Stanza 8, line 1. _Vela_=Voila. Then follows that fine ending which I have put on the title-page of this book. "MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE." Line 1. _Mignonne_ is, of course, his Cassandre: her personality was always known through his own verse. She was fifteen when he met her and her brown eyes: it was in 1546 at Blois, her birthplace, whither he had gone to visit the Court, during his scholar's life in Paris. He met her thus young when he himself was but in his twenty-third year, and all that early, violent, not over-tilled beginning of his poetry was illumined by her face. But as to who she was, by name I mean, remained long a matter of doubt. Binet would have it that her true name was Cassandre, and that its singularity inspired Ronsard. Brantome called it "a false name to cover a true." Ronsard himself has written, "false or true, time conquering all things cannot efface it from the marble." There need have been no doubt. D'Aubigne's testimony is sufficient. She was a Mlle de Pie, and such was the vagary of Ronsard's life, that it was her niece, Diane Salviati de Taley whom in later life he espoused and nearly wed. Line 3. Note _Pourpre_, and in line 5 _Pourpree_ so in line 9 _Beautez_, and in the last line _Beaute_: so little did he fear repetition and so heartily could his power carry it. Line 4. _A point_: the language was still in flux. The phrase would require a negative _n'_ in modern French. Line 10, 11. _Marastre... puisqu'une..._ There is here an elliptical construction never found in later French. Harsh stepmother nature (whom I call harsh) since... etc. SONNETS FOR HELENE. Sonnet XLII, line 1. _Ocieuse_="otiosa," langorous. Line 5. _Ennuy_, in the sixteenth century meant something fuller than, and somewhat different from the word "ennui" to-day. It was a weariness which had in it some permanent chagrin. Line 8. _Pipe_, "cajoles": a word which (now that it is unusual) mars the effect of its meaning by its insignificant sound. Lines 8 and 9. Note _ioye_, _vraye_, a feminine "e" following another vowel is, since Malherbe, forbidden in the interior of a verse, unless elided. Line 11. _Ton mort_, "your ghost." Sonnet XLIII, line 6. _Desia_=deja. Line 7. _De mon nom._ I have printed the line thus because Ronsard himself wished it so, and so corrected it with his own hand. But the original form is far finer "_Au bruit de Ronsard._" DU BELLAY. THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE." Line 3. _Usage._ A most powerful word in this slightly archaic sense: the experience of long travel: familiar knowledge of things seen.