ACT II
1: Patio, the Spanish name for an open court surrounded by a house.
2: chapeaux rabattus, «with hats pulled down over their eyes.»
3: J'en veux à sa maîtresse, etc. «I am after his mistress, not his head.»
4: qu'il ait un fils, literally: «let him but have a son by her, and he'll be king.»
5: fût-on altesse, etc. «even a Royal Majesty cannot get a king by a countess.»
6: C'est ce que nous disons, etc. «That is what we often say in your Highness' antechamber.»
7: Cependant que for pendant que.
8: mon peuple, «my servants». It is barely possible that the king means to return Don Sancho's compliment goodnaturedly, but more probably he says this to show him his place.
9: Poussez au drôle une estocade. «Give the rascal a thrust.»
10: Pendant qu'il reprendra ses esprits sur le grès. «While he is recovering his senses on the flagstones.»
11: Dont le roi fera bruit. «Of which the king can boast.»
12: Navarre. Since 1512 Upper Navarre has belonged to Spain. Its capital is Pamplona. Navarre north of the Pyrenees, or Lower Navarre, has belonged to France since 1589.
13: Murcie, Murcia, formerly a Moorish kingdom, on the eastern coast of Spain.
14: les Flamands, «the Flemings», inhabitants of the so-called Spanish Netherlands, of which, in 1512, the Dutch provinces were incorporated in the Burgundian division of the Empire.
15: l'Inde, «the Indies», meaning all the Spanish possessions in America and the West Indies.
16: vous en obliez un, alluding to the opening words of Sc. 4 of Act 1.
17: me monte à sa taille, «lifts me to his height».
18: Observe the change from vous to te, to indicate the force of the insult, the use of the second pers. sing. to persons whom one would ordinarily address as vous being a common way of expressing contempt.
19: compagnon, «base fellow».
20: à moi, added merely for emphasis.
21: çà, «there!» probably drawing his sword.
22: fiscal, a Spanish word meaning an officer whose duty it is to defend the king's civil rights and to prosecute criminals in his name, «attorney-general».
23: Je vous fais mettre au ban du royaume. «I banish you from the kingdom.»
24: C'est un port. «It is a haven of refuge.»
25: où ta puissance tombe, «where your hand cannot reach.»
26: altérée, «thirsty».
27: Je le déclare. The «le» anticipates lines 17 and 18.
28: traînant au flanc, «bearing in my heart».
29: je veux qu'on m'envie, «worthy of envy».
30: Renoue à d'autres jours, etc. «To some other life attach thy life which I have spoiled.»
31: ennui, «sorrow».
32: sbires, «officers», from the Italian sbirri, «bailiffs», «constables».
33: alcades, «wardens», from the Spanish alcaide, «jailer» or «governor of a castle».
34: alerte, from the Italian all' erta, «on guard».
ACT III
1: plus d'oncle! «I shall be done with being uncle.»
2: Certe, for certes, the s being omitted to allow elision and thus save a syllable.
3: On le verra bientôt. Does this mean: «It (my blood) will soon be seen»; or, «That (its nobility) will soon be evident»?
4: Dérision! que cet amour boiteux… ait oublié. «What mockery that this decrepit, bungling love… should have forgotten.»
5: oui, c'en est là, «yes, it has come to that.»
6: comme le tien. A glaring instance of enjambement, or the running over of a clause at the end of a line.
7: J'ai nom Silva. The verb and the noun in this expression and many similar ones are so closely connected that they may be considered as forming a verbal expression, and indeed are frequently capable of conversion into a verb. Here j'ai nom is equivalent to je m'appelle. Compare trouver moyen, faire honneur, donner conseil.
8: Le tout, pour être, etc. «I would give all to be», etc.
9: qu'il ne s'use en paroles, «but that it will wear itself out in mere words.»
10: à l'aile vive et peinte, etc. «with bright and flashing wing and amorous song.» _Ramag_e originally meant only «boughs», «foliage», then also chant ramage, «bird-song among the branches».
11: Au coeur on n'a jamais de rides. A fine sentiment, and one of the many in this Act which win for the chivalrous Don Ruy the reader's sympathy and respect.
12: prunelle, translate simply «eye».
13: encor. The e is dropped to save a syllable, as the next word begins with a consonant.
14: que introduces the real subject, ce suprême effort, etc. anticipated by ce in c'est, line 25.
15: encor. See note 13.
16: Et de ses derniers ans, etc. «And bears for him half the weight of his remaining years.»
17: See note 14.
18: à ce propos, «by the way».
19: C'en est fait d'Hernani. «It is all over with Hernani.»
20: écus du roi, «royal crown-pieces».
21: pour l'instant, «at present».
22: Paix et bonheur à vous. This salutation and the answer are imitations of the Latin greetings between monks.
23: Armillas, a small mountain village in Aragon, near Montalvan, about half-way between Saragossa and Teruel.
24: tu le pourras voir pendre. The object-pronoun is generally placed directly before the verb on which it depends, so that this expression would normally and in prose be tu pourras le voir pendre. Such expressions as this, however, are common in Molière.
25: Del Pilar. «Our Lady of the Pillar»; one of the two cathedrals of Saragossa, so called because of the legend that St. James, coming into Spain soon after the crucifixion to preach the gospel, fell asleep; whereupon the Virgin Mary appeared on a jasper pillar and desired him to erect a church on that spot. She is said to have come afterwards to mass in the chapel which was built there, and which is now in the centre of the cathedral and contains the pillar. This relic is a favorite object of pilgrimage, as it is believed to cure diseases.
26: au fond du sombre corridor, «at the end of the gloomy aisle».
27: châsse ardente, «blazing shrine».
28: cape, «cope», a sacerdotal cloak reaching from the shoulders to the feet, open in front, worn by priests celebrating mass.
29: ne te fais faute de rien, «make free use of everything».
30: L'avoir priée to portera bonheur. «It will bring you good luck to have prayed to her.»
31: carolus d'or, money pieces thus named because first coined under Charles VIII of France and marked with his name. – (Matzke). Compare Louis d'or, Napoléon d'or.
32: Perez ou Diego, meaning «You thought I was nobody in particular», these being very common Christian names.
33: Je vais faire armer le château. He means that the presence of Hernani will attract the king's troops, against whom, by the rules of hospitality, be feels bound to protect his guest.
34: cent fois moins. Supply rare.
35: Grand merci de l'amour sûr, profond et fidèle. Ironical: «Thanks for such deep, sure, faithful love.»
36: ma patronne, «my patron saint».
37: qui m'outragez, «who insult me».
38: Croire que mon amour, etc. «How could he think that my love had so short a memory! How could he think that all these inglorious men could ever reduce a heart into which his name (Hernani's) has entered, to lesser loves, though nobler in their eyes!»
39: insensé, «madman».
40: Olmedo, a town of 2000 inhabitants, a few miles south of Valladolid.
41: Alcala. There are several towns of this name. Probably Alcala de Henares is meant, a city between Madrid and Saragossa.
42: encore un coup, «once more I say».
43: Qu'on m'ait fait pour haïr, depends upon honteux, as does also de n'avoir pu, etc. by a double construction.
44: Estramadoure, «Estramadura», formerly a province of Spain, west of New Castile, on the borders of Portugal.
45: Ne te fais pas d'aimer une religion. «Do not sacrifice yourself to love», religion being used in the special sense of «sacred obligation», «point of conscience», and aimer being used substantively.
46: Que le mien. See note 14.
47: Ne m'en veux pas de fuir. «Be not vexed with me for flying.»
48: mes amis sont morts, meaning her eyes, drowned now in tears.
49: une amour. The plural of amour is indiscriminately masculine or feminine, in both prose and poetry; but the singular is now only masculine in prose, and of either gender in poetry.
50: Qu'il en soit ainsi. «So be it!»
51: Ressaye ton harnois. «Put on again thine armor.» Harnois poetical for harnais.
52: Fait lever sur mes pas des gibiers de bourreau, «started gallows-birdsupon my path.»
53: sans pater, without pater noster; that is, unconfessed of their sins.
54: Sforce, «Sforza». This family ruled as dukes of Milan from 1147 to 1535. Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who died in 1476, is probably meant here, as he was a notorious and wicked tyrant; though possibly the author is thinking of Giovanni Galeazzo Sforza, lord of Pesaro, the first husband of Lucretia Borgia.
55: Borgia, Caesar Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, was Cardinal in 1492, murdered his own brother in 1497, was a cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant in Romagna, and was held two years in captivity in Spain by Ferdinand the Catholic, finally losing his wicked life in 1507.
56: Luther, born 1483, died 1546, would naturally seem to a contemporary Spaniard a monster fit to be classed with Caesar Borgia.
57: soeur du festin des sept têtes, «a sister to the banquet of the seven heads», alluding to the old Spanish story of the Seven Lords of Lara, a favorite theme with ancient ballad-writers, and upon which two of Lope de Vega's dramas are based: «Los Siete Infantes de Lara» and «El Bastardo Mudarra». The seven sons of the Lord of Lara are said to have been betrayed by their uncle (it is he who is meant in line 16) to the Moors, who slew them. Their heads were served up at a banquet to which their father was invited.
58: j'en jure, instead of je le jure, being perhaps an elliptical expression in its origin for j'en jure la vérité.
59: qu'elle eût hâte à ce point de reluire à ton poing = qu'elle eût tellement hâte de reluire à ton poing, quand nous, etc.
60: C'est s'y prendre un peu tard, etc. «You are beginning a little late to play the young man.»
61: Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings of Granada, driven out by Ferdinand in 1492.
62: Mahom, an abbreviation of Mahomet; compare the English Mahound.
63: Mais qu'à cela ne tienne. «Why! do not let that hinder you.»
64: Don Silvius. Like the Italians, and indeed with just as good reason, many great Spanish families are fond of claiming descent from the heroes of ancient Rome.
65: Toro. A city of 9000 inhabitants between Valladolid and Zamora.
66: Valladolid. A famous city in the former kingdom of Leon, in the northwest of Spain, famous for its situation, its antiquity, its memories. Columbus died there, in 1506.
67: Tribut des cent vierges. The reference is to a story told in the Romancero general, to the effect that a hundred virgins were offered to the Moors as ransom for a prisoner.
68: Ramire. There were several kings by the name of Ramiro in the history of Aragon.
69: Grand maître de Saint Jacque et de Calatrava. The orders of knighthood of St. James (Santiago) and of Calatrava were founded for the purpose of resisting the Moors.
70: Motril. A town on the Mediterranean, south of Granada and east of Malaga.
71: Antequera. A town of 20,000 inhabitants in Andalusia, between Ronda and Granada.
72: Suez. The editor can find no place of this name on the map of Spain. Perry suggests that the author may mean Sueca, south of Valencia.
73: Nijar. A small town near the Mediterranean coast, a few miles from Almeria.
74: tient à Silva, «has something to do with the house of Silva», «is affected by us».
75: Sandoval, Manrique, Lara, Alencastre. Names of great families.
76: Zamet, Arabic Achmed. The present editor (and every other apparently) is ignorant of any Zamet in legend or history to whom this could refer.
77: Car vous me la paîriez. «Because you would pay me a price for it, would you not?» Don Ruy is continuing his own sentence, and alludes to the head of Hernani.
78: nôtre, instead of à nous.
79: grand merci! The English «grammercy» is supposed to come from this expression, though it has also been said to be a corruption of «God have mercy!» Translate here: «Many thanks!» ironically.
80: The Duke of Alcala does not figure in the list of dramatis personae, nor does he have a word to utter in the whole play.
81: que vite, «how quickly».
82: mon infante, «my princess».
83: malgré mes voeux, «against my will».
84: contente, imperative.
85: te laisseras-tu faire? «will you yield to me?»
86: see note 56, act IV.
ACT IV
1: Aix la-Chapelle (Aachen) was the old Frankish capital. Charlemagne held court there and at Engilenheim. He was buried there, A.D. 814, in «that basilica which it had been the delight of his later years to erect and adorn with the treasures of ancient art. His tomb under the dome – where now we see an enormous slab, with the words 'Carolo Magno' – was inscribed Magnus atque Orthodoxus Imperator». (Bryce: «Holy Roman Empire».) Mr. Bryce adds: «This basilica was built upon the model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and as it was the first church of any size that had been erected in those regions for centuries past, it excited extraordinary interest among the Franks and Gauls. In many of its features it greatly resembles the beautiful church of San Vitale, at Ravenna… Over the tomb of Charles, below the central dome… there hangs a huge chandelier, the gift of Frederick Barbarossa.»
2: Monsieur l'électeur de Trèves. The Archbishop of Trier stood out for a long time in favor of Francis I.
3: Où Rodolphe extermina Lothaire. The allusion is not clear.
4: Gotha, the Duke of Gotha, heading the list of nobles opposed to the election of Charles.
5: croi, instead of crois, for the sake of the rhyme with moi. It must be remembered that French rhymes are made for the eye, sometimes, more than for the ear.
6: Lutzelbourg, the duchy of Luxembourg, sometimes, with the city of that name, called (in German) Lützelburg.
7: est trop grand de la tête, «is a head too tall», i. e., will be decapitated before he has done.
8: Astorga, a town in the kingdom of Leon, in northwestern Spain.
9: Ont toujours fait doubler la solde du bourreau, probably means that so many of them have been executed, and such large game too, that their deaths have enriched the executioner.
10: deux hardis compagnons, «two bold fellows».
11: l'élargir, refers to drap in the next line.
12: Un Saxon hérétique. Frederick, Elector of Saxony, was born in 1463. He was a generous patron of learning, founded in 1502 the University of Wittenberg, and lent his powerful protection to Luther, though he never publicly declared himself a Protestant. His declining the imperial crown on this occasion, in 1519, has been already mentioned. He died in 1525.
13: Des princes de Hesse. This is a mistake, if Hugo means that a prince of Hesse was one of the electors, as there were none of that house until 1803, when Landgrave William IX of Hesse-Cassel became Elector with the title William I.
14: Dans ma peau de lion emporter comme Hercule. Hugo probably alludes here to the story of Hercules and the Cercopes, two mischievous gnomes who annoyed Hercules in his sleep and were captured by him and given to Omphale. Baumeister (Denkmäler des klassischen Alterthums, Vol. 1. p. 664) thinks that these impish creatures may have been monkeys. I can find no statement that Hercules carried them off in his lion's skin, but he is said to have strung them by their feet to a pole.
15: Triboulet, a deformed court jester of King Francis I of France, and the grotesque hero of Hugo's play «Le Roi s'amuse». Translate: «would be a head shorter than Triboulet himself».
16: Gand, Tolède, Salamanque, Ghent, Toledo, Salamanca.
17: For cacophony this line would be hard to beat. It sounds like the croaking of frogs; and there is no reason apparent why the author should indulge in such a hideous eccentricity.
18: sauf, plus tard, à les reprendre, «with the mental reservation that I might take them back».
19: Vous vous couvrez? The wily Ricardo, hearing the king address him familiarly with tu (l. 17), which was the form of address from the kings of Spain to grandees, whom they also called «cousin», puts on his hat in the king's presence – another privilege of a grandee.
20: Baste, «enough», from the Italian basta.
21: Peut-être on voudra d'un César. «Perhaps she will put up with an emperor.»
22: Ce Corneille Agrippa pourtant en sait bien long! «And yet this Cornelius Agrippa has great insight!» Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, born 1486 at Cologne, died 1535 at Grenoble, was a celebrated scholar, who filled various offices, of more or less doubtful character, under the Emperor Maximilian I. and Francis I. He wrote a satire «De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum», and a work against witchcraft, «De occulta philosophia», but had the reputation of being a magician himself.
23: l'abbé Jean Trithème. Johannes Tritheim, born in 1462 at Trittenheim, near Trier, was a Benedictine monk, who became abbot of St. James in Würzburg, where he died in 1516. He wrote a number of semi-historical works, and had a reputation for supernatural wisdom.
24: comte de Limburg. Limburg was a duchy, west of Aachen, now divided between Belgium and the Netherlands.
25: gardien capitulaire, guardian of the tomb of Charlemagne, by appointment of the monastic chapter which had it in charge.
26: SCENE II. This is one of the most powerful passages in Victor Hugo's writings. It would be hard to say to what extent the sentiments here expressed were his personally. At any rate, it is a grandiloquent exposition of the imperial idea. As Mr. H.A. Perry remarks, the poet is evidently thinking, and with intense sympathy, of the aspirations of Napoleon I. and his ambition to subject the Pope to himself. It is in this scene that Charles is represented as changing from a headstrong, frivolous, undisciplined libertine into a grave man made noble by a sense of responsibility. It may be questioned whether so sudden a transformation is possible, and certain it is that in the play the Charles of the preceding part is not the same man as he who emerges from the tomb of Charlemagne. It is improbable that the mere heightening of a weak, bad man's ambition would make him good and great in half an hour. But such contrasts are Hugo's delight.
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.