d._

BOOZ ENDORMI.

The subject of this exquisite little idyll is taken from the Book of
Ruth, chapter iii, in which Ruth the Moabitess is described as lying
at the feet of Boaz, the kinsman of her dead husband, Mahlon the
Hebrew, in order that she might claim from him that he should marry
her and continue the family of Mahlon, as provided by the law of
Moses.

_Judith._ There was a Judith, daughter of Beer the Hittite, one of
the wives of Esau (Gen. xxxvi. 34). Hugo may or may not have had
this personage in his mind.

_asphodele_. Hugo is not always accurate in his local colouring.
Asphodels are not found in Palestine.

_Galgala_, the form found in the Septuagint and Vulgate of the
place-name Gilgal.

_Les grelots des troupeaux._ Here, again, Hugo is inaccurate.
Sheep in Palestine do not have bells attached to them.

_Jerimadeth_. The name seems to be of Hugo's own invention. It
was a trick of the poet's to make proper names suit the
exigencies of rime, as in this instance, in which
'Jerimadeth rimes with' demandait.

AU LION D'ANDROCLES.

It is impossible to name the period to which Hugo is referring
in this poem more precisely than by saying that it is the age of
Rome under the Empire. As will be seen from the notes, the
personages and events alluded to are not all contemporaneous.
It was enough for Hugo that they were typical of the Roman
decadence.

_Trimalcion_. The festival of Trimalcion is an episode in the
_Satyricon_ of Petronius Arbiter, the poem in which are
described all the excesses of Roman luxury and debauchery.
Petronius Arbiter lived in the time of Claudius.

_Lesbie_. Hugo is guilty of one of his inaccuracies here.
Lesbia was the lady to whom the poems of Catullus (87-47 B.C.?)
were addressed, while Delia, who is mentioned below in connexion
with Catullus, was in reality the mistress of Tibullus
(54 B.C.-19 A.D.).

_Crassus_. Hugo no doubt refers to M. Licinius Crassus
(died 53 B.C.), the Triumvir, who, when praetor, led an army
against the revolted gladiators under Spartacus. He twice defeated
them and subsequently crucified or hung, along the road from Capua
to Rome, six thousand slaves who had been taken prisoners.

_Epaphrodite_. Epaphroditus, a freedman and favourite of the Emperor
Nero, was the master of Epictetus, the lame slave and Stoic
philosopher, who was amongst the greatest of pagan moralists.
Epaphroditus, who treated his slave with great cruelty, is said to
have