Rhodope, the wife of Haemus, king of Thrace,
who was changed into a mountain because she thought
herself more beautiful than Hera.
1. 839. The allusions are to the quarrels between
the Greek and Roman Churches.
galoubet. A little wind instrument in
shape like a flageolet, with three holes. It
was played with the left hand, while the right beat
a tambourine. It was peculiar to Languedoc and
Provence.
marche, German Mark, military frontier.
L’idee. In the original edition of 1859
the word was L’epee.
Josaphat. The valley of Josaphat or Jehosaphat
is between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, and
according to both Jewish and Moslem tradition is
to be the place of the Last Judgment. This tradition
may be based on Joel iii. 12, or on the meaning of
the word Josaphat, which is, ‘Jehovah will judge,’
or on both.
goules, from Arabic ghul. English
ghoul. The creatures who, according to
Eastern superstition, devour dead bodies.
lamies, from Lat. lamia, a fabulous
being possessing the head of a woman and the body
of a sea-serpent, which was supposed to devour children.
en rupture de ban. Rompre le ban is
to set at defiance a decree of banishment, the punishment
for which was death.
un dogue en arret. The name dogue
is given to a kind of large dog, akin to a bloodhound,
but the term is not correctly used here, as en
arret means pointing.
vermeille. See note on AYMERILLOT.
In his preface to the volume of 1859 Hugo appeals
to the history of the Turks by Cantemir as a justification
for his picture of Sultan Mourad. This was Demetrius
Cantemir (1673-1723), who had a remarkable history,
and wrote a valuable book. Though not a Turk,
he attached himself to the Turks, and fought under
the banner of the Crescent during his early life.
In 1710 he was made Waiwode, or Governor, of Moldavia,
Then, deserting the setting for the rising sun, he
allied himself with Czar Peter the Great, then at
war with Turkey. But the campaign was unsuccessful,
and Cantemir, flying from Moldavia, took refuge in
the Ukraine. For the rest of his life he divided
his time between study and instructing the Moldavians
who had accompanied him. He is said to have spoken
Persian, Turkish, Arabic, modern Greek, Russian, Moldavian,
and Italian. The work to which Hugo refers was
a history of the aggrandizement and decadence of the
Ottoman Empire. Written in Latin, and translated
subsequently into English, French, and German, it was
long the standard work on the subject.
It does not seem probable that Hugo had any particular
Sultan in mind when he delineated Sultan Mourad.
Indeed the geography of the poem suggests that he
is depicting an idealized Oriental tyrant.
