Venez, à vos fureurs Oreste s'abandonne. PYLADE. Il perd le sentiment. Amis, le temps nous presse : 1645 NOTES Page 1.-1. Madame, i. e. Henrietta-Anna (1644-1670), daughter of Charles I. of England and Henrietta-Maria of France, and since 1661 first Duchess of Orleans, a most estimable, charming, and cultured woman, whose virtues are commemorated in the dedication to Molière's École des Femmes, and in the most eloquent of the funeral orations of Bossuet. Page 2. — 1. règles, i. e. of dramatic composition. See Introduction, page xiv. Page 3. -1. The lines cited are from Virgil's Eneid, v. 292-332: "We were coasting along Epirus and entered a port of Chaonium and ascended to the lofty city of Buthrotum. It happened that day that Andromache was bearing to the ashes of Hector solemn libations and sad offerings. She summoned the Manes at the empty tomb on the verdant mound that she had consecrated with two altars, an occasion for tears. She bent her head and said in a low voice: 'Happy among all was the virgin daughter of Priam (i. e. Polyxena) destined to die on the pyre of an enemy beneath the lofty walls of Troy. She underwent not the insult of the casting of lots nor, a captive, decked the bed of a conqueror, her master. I, leaving my country in flames, borne over distant seas, have brought forth in slavery and have suffered the pride of the son of Achilles, Pyrrhus, this haughty young chief, who then becoming attached to Hermione, allied himself to the Spartan blood, to the race of Leda. . . . But behold how in ardent passion for a woman of whom he is bereft, pursued by the Furies of crime, Orestes surprises him and slays him beside the paternal altars.' ... Page 4.1. Euripide, Euripides (480-406 B. C.), Greek tragic poet. 2. On the faithfulness to tradition of Racine's drama, see Introduction, pages x-xii. 93 |