In the particular case of Andromaque suggestions for Hermione's relation to Pyrrhus may also be found in Virgil's account of Dido and Æneas. - and Orestes to a less ex The character of Pyrrhus tent—is the weak point in the play. He is not a Greek, nor even an ancient, in his self-control under provocation when the challenger is a woman. In Homer and Virgil he is a man of blood, violent and brutal. In Racine he is mild to a degree, even milder than the Prince of Condé himself, who is said to have criticised Pyrrhus for being "too violent." Racine indeed has committed an anachronism, and in the place of the Pyrrhus of antiquity has set a courtier of Louis XIV, who gives utterance to the jargon of the society of his day. Orestes has also been modified in the same direction of gallantry, though the Greek tradition, too strong to be wholly rejected, appears in the final scene of the tragedy. The success of Andromaque was immediate and general. It expressed the desires of the educated classes of the time very much as the Cid had satisfied the previous generation. Its analysis of character and its simple action, the dependence of the action on the development of the characters, the every-day nature of the subject, conjugal fidelity and maternal love, all combined to accentuate the reaction against Corneille's romanticism and mark the beginning of a new era in tragedy. The style of the play shows the change. Less oratorical and sublime than the Cid and its successors, the periods of Andromaque are more even, subtle and harmonious. The phraseology is less varied and picturesque, but direct and peculiarly fitted to render the sentiments of the heart. Some contemporaries, mainly partisans of Corneille, at tributed the popularity of the new drama to its interpreters. Mlle du Parc, who had forsaken Molière's company to take the part of Andromache, was indeed a great favorite and here achieved a triumph, which she enjoyed but a short time, dying in December, 1668. The same fate overtook Montfleury, who played Orestes. Stout and bombastic (we have his description in Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac), he overexerted himself in the closing scenes which portray Orestes' madness, and died hardly a month. after the first performance. The other actors were more fortunate, Floridor, who, though sixty years old, took the role of Pyrrhus, and Mlle des Eillets, who was the Hermione. Since their day the best tragedians of the French theatre have added to their reputation by their rendering of Andromaque. Le Kain in the eighteenth century and Talma in the nineteenth proved to be unusual interpreters of Orestes, while Rachel, as Hermione, excelled all her other parts. This latter character, revengeful and passionate, has finally become the most interesting personage in the play. NOT ES PAGE 3. A Madame. Henrietta of England (1644-1670), daughter of Charles I and Henrietta of France. In exile since 1646, she was married in 1661 to her cousin Philip of Orleans, called Monsieur, the younger brother of Louis XIV. Hence her title of "Madame." A great favorite at court, she exercised considerable influence on literature. Molière dedicated his École des Femmes (1662) to her. She suggested to Racine and Corneille the subject of Bérénice (1670) and Tite et Bérénice (1670) respectively. Bossuet pronounced over her one of his finest funeral orations (1670). It would seem from this dedication that Racine had profited by her criticism and patronage in the composition and first representation of Andromaque, before the court. Bossuet says 18. du cœur= par le cœur, in present day usage. in his oration on Madame: "Je pourrais vous faire remarquer qu'elle connaissait si bien la beauté des ouvrages de l'esprit, que l'on croyait avoir atteint la perfection, quand on avait su plaire à MADAME." nous n'avons plus que faire de demander, we no PAGE 4, 13. longer need ask. 15. les règles. The unities of time and place and the various restrictions of classical French tragedy. Molière in his Critique de l'École des Femmes (1663) had already said: "Je voudrais bien savoir si la grande règle de toutes les règles n'est pas de plaire . . .” (Scene VI), and Corneille had begun his Discours de l'utilité et des parties du Poème dramatique (1660) with these words: "Bien que, selon Aristote, le seul but de la poésie dramatique soit de plaire aux spectateurs..." 20. Je n'en puis parler, etc. For order see note to Second Preface, page 9, line 12. A supposed reminiscence of Horace's ode to Agrippa: Conamur tenues grandia, dum pudor Laudes egregii Cæsaris et tuas Culpa deterere ingenii. - Odes, I, 6, ll. 9-12. For Molière's praise of Madame, more abrupt and direct than Racine's, see the dedication of his Ecole des Femmes. FIRST PREFACE. PAGE 5. This heading is not Racine's, but his later editors'. His preface began with "Virgile," etc. 1. Littoraque Epeiri, etc. This passage is taken from lines 292 to 332 of the Third Book. The lines are not consecutive, and the text differs somewhat from the readings of our standard editions. The translation is: "We coast along the shore of Epirus, we enter a Chaonian harbor and ascend to the lofty city of Buthrotum." [The Trojans hear that the land is ruled by Helenus, son of Priam, and by Andromache, who is married to Helenus. Aeneas leaves the fleet] "just at the time when it happened that Andromache was making libations of the customary food and sad gifts to the ashes" (of Hector) [before the city in a grove by the wave of the so-called Simois]," and was calling the Manes to the mound dedicated to Hector, an empty tomb on a green sward which she had consecrated, and with it twin altars, the cause of tears." [Andromache saw Aeneas coming, thought it an apparition and fainted. Reviving finally she asks him whether he is alive, or, if dead, where Hector is. He stammers out that he is a living being, and asks her what her fate is, whether she is enslaved to Pyrrhus]. "She spoke with downcast look and lowered voice: 'Happy above all others the virgin daughter of Priam, condemned to die on the enemy's tomb, under the high walls of Troy, who suffered not the casting of lots, nor touched the bed of the conquering lord, a captive! We, our country in ashes, borne over divers seas, endured the pride of the race of Achilles, the haughty youth, bearing offspring to him in slavery; who afterwards having sought Hermione, descendant of Leda, and a Spartan marriage [handed me a slave over to his slave Helenus]. "But Orestes, inflamed by his great love for the wife taken from him and haunted by the furies of his own crimes, comes upon him unawares and kills him before his ancestral altars." Notice that Racine omits the lines which speak of Helenus, while he includes some which refer to Andromache's bearing a son to Pyrrhus. |