vainly loves. Learning the true state of the case, he rises to the
height of his opportunity for magnanimous behavior, and bids the married
pair be happy in a long life together.
A change in the situation occurs, a change due to the changed mood of
the father, Felix. Felix learns that Severus is high in imperial favor,
and he wishes now that Severus, instead of Polyeuctes, were his
son-in-law. A decree of the emperor makes it possible that this
preferable alternative may yet be realized. For the emperor has decreed
that Christians must be persecuted to the death, and Polyeuctes has been
baptized a Christian--though of this Felix will not hear till later.
A solemn sacrifice to the gods is to be celebrated in honor of imperial
victories lately won. Felix sends to summon Polyeuctes, his son-in-law.
To Felix's horror, Polyeuctes, with his friend Nearchus, coming to the
temple, proceeds in a frenzy of enthusiasm to break and dishonor the
images of the gods, proclaiming himself a Christian. In obedience to the
imperial decree, Nearchus is hurried to execution, in the sight of his
friend, while Polyeuctes is thrown into prison to repent and recant.
'Now is my chance,' muses Felix. 'I dare not disobey the emperor, to
spare Polyeuctes. Besides, with Polyeuctes once out of the way, Severus
and Paulina may be husband and wife.'
Polyeuctes in prison hears that his Paulina is coming to see him. With
a kind of altruistic nobleness which seems contagious in this play,
Polyeuctes resolves that Severus shall come too, and he will resign his
wife, soon to be a widow, to the care of his own rival, her Roman lover.
First, Polyeuctes and Paulina are alone together--Polyeuctes having,
before she arrived, fortified his soul for the conflict with her tears,
by singing in his solitude a song of high resolve and of anticipative
triumph over his temptation.
The scene between Paulina, exerting all her power to detach Polyeuctes
from what she believes to be his folly, and Polyeuctes, on the other
hand, rapt to the pitch of martyrdom, exerting all his power to resist
his wife, and even to convert her--this scene, we say, is full of noble
height and pathos, as pathos and height were possible in the verse which
Corneille had to write. Neither struggler in this tragic strife moves
the other. Paulina is withdrawing when Severus enters. She addresses her
lover severely, but Polyeuctes intervenes to defend him. In a short
scene, Polyeuctes, by a sort of last will and testament, bequeaths his
wife to his rival, and retires with his guard. Now, Severus and Paulina
are alone together. If there was a trace of the false heroic in
Polyeuctes's resignation of his wife to Severus, the effect of that is
finely counteracted by the scene which immediately follows between
Paulina and Severus. Severus begins doubtfully, staggering, as it were,
to firm posture, while he speaks to Paulina. He expresses amazement at
the conduct of Polyeuctes. Christians certainly deport themselves
strangely, he says. He at length finds himself using the following
lover-like language:--
As for me, had my destiny become a little earlier propitious and
honored my devotion by marriage with you, I should have adored only
the splendor of your eyes; of them I should have made my kings; of
them I should have made my gods; sooner would I have been reduced
to dust, sooner would I have been reduced to ashes, than--
But here Paulina interrupts, and Severus is not permitted to finish his
protestation. Her reply is esteemed, and justly esteemed, one of the
noblest things in French tragedy--a French critic would be likely to
say, the very noblest in tragedy. She says:--
Let us break off there; I fear listening too long; I fear lest this
warmth, which feels your first fires, force on some sequel unworthy
of us both. [Voltaire, who edited Corneille with a feeling of
freedom toward a national idol comparable to the sturdy
independence that animated Johnson in annotating Shakspeare, says
of "This warmth which feels your first fires and which forces on a
sequel": "That is badly written, agreed; but the sentiment gets the
better of the expression, and what follows is of a beauty of which
there had been no example. The Greeks were frigid declaimers in
comparison with this passage of Corneille."] Severus, learn to know
Paulina all in all.
My Polyeuctes touches on his last hour; he has but a moment to
live; you are the cause of this, though innocently so. I know not
if your heart, yielding to your desires, may have dared build any
hope on his destruction; but know that there is no death so cruel
that to it with firm brow I would not bend my steps, that there are
in hell no horrors that I would not endure, rather than soil a
glory so pure, rather than espouse, after his sad fate, a man that
was in any wise the cause of his death; and if you suppose me of a
heart so little sound, the love which I had for you would all turn
to hate. You are generous; be so even to the end. My father is in a
state to yield every thing to you; he fears you; and I further
hazard this saying, that, if he destroys my husband, it is to you
that he sacrifices him. Save this unhappy man, use your influence
in his favor, exert yourself to become his support. I know that
this is much that I ask; but the greater the effort, the greater
the glory from it. To preserve a rival of whom you are jealous,
that is a trait of virtue which appertains only to you. And if your
renown is not motive sufficient, it is much that a woman once so
well beloved, and the love of whom perhaps is still capable of
touching you, will owe to your great heart the dearest possession
that she owns; remember, in short, that you are Severus. Adieu.
Decide with yourself alone what you ought to do; if you are not
such as I dare hope that you are, then, in order that I may
continue to esteem you, I wish not to know it.
Voltaire, as editor and commentator of Corneille, is freezingly cold. It
is difficult not to feel that at heart he was unfriendly to the great
tragedist's fame. His notes often are remorselessly grammatical. "This
is not French;" "This is not the right word;" "According to the
construction, this should mean so and so--according to the sense, it
must mean so and so;" "This is hardly intelligible;" "It is a pity that
such or such a fault should mar these fine verses;" "An expression for
comedy rather than tragedy,"--are the kind of remarks with which
Voltaire chills the enthusiasm of the reader. It is useless, however, to
deny that the criticisms thus made are many of them just. Corneille does
not belong to the class of the "faultily faultless" writers.
Severus proves equal to Paulina's noble hopes of him. With a great
effort of self-sacrifice, he resolves to intercede for Polyeuctes. This
is shown in an interview between Severus and his faithful attendant
Fabian. Fabian warns him that he appeals for Polyeuctes at his own
peril. Severus loftily replies (and here follows one of the most lauded
passages in the play):--
That advice might be good for some common soul. Though he [the
Emperor Decius] holds in his hands my life and my fortune, I am yet
Severus; and all that mighty power is powerless over my glory, and
powerless over my duty. Here honor compels me, and I will satisfy
it; whether fate afterward show itself propitious or adverse,
perishing glorious I shall perish content.
I will tell thee further, but under confidence, the sect of
Christians is not what it is thought to be. They are hated, why I
know not; and I see Decius unjust only in this regard. From
curiosity I have sought to become acquainted with them. They are
regarded as sorcerers taught from hell; and, in this supposition,
the punishment of death is visited on secret mysteries which we do
not understand. But Eleusinian Ceres and the Good Goddess have
their secrets, like those at Rome and in Greece; still we freely
tolerate everywhere, their god alone excepted, every kind of god;
all the monsters of Egypt have their temples in Rome; our fathers,
at their will, made a god of a man; and, their blood in our veins
preserving their errors, we fill heaven with all our emperors; but,
to speak without disguise of deifications so numerous, the effect
is very doubtful of such metamorphoses.
Christians have but one God, absolute master of all, whose mere
will does whatever he resolves; but, if I may venture to say what
seems to me true, our gods very often agree ill together; and,
though their wrath crush me before your eyes, we have a good many
of them for them to be true gods. Finally, among the Christians,
morals are pure, vices are hated, virtues flourish; they offer
prayers on behalf of us who persecute them; and, during all the
time since we have tormented them, have they ever been seen
mutinous? Have they ever been seen rebellious? Have our princes
ever had more faithful soldiers? Fierce in war, they submit
themselves to our executioners; and, lions in combat, they die like
lambs. I pity them too much not to defend them. Come, let us find
Felix; let us commune with his son-in-law; and let us thus, with
one single action, gratify at once Paulina, and my glory, and my
compassion.
Such is the high heroic style in which pagan Severus resolves and
speaks. And thus the fourth act ends.
Felix makes a sad contrast with the high-heartedness which the other
characters, most of them, display. He is base enough to suspect that
Severus is base enough to be false and treacherous in his act of
intercession for Polyeuctes. He imagines he detects a plot against
himself to undermine him with the emperor. Voltaire criticises Corneille
for giving this sordid character to Felix. He thinks the tragedist
might better have let Felix be actuated by zeal for the pagan gods. The
mean selfishness that animates the governor, Voltaire regards as below
the right tragic pitch. It is the poet himself, no doubt, with that high
Roman fashion of his, who, unconsciously to the critic, taught him to
make the criticism.
Felix summons Polyeuctes to an interview, and adjures him to be a
prudent man. Felix at length says, "Adore the gods, or die." "I am a
Christian," simply replies the martyr. "Impious! Adore them, I bid you,
or renounce life." (Here again Voltaire offers one of his refrigerant
criticisms: "_Renounce life_ does not advance upon the meaning of _die_;
when one repeats the thought, the expression should be strengthened.")
Paulina meantime has entered to expostulate with Polyeuctes and with her
father. Polyeuctes bids her, 'Live with Severus.' He says he has
revolved the subject, and he is convinced that another love is the sole
remedy for her woe. He proceeds in the calmest manner to point out the
advantages of the course recommended. Voltaire remarks,--justly, we are
bound to say,--that these maxims are here somewhat revolting; the martyr
should have had other things to say. On Felix's final word, "Soldiers,
execute the order that I have given," Paulina exclaims, "Whither are you
taking him?" "To death," says Felix. "To glory," says Polyeuctes.
"Admirable dialogue, and always applauded," is Voltaire's note on this.
The tragedy does not end with the martyrdom of Polyeuctes. Paulina
becomes a Christian, but remains pagan enough to call her father
"barbarous" in acrimoniously bidding him finish his work by putting his
daughter also to death. Severus reproaches Felix for his cruelty, and
threatens him with his own enmity. Felix undergoes instantaneous
conversion,--a miracle of grace which, under the circumstances provided
by Corneille, we may excuse Voltaire for laughing at. Paulina is
delighted; and Severus asks, "Who would not be touched by a spectacle so
tender?"
The tragedy thus comes near ending happily enough to be called a comedy.
Such as the foregoing exhibits him, is Corneille, the father of French
tragedy, where at his best; where at his worst, he is something so
different that you would hardly admit him to be the same man. For never
was genius more unequal in different manifestations of itself, than
Corneille in his different works. Moliere is reported to have said that
Corneille had a familiar, or a fairy, that came to him at times, and
enabled him to write sublimely; but that, when the poet was left to
himself, he could write as poorly as another man.
Corneille produced some thirty-three dramatic pieces in all, but of
these not more than six or seven retain their place on the French stage.
Besides his plays, there is a translation in verse by him of the
"Imitation of Christ;" there are metrical versions of a considerable
number of the Psalms; there are odes, madrigals, sonnets, stanzas,
addresses to the king. Then there are discourses in prose on dramatic
poetry, on tragedy, and on the three unities. Add to these, elaborate
appreciations by himself of a considerable number of his own plays,
prefaces, epistles, arguments to his pieces, and you have, what with the
notes, the introductions, the eulogies, and other such things that the
faithful French editor knows so well how to accumulate, matter enough of
Corneille to swell out eleven, or, in one edition,--that issued under
Napoleon as First Consul,--even twelve, handsome volumes of his works.
Corneille and Bossuet together constitute a kind of rank by themselves
among the _Dii Majores_ of the French literary Olympus.
XI.
RACINE.
1639-1699.
Jean Racine was Pierre Corneille reduced to rule. The younger was to the
elder somewhat as Sophocles or Euripides was to AEschylus, as Virgil was
to Lucretius, as Pope was to Dryden. Nature was more in Corneille, art
was more in Racine. Corneille was a pathfinder in literature. He led the
way, even for Moliere, still more for Racine. But Racine was as much
before Corneille in perfection of art, as Corneille was before Racine in
audacity of genius. Racine, accordingly, is much more even and uniform
than Corneille. Smoothness, polish, ease, grace, sweetness,--these, and
monotony in these, are the mark of Racine. But if there is, in the
latter poet, less to admire, there is also less to forgive. His taste
and his judgment were surer than the taste and the judgment of
Corneille. He enjoyed, moreover, an inestimable advantage in the
life-long friendship of the great critic of his time, Boileau. Boileau
was a literary conscience to Racine. He kept Racine constantly spurred
to his best endeavors in art. Racine was congratulating himself to his
friend on the ease with which he produced his verse. "Let me teach you
to produce easy verse with difficulty," was the critic's admirable
reply. Racine was a docile pupil. He became as painstaking an artist in
verse as Boileau would have him.
It will always be a matter of individual taste, and of changing fashion
in criticism, to decide which of the two is, on the whole, to be
preferred to the other. Racine eclipsed Corneille in vogue during the
lifetime of the latter. Corneille's old age was, perhaps, seriously
saddened by the consciousness, which he could not but have, of being
retired from the place of ascendency once accorded to him over all. His
case repeated the fortune of AEschylus in relation to Sophocles. The
eighteenth century, taught by Voltaire, established the precedence of
Racine. But the nineteenth century has restored the crown to the brow of
Corneille. To such mutations is subject the fame of an author.
Jean Racine was early left an orphan. His grandparents put him, after
preparatory training at another establishment, to school at Port Royal,
where during three years he had the best opportunities of education that
the kingdom afforded. His friends wanted to make a clergyman of him; but
the preferences of the boy prevailed, and he addicted himself to
literature. The Greek tragedists became familiar to him in his youth,
and their example in literary art exercised a sovereign influence over
Racine's development as author. It pained the good Port-Royalists to see
their late gifted pupil, now out of their hands, inclined to write
plays. Nicole printed a remonstrance against the theatre, in which
Racine discovered something that he took to slant anonymously at
himself. He wrote a spirited reply, of which no notice was taken by the
Port-Royalists. Somebody, however, on their behalf, rejoined to Racine,
whereupon the young author wrote a second letter to the Port-Royalists,
which he showed to his friend Boileau. "This may do credit to your head,
but it will do none to your heart," was that faithful mentor's comment,
in returning the document. Racine suppressed his second letter, and did
his best to recall the first. But he went on in his course of writing
for the stage.
The "Thebaid" was Racine's first tragedy,--at least his first that
attained to the honor of being represented. Moliere brought it out in
his theatre, the Palais Royal. His second tragedy, the "Alexander the
Great," was also put into the hands of Moliere.
This latter play the author took to Corneille to get his judgment on it.
Corneille was thirty-three years the senior of Racine, and he was at
this time the undisputed master of French tragedy. "You have undoubted
talent for poetry--for tragedy, not; try your hand in some other
poetical line," was Corneille's sentence on the unrecognized young
rival, who was so soon to supplant him in popular favor.
The "Andromache" followed the "Alexander," and then Racine did try his
hand in another poetical line; for he wrote a comedy, his only one, "The
Suitors," as is loosely translated "Les Plaideurs," a title which has a
legal, and not an amorous, meaning. This play, after it had at first
failed, Louis XIV. laughed into court favor. It became thenceforward a
great success. It still keeps its place on the stage. It is, however, a
farce, rather than a comedy.
We pass over now one or two of the subsequent productions of Racine, to
mention next a play of his which had a singular history. It was a fancy
of the brilliant Princess Henriette (that same daughter of English
Charles I., Bossuet's funeral oration on whom, presently to be spoken
of, is so celebrated) to engage the two great tragedists, Corneille and
Racine, both at once, in labor, without their mutual knowledge, upon the
same subject,--a subject which she herself, drawing it from the history
of Tacitus, conceived to be eminently fit for tragical treatment.
Corneille produced his "Berenice," and Racine his "Titus and Berenice."
The princess died before the two plays which she had inspired were
produced; but, when they were produced, Racine's work won the palm. The
rivalry created a bitterness between the two authors, of which,
naturally, the defeated one tasted the more deeply. An ill-considered
pleasantry, too, of Racine's, in making, out of one of Corneille's
tragic lines in his "Cid," a comic line in "The Suitors," hurt the old
man's pride. That pride suffered a worse hurt still. The chief Parisian
theatre, completely occupied with the works of his victorious rival,
rejected tragedies offered by Corneille.
Still, Racine did not have things all his own way. Some good critics
considered the rage for this younger dramatist a mere passing whim of
fashion. These--Madame de Sevigne was of them--stood by their "old
admiration," and were true to Corneille.
A memorable mortification and chagrin for our poet was now prepared by
his enemies--he seems never to have lacked enemies--with lavish and
elaborate malice. Racine had produced a play from Euripides, the
"Phaedra," on which he had unstintingly bestowed his best genius and his
best art. It was contrived that another poet, one Pradon, should, at the
self-same moment, have a play represented on the self-same subject. At a
cost of many thousands of dollars, the best seats at Racine's theatre
were all bought by his enemies, and left solidly vacant. The best seats
at Pradon's theatre were all bought by the same interested parties, and
duly occupied with industrious and zealous applauders. This occurred at
six successive representations. The result was the immediate apparent
triumph of Pradon over the humiliated Racine. Boileau in vain bade his
friend be of good cheer, and await the assured reversal of the verdict.
Racine was deeply wounded.
This discomposing experience of the poet's, joined with conscientious
misgivings on his part as to the propriety of his course in writing for
the stage, led him now, at the early age of thirty-eight, to renounce
tragedy altogether. His son Louis, from whose life of Racine we have
chiefly drawn our material for the present sketch, conceives this change
in his father as a profound and genuine religious conversion. Writers
whose spirit inclines them not to relish a condemnation such as seems
thus to be reflected on the theatre, take a less charitable view of the
change. They account for it as a reaction of mortified pride. Some of
them go so far as groundlessly to impute sheer hypocrisy to Racine.
A long interval of silence, on Racine's part, had elapsed, when Madame
de Maintenon, the wife of Louis XIV., asked the unemployed poet to
prepare a sacred play for the use of the high-born girls educated under
her care at St. Cyr. Racine consented, and produced his "Esther." This
achieved a prodigious success; for the court took it up, and an exercise
written for a girls' school became the admiration of a kingdom. A second
similar play followed, the "Athaliah,"--the last, and, by general
agreement, the most perfect, work of its author. We thus reach that
tragedy of Racine's which both its fame and its character dictate to us
as the one by eminence to be used here in exhibition of the quality of
this Virgil among tragedists.
Our readers may, if they please, refresh their recollection of the
history on which the drama is founded by perusing Second Kings, chapter
eleven, and Second Chronicles, chapters twenty-two and twenty-three.
Athaliah, whose name gives its title to the tragedy, was daughter to the
wicked king, Ahab. She reigns as queen at Jerusalem over the kingdom of
Judah. To secure her usurped position, she had sought to kill all the
descendants of King David, even her own grandchildren. She had
succeeded,--but not quite. Young Joash escaped, to be secretly reared
in the temple by the high priest. The final disclosure of this hidden
prince, and his coronation as king in place of usurping Athaliah,
destined to be fearfully overthrown, and put to death in his name,
afford the action of the play. Action, however, there is almost none in
classic French tragedy. The tragic drama is, with the French, as it was
with the Greeks, after whom it was framed, merely a succession of scenes
in which speeches are made by the actors. Lofty declamation is always
the character of the play. In the "Athaliah," as in the "Esther," Racine
introduced the feature of the chorus, a restoration which had all the
effect of an innovation. The chorus in "Athaliah" consisted of Hebrew
virgins, who, at intervals marking the transitions between the acts,
chanted the spirit of the piece in its successive stages of progress
toward the final catastrophe. The "Athaliah" is almost proof against
technical criticism. It is acknowledged to be, after its kind, a nearly
ideal product of art.
There is a curious story about the fortune of this piece with the
public, that will interest our readers. The first success of "Athaliah"
was not great. In fact, it was almost a flat failure. But a company of
wits, playing at forfeits somewhere in the country, severely sentenced
one of their number to go by himself, and read the first act of
"Athaliah." The victim went, and did not return. Sought at length, he
was found just commencing a second perusal of the play entire. He
reported of it so enthusiastically, that he was asked to read it before
the company, which he did, to their delight. This started a reaction in
favor of the condemned play, which soon came to be counted the
masterpiece of its author.