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Jean Racine - Esther
242 jeûne, from jejunum. Cf. our "jejune."
245 "And if I perish, I perish," Book of Esther, iv. 16. Contente, now colloquially = our "glad,"
has here its truest sense of "satisfied."
247 Qu'on s'éloigne. The touch of dignity added to the command by the use of the indefinite pronoun,
can hardly be translated. For the following prayer, see Introd. section IV.
259 sert has here its full etymological meaning of "being a slave." Its other meanings are: 2. with
de, "to serve as," "to be used for," l. 843; 3. with accus. "to serve" a person, a cause, etc., l. 336; 4.
with dative, "to be of use" to a person or for a purpose, l. 333.
200 veut, as often, = "seek to." Note that the de before être is not dependent on
peu, but is the regular preposition introducing an infinitive not at the beginning of a sentence. -
For vouloir, used as a pseudo-auxiliary, see l. 155, N.
261 Insulter, like applaudir, is used with the accus. in a literal, with the dat. in a figurative, sense.
262 Imputer always implies that you charge a person with an offence. Here there is a slight
hypallage: the offence lies in the fact that the conqueror dares to credit his false gods with his triumph,
and not, as the words would literally signify, in that with which he credits them.
263 Note that adjectives at the end of the line are strongly emphatic.
266 Foi means: 1. "faith," l. 256; 2. "loyalty," l. 375; 3. "truth," as here; 4. "promise," l. 1152. If the Jews
were annihilated, the Saviour promised by God to the seed of Abraham could not be born to them.
277 où, frequently used for the dat. of relative pron. referring to things.
299 Il fut is elegant for il y eut. Cf. l. 477. For the tense, see App. II, ii. B. b.
309 Arracher is "to snatch away," "to pull off" or "up;" déchirer is "to tear into pieces."
332 Note that autrui can never be nominative.
333 Que. See App. IV, 1. A.
347 Ni is almost always followed by ne without pas, because ne is only attended
by its intensifying particle pas when used as the sole negative in the clause, without any
accompanying rien, jamais, aucun, etc. Here, therefore, there should be no
pas. Its introduction creates a sort of anacoluthon, and throws great stress on the negative.
364 When Pharaoh's host was swallowed up by the Red Sea.
367 paille légère = "chaff."
373 ne . . . que. Cf. l. 13, N.
375 en. See App. V, ii. E.
382 Tout ce . . . de mystères is a construction framed on the analogy of genitives following adverbs of
quantity.
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