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. (PAGE 71.)
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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