Latona, who was about to give birth to Apollo and Diana.

Leibniz (English Leibnitz), the German mathematician, chemist, and philosopher (1646-1716).

Fulton, the American inventor (1765-1815), who was one of the first mechanicians to construct a steamboat.

Képler. The German Kepler (1571-1630) was one of the founders of modern astronomy.

These three men are chosen as typical embodiments of the spirit of progress.

Simoun. See note on PLEINE MER.

mistral. In the South of France the north-east wind is so called.

Sous le renversement de l'urne. The urn is the symbol of that 'Fatalité' which to Hugo was the dark shadow over human life. Cf. LA TROMPETTE,

Andromeda, Orion, and the Pleiades are well-known constellations. Arcturus is a star of the first magnitude in Bootes.

The Scorpion and the Archer are next each other in the heavens. The lines express in a somewhat bizarre manner the effect of the outpouring of life on the stars.

Aldebaran, a reddish star of the first magnitude in the constellation of Taurus.

Céphée. Cepheus is the name of a constellation, as also is Perseus.

des espaces vermeils. See note on AYMERILLOT.

L. 232. Zoroastre. Zoroaster was the founder of the Persian religion. He was a great observer of the stars.

L. 245. Fatalité. In Victor Hugo the word denotes, not so much destiny, as the feeling or the doctrine that man is the helpless victim of an unseen and cruel power. It is a gloom which overhangs human life, from which in the progress of the ages man will be delivered. Compare La Vision d'où sortit ce livre, where the spirit of 'Fatalité' is associated with paganism and contrasted with the spirit of religion. In Dieu again 'Fatalité' is one of the three sombre deities of paganism, the other two being Venus, the goddess of pleasure, and Hecate, the goddess of death. Cf. also the following lines from La Fin de Satan, put into the mouth of man's evil angel:—

And again in Satan's speech to the Almighty:—

Notre-Dame de Paris is based upon this theme. See especially Livre VII. iv.

L. 255. For the metaphor compare 'la fausse clef du fatal gouffre bleu', and the following passage in L'Ane about the prison of life:—

L. 273. Cf. the well-known line in Les Contemplations: Ce que dit la Bouche d'Ombre:—

Man is likened to a convict, in that he is undergoing punishment, not in that he deserves it.

Allioth, a star of the first magnitude in the Great Bear.

J'en arrive: 'Tis from there I come.

la pesanteur. Gravity symbolizes the forces which keep man down. Cf..

guèbres, fire-worshippers, i.e. the Persians, who still adhere to the ancient religion of Zoroaster. The word itself is Persian.

Thalès (English Thales), one of the seven wise men of Greece.

L. 317. An allusion to the well-known doctrine of the music of the spheres, enunciated by Plato.

chouette. The owl, as a bird of darkness, was to Hugo suggestive of evil things. Cf. La Confiance.

frisson des roseaux, i.e. a trembling like that of reeds.

Spinosa (English Spinoza) (1632-77), the Jewish philosopher, whose rationalistic views would be evidence to Hugo of his need of faith.

Hobbe. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the famous English philosopher, is best known by his defence of absolute monarchy. In ethics he held that man is swayed only by the desire for pleasure and the fear of pain. Either of these views would be to Hugo a system of despair.

Erèbe (Erebus) was originally one of the Titans who was cast by Zeus into Tartarus. The word is thus used as a synonym for the lower world, especially those regions where evil deeds are expiated.

fatalité. See note on L. 245.

géhenne. Gehenna was the valley near Jerusalem where crimmals were executed. In the New Testament it is used as a synonym for hell.

Nimrod is again the embodiment of the spirit of war. Aaron typifies ecclesiastical resistance to progress.

Beccaria was an Italian publicist (1738-94) who worked for the reform of the penal law. His principal work was a small volume called Treatise on Crime and Punishment, which was translated into nearly every language in Europe. His opposition to the use of torture, to the infliction of the death penalty, and to arbitrary arrest no doubt appealed specially to Hugo.

Dracon, i.e. Draco, the Athenian legislator, the memory of the excessive severity of whose laws lingers in our adjective draconian.

Empédocle. Empedocles was a Greek philosopher who was born in Sicily about 450 B.C. He is best remembered from the tradition that he threw himself down Etna in despair at his incapacity to solve the problem of its action.

Prométhée. Prometheus was the Titan who stole fire from heaven and gave it to men, for which Zeus chained him to a rock in the Caucasus. In legend and poetry he figures as the benefactor and civilizer of mankind.

pesanteur. See note on L. 305. l'antique idéal, the ancient visions, as for instance those of Isaiah and Virgil, of a golden age.

farouche, i. e. that has never been realized.

L. 473. i. e. leaving the old humanity farther and farther behind.