The nearest approximation to the monster to be found
in the pages of Cantemir is Ammath IV (r. 1623-40),
of whose cruelty and bloodthirstiness the historian
gives a vivid account. His principal exploit
was the taking of Bagdad from the Persians, on which
occasion he slaughtered 1,000 of the citizens in cold
blood.
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.
epiques. 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 Crepuscule Hugo has ‘des
grenadiers epiques’ (Napoleon 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.
Rhamseion, a sepulchral monument built by Ramses
III, king of Egypt, in the fourteenth century B.C.
Generalife, 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.
echouait. 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.
turbe, a kind of small round chapel, usually
attached to a mosque, in which the tombs of Sultans
and other great persons are placed.
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.
