Hernani
V >>
Victor Hugo >> Hernani
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 | 12
27: un monde créateur, meaning the Middle Ages, as an epoch fertile
in great institutions.
28: le hasard corrige le hasard, means that whatever the oppression
of the time, it is probable that the people will have a friend either
in the Pope or the Emperor, and if one is tyrannical the other may be
clement.
29: toujours l'ordre éclate, «order still springs forth».
30: Qu'une idée, au besoin des temps, un jour élose. «Let but a
thought, in the fulness of time, some day burst forth.»
31: Se fait homme, «becomes incarnate».
32: These lines are packed with meaning, the principal idea being
that the will of the people and the will of God will from time to time
find personification in an elective Pope or an elective Emperor, and
triumph over hereditary sovereigns and time-honored prerogatives.
33: diète is the legislative assembly of the Empire, conclave the
assembly of cardinals to elect a Pope.
34: suaire, lit. «shroud»; but it is difficult to see why Hugo
chose this word for the papal mantle, unless helped there-to by the
necessity of finding a rhyme for _sanctuaire_.
35: Pierre et César, en eux accouplant les deux Romes, the idea so
much insisted on by Dante in the De Monarchia and the Divine Comedy,
that the spiritual Rome of Peter's founding and the temporal Roman
Empire of Caesar's creation were divinely sanctioned, and necessary to
each other.
36: à larges pans, «on a generous scale».
37: la clef de voûte, «the keystone».
38: ducs à fleurons, «dukes with flowered escutcheons.»
39: nous arrive fanfare, «comes to us like trumpet-blast.»
40: What follows, the vision of the People, is very characteristic of
Hugo, however unlike anything that Charles would have thought, and it
is nobly expressed.
41: l'étreignant. The antecedent of the _l'_ is _pyramide_.
42: sur ses hautes zones. The antecedent of _ses_ is _pyramide_.
43: des empires, the object of _verrait_.
44: son flux. The antecedent of _son_ is _flot_, in line 25.
45: The antecedent of _le_ and _il_ is _flot_ again.
46: Il n'aille pas me prendre, impersonal, «There came not over me a
giddiness.»
47: seulement, «even».
48: dût en parlant, «even if in speaking».
49: dusses-tu me dire, see preface.
50: Qui vive? «Who goes there?»
51: étranger par sa mère, «a foreigner on his mother's side», the
Spanish side. See note 59, act I.
52: meure comme un Hébreu, a testimony to the constancy of the Jews
under persecution.
53: roue et tenailles mordantes, «the wheel (of torture) and the
biting (red-hot) pincers.»
54: chevalets, «wooden horses»: trestles with a sharp ridge, upon
which victims were set astride for torture.
55: lampes ardentes, «fires», applied with careful ingenuity to the
feet, generally.
56: Je te rends ce cor, see note 86, act III.
57: Avec Dieu dans ceci je suis d'intelligence, «God is on my side in
this.»
58: dès ce soir, simply, «this evening».
59: le traître, meaning Charles, whom he considers the real traitor.
60: S'il périt, means Hernani.
61: sans nous y soustraire, «without ever giving up», «without
defection».
62: Jurons sur cette croix. His sword, like a crusader's, had a guard
at right angles to the hilt, thus forming across.
63: Connétable d'Espagne, by thus naming him the Emperor appoints
Alcala to this high office, and then in the same manner gives Almuñan
the Admiralty of Castile, a position of great honor.
64: Majesté! The sycophant Ricardo is the first to proffer the new
title, which was supposed to belong to emperors alone. Charles,
however, is said to have caused it to be employed towards himself
while yet only King of Spain.
65: Alcade du palais. «Governor of the palace.»
66: Deux électeurs. This is not correct. The news of his election was
brought from Frankfort to Charles at Barcelona by the Count Palatine.
The Duke of Bavaria was not at that time an elector.
67: chambre dorée. The election took place in the splendid hall of a
building in Frankfort known as the Römer.
68: roi des Romains. One of the concomitant titles of the Emperor was
King of the Romans. When an Emperor was so fortunate as to be crowned
at Rome he assumed the clamys and sandals of a Roman patrician, and
great sanctity was attached to this dignity as perpetuating the line
of the ancient city.
69: frère de Bohême. Kings then as now addressed each other as «my
brother».
70: vous êtes familier, «I count you as an intimate friend.»
71: J'y suis! «I have succeeded.»
72: son poignard, see act II, scene 2.
73: au mur de Balthazar, «on Belshazzar's wall». See the Book of
Daniel, v. 5.
74: Les rois Rodrigue font les comtes Julien. Roderick, King of
Andalusia, assumed sway over all Spain in 709. In the opposition was a
certain Count Julian, commander of the Gothic forces in Morocco, who
betrayed his master's forces to the Saracens. These, victorious in
Africa, crossed into Spain and defeated and killed Roderick in 711.
He has been called the last of the Goths, and is the subject of an
ambitious poem by Robert Southey. According to Spanish legend, as
embodied in ancient ballads, the treachery of Count Julian was an act
of revenge for the dishonoring of his sister by King Roderick.
75: Segorbe, a town in Valencia, in eastern Spain.
76: Cordona, a small town in Catalonia, in northeastern Spain.
77: Monroy, Monroyo, a small town in eastern Spain, a few miles west
of Tortosa.
78: Albatera, a village in Valencia, in eastern Spain.
79: Gor. Venta de Gor is a small village a few miles north of
Granada.
80: grand maitre d'Avis. The order of Avis was a Portuguese
decoration.
81: penser, infinitive used as noun.
82: Laisse régner l'esprit. Speaking to his heart, he bids it cease
to disturb his mind, which is full of lofty purposes.
83: The Austrian coat of arms contains a double-headed eagle with an
escutcheon on its breast.
84: Saint Étienne, Saint Stephen.
85: misères du roi, «pettiness of the king».
86: Le Danois à punir, perhaps an allusion to the fact that the
Danish parliament was one of the first large political bodies to defy
the Pope and set up a national church (1527).
87: Le Saint-Père à payer. Pope Leo X adroitly avoided declaring
himself for either Charles or Francis, yet maintained such a position
that the successful competitor should consider himself his debtor.
88: Venise. Robertson says that the «views and interest of the
Venetians were not different from those of the Pope», and yet that
they sided with Francis, because they had more to fear and to hope
from him.
89: Soliman. Soliman the Magnificent, Emperor of Constantinople, was
knocking loudly at the doors of western Europe, and one of the reasons
why Frederick the Wise declined his election was that Charles would
prove a stronger power against the Turks.
ACT V.
1: cherchant fortune, «a-courting».
2: Vouliez-vous pas qu'il mît son cercueil de la noce? «You wouldn't
have him drag his coffin into the wedding?»
3: lui fait ombre, «disturbs him».
4: Pourpoint de comte, empli de conseils d'alguazil, «Count's
doublet, full of wise saws and modern instances.»
5: Il n'avait garde. «He was careful not to.»
6: Il trouve à qui parler. «I am not afraid of a conversation with
him.»
7: par la rampe de l'escalier, «along the balustrade of the
stairway».
8: Quelque mauvais plaisant, «some would-be joker».
9: en attendant l'enfer, «before he comes to fetch us to hell».
10: C'est un plaisant drôle, «He's a queer lot!» Here _plaisant_ is
the adjective; in note 1, preface, it was the noun.
11: celle-ci, «this dance».
12: In prose this would be: _qu'avec vous mon mari les compte_.
13: Il compte, «He keeps time».
14: Saint Jacques monseigneur, «By my lord St. James!»
15: amie, «my dear».
16: Vienne ma doña Sol, «Let but my doña Sol come», etc.
17: Qu'on nous laisse, «Let them but leave us».
18: mis de la sorte, «dressed in this way».
19: Two weak and superfluous lines.
20: Seriez vous dans cette sérénade de moitié! «Have you not had a
hand in this serenade?»
21: Ce devrait être fait. «This must be ended.»
22: Fussé-je votre fille. «Even were I your daughter.»
23: Qu'ils sont heureux! A phrase of great power. Observe also that
Hernani suppresses almost all evidence of his pain in the presence of
Doña Sol.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 | 12