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The Works of Voltaire. A Contemporary Version. A Critique and Biography by John Morley, notes by Tobias Smollett, trans. William F. Fleming (New York: E.R. DuMont, 1901). In 21 vols. Vol. VIII The Dramatic Works Part 1 (Mérope, Olympia, The Orphan of China, Brutus) and Part II (Mahomet, Amelia, Oedipus, Mariamne, Socrates).
Volume 8 of the 21 volume 1901 edition of the Complete Works. It contains 9 plays: Mérope, Olympia, The Orphan of China, Brutus, Mahomet, Amelia, Oedipus, Mariamne, Socrates.
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“Between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen hundred years apart, there is a mysterious relation. * * * * Let us say it with a sentiment of profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED. Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the sweetness of the present civilization.”
VICTOR HUGO.
Mérope, Widow of Cresphontes, King of Messene.
Ægisthus, Son of Mérope.
Poliphontes, Tyrant of Messene.
Narbas, an old Man.
Euricles, Favorite of Mérope.
Erox, Favorite of Poliphontes.
Ismenia, Confidante of Mérope.
Scene at Messene, in the Palace of Mérope.
“Mérope,” produced in 1743, is the greatest of Voltaire’s tragedies and a perfect literary performance. Frederick the Great amused himself by turning it into the libretto of an opera. Its success was great and the author was called before the curtain, an honor until then unknown in France. The interest of the following correspondence justifies its length.
The Greeks and Romans, to whom modern Italy, as well as all other nations, are indebted for almost everything, dedicated their works, without the ridiculous form of compliments, to their friends, who were masters of the art: by this claim I take the liberty of addressing to you the French “Mérope.”
The Italians, who have been the restorers of almost all the fine arts, and the inventors of many, were the first, who, under the auspices of Leo X., revived tragedy; and you, sir, are the first who, in this age, when the Sophoclean art became enervated by love-intrigues, often foreign to the subject, and so often debased by idle buffooneries, that reflected dishonor on the taste of your ingenious countrymen, you, sir, were the first who had courage and genius enough to hazard a tragedy without gallantry, a tragedy worthy of Athens in its glory; wherein the maternal affection constitutes the whole intrigue, and the most tender interest arises from the purest virtue. France prides herself in her “Athalie”; it is indeed the masterpiece of our stage, perhaps of poetry itself: of all the pieces that are exhibited among us, it is the only one where love is not introduced: but at the same time we must allow, that it is supported by the pomp of religion, and that majesty of eloquence which appears in the prophets. You had not that resource, and yet you have so contrived, as to furnish out five acts, which it is so extremely difficult to fill up without episodes. I must own, your subject appeared to me much more interesting and tragical than that of “Athalie”; and even if our admirable Racine had worked up his masterpiece with more art, more poetry, and more sublimity than he has, yours, I am satisfied, would have drawn more tears from the audience.
The preceptor of Alexander—kings ought always to have such preceptors—the great Aristotle, that extensive genius, so just, and so deeply versed in all the learning of those times, Aristotle, in his art of poetry, has declared that the meeting of Mérope and her son was the most interesting circumstance of the whole Grecian theatre. This stroke was, in his opinion, infinitely superior to all the rest. Plutarch tells us, that the Greeks, who, of all the people in the world, had the quickest feeling, trembled with fear, lest the old man who was to stop the arm of Mérope, should not come in time enough. That piece, which was played in his time, and a few fragments of which are still extant, appeared to him the most affecting of all the tragedies of Euripides; but it was not the choice of his subject alone to which that poet owed his success, though in every species of the drama, a happy choice is, no doubt, of the greatest service.
France has seen several “Méropes,” but none of them ever succeeded: the authors perhaps overloaded this simple subject with foreign ornaments: it was the naked “Venus” of Praxiteles which they wanted to cover with tinsel. It requires a great deal of time to teach men that everything which is great should be simple and natural. In 1641, when the French flag began to flourish, and even to raise itself above that of Greece, by the genius of P. Corneille, Cardinal Richelieu, who ambitiously sought for glory of every kind, and who had just then built a magnificent hall, for theatrical representations, in the Palais Royal, of which he had himself furnished the design, had a “Mérope” played there under the name of “Telephonte”; the plot of it is generally believed to have been entirely his own. There are about a hundred verses in it, supposed to be written by him; the rest was by Colletet, Bois-Roberts, Desmarets, and Chapelain; but all the power of Cardinal Richelieu could not impart to those writers that genius which they never possessed: his own was not indeed adapted to the stage, though he had a good taste; so that all he could do, or that could be expected from him, was to patronize and encourage the great Corneille.
Mr. Gilbert, resident of the celebrated Queen Christina, in 1643, gave us his “Mérope,” which is at present as little known as the other. La Chapelle, of the French academy, author of a tragedy called “Cléopatre,” which was played with some success, gave us another “Mérope” in 1683, and took care to insert a love episode: he complains withal in his preface, that the critics reproached him with too great a degree of the marvellous; but he was mistaken, it was not the marvellous that sank his performance, but in reality the want of genius, added to the coldness and insipidity of his versification; this is the great point, the capital fault, that condemns so many poems to oblivion.
The art of eloquence in verse is of all arts the most difficult and the most uncommon: there are a thousand geniuses to be found who can plan a work, and put it into verse after the common manner; but to treat it like a true poet, is a talent which is seldom bestowed on above two or three men on the face of the whole earth.
In December, 1701, M. de la Grange played his “Amasis,” which is nothing more than the subject of “Mérope” under another name. Gallantry has its share in this performance likewise; and there is more of the marvellous in it than even in La Chapelle’s: but it is more interesting, conducted with more art and genius, and written with more warmth and power; notwithstanding which, it met with no great success;
Et habent sua fata libelli.
Since that, however, it has been revived with great applause; and is one of those few pieces which generally give pleasure in the representation.
Before and after “Amasis” we have had several tragedies on subjects very nearly resembling this, wherein a mother is going to avenge the death of her son on the son himself, and discovers him just at the instant when she was about to kill him. We frequently saw on our stage that striking but rarely probable situation, wherein a person comes with a poniard in his hand ready to destroy his enemy, and another arrives at the same instant, and snatches it from him. This incident recommended, at least for a time, the “Camma” of Thomas Corneille.
But amongst all the tragedies on this subject, which I have here enumerated, there is not one of them but is filled with some episode of love, or rather gallantry; for everything must give way to the reigning taste. But you must not believe, sir, that this unhappy custom of loading our tragedies with ridiculous love-intrigues was owing to Racine; a crime, which, in Italy, I know he is generally reproached with: on the contrary, he did everything in his power to reform the public taste in this particular: the passion of love is never brought in by him as a mere episode; it is the foundation or ground-plot of all his pieces, and forms the principal interest: it is certainly of all the passions the most truly theatrical, the most fruitful in sentiments, and admits of the greatest variety: it ought, therefore, no doubt, to be the soul of a dramatic performance, or entirely to be banished from it: if love is not tragical, it is insipid; and when it is tragical, it should reign alone; it was never made for a second place. It was Rotrou, or rather we must own, the great Corneille himself, who, in his creation of the stage, at the same time disfigured and disgraced it, by those ridiculous intrigues, bespoken, as it were, and made on purpose, those affairs of gallantry, which not being true passions, were unworthy of the stage; if you would know the reason why Corneille’s tragedies are so seldom played, the reason is plain enough: it is because, in his “Otho.”
“Otho makes a compliment to his mistress more like a man of wit than a real lover: he follows step by step the effort of his memory, which it is much more easy to admire than to believe. Camille herself seemed to be of his opinion; she would have liked much better a discourse less studied.—Tell me then, when Otho made love to Camille, was he contented, or was she kind?”
It is because in, “Pompey,” Cleopatra—a useless character—says that Cæsar “sighs for her,” and in a plaintive style calls himself “her captive, even in the field of victory.”
It is because Cæsar asks Antony if he has seen this “adorable queen”: to which Antony replies, “Yes, my lord, I have seen her, she is incomparable.”
It is because, in “Sertorius,” old Sertorius falls in love, not only because he likes the lady, but with a political view, and cries out: “I love: but it suits my age so ill to be in love, that I even conceal it from the fair one who has charmed me, as I know that the deep and yellow wrinkles on my forehead can have no great power in captivating the senses.”
It is because, in “Œdipus,” Theseus begins by saying to Dirce, “Whatever dreadful havoc the plague may make here, absence to true lovers is far more dreadful.”
In a word, it is because such love as this will never make us shed tears; and when that passion does not affect us, it must be quite insipid.
I have said no more here, sir, than what all good judges, and men of taste, say to one another every day; what you have often heard at my house; in short, what everybody thinks, but none dare to publish: you know well enough the nature of mankind: half the world write in opposition to their own opinions, for fear of shocking received prejudices and vulgar errors. With regard to myself, who have never mixed any political reserve with my sentiments on literature, I speak the truth boldly, and will add, that I respect Corneille more, and have a higher opinion of the real merit of this great father of the stage, than those who praise him indiscriminately, and are blind to all his faults.
A “Mérope” was exhibited at London in 1731: who would have thought a love-intrigue could ever have been thought of at that time? But ever since the reign of Charles II. love has taken possession of the English stage; though there is not a nation upon earth by whom that passion is so ill painted; but the intrigue so absurdly brought in, and so badly treated, is the least fault of the English “Mérope.” The young Ægisthus, delivered out of prison by a maid of honor, who is in love with him, is brought before the queen, who presents him with a bowl of poison, and a dagger, and speaks thus to him: “If you don’t swallow the poison, this dagger shall put an end to your mistress’ life.” The young man drinks the poison, and is carried off in the agonies of death: he comes back in the fifth act coldly to inform Mérope that he is her son, and that he has slain the tyrant. Mérope asks him how this miracle was performed: to which he replies, that a friend of the maid of honor had put poppy-water, instead of poison, into the cup. “I was only asleep,” says he, “when they thought me dead; I learned, when I awaked, that I was your son, and immediately killed the tyrant.” Thus ends the tragedy; no doubt but it met with a bad reception: but is it not strange that it should ever have been represented? Is it not a proof that the English stage is not yet refined? It seems as if the same cause that deprives the English of any excellency in, or genius for, music and painting, takes from them also all perfection in tragedy. This island, which has produced the finest philosophers in the world, is not equally productive of the fine arts; and if the English do not seriously apply themselves to the study of those precepts which were given them by their excellent countrymen, Addison and Pope, they will never come near to other nations in point of taste and literature.
But whilst the subject of “Mérope” has been thus disgraced and disfigured in one part of Europe, it has met with better fate in Italy, where it has for a long time been treated in the true taste of the ancients. In this sixteenth century, which will be famous throughout all ages, the Count de Torelli gave us his “Mérope” with choruses. If in La Chapelle’s tragedy we find all the faults of the French stage, such as useless intrigues, episodes, and a romantic air; and in the English author the highest degree of indecency, barbarism, and absurdity; we likewise meet in the Italian with all the faults of the Greek theatre, such as the want of action, and declamation. You, sir, have avoided all the rocks which they split upon; you, who have done honor to your country, by complete models of more than one kind, you have given us in your “Mérope” an example of a tragedy that is at once both simple and interesting.
The moment I read it I was struck with it; my love to my own country has never shut my eyes against the merit of foreigners. On the other hand, the more regard I have for it, the more I endeavor to enrich it, by the addition of treasures that are not of its own growth. The desire which I had of translating your “Mérope,” was increased by the honor of a personal acquaintance with you at Paris, in the year 1733. By loving the author, I became still more enamored with his work; but when I sat down to it, I found it was impossible to bring it on the French stage. We are grown excessively delicate: like the Sybarites of old, we are so immersed in luxury, that we cannot bear that rustic simplicity, and that description of a country life, which you have imitated from the Greek theatre. I am afraid our audiences would not suffer young Ægisthus to make a present of his ring to the man that stops him. I could not have ventured to seize upon a hero, and take him for a robber; though, at the same time, the circumstances he is in authorize the mistake. Our manners, which probably admit of many things which yours do not, would not permit us to represent the tyrant, the murderer of Mérope’s husband and children, pretending, after fifteen years, to be in love with her; nor could I even have dared to make the queen say to him, “Why did not you talk to me of love before, when the bloom of youth was yet on my face?” Conversations of this kind are natural; but our pit, which at some times is so indulgent, and at others so nice and delicate, would think them perhaps too familiar, and might even discover coquetry, where, in reality, there might be nothing but what was just and proper. Our stage would by no means have suffered Mérope to bind her son to a pillar, nor to run after him with a javelin, and an axe in her hand, nor have permitted the young man to run away from her twice, and beg his life of the tyrant: much less could we have suffered the confidante of Mérope to have persuaded Ægisthus to go to sleep on the stage, merely to give the queen an opportunity of coming there to assassinate him: not but all this is natural: but you must pardon us for expecting that nature should always be presented to us with some strokes of art; strokes that are extremely different at Paris from those which we meet with at Verona.
To give you a proper idea of the different taste and judgment of polite and cultivated nations, with regard to the same arts, permit me here to quote a few passages from your own celebrated performance, which seem dictated by pure nature. The person who stops young Cresphontes, and takes the ring from him, says:
I will take the liberty to translate this into blank verse, in which your tragedy is written, as I have not time at present to work it into rhyme.
The tyrant’s confidant tells him, when speaking of the queen, who refuses, after twenty years, to marry the known murderer of her family:
The queen’s waiting-woman answers the tyrant, who presses her to use her influence in his favor, thus:
In your fourth act, old Polydore asks one of Mérope’s courtiers who he is? To which he replies, “I am Eurises, the son of Nicander.” Polydore then, speaking of Nicander, talks in the style of Homer’s Nestor.
In another place the same old man, being invited to the ceremony of the queen’s marriage, says:
All these strokes are natural, all agreeable to the characters and manners represented: such familiar dialogues would, no doubt, have been well received at Athens; but Paris and our pit expect a simplicity of another kind. We may, perhaps, even boast of a more refined taste than Athens itself, where, though the principal city of all Greece, it does not appear to me that they ever represented any theatrical pieces except on the four solemn festivals; whereas at Paris there is always more than one every day in the year. At Athens the number of citizens was computed at only ten thousand, and Paris has nearly eight hundred thousand inhabitants; among whom, I suppose, we may reckon thirty thousand judges of dramatic performances, who really do pass their judgments almost every day of their lives.
In your tragedy you took the liberty to translate that elegant and simple comparison from Virgil.
But if I were to take the same in mine, they would say it was fitter for an epic poem: such a rigid master have we to please in what we call the public:
The English have a custom of finishing almost all their acts with a simile; but we expect that, in a tragedy, the hero should talk, and not the poet. Our audience is of opinion that in an important crisis of affairs, in a council, in a violent passion, or a pressing danger, princes and ministers should never make poetical comparisons.
How could I ever venture to make the under characters talk together for a long time? With you those conversations serve to prepare interesting scenes between the principal actors: they are like the avenues to a fine palace: but our spectators are for coming into it at once. We must therefore comply with the national taste, which is, perhaps, grown more difficult, from having been cloyed, as it were, with such a variety of fine performances: and yet among these recitals, which our excessive severity condemns, how many beauties do I regret the loss of! How does simple nature delight me, though beneath a form that appears strange to us!
I have here, sir, given you some of those reasons which prevailed on me not to follow what I so much admired. I was obliged, not without regret, to write a new “Mérope”; I have done it in a different manner, but I am far from thinking that I have therefore done it better. I look upon myself, with regard to you, as a traveller to whom an eastern monarch had made a present of some very rich stuffs: the king would certainly permit this traveller to wear them according to the fashion of his own country.
My “Mérope” was finished in the beginning of the year 1736, pretty nearly as it now stands; studies of another kind prevented me from bringing it on the stage: but what weighed most with me was, the hazard which I ran in producing it, after several successful pieces on almost the same subject, though under different names. At length, however, I ventured to produce it, and the public gave me a convincing proof that they could condescend to see the same matter worked up in a different manner. That happened to our stage which we see every day in a gallery of pictures, where there are many of them on exactly the same subject. The judges are pleased by the observation of these different manners, and everyone marks down and enjoys, according to his own taste, the character of every painter. This is a kind of happy concurrence, which, at the same time that it contributes towards the perfection of the Art, gives the public a better insight into it. If the French “Mérope” has met with the same success as the Italian, it is to you, sir, I am indebted for it; to that simplicity in your performance which I have taken for my model, and which I was always an admirer of. Though I walked in a different path, you were always my guide. I could have wished, after the examples of the Italians and English, to employ the happy facility of blank verse, and have often called to mind this passage of “Rucellai”:
But I am satisfied, as I have long since declared, that such an attempt would never succeed in France, and it would be rather a mark of weakness than good sense, to endeavor to shake off a yoke which so many authors have borne, whose works will last as long as the nation itself. Our poetry has none of those liberties which yours has; and this is perhaps one of the reasons why the Italians got the start of us, by three or four centuries, in this most difficult and most delightful art.
As I have endeavored to imitate you in tragedy, I should be glad to follow your example in other branches of literature, for which you are so eminently distinguished: I could wish to form my taste by yours in the science of history; I do not mean the empty, barren knowledge of dates and facts, that only informs us at what period of time a man died, who perhaps was a useless or a pernicious member of society; the science of lexicography, that loads the memory without improving the mind; I mean that history of the human heart which teaches us men and manners, which leads us from error to error, and from prejudice to prejudice, into the effects of the various passions and affections that agitate mankind: which shows us all the evils that ignorance, or knowledge misapplied, has produced in the world; and which, above all, gives us a clue to the progress of the arts, and follows them through the dangers of so many contending powers, and the ruin of so many empires.
It is this which makes history delightful; and it becomes still more so to me, by the place which you will possess amongst those who have pleased and instructed mankind. It will raise the emulation of posterity, to hear that your country has bestowed on you the most signal honors, that Verona has raised a statue, with this inscription, “To the Marquis Scipio Maffei in his lifetime”—an inscription as beautiful in its kind as that at Montpellier to Louis XIV. after his death.
Deign, sir, to accept, with the respects of your fellow-citizens, those of a stranger, who esteems and honors you as much as if he had been born at Verona.
You had the politeness to dedicate your tragedy of “Mérope” to M. Maffei, and have served the cause of literature both in Italy and France, by pointing out, from the perfect knowledge which you have of the theatre, the different rules and conduct of the Italian and French stages. The partial attachment which you have to everything that comes from Italy, added to your particular regard for M. Maffei, would not permit you to censure the real faults of that excellent writer; but as I have myself nothing in view but truth, and the advancement of the arts, I shall not be afraid to speak the sentiments of the judicious public, and which I am satisfied must be yours also.
The Abbé Desfontaines had already remarked some palpable errors in the “Mérope” of M. Maffei; but, according to his usual manner, with more rudeness than justice, he has mingled a few good criticisms with many bad ones. This satirist, so universally decried, had neither knowledge enough of the Italian tongue, nor taste enough to form an equitable judgment.
This, then, is the opinion of the most judicious amongst those literati whom I have consulted, both in France and on the other side of the Alps. “Mérope” appears to every one of them, past dispute, the most interesting and truly tragic subject that was ever brought on the stage, infinitely beyond that of “Athalie”; because Athalie does not want to assassinate the young king, but is deceived by the High-Priest, who seeks revenge on her for her former crimes: whereas in Mérope we see a mother, who, in avenging her son, is on the point of murdering that very son himself, her only desire, and her only hope: the interest of “Mérope” therefore affects us in a very different manner from that of “Athalie”: but it seems as if M. Maffei was satisfied with what the subject naturally suggested to him, without making use of any theatrical art in the conduct of it.
1. The scenes in many places are not linked together, and the stage is left void; a fault which, in the present age, is looked upon as unpardonable, even in the lowest class of dramatic writers.
2. The actors frequently come in and go out without reason; a fault no less considerable.
3. There is no probability, no dignity, no decorum, no art in the dialogue: in the very first scene we see a tyrant reasoning in the calmest manner with Mérope, whose husband and children he had murdered, and making love to her: this would have been hissed at Paris, even by the poorest judges.
4. While the tyrant is thus ridiculously making love to the old queen, word is brought that they have found a young man who had committed murder; but it does not appear through the whole course of the play who it was he had killed: he pretends it was a thief, who wanted to steal his clothes. How low, little and poor is this! It would not be borne in a farce at a country fair.
5. The captain of the guard, provost, or whatever you call him, examines the murderer, who has a fine ring upon his finger: this scene is quite low comedy, and the style is agreeable to it, and worthy of the scene.
6. The mother immediately supposes that the robber, who was killed, is her son. It is pardonable, no doubt, in a mother to fear everything; but a queen who is a mother should have required better proofs.
7. In the midst of all these fears, the tyrant Poliphontes reasons with Mérope’s waiting-woman about his pretended passion. These cold and indecent scenes, which are only brought in to fill up the act, would never be suffered on a regular stage. You have only, sir, modestly taken notice of one of these scenes, where Mérope’s woman desires the tyrant not to hasten the nuptials; because, she says, her mistress has “an attack of a fever”: but I, sir, will boldly aver, in the name of all the critics, that such a conversation, and such an answer, are only fit for Harlequin’s theatre.
8. I will add, moreover, that when the queen, imagining her son to be dead, tells us she longs to pull the heart out of the murderer’s breast, and tear it with her teeth, she talks more like a cannibal than an afflicted mother; and that decency should be preserved in everything.
9.Ægisthus, who was brought in as a robber, and who had said that he had himself been attacked, is taken for a thief a second time, and carried before the queen, in spite of the king, who notwithstanding undertakes to defend him. The queen binds him to a pillar, is going to kill him with a dart; but before she throws it, asks him some questions. Ægisthus tells her, that his father is an old man, upon which the queen immediately relents. Is not this an excellent reason for changing her mind, and imagining that Ægisthus might be her own son? a most indisputable mark to be sure: is it so very extraordinary that a young man should have an old father? Maffei has added this absurdity, this deficiency of art and genius, to another even more ridiculous, which he had made in his first edition. Ægisthus says to the queen, “O Polydore, my father.” This Polydore was the very man to whom Mérope had entrusted the care of Ægisthus. At hearing the name of Polydore, the queen could no longer doubt that Ægisthus was her son: thus the piece was entirely at an end. This error was removed; but removed, we see, only to make room for a greater.
10. While the queen is thus ridiculously, and without any reason, in suspense, occasioned by the mention of an old man, the tyrant comes in, and takes Ægisthus under his protection. The young man, who should have been represented as a hero, thanks the king for his life, with a base and mean submission that is disgusting, and entirely degrades the character of Ægisthus.
11. At length Mérope and the tyrant are left together: Mérope exhausts her resentment in reproaches without end. Nothing can be more cold and lifeless than these scenes, full of declamation, that have no plot, interest, or contrasted passion in them; they are schoolboy scenes: everything in a play, that is without action, is useless.
12. There is so little art in this piece that the author is always forced to employ confidants to fill up the stage. The fourth act begins with another cold and useless scene between the tyrant and the queen’s waiting-woman, who, a little afterwards, lights, we know not how, on young Ægisthus, and persuades him to rest himself in the porch, merely to give the queen a fair opportunity of despatching him when he falls asleep; which he does according to promise. An excellent plot this! and then the queen comes a second time, with an axe in her hand, in order to kill the young man, who is gone to sleep for that purpose. This circumstance, twice repeated, is surely the height of barrenness, as the young man’s sleep is the height of ridicule. M. Maffei thinks there is genius and variety in this repetition, because the queen comes in the first time with a dart, and the second with an axe. What a strange effect of fancy!
13. At last old Polydore comes in apropos, and prevents the queen from striking the blow. One would naturally imagine that this happy instant must produce a thousand affecting incidents between the mother and son; but we meet with nothing of this kind: Ægisthus flies off, and sees no more of his mother: he has not so much as one scene with her. This betrays a want of genius that is insupportable. Mérope asks the old man what recompense he demands; and the old fool begs her to make him young again. In this manner the queen employs her time, which doubtless she should have spent in running after her son: all this is low, ill-placed, and ridiculous to the last degree.
14. In the course of this piece the tyrant is always for espousing Mérope; and, to compass his end, he bids her agents tell her, that he will murder all her servants, if she does not consent to give him her hand. What a ridiculous idea, and how extravagant a tyrant! Could not M. Maffei have found out a more specious pretext to save the honor of a queen, who had meanness enough to marry the murderer of her whole family?
15. Another childish college trick: the tyrant says to his confidant, “I know the art of reigning; I’ll put the bold and rebellious to death; give the reins to all kinds of vice; invite my subjects to commit the most atrocious crimes, and pardon the most guilty; expose the good to the fury of the wicked.” Did ever man pronounce such vile stuff? This declamation of a regent of sixteen, does it not give us a fine idea of a man who knows how to govern? Racine was condemned for having made Mathan—in his “Athalie”—say too much against himself; and yet Mathan talks reasonably: but here it is to the last degree absurd to pretend, that throwing everything into confusion is the art of ruling well; it is rather the art of dethroning himself. One cannot read anything so ridiculous without laughing at it. M. Maffei is a strange politician.
In a word, sir, this work of Maffei is a fine subject, but a very bad performance. Everybody at Paris agrees that it would not go through one representation; and the sensible men in Italy have a very poor opinion of it. It is in vain the author has taken so much pains in his travels, to engage the worst writers he could pick up to translate his tragedy: it was much easier for him to pay a translator, than to make his piece a good one.
The letter which you did me the honor to write to me entitles you to the name of “Hypercritic,” which was given to the famous Scaliger; you are truly a most redoubtable adversary; if you treat M. Maffei in this manner, what am I to expect from you? I acknowledge that, in many points, you have too much reason on your side. You have taken a great deal of pains to rake together a heap of brambles and briars; but why would you not enjoy the pleasure of gathering a few flowers? There are certainly many in M. Maffei; and which, I dare affirm, will flourish forever. Such are the scenes between the mother and son, and the narration of the catastrophe. I can’t help thinking that these strokes are affecting and pathetic. You say, the subject alone makes all the beauty; but was it not the same subject in other authors who have treated Mérope? Why, with the same assistance, had they not the same success? Does not this single argument prove, that M. Maffei owes as much to his genius as to his subject?
To be plain with you, I think M. Maffei has shown more art than myself, in the manner by which he has contrived to make Mérope think that her son is the murderer of her son. I could not bring myself to make use of the ring as he did; because, after the royal ring that Boilieu laughs at in his satires, this circumstance would always appear too trifling on our stage. We must conform to the fashions of our own age and nation; and, for the same reason, we ought not lightly to condemn those of foreigners.
Neither M. Maffei nor I have sufficiently explained the motives that should so strongly incline Poliphontes to espouse the queen. This is, perhaps, a fault inherent in the subject; but I must own I think this fault very inconsiderable, when the circumstances it produces are so interesting. The grand point is to affect and draw tears from the spectators. Tears were shed both at Verona and at Paris. This is the best answer that can be made to the critics. It is impossible to be perfect; but how meritorious is it to move an audience, in spite of all our imperfections! Most certain it is, that in Italy many things are passed over, which would not be pardoned in France: first, because taste, decorum, and the stage itself, are not the same in both; secondly, because the Italians, having no city where they represent dramatic pieces every day, cannot possibly be so used to things of this kind as ourselves. Opera, that splendid monster, has driven Melpomene from among them; and there are so many of the Castrati there, that no room is left for Roscius and Æsopus: but if ever the Italians should have a regular theatre, I believe they would soon get beyond us: their stages are more extensive, their language more tractable, their blank verses easier to be made, their nation possessed of more sensibility; but they want encouragement, peace, and plenty.
ismenia, mérope.
mérope, ismenia, euricles.
mérope, poliphontes, erox.
poliphontes, erox.
End of the First Act.
mérope, euricles, ismenia.
mérope, euricles, ægisthusin chains,ismenia,Guards.
ægisthus.
In Elis.
mérope, ægisthus, euricles, ismenia.
[To Mérope.
mérope, ismenia.
mérope, euricles, ismenia.
mérope, euricles, ismenia, erox,Guards.
mérope, euricles, ismenia.
End of the Second Act.
narbas, ismenia.
[At the farther end of the stage several of the queen’s attendants, near the tomb of Cresphontes.
mérope, ismenia, euricles, ægisthusin chains, Guards, Sacrificers.
mérope, euricles, narbas, ismenia.
mérope, poliphontes, erox, ismenia,Attendants.
End of the Third Act.
poliphontes, erox.
poliphontes, erox, ægisthus, euricles, mérope, ismenia,Guards.
mérope, narbas, euricles.
mérope, narbas, euricles, ismenia.
End of the Fourth Act.
ægisthus, narbas, euricles.
poliphontes, ægisthus, narbas, euricles,Guards.
ægisthus, narbas, euricles.
mérope, ægisthus, narbas, euricles,Attendants.
narbas, ismenia.
[A crowd of people.
mérope, ismenia, narbas,People, Soldiers.
[At the farther part of the stage is exposed the corpse of Poliphontes, covered with a bloody robe.
mérope, ægisthus, ismenia, narbas, euricles,People.
End of the Fifth and Last Act.
CASSANDER, SOSTHENES.
cassander, sosthenes, antigones, hermas.
antigones and hermasin the porch.
The three doors of the temple are opened. The inside of the temple is discovered. The priests advance slowly on one side, and the priestesses on the other. They are all clothed in white raiment, with blue girdles, the ends of which touch the ground. Cassander and Olympia lay their hands on the altar. Antigones and Hermas stand in the porch.
antigones, hermas.
End of the firstAct.
The three doors of the temple are opened. Though this scene and many others, are supposed to pass in the innermost part of the temple, as theatres are not built in a manner favorable to the voice, the performers are obliged to advance forward towards the porch, but the three doors of the temple are open, to show that they are supposed to be in the temple.
the hierophants, the priests, and the priestesses.
the hierophants, the priests and priestesses, statira.
statira and olympia.
statira, olympia, the hierophants.
statira, olympia, the hierophants,and a priest.
statira, olympia.
End of the Second Act.
(The Temple is shut.)
cassander, sosthenes.
cassander, sosthenes, the hierophants.
[Coming out of the Temple.
[Going.
cassander, sosthenes, statira, olympia.
statira, olympia.
statira, olympia, antigones.
statira, olympia.
End of the thirdAct.
antigones, hermas.
[In the porch.
antigones, hermas, cassander, sosthenes.
[Stopping Antigones.
The Hierophants come precipitately from the temple with the priests and the initiated, who, with a multitude of the populace, part Cassander and Antigones, and disarm them.
cassander, sosthenes.
[In the porch.
cassander, olympia.
cassander, olympia, sosthenes.
[Alone.
olympia, the hierophants,Attendants.
antigones, hermas.
antigones, hermas, the hierophants, the priests.
[Advancing slowly] olympia [in mourning, and supported by the priestesses.]
olympia, the hierophants, priests, priestesses.
[To the Hierophants.
[At the front of the stage, the priestesses in a semi-circle at the bottom.]
olympia, cassander, the priestesses.
olympia, cassander, antigones and the priestesses.
olympia, cassander, antigones, the hierophants, priests, priestesses.
the inferior priestess.
Princess, ’tis time.—
[To Cassander.
End of Fifth and last Act.
Genghis Khan, Emperor of the Tartars.
| OCTAR, } | Officers under Genghis Khan. |
| OSMAN, } |
Zamti, a learned Mandarin.
Idame, wife of Zamti.
Asseli, friend to Idame.
Etan, friend to Zamti.
SCENE a Mandarin’s palace near the court, in the city of Cambalu, now called Pekin.
This piece was produced in Paris, 1755, when the author was in exile.
My Lord, I would have presented you with a piece of fine marble; but, instead of it, can only offer you a few Chinese figures. This little performance is not indeed worthy of your acceptance; there is no hero in this piece, who has united all parties in his favor, and rendered himself universally agreeable, by the force of superior talents, or supported a falling kingdom, or made the noble attempt to overthrow an English colony with four cannons only. I know better than anybody else the insignificance of my own works; but everything may be forgiven to an attachment of forty years’ standing. The world, indeed, will say, that, retired as I am to the foot of the Alps, covered with eternal snows, and where I ought to be nothing but a philosopher, I had still vanity enough to let it be known, that France’s brightest ornament on the banks of the Seine has not forgotten me. I have consulted my own heart alone, which has always guided me, inspired every word, and directed every action. You know it has sometimes deceived me; but not after such long and convincing proofs. If this tragedy should survive its author, permit it to inform posterity, that he who wrote it was honored with your friendship; that your uncle laid the foundation of the fine arts in France, and that you supported them in their decline.
I took the first hint of this tragedy some time since from reading the “Orphan of Tchao,” a Chinese tragedy, translated by Father Bremare, an account of which is given in Du Halde’s history. This piece was written in the fourteenth century, and under the dynasty of Genghis Khan; an additional proof, that the Tartar conquerors did not change the manners of the conquered nation; on the other hand, they protected and encouraged all the arts established in China, and adopted their laws: an extraordinary instance of the natural superiority which reason and genius have over blind force and barbarism. Twice have the Tartars acted in this manner; for when they had once more subdued this great empire, the beginning of last century, they submitted a second time to the wisdom of the conquered, and the two nations formed but one people, governed by the most ancient laws in the world; a most remarkable event, the illustration of which was the principal end of this performance.
The Chinese tragedy, which they call “The Orphan,” was taken out of an immense collection of the theatrical performances of that nation, which has cultivated this art for about three thousand years before it was invented by the Greeks, the art of making living portraits of the actions of men, establishing schools of morality, and teaching virtue in dialogue and representation. For a long time dramatic poetry was held in esteem only in that vast country of China, separated from and unknown to the rest of the world, and in the city of Athens. Rome was unacquainted with it till above four hundred years afterwards. If you look for it among the Persians, or Indians, who pass for an inventive people, you will not find it there; it has never yet reached them. Asia was contented with the fables of Palpay and Lokman, which contain all their morality, and have instructed by their allegories every age and nation.
One would have imagined, that from making animals speak, there was but one step to make men speak also, to introduce them on the stage, and to form the dramatic art; and yet this ingenious people never thought of it: from whence we may infer, that the Chinese, Greeks, and Romans are the only ancient nations, who were acquainted with the true spirit of society. Nothing indeed renders men more sociable, polishes their manners, or improves their reason more than the assembling them together for the mutual enjoyment of intellectual pleasure. Scarce had Peter the Great polished Russia before theatres were established there. The more Germany improves, the more of our dramatic representations has it adopted. Those few places where they were not received in the last age are never ranked amongst the civilized countries.
The “Orphan of Tchao” is a valuable monument of antiquity, and gives us more insight into the manners of China than all the histories which ever were, or ever will be written of that vast empire. ’Tis true, indeed, it is extremely barbarous, when compared with the excellent performances of our times; but, notwithstanding, is a masterpiece, when placed in competition with the pieces written by our authors in the fourteenth century. Our “Troubadours,” “Bazoche,” the company of “Children Without Care,” and “The Foolish Mother,” all of them fall short of the Chinese author. It is remarkable also, that this piece is written in the language of the Mandarins, which has never changed, whilst we can scarce understand the language that was spoken in the time of Louis XII. and Charles VIII.
One can only compare the “Orphan of Tchao” to the English and Spanish tragedies of the sixteenth century, which still please beyond sea, and on the other side of the Pyrenees. The action lasts five and twenty years, as in some of the monstrous farces of Shakespeare and Lope de Vega, which are called tragedies, though they are nothing but a heap of incredible stories. The enemy of the house of Tchao wants to destroy the head of it; and for that purpose lets loose on him a great dog, whom he imagines endowed with the power of discovering guilt by instinct, as James Aimar amongst us was said to have found out thieves by his wand: at last he forges an order from the emperor, and sends his enemy Tchao a rope, a dagger, and some poison. Tchao sings, according to the custom of his country, and very deliberately cuts his own throat, in consequence of that obedience, which every man owes to the divine right of the emperor of China. The persecutor puts to death three hundred persons of the family of Tchao. The prince’s widow is brought to bed of the orphan. The infant is saved from the rage of the tyrant, who had exterminated the whole family, and would have destroyed the only remaining branch of it: the tyrant orders all the children in all the towns round about to be destroyed, in hopes that the orphan might perish amongst the rest in the general slaughter.
We fancy we are reading the Arabian Night’s Entertainment put into scenes; and yet, in spite of all these marvellous and improbable things, it is extremely interesting: though there is such a multiplicity of events, all is clear and simple; a merit which must recommend it to every age and nation, and which is greatly wanting in our modern performances. The Chinese piece is indeed very deficient with regard to all other beauties: there is no unity of time or action, no picture of the manners; no sentiment, eloquence, reason or passion in it; and yet, as I said before, the work is superior to anything we could produce in former ages.
How comes it to pass, that the Chinese, who in the fourteenth century, and a long time before, could boast of better dramatic performances than any European nation, still remain, as it were, in the infancy of this art, while we, in process of time, and by dint of pains and assiduity, have been able to produce about a dozen pieces, which, if they are not absolutely perfect, are at least much above anything the rest of the world could ever pretend to of this kind. The Chinese, as well as the rest of the Asiatics, have stopped at the first elements of poetry, eloquence, natural philosophy, astronomy, and painting; all practised by them so long before they were known to us. They began in everything much sooner than us, but made no progress afterwards; like the ancient Egyptians, who first taught the Greeks, and became at last so ignorant, as not even to be capable of receiving instruction from them.
These people, whom we take so much pains and go so far to visit; from whom, with the utmost difficulty, we have obtained permission to carry the riches of Europe, and to instruct them, do not to this day know how much we are their superiors; they are not even far enough advanced in knowledge to venture to imitate us, and don’t so much as know whether we have any history or not.
The celebrated Metastasio has made choice of pretty nearly the same subject as myself for one of his dramatic poems, an orphan escaped from the destruction of his family, and has drawn his plot from a dynasty nine hundred years before our era.
The Chinese tragedy of the “Orphan of Tchao” differs in many respects; and I have chosen one that is not much like either of them, except in the name, as I have confined my plan to the grand epoch of Genghis Khan. I have endeavored to describe the manners of the Tartars and Chinese: the most interesting events are nothing when they do not paint the manners; and this painting, which is one of the greatest secrets of the art, is no more than an idle amusement, when it does not tend to inspire notions of honor and virtue.
I will venture to say, that from the “Henriade” to the publication of “Zaïre,” and this tragedy, be it good or bad, such is the principle by which I have always been governed; and that in my history of the age of Louis XIV., I have celebrated both my king and country, without flattery to either. In labors of this kind I have spent above forty years of my life. But observe the following words of a Chinese author, translated into Spanish by the famous Navarrete.
“When you compose any work, show it only to your friends; dread the public, and your brother writers; for they will play false with you, abuse everything you do, and impute to you what you never did: calumny with her hundred trumpets, will sound them all to your destruction; whilst truth, who is dumb, shall remain with you. The celebrated Ming was accused of hating Tien and Li, and the Emperor Vang: when the old man died, they found amongst his papers a panegyric on Vang, a hymn to Tien, another to Li, etc.”
Voltaire.
idame, asseli.
idame, zamti, asseli.
zamti, idame, asseli, etan.
zamti, idame.
zamti, etan.
End of the First Act.
zamti, etan.
zamti, idame.
zamti, idame, octar.
Guards.
genghis, octar, osman.
Guards.
genghis, octar.
genghis, octar, osman.
End of the Second Act.
genghis, octar, osman.
Attendants.
genghis, idame, octar, osman.
Guards.
genghis, octar, osman.
[On one side of the stage.
idame, and zamti.
[On the other, Guords.
genghis, octar.
genghis, octar, osman.
genghis, octar.
End of the Third Act.
octar, genghis.
genghis, idame.
idame, asseli.
zamti, idame, asseli.
End of the Fourth Act.
idame, asseli.
idame, asseli, octar.
genghis khan, idame.
zamti, idame.
genghis, octar, idame, zamti.
Guards.
End of the Fifth and Last Act.
| JUNIUS BRUTUS, } | Consuls. |
| VALERIUS PUBLICOLA. } |
Titus, Son of Brutus.
Tullia, Daughter of Tarquin.
Algina, Confidante of Tullia.
Aruns, Ambassador from Porsenna.
Messala, Friend of Titus.
Proculus, A military Tribune.
Albinus, Confidant of Aruns.
Senators. Lictors.
SCENE Rome.
This tragedy was produced in 1730. It marks Voltaire’s spirit of daring in treating a subject from which Shakespeare shrank as, perhaps, too painful for representation. When revived during the Revolution it was enthusiastically applauded.
The scene represents part of the house appointed for the consuls on the Tarpeian mount: at a distance is seen the temple of the capitol. The senators are assembled between the temple and the house, before the altar of Mars: the two consuls, Brutus and Valerius Publicola preside; the senators ranged in a semicircle, behind them the lictors with their fasces.
the senate, aruns, albinus.
Attendants.
[Aruns enters, preceded by two lictors, with Albinus, his friend; he passes by the consuls and senate, salutes them, and sits down on a seat prepared for him towards the front of the stage.
aruns, albinus.
[Supposed to have retired from the hall of audience into an apartment of Brutus’ house.
aruns, messala, albinus.
End of the First Act.
The scene represents an apartment in the palace of the consuls.
titus, messala.
titus. aruns.
titus, messala.
brutus, messala.
End of the Second Act.
aruns, albinus, messala.
aruns, messala.
tullia, aruns, algina.
tullia, algina.
titus, tullia.
brutus, aruns, titus, tullia, messala, albinus, proculus, lictors.
titus, messala.
titus, messala, albinus.
End of the Third Act.
titus, aruns, messala.
titus, messala.
titus, messala, tullia, algina.
titus, messala.
brutus, titus, messala, lictors.
brutus, valerius, titus, messala.
brutus, valerius, proculus.
End of the Fourth Act.
brutus, senators, proculus, lictors. vindex (a Slave).
brutus, senators, aruns, lictors.
brutus, valerius, proculus, senators.
[Alone.
brutus, valerius, lictors, attendants.
brutus, proculus.
brutus, proculus, titus.
[At the farther end of the stage, guarded by Lictors.
[Advancing.
brutus, proculus.
brutus, proculus, a senator.
End.
This powerful work was read by Voltaire to Frederick of Prussia in 1740, to the king’s great delight. The following correspondence has peculiar interest. In his “Life of Voltaire” James Parton says: “The great lesson of the play is that the founders of false religions at once despise and practise upon the docile credulity of men. When I remember that this powerful exhibition of executive force triumphing over credulity and weakness was vividly stamped upon the susceptible brain of Frederick by Voltaire’s impassioned declamation, at the very time he was revolving his Silesian project, I am inclined to the conjecture that it may have been the deciding influence upon the king’s mind.” The play was withdrawn after the fourth representation, under pressure of Church authorities who professed to see in it a “bloody satire against the Christian religion.” This letter preserves the original characteristics.
Rotterdam, January 20, 1742.
I am at present, like the pilgrims of Mecca, turning their eyes perpetually towards that city after leaving it, as I do mine towards the court of Prussia. My heart, deeply penetrated with the sense of your majesty’s goodness, knows no grief but that which arises from my incapacity of being always with you. I have taken the liberty to send your majesty a fresh copy of “Mahomet,” the sketch of which you have seen some time ago. This is a tribute which I pay to the lover of arts, the sensible critic, and above all, to the philosopher much more than to the sovereign. Your majesty knows by what motive I was inspired in the composition of that work. The love of mankind, and the hatred of fanaticism, two virtues that adorn your throne, guided my pen: I have ever been of opinion, that tragedy should correct, as well as move the heart. Of what consequence or importance to mankind are the passions or misfortunes of any of the heroes of antiquity, if they do not convey some instruction to us? It is universally acknowledged, that the comedy of “Tartuffe,” a piece hitherto unequalled, did a great deal of good in the world, by showing hypocrisy in its proper light; and why therefore should we not endeavor in a tragedy to expose that species of imposture which sets to work the hypocrisy of some, and the madness of others? Why may we not go back to the histories of those ancient ruffians, the illustrious founders of superstition and fanaticism, who first carried the sword to the altar to sacrifice all those who refused to embrace their doctrines?
They who tell us that these days of wickedness are past, that we shall never see any more Barcochebas, Mahomets, Johns of Leyden, etc., and that the flames of religious war are totally extinguished, in my opinion, pay too high a compliment to human nature. The same poison still subsists, though it does not appear so openly—some symptoms of this plague break out from time to time—enough to infect the earth: have not we in our own age seen the prophets of Cévennes killing in the name of God those of their sect, who were not sufficiently pliant to their purposes?
The action I have described is terrible; I do not know whether horror was ever carried farther on any stage. A young man born with virtuous inclinations, seduced by fanaticism, assassinates an old man who loves him; and whilst he imagines he is serving God, is, without knowing it, guilty of parricide: the murder is committed by the order of an impostor, who promises him a reward, which proves to be incest. This, I acknowledge, is full of horror; but your majesty is thoroughly sensible, that tragedy should not consist merely of love, jealousy, and marriage: even our histories abound in actions much more horrible than that which I have invented. Seid does not know that the person whom he assassinates is his father, and when he has committed the crime, feels the deepest remorse for it; but Mézeray tells us, that at Milan a father killed his son with his own hand on account of religion, and was not in the least sorry for it. The story of the two brothers Diaz is well known; one of them was at Rome and the other in Germany, in the beginning of the commotions raised by Luther: Bartholomew Diaz, hearing that his brother embraced the opinion of Luther at Frankfort, left Rome on purpose to assassinate him, and accordingly did so. Herrera, a Spanish author, tells us, that Bartholomew Diaz ran a great hazard in doing this, but nothing intimidates a man of honor guided by honesty. Herrera, we see, brought up in that holy religion which is an enemy to cruelty, a religion which teaches long-suffering and not revenge, was persuaded that honesty might make a man an assassin and a parricide: ought we not to rise up on all sides against such infernal maxims? These put the poniard into the hand of that monster who deprived France of Henry the Great: these placed the picture of James Clement on the altar, and his name amongst the saints: these took away the life of William, prince of Orange, founder of the liberty and prosperity of his country. Salcede shot at and wounded him in the forehead with a pistol; and Strada tells us, that Salcede would not dare to undertake that enterprise till he had purified his soul by confession at the feet of a Dominican, and fortified it by the holy sacrament. Herrera has something more horrible, and more ridiculous concerning it. “He stood firm,” says he, “after the example of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and His saints.” Balthasar Girard, who afterwards took away the life of that great man, behaved in the same manner as Salcede.
I have remarked, that all those who voluntarily committed such crimes were young men like Seid. Balthasar Girard was about twenty years old, and the four Spaniards who had bound themselves by oath with him to kill the prince, were of the same age. The monster who killed Henry III., was but four-and-twenty, and Poltrot, who assassinated the great Duke of Guise only twenty-five: this is the age of seduction and madness. In England I was once a witness to how far the power of fanaticism could work on a weak and youthful imagination: a boy of sixteen, whose name was Shepherd, engaged to assassinate King George I., your majesty’s grandfather by the mother’s side. What could prompt him to such madness? the only reason to be assigned was, that Shepherd was not of the same religion with the king. They took pity on his youth, offered him his pardon, and for a long time endeavored to bring him to repentance; but he always persisted in saying, it was better to obey God than man; and if they let him go, the first use he made of his liberty should be to kill the king: so that they were obliged at last to execute him as a monster, whom they despaired of bringing to any sense of reason.
I will venture to affirm that all who have seen anything of mankind must have remarked how easily nature is sometimes sacrificed to superstition: how many fathers have detested and disinherited their children! how many brothers have persecuted brothers on this destructive principle! I have myself seen instances of it in more than one family.
If superstition does not always signalize itself in those glaring crimes which history transmits to us, in society it does every day all the mischief it possibly can: disunites friends, separates kindred and relations, destroys the wise and worthy by the hands of fools and enthusiasts: it does not indeed every day poison a Socrates, but it banishes Descartes from a city which ought to be the asylum of liberty, and gives Jurieu, who acted the part of a prophet, credit enough to impoverish the wise philosopher Bayle: it banished the successor of the great Leibnitz, and deprives a noble assembly of young men that crowded to his lectures, of pleasure and improvement: and to re-establish him heaven must raise up amongst us a royal philosopher, that true miracle which is so rarely to be seen. In vain does human reason advance towards perfection, by means of that philosophy which of late has made so great a progress in Europe: in vain do you, most noble prince, both inspire and practise this humane philosophy: whilst in the same age wherein reason raises her throne on one side, the most absurd fanaticism adorns her altars on the other.
It may perhaps be objected to me, that, out of my too abundant zeal, I have made Mahomet in this tragedy guilty of a crime which in reality he was not capable of committing. The count de Boulainvilliers, some time since, wrote the life of this prophet, whom he endeavored to represent as a great man, appointed by Providence to punish the Christian world, and change the face of at least one-half of the globe. Mr. Sale likewise, who has given us an excellent translation of the Koran into English, would persuade us to look upon Mahomet as a Numa or a Theseus. I will readily acknowledge, that we ought to respect him, if born a legitimate prince, or called to government by the voice of the people, he had instituted useful and peaceful laws like Numa, or like Theseus defended his countrymen: but for a driver of camels to stir up a faction in his village; to associate himself with a set of wretched Koreish, and persuade them that he had an interview with the angel Gabriel; to boast that he was carried up to heaven, and there received part of that unintelligible book which contradicts common sense in every page; that in order to procure respect for this ridiculous performance he should carry fire and sword into his country, murder fathers, and ravish their daughters, and after all give those whom he conquered the choice of his religion or death; this is surely what no man will pretend to vindicate, unless he was born a Turk, and superstition had totally extinguished in him the light of nature.
Mahomet, I know, did not actually commit that particular crime which is the subject of this tragedy: history only informs us, that he took away the wife of Seid, one of his followers, and persecuted Abusophan, whom I call Zopir; but what is not that man capable of, who, in the name of God, makes war against his country? It was not my design merely to represent a real fact, but real manners and characters, to make men think as they naturally must in their circumstances; but above all it was my intention to show the horrid schemes which villainy can invent, and fanaticism put in practice. Mahomet is here no more than Tartuffe in arms.
Upon the whole I shall think myself amply rewarded for my labor, if any one of those weak mortals, who are ever ready to receive the impressions of a madness foreign to their nature, should learn from this piece to guard themselves against such fatal delusions; if, after being shocked at the dreadful consequences of Seid’s obedience, he should say to himself, why must I blindly follow the blind who cry out to me, hate, persecute all who are rash enough not to be of the same opinion with ourselves, even in things and matters we do not understand? what infinite service would it be to mankind to eradicate such false sentiments! A spirit of indulgence would make us all brothers; a spirit of persecution can create nothing but monsters. This I know is your majesty’s opinion: to live with such a prince, and such a philosopher, would be my greatest happiness; my sincere attachment can only be equalled by my regret; but if other duties draw me away, they can never blot out the respect I owe to a prince, who talks and thinks like a man, who despises that specious gravity which is always a cover for meanness and ignorance: a prince who converses with freedom, because he is not afraid of being known; who is still eager to be instructed, and at the same time capable himself of instructing the most learned and the most sagacious.
I shall, whilst I have life, remain with the most profound respect, and deepest sense of gratitude, your majesty’s,
Voltaire.
Your holiness will pardon the liberty taken by one of the lowest of the faithful, though a zealous admirer of virtue, of submitting to the head of the true religion this performance, written in opposition to the founder of a false and barbarous sect. To whom could I with more propriety inscribe a satire on the cruelty and errors of a false prophet, than to the vicar and representative of a God of truth and mercy? Your holiness will therefore give me leave to lay at your feet both the piece and the author of it, and humbly to request your protection of the one, and your benediction upon the other; in hopes of which, with the profoundest reverence, I kiss your sacred feet.
Paris, August 17, 1745.
Voltaire.
This day sevennight I was favored with your excellent tragedy of Mahomet, which I have read with great pleasure: Cardinal Passionei has likewise presented me with your fine poem of Fontenoy. Signor Leprotti this day repeated to me your distich made on my retreat. Yesterday morning Cardinal Valenti gave me your letter of the 17th of August. Many are the obligations which you have conferred on me, for which I am greatly indebted to you, for all and every one of them; and I assure you that I have the highest esteem for your merit, which is so universally acknowledged.
The distich has been published at Rome, and objected to by one of the literati, who, in a public conversation, affirmed that there was a mistake in it with regard to the word hic, which is made short, whereas it ought to be always long. To which I replied, that it may be either long or short; Virgil having made it short in this verse,
Solus hic inflexit sensus, animumque labantem.
And long in another,
Hic finis Priami fatorum, hic exitus illum.
The answer I think was pretty full and convincing, considering that I have not looked into Virgil these fifty years. The cause, however, is properly yours; to your honor and sincerity, therefore, of which I have the highest opinion, I shall leave it to be defended against your opposers and mine, and here give you my apostolical benediction. Datum Romæ apud sanctam Mariam majorem die 19 Sept. Pontificatus nostri anno sexto.
The features of your excellency are not better expressed on the medal you were so kind as to send me, than are the features of your mind in the letter which you honored me with: permit me to lay at your feet my sincerest acknowledgments: in points of literature, as well as in matters of more importance, your infallibility is not to be disputed: your excellency is much better versed in the Latin tongue than the Frenchman whom you condescended to correct: I am indeed astonished how you could so readily appeal to Virgil: the popes were always ranked amongst the most learned sovereigns, but amongst them I believe there never was one in whom so much learning and taste united.
Agnosco rerum dominos, gentemque togatam.
If the Frenchman who found fault with the word hic had known as much of Virgil as your excellency, he might have recollected a verse where hic is both long and short.
Hic vir hic est tibi quem promitti sæpius audis.
I cannot help considering this verse as a happy presage of the favors conferred on me by your excellency. Thus might Rome cry out when Benedict XIV. was raised to the papacy: with the utmost respect and gratitude I kiss your sacred feet, etc.
Voltaire.
Mahomet.
Zopir, Sheik of Mecca.
| OMAR, | { General and second in command to Mahomet. |
| SEID, } | Slaves to Mahomet. |
| PALMIRA, } |
Phanor, Senator of Mecca.
Company of Meccans.
Company of Mussulmans.
Scene, Mecca.
zopir, phanor.
zopir, palmira.
zopir, palmira, phanor.
zopir, omar, phanor,Attendants.
End of the First Act.
seid, palmira.
palmira, seid, omar.
mahomet, omar, hercides, seid, palmira,Attendants.
mahomet, omar.
zopir, mahomet.
mahomet, omar.
End of the Second Act.
seid, palmira.
mahomet, palmira.
[Alone.
mahomet, omar.
mahomet, omar, seid.
zopir, seid.
zopir, seid, omar.
zopir, phanor.
End of the Third Act.
mahomet, omar.
mahomet, omar,retired to one side of the stage;seidat the farther end.
[To Omar.
[Alone.
seid, palmira.
seid, palmira,on one side;zopir,standing near the altar.
[Aside to Palmira.
[Aside to Seid.
[Alone.
[Returns looking wildly around.
[Comes forward leaning on Palmira.
zopir, seid, palmira, phanor.
zopir, seid, palmira, omar,Attendants.
End of the Fourth Act.
mahomet, omar,Guards at a distance.
mahomet, palmira,Guards.
mahomet, palmira, omar, ali,Attendants.
mahomet, omar,and his Party one side,seid,and the People on the other.palmirain the middle.
[Interrupting her, and addressing himself to the people.
End of the Fifth and Last Act.
The Duke of Foix.
Amelia.
Vamir, Brother to the Duke of Foix.
Lisois.
Thais, Confidante of Amelia.
Emar, Friend of Vamir.
SCENE, the Palace of the Duke of Foix.
This tragedy is founded on historical truth. A duke of Brittany, in the year 1387, commanded the lord of Bavalan to assassinate the constable of Clisson: Bavalan, the day after, told the duke it was done: the duke becoming sensible of the horror of his crime, and apprehensive of the fatal consequences of it, abandoned himself to the most violent despair: Bavalan, after giving him time to repent, at length told him that he had loved him well enough to disobey his orders, etc.
The action is transported to another age and country for particular reasons.
amelia, lisois.
amelia, thais.
duke of foix, lisois, thais.
the duke, lisois.
End of the First Act.
the duke, amelia and thaisadvancing from the upper end of the stage.
the duke, lisois.
the duke, lisois, an officer.
End of the Second Act.
duke of foix, lisois.
lisois, vamir and emarat the farther end of the stage.
vamir, emar.
duke of foix, vamir, emar.
duke of foix, vamir, amelia.
the duke, vamir, amelia, lisois.
vamir, lisois.
End of the Third Act.
vamir, amelia, emar.
amelia, vamir, duke of foix,Guards.
duke, amelia.
duke, amelia, lisois.
duke of foix, lisois.
End of the Fourth Act.
duke of foix, an officer.
duke of foix, an officer.
duke of foix, amelia, thais.
duke, amelia, lisois.
End of the Fifth and Last Act.
Œdipus, King of Thebes.
Jocaste, Queen of Thebes.
Philoctetes, Prince of Eubæa.
High Priest.
Araspes, Confidant of Œdipus.
Ægina, Confidante of Jocaste.
Dimas, Friend of Philoctetes.
Phorbas, an old Man of Thebes.
Icarus, an old Man of Corinth.
Chorus of Thebans.
SCENE Thebes.
[Œdipus was written when M. de Voltaire was but nineteen years of age. It was played for the first time in 1718, and ran five-and-forty nights. Du Frêsne, a celebrated actor, and of the same age with the author, played the part of Œdipus; and Madame Desmarêts, a famous actress, did Jocaste, and soon after quitted the stage. In this edition, the part of Philoctetes is restored, and stands exactly as it was in the first representation.]
philoctetes, dimas.
high priest, chorus.
œdipus, jocaste, high priest, ægina, dimas, araspes, chorus.
The End of the First Act.
jocaste, ægina, araspes, chorus.
jocaste, ægina.
jocaste, philoctetes.
œdipus, philoctetes, araspes.
œdipus, araspes.
The End of the Second Act.
jocaste, ægina.
philoctetes, ægina, jocaste.
œdipus, jocaste, philoctetes, ægina, araspes,with Attendants.
œdipus, jocaste, high priest, araspes, philoctetes, ægina,Attendants,chorus.
œdipus, philoctetes, jocaste.
The End of the Third Act.
œdipus, jocaste.
œdipus, jocaste, phorbas,Attendants.
œdipus, jocaste.
œdipus, jocaste, dimas.
The End of the Fourth Act.
œdipus, araspes, dimas,Attendants.
œdipus, araspes, icarus,Attendants.
œdipus, icarus, phorbas.
œdipus, jocaste, ægina, chorus.
jocaste, ægina, high priest, chorus.
The End of the Fifth and Last Act.
Varus, a Roman Prætor, Governor of Syria.
Herod, King of Palestine.
Mariamne, Wife of Herod.
Salome, Sister of Herod.
Albinus, Friend to Varus.
| MAZAEL, } | Herod’s Ministers. |
| IDAMAS, } |
Nabal, an old Officer under the Asmonæan Kings.
Eliza, Confidante of Mariamne.
Herod’s Guard, Attendants on Varus, Herod, and Mariamne.
SCENE, Jerusalem.
This piece was produced in 1724, the part of Mariamne was played by Adrienne Lecouvreur.
salome, mazael.
varus, albinus, mazael,Attendants onvarus.
varus, albinus.
End of the First Act.
salome, mazael.
mariamne, eliza, salome, mazael, nabal.
mariamne, eliza, nabal.
mariamne, nabal.
mariamne, varus, eliza.
varus, albinus.
End of the Second Act.
varus, nabal, albinus,Attendants onvarus.
varus, albinus,Attendants onvarus.
varus, idamas, albinus,Attendants onvarus.
herod, mazael, idamas,Attendants onherod.
herod, mazael, idamas.
herod, salome.
herod, salome, mazael.
End of the Third Act.
salome, mazael.
herod, salome, mazael,Guards.
mariamne, herod, eliza,Guards.
herod, mariamne, eliza,a Guard.
herod, mariamne, salome, mazael, eliza,Guards.
End of the Fourth Act.
mariamne, eliza,Guards.
mariamne, varus, eliza, albinus,Soldiers.
mariamne, eliza,Guards.
mariamne, eliza, nabal,Guards.
herod, mariamne, eliza, nabal, idamas,Guards.
herod, idamas,Guards.
herod, idamas, nabal.
End of the Fifth and Last Act.
Socrates.
Anitus. High Priest of Ceres.
Melitus, one of the Judges of Athens.
Xantippe, Wife of Socrates.
Aglae, a young Athenian Lady, brought up by Socrates.
Sophronimus, a young Athenian Gentleman, brought up by Socrates.
Drixa, Terpander, Acros, Friends of Anitus.
Judges, Disciples of Socrates, and three Pedants, Protected by Anitus.
anitus, drixa, terpander, acros.
My dear confidante, and you my trusty friends, you well know how much money I have put into your pockets this last feast of Ceres: I am now going to be married, and I hope you will all do your respective duties on this great occasion.
That, my lord, we most certainly shall, provided you give us an opportunity of getting a little more by it.
I shall want of you, Madam Drixa, two fine Persian carpets; from you, Terpander, I must have two large silver candlesticks; and from you, half a dozen robes.
A considerable demand, my lord; but there is nothing which we would not do to merit your holy protection.
O you will be rewarded for it a hundred fold: ’tis the best means to gain the favor of the gods: give much, and much you shall receive; but above all fail not, I beseech you, to stir up the people against all the rich and great, who are deficient in paying their vows, and presenting their offerings.
On that, my lord, you may depend; it is a duty too sacred ever to be neglected by us.
’Tis well, my friends; may heaven continue to inspire you with the same just and pious sentiments, and be assured you will prosper; you, your children, and your children’s children, to all posterity.
You have said it, my lord, and therefore it must be so.
anitus, drixa.
Well, my dear Drixa, I believe you will have no objection to my marrying Aglae; I shall not love you the less, and we may still live together as we used to do.
O my lord, I am not jealous; as long as trade goes on well, I am contented. While I had the honor of being one of your mistresses, I was a woman of some consequence in Athens: but if you are in love with Aglae, I, in my turn, am as fond of young Sophronimus: and Xantippe, Socrates’s wife, has promised that he shall marry me. I shall be always, notwithstanding, as much at your service as ever. I am only vexed that this young fellow has been brought up with that rascal Socrates, and that Aglae is still in his hands. We must take them both out as fast as we can. Xantippe will be glad to get rid of them. The beautiful Sophronimus and the fair Aglae have a sad time of it with the surly Socrates.
I am in great hopes, my dear, that Melitus and I together shall soon be able to destroy this dangerous fellow, who preaches nothing but virtue and divinity, and has taken the liberty to laugh at some certain adventures that happened at the mysteries of Ceres: but he is Aglae’s tutor: her father, Agathon, they tell me, has left her a great fortune: in short, Aglae is a charming girl; I love her, and I will marry her; and as to Socrates, I shall take care of him.
Do what you please with Socrates, so I can but get my dear Sophronimus: but how could that fool Agathon leave his daughter in the hands of this old flat-nosed Socrates, that intolerable reasoner, who corrupts all our young men, and keeps them away from courtesans and the mysteries?
Agathon himself was tainted with the same vile principles: he was one of your sober, serious fools, whose manners differed in every respect from ours; a man, in short, of another age, one of our sworn and inveterate enemies, who think they have fulfilled every duty when they worship God, assist man, cultivate friendships, and study philosophy; one of those ridiculous creatures who insolently deny that the gods prognosticate future events by the liver of an ox; those merciless reasoners, who find fault with priests for sacrificing young girls, or passing a night with them on occasion. These you see, Drixa, are a kind of people not fit to live. As to Socrates, I should have been glad to have him strangled long ago. However, I have agreed to meet him here in the portico, and talk with him about the marriage.
Here he comes: you do him too much honor: but I must leave you, and talk to Xantippe about my young man.
The gods conduct you, my dear Drixa; remember to serve them, and don’t forget my two fine Persian carpets.
anitus, socrates.
Good morning, my dear Socrates, thou favorite of the gods, and wisest of men; methinks every time I see you I am raised above myself; in you I look up with admiration to the dignity of human nature.
O my lord, I am a plain simple man, as void of knowledge, and as full of weakness, as any of my fellow-creatures; it is enough for me if you can bear with me.
Bear with? I admire you, and would it were possible I could resemble you! To convince you of it, and that I may oftener be a witness to your virtues, and improve by your instructions, I am willing to espouse your fair pupil Aglae, whom I find you have the entire disposal of.
It is true indeed that her father Agathon, who was my friend, the dearest of all relations, bequeathed to my care, by his last will, this amiable and virtuous orphan.
With a considerable fortune no doubt, for I hear she is one of the best matches in all Athens.
With regard to that I can give you no information; her father, my dearest friend, whose will is ever sacred to me, forbade me to divulge the situation of her affairs in that point.
This respect and discreet veneration for the last will of your friend are worthy of your noble soul; but it is well enough known that Agathon was rich.
He deserved to be so, if riches are a mark of the divine favor.
They tell me a young coxcomb, named Sophronimus, makes love to her on account of her fortune; but I am persuaded you will not give encouragement to such a fellow, and that Anitus will have no rival.
I know in what light I ought to consider a person like you; but it is not for me to thwart the inclinations of Aglae. I would supply the place of a father to her, but I am not her master: she has a right to dispose of her own heart: I look upon restraint in this case as a crime: talk to her: if she hearkens to your proposal, with all my heart, I have no objection.
I have your wife’s consent already; without doubt she is acquainted with Aglae’s sentiments, and therefore I look upon the affair as good as concluded.
But I never look upon things as done till they are really so.
socrates, anitus, aglae.
Come hither, Aglae, and determine for yourself. Here is a person of considerable rank, who offers himself to you for a husband: you are at liberty to explain yourself to him: my presence might perhaps be a restraint upon you: whatever choice you make I shall approve: Xantippe will prepare everything for your nuptials.
Generous Socrates! I am sorry you leave me.
You seem, charming Aglae, to place great confidence in the good Socrates.
It is my duty, sir; he has been a father to me; he has educated and instructed me.
And pray, my dear, as he has instructed you, tell me what is your opinion of Ceres, Cybele, and Venus?
Of them, sir, I will think just as you please.
’Tis well said, and you will do as I please, too, then I hope.
No, sir, that is quite another affair.
You see, the wise Socrates consents to our marriage, and Xantippe above all things wishes for it. You know my passion for you, and are no stranger to my rank and fortune; my happiness, perhaps your own too, depends on one word, therefore determine.
I will answer you, sir, with that truth and sincerity which the great man who just now left us taught me never to depart from: I respect your dignity, know but little of your person, and, in a word, can never be yours.
Never? cruel Aglae, are you not free? you will not then?
No, sir, I cannot.
What an affront, what an indignity is this! but ’tis to Socrates I am obliged for it: he dictated your answer, I know he did; he prefers Sophronimus to me, that unworthy rival, that impious—
Sophronimus is not impious, not unworthy; Socrates has loved him from his infancy; he has been a father to us both. Sophronimus is all beauty and all virtue; I love, and am beloved by him; it is in my power to marry him if I think proper; but I shall no more be his than yours.
You astonish me: what! own you love Sophronimus?
Yes, sir, I own it, because it is true.
And yet when it is in your power to make yourself happy with him, refuse him you hand?
That, sir, is no less true.
Then I suppose your fear of displeasing me prevents your engaging with him?
No such thing, I assure you: for having never wished to please, I have no fear of displeasing you.
You dread then perhaps the displeasure of the gods, at seeing you prefer a profane wretch, like Sophronimus, to a high-priest?
Not in the least. I am persuaded it is matter of very little concern to the supreme being, whether I marry you, or not.
The supreme being! my dear child, you should not talk in this manner; you should say the gods and goddesses: take care, for I see you entertain some very dangerous opinions; but I know too well from whom they came. Learn then that Ceres, whose priest I am, may punish you for thus despising her worship, and her minister.
I despise neither the one nor the other. I have been told that Ceres presides over the harvest, and I believe it; but she has nothing to do with my marriage.
She has to do with everything; you know it; but I hope I shall be able to convert you. Are you indeed resolved not to marry Sophronimus?
Yes; I am resolved, and am very sorry for it.
I cannot understand a word of all these contradictions: but observe me; I love you, would have made you happy, and advanced you to rank and dignity: be advised, and reject not the offers which kind fortune thus courts you to accept: remember that everything should be sacrificed to our real interest; that youth will pass away, but riches remain: that wealth and honors should be your first concern, and that I speak to you on the part of the gods. I beg you will reflect seriously on what I have said: farewell; my dear girl, I shall pray to Ceres that she would inspire you, and still flatter myself she will touch your heart. Once more adieu, remember, you have promised me never to marry Sophronimus.
I promised myself, but not you.
[Exit Anitus.
[Alone.
This man but makes me more unhappy. I know not why it is, but I never see him without shuddering: but here comes Sophronimus: alas! whilst his rival fills my heart with terror, he increases my tenderness and doubles my disquietude.
aglae, sophronimus.
My dear Aglae, I met Anitus, the priest of Ceres, that worst of men, the sworn enemy of Socrates, just coming from you: your eyes seem bathed in tears.
Is he the enemy of our benefactor too? then indeed I wonder not at my aversion to him, even before he spoke.
And is he the cause of your tears, my Aglae?
No, Sophronimus, he can inspire nothing but hatred and disgust: my tears can flow for you alone.
For me? O gods, for me, who would repay them with my blood, for me who adore you, who hope to be beloved by Aglae, who only live for and would die for you? shall I reproach myself with having embittered one moment of your life? Aglae weeps, and Sophronimus is the cause. What have I done? what crime have I committed?
None, my Sophronimus: you could not do it: ’tis not in your nature. I wept because you merit all my tenderness, because you have it, and because I must renounce you.
What dreadful sentence have you pronounced against me? I cannot believe you: you love me, you said you did, and Aglae can never change. You have promised to be mine, you cannot wish my death.
No; I would have thee live and be happy: but, alas! I cannot make you so: I hoped I could, but fortune has deceived me. I swear to you, Sophronimus, since I cannot be yours, I never will be another’s. I have declared so to Anitus, who courts me, and whom I despise; and here I declare the same to you, with a heart full of grief, tenderness, and love.
Since you love me, I must live; but if you refuse me your hand, it will be death to Sophronimus; therefore, my dearest Aglae, in the name of love, of all your charms, and all your virtues, explain to me this dreadful mystery.
socrates, sophronimus, aglae.
O my honored master, my father, and my friend, behold in Sophronimus the most unfortunate of men, though in the presence of the only two beings upon earth who could make me happy: Socrates first taught me wisdom, and from Aglae I learned to love; you consented to our marriage, and this beauteous fair one, who seemed so desirous of it, now refuses me; and whilst she says she loves, plunges a dagger in my heart: she has broke off the match without assigning any cause of her cruel caprice: O Socrates, prevent my misery, or teach me, if possible, how to bear it.
Aglae is mistress of herself; her father made me her tutor, but not her tyrant; to see you united would have made me happy: if she has changed her mind I am surprised and sorry for it: but let us hear her reasons; if they are good, we must submit to them.
It is impossible they should.
To me however they appear so, but you shall hear them. When you first opened my father’s will, most noble Socrates, you told me he had left me a sufficient competency; from that moment I resolved to bestow my fortune on the good Sophronimus, who has no support but you, no riches but his virtue: you applauded my resolution. How great was my happiness, in promoting that of him whom you have so long regarded as your own son! full of this pleasing hope I laid open the situation of my heart to Xantippe, who at once undeceived me. She treated me as an idle visionary; showed me the will of my father, who died a beggar, and left me nothing but your friendship to depend on. Awakened from my dream of promised happiness, nothing remained for me but the melancholy reflection that it was no longer in my power to make the fortune of Sophronimus: I would not oppress him with the weight of my misfortunes.
I told you, Socrates, her reasons were poor and insufficient. If she loves me, am I not rich enough? Hitherto, it is true, I have subsisted from your bounty; but there is no employment, however irksome, which I would not undertake, to provide for my dearest Aglae: I ought indeed to make her a sacrifice of my passion, to find out some richer, happier lover for her: but I own my weakness, I cannot do it, there I am indeed unworthy of her; but if she could content herself with my low estate, if she could stoop to my humble condition: but I dare not hope so much; I sink beneath a misfortune which her fortitude is able to bear.
My dear children, it was very indiscreet in Xantippe to show you the will; but believe me, Aglae, she deceived you.
Indeed she has not: I saw it with my own eyes: I know my father’s hand too well to have the least doubt of it: but be assured, Socrates, I shall be able to bear poverty as I ought: these hands will support me; if I can but live, it is enough for me, but it is not for Sophronimus.
It is too much, a thousand times too much for me: thou tender, noble soul, worthy of thy illustrious master: a virtuous and laborious poverty is the natural state of man. I wish I could have offered you a throne, but if you will condescend to live with Sophronimus, our respectable poverty will be superior to the throne of Crœsus.
Your generous sentiments at once delight and distress me: I behold with transport those virtues budding forth in your heart, which I myself had sown: never were my hopes better fulfilled than in Aglae and Sophronimus: but once more believe me, Aglae, my wife has misinformed you: you are richer than you think you are: it was not to her, but to me your father entrusted you. May he not have left you a fortune which Xantippe knows nothing of?
No, Socrates, he says expressly in his will, that he has left me poor.
And I tell you that you are deceived, that he has left you a sufficient competency to enable you to live happily with the virtuous Sophronimus, and that I desire therefore you would come, and sign the contract immediately.
socrates, xantippe, aglae, sophronimus.
Come, come, child, don’t stand amusing yourself there with my husband’s visions and nonsense: philosophy to be sure is a mighty pretty thing when folks have nothing else to do: but you are a beggar, child; and must study how to live first, and philosophize afterwards. I have concluded your marriage with Anitus, a worthy priest, and a man of fortune. Come, child, follow me, let me have no delays nor contradiction; I love to be obeyed: quick, quick, my dear, ’tis for your good, therefore let me have none of your reasonings, but follow me.
O heaven! my dear Aglae!
Let her talk, and trust to me for your happiness.
Let me talk indeed! I shall talk and do too, I assure you. You are a pretty one to be sure, with your wisdom, your familiar demon, your irony, and all your nonsense that signifies nothing, to trouble yourself about matrimony: you are a good sort of a man, but you really know nothing of the world; happy is it for you that I am able to govern you. Come, Aglae, I must settle you as soon as possible: And you, sir, there, that seem as if you were thunderstruck, I have taken care of you too: Drixa is the woman for you: you will both of you thank me by and by: I shall have done it all in a minute: I am very expeditious: let us lose no time therefore, by rights it should have been all over before this.
My children, don’t thwart or provoke her, but pay her all kind of deference: we must comply with since we can’t mend her: it is the triumph of reason to live well with those who have none.
End of the First Act.
socrates, sophronimus.
Divine Socrates, I know not how to believe my own happiness: how can Aglae, whose father died in extreme poverty be possessed of so considerable a fortune?
I told you before, she had more than she thought she had: I knew her father’s affairs better than herself: let it suffice that you both enjoy a fortune which you deserve: the secrets of the dead should be preserved as religiously as those of the living.
I am only afraid the priest of Ceres, to whom you have preferred Sophronimus, will endeavor to avenge Aglae’s refusal upon you: he is a man whom we have reason to dread.
What has he to fear who does his duty? I know the malice of my enemies, I know all their calumnies; but when we take care never to offend God, and endeavor to do all the good we can to mankind, then is it that we are afraid of nothing, or whilst we live, or when we die.
I know it well; yet I should die with grief if the happiness you bestowed on me should induce your enemies to put your virtue to the trial.
socrates, sophronimus, aglae.
O my benefactor, my father, let me fall at your feet, thou more than man; join me, Sophronimus, in mutual acknowledgments; ’tis he, ’tis Socrates who marries us at his own expense, and gives us best part of his own fortune to support us: but we must not suffer him, we must not be rich on these conditions; no, if our hearts have any gratitude, let them imitate his generosity.
O Socrates, with her I throw myself at thy feet; like her I am charmed, astonished and confounded at thy goodness; we will not, must not abuse it: look on us as your children, but do not let those children be a burden to their kind parent; thy friendship is fortune sufficient, ’tis all that we desire: you are not rich, and yet you do more than all the great ones of the earth; but were we to accept thy bounties, we should be unworthy of them.
Rise, my children, you affect me too deeply: are we not bound to respect the will of the dead? did not your father, Aglae, whom I always considered as part of myself, did he not enjoin me to treat you as my daughter? Had I not done so, I had betrayed the confidence of friendship: I took upon me the performance of his will, and I have executed it: the little I bestow on you would have been useless to my old age, which has not many wants to supply. If it was my duty to obey my friend, it is yours to obey your father. I am that father now, and by that sacred name command you not to make me unhappy by your refusal: but retire, I see Xantippe coming this way; I have reasons for desiring you to avoid her at present.
Your commands are cruel, but they must be obeyed.
socrates, xantippe.
A fine piece of work you have made here; upon my word, my dear husband, I must put a stop to your proceedings. Here had I promised Aglae to Anitus the high-priest, a man of interest amongst the great, and Sophronimus to the rich Drixa, who has extensive influence in the whole nation; and you marry your two fools together, and make me break my word to both: not content with this, you must needs give them best part of your fortune too. Twenty thousand drachms! good gods! twenty thousand drachms! are you not ashamed of yourself? at the age of threescore and ten too? Who’s to pay your physicians when you are sick? or your lawyers when you have a law-suit? What am I to do, when that villainous wry-necked fellow, Anitus, whom you might have had on your side, if he should join his party to persecute you, as they have done so often already? confusion to all philosophy and philosophers I say, and to my own foolish regard for you! You pretend to direct others, and want leading-strings yourself; always reasoning without a grain of common sense. If you were not one of the best men in the world, you would be the most ridiculous and the most insupportable: but mind me, you have only one way left, break off this foolish match, and do what your wife bids you.
You talk well, my dear Xantippe, and with great moderation; but hear what I have to say in return. I did not propose this marriage myself, but Aglae and Sophronimus love and are worthy of each other. I have already made over everything to you that the laws will allow me, and have given almost all that remained to the daughter of my friend: the little which I keep is enough for me. I have no physician to pay because I live sober; no lawyers because I have neither debts nor reversions: and with regard to that philosophy you reproach me with, it will teach me to bear the malice of Anitus, and your treatment of me; nay, even to love you, in spite of your ill-humor.
[Exit.
[Alone.
The old fool! and yet, spite of myself, I can’t help esteeming him; for after all, there is something great even in his follies: but his coolness and indifference make me mad. To scold him is but lost labor: for these thirty years past I have been perpetually pecking at him; and when I have tired myself with it, he bids me go on, and I am dumbfounded. Surely there must be something in that soul of his superior to mine.
xantippe, drixa.
So, Madam Xantippe, I see you are mistress at home: fie! fie! how mean it is to be governed by a husband! this vile Socrates, to prevent my making a young fellow’s fortune; but I’ll be revenged.
My dear Madam Drixa, don’t be so angry with my husband, I am angry enough with him myself: he’s a poor, weak man, I confess; but I verily believe has one of the best hearts in the world; has not the least degree of malice, and does a thousand foolish things without designing, and with so much honesty, that one can’t help forgiving him: then indeed he is as obstinate as a mule: I have done nothing but tease and torment him my whole life; nay, I have even beat him sometimes, and yet I have never been able to mend him, nay, not so much as to put him into a passion. What can I do with him?
I tell you, I’ll be revenged; under yonder portico I perceive his good friend Anitus, and some more of our party: let me alone with him.
My god! I am dreadfully afraid these folks, all together, will do my poor husband some mischief: I must go and tell him of it, for after all one can’t help loving him.
anitus, drixa, terpander, acros.
Most noble Anitus, we have all been wronged: you are tricked as well as myself: this vile Socrates has given away three parts of his fortune on purpose to spite you: you must take ample revenge of him.
I design it: heaven itself requires it of me: this man treats me with contempt, and of course must despise the gods. Already we have had several accusations against him, we must repeat them, you will all assist me: we will put him in danger of his life, then will I offer him my protection, on condition that he resigns Aglae to me, and to you the beautiful Sophronimus: thus we shall all gain our several points: he will be sufficiently punished by the fright we shall put him into: I shall get my mistress, and you your lover.
Wisdom herself speaks in Anitus: sure some divinity inspires you: but tell us, how are we to proceed?
This is about the time when the judges go to the tribunal, with Melitus at the head of them.
That Melitus is a little pedant, a sad fellow, and your enemy.
He is so; but he is still a greater enemy to Socrates; ’tis a rascally hypocrite who supports the rights of the Areopagus against me: but we always hold together when our mutual interest and business is to destroy these pretended wise men, who want to open the eyes of people on our conduct: hearken, my dear Drixa, you are a devotee.
Certainly, my lord, I love money, and I love pleasure with all my soul, but in matters of devotion I yield to none.
Go then immediately, and get together as many bawling enthusiasts as you can, and cry out, impiety! impiety.
Is there anything to be got by it? if there is, we are all ready.
Ay, ay, that we are; but what sort of impiety?
O every kind: however, we had best accuse him at once of not believing in the gods; that’s the shortest way.
O let me alone then.
You shall be well supported; go, and stir up your friends under the portico: I’ll inform meantime some of my news-loving friends of it, who come frequently to dine with me, a parcel of contemptible fellows they are, to be sure, but such as, if properly directed, can do a good deal of mischief on occasion: we must make use of every expedient to promote a good cause: away, my friends, recommend yourselves to Ceres, and be ready to cry out when I give you the signal: ’tis the only way for you to live happy here, and gain heaven hereafter.
anitus, graphius, chomus, bertillus.
Most indefatigable Graphius, profound Chomus, and delicate Bertillus, have you finished those little works as I commanded you against the impious Socrates?
My lord, I have labored: he’ll never hold up his head again.
I have proved the fact against him; struck him dumb.
I have only mentioned him in my journal, and it has done for him.
Graphius, beware, you know I forbade your prolixity: you are naturally tedious, and that may wear out the patience of the court.
My lord, ’tis all in one leaf: wherein I have proved that the soul is an infused quintessence; that tails were given to animals to drive away flies; that Ceres works miracles; and consequently, that Socrates is an enemy to the state, and ought to be exterminated.
A most excellent conclusion! remember to carry your accusation to the second judge, who is a complete philosopher. I’ll answer for it, you’ll soon get rid of your enemy Socrates.
My lord, I am not his enemy: I am only vexed that he has so great a reputation: all that I do is for the glory of Ceres, and the good of my country.
Well, well, make haste and be gone: and you, learned Chomus, what have you done?
My lord, finding nothing reprehensible in the writings of Socrates. I shall accuse him point-blank of thinking directly opposite to what he says, and shall show the poison he intends to spread in everything he is to say hereafter.
Wonderful indeed! carry your piece to the fourth judge: he has not common sense, and therefore will understand you perfectly: now for you, Bertillus.
My lord, here is my last journal upon the Chaos. I have proved, by a regular series from the Chaos to the Olympics, that Socrates perverts the youth of Athens.
Admirable! go you from me to the seventh judge, and tell him I desire he’d take care of Socrates; so; here comes Melitus already, the first of the eleven; there’s no necessity of practising any art with him, we know each other too well.
anitus, melitus.
Mr. Judge, one word with you: this Socrates must be destroyed.
Indeed, Mr. High Priest, I have long thought so: let us agree in this point; we may quarrel, you know, notwithstanding, about everything else.
I know we hate each other most cordially: but at the same time we may lay our heads together to govern the commonwealth.
With all my heart, nobody can overhear us: therefore, to speak freely, I know you are a rogue, and you don’t look upon me as a very honest man: I can’t hurt you because you are high priest, nor you me because I am first judge; but Socrates may do us both a mischief, by exposing us to the world; our first business, therefore, is to destroy him, and then we may be at leisure to fall upon each other the first opportunity.
[Aside.
’Tis well observed: how I could rejoice now to see this rascally judge upon an altar, his arms hanging on one side and his legs on the other, whilst I with my golden knife was ripping up his guts and consulting his liver at leisure!
[Aside.
Shall I never be able to send this villainous high priest to jail, and make him swallow a pint of hemlock by my command?
O my friend, here come our noble assistants. I have taken care to prepare the populace.
Very well, my dear friend, you may depend upon me in this affair, not forgetting old scores.
anitus, melitus,some of the Judges of Athens passing along under the portico.
[Anitus whispers Melitus.
drixa, terpander, and acros together.
Justice, justice, scandal, impiety, justice, justice, irreligion, impiety, justice!
What’s the matter, my friends, what’s your complaint?
Justice! in the name of the people.
Against whom?
Against Socrates.
Ha! ha! against Socrates? that fellow has been often accused: what has he done now?
I don’t know what.
They say he gives money to young girls in marriage.
Ay, he corrupts our youth.
O he’s a wicked wretch: he has offered up no cakes to Ceres; he says there is a great deal of useless gold and silver in the temple.
Ay, and he says the priests of Ceres get drunk sometimes; that’s true; he’s a wicked wretch indeed.
He’s a heretic; he denies the plurality of gods; he’s a deist: he believes only in one God; he’s an atheist.
Yes; he’s a heretic, a deist, and an atheist.
Dreadful accusations indeed, and all extremely probable: I have heard as much before.
The state is in danger if we leave such crimes unpunished: Minerva will withdraw her protection from us.
Ay, that she will, I have heard him laugh at Minerva’s owl.
At Minerva’s owl! O heaven! gentlemen, is not it your opinion he ought to be sent to prison immediately?
[All together.
To prison with him, to prison.
Guards, carry Socrates to prison this instant.
And afterwards let him be burned without a hearing.
No, no; we must hear him; we must not go against the law.
No, no; that’s what the good woman meant: we must hear him, but not let what he says have too much effect on us; you know these philosophers are devilish subtle: ’tis they who have disturbed all those nations which we have endeavored to render peaceable and quiet.
To prison with him, to prison.
xantippe, sophronimus, aglae, socrates,in chains.
[Entering.
O mercy, mercy, my poor husband is going to prison; aren’t you ashamed, Mr. Judges, to treat a man of his years in this manner? What harm could he do? Alas! it is not in his power, he is more fool than knave, God knows; have pity on him, good gentlemen. O my dear, I told you you would draw yourself into some bad affair. This comes of portioning young girls. What an unhappy creature I am!
O my lords, respect his age, respect his virtue; give me his chains! I am ready to yield up my liberty, my life for his.
Yes; we will go to prison in his stead; we will die for him: do not destroy the noblest, best of men: take us rather for your victims.
You see how he corrupts our youth.
No more, my wife, no more, my children; do not oppose the will of heaven, which speaks by the laws: he who resists the law, is no longer a citizen. God wills that I should be put in bondage; I submit to his divine decree without murmur, or repining. In my own house, in Athens, or in a prison, I am equally free; and whilst I behold in you so much gratitude, and so much friendship, I am happy. What matters it whether Socrates sleeps in his own chamber, or in a prison? Everything is as the supreme will ordains, and my will should submit to it.
Take away this reasoner.
Gentlemen, what he says I must own has affected me; the man seems to have a good disposition; I flatter myself I should be able to convert him; let me have a little private conversation with him; please to order his wife and these young folks to retire.
Most venerable Anitus, you have our consent to parley with him before he appears at the tribunal.
anitus, socrates.
Most virtuous Socrates, my heart bleeds to see you in this condition.
And have you a heart?
I have, and one that feels for you: I am ready to do everything for you.
I think you have done enough already.
Hark ye, Socrates, your situation is worse than you think it is; let me tell you, your life is in danger.
That is of very little consequence.
To your noble soul it may appear so, but it is otherwise in the eyes of all those who, like me, admire your virtue: believe me, however you may be armed by philosophy, it is dreadful to die a death of ignominy: but that is not all: your reputation, which should be dear to you, will be sullied in after ages: the religious of both sexes will laugh at your fall, and insult you: if you are burned, they’ll light the pile; if you’re strangled, they’ll tie the cord; if you’re poisoned, they’ll pound the hemlock; and not only that, but they’ll make your memory execrable to all posterity. Now it is in your own power to prevent all this: I will promise not only to save your life, but even to persuade your judges to say with the oracle, that you are the wisest of men: you have nothing to do but to give me up your young pupil, Aglae, with the portion; you understand me: as to her marriage with Sophronimus, we shall find means to set it aside: thus you will enjoy a peaceful and honorable old age, and the gods and goddesses will bless you.
Soldiers, conduct me to prison immediately.
[He is carried off.
This fellow is incorrigible; but it’s not my fault; I have done my duty, and have nothing to reproach myself with: he must be abandoned as a reprobate, and left to die in his sins.
End of the Second Act.
the judgesseated on the Tribunal,socratesbelow.
[To Anitus.
You should not sit here, you are priest of Ceres.
I am only here for edification.
Silence there: Socrates, you are accused of being a bad citizen, of corrupting youth, of denying a plurality of gods, of being a heretic, deist, and atheist: answer to the charge.
Judges of Athens, I exhort you all to be as good citizens as I have always myself endeavored to be: to shed your blood for your country, as I have done in many a battle: with regard to youth, guide them by your counsels, and, above all, direct them by your example; teach them to love true virtue, and to avoid the miserable philosophy of the schools: the article concerning a plurality of gods is a little more difficult to discuss, but hear what I have to say upon it. Know then, ye judges of Athens, there is but one God.
O the impious wretch!
I say, there is but one God, in his nature infinite, nor can any being partake of his infinity. Turn your eyes towards the celestial globes, to the earth and seas; all correspond together, all are made one for the other: each being is intimately connected with other beings, all formed with one design, by one great architect, one sole master, and preserver: perhaps he hath deigned to create genii, and demons, more powerful and more wise than men; if such exist, they are creatures like you, his first subjects, not gods: but nothing in nature proves to us that they do exist, whilst all nature speaks one God and one father: this God hath no need of Mercury and Iris to deliver his commands to us: he hath only to will, and that is enough. If by Minerva you understand no more than the wisdom of God; if by Neptune you only mean his immutable laws, which raise or depress the sea, you may still reverence Neptune and Minerva, provided that under these emblems you adore none but the supreme being, and that the people are not deceived by you into false opinions.
Be careful above all not to turn religion into metaphysics, its essence is morality: dispute not, but worship. If our ancestors believed that the supreme God came down into the arms of Alcmene, Danæ, and Semele, and had children by them, our ancestors imagined dangerous and idle fables. ’Tis an insult on the divinity to conceive that he could possibly, in any manner whatsoever, commit with woman the crime which we call adultery. It is a discouragement to the rest of mankind to say that, to be a great man, it is necessary to be produced from the mysterious union of Jupiter and one of our own wives and daughters. Miltiades, Cimon, Themistocles, and Aristides, whom you persecuted, were perhaps much greater than Perseus, Hercules, or Bacchus. The only way to become the children of God, is to endeavor to please him. Deserve therefore that title, by never passing an unjust sentence.
What insolence! what blasphemy!
What absurdities! one can’t tell what he means.
Socrates, you are always too fond of argument: answer briefly, and with precision: did you, or did you not, laugh at Minerva’s owl?
Judges of Athens, take care of your owls; when you propose ridiculous things as objects of belief too many are apt to resolve that they will believe nothing: they have sense enough to find out that your doctrine is absurd, though they have not elevation of mind sufficient to discover the law of truth; they know how to laugh at your little deceits, but not to adore the first of beings, the one incomprehensible, incommunicable being, the eternal, all-just, and all-powerful God.
O the blasphemer! the monster! he has said too much already: I condemn him to death.
And so do we.
Several of us are of another opinion; Socrates has spoken wisely; we believe men would be more wise and just if they thought like him: for my part, far from condemning him, I think he ought to be rewarded.
We think so too.
The opinions seem to be divided.
Gentlemen of the Areopagus, permit me to interrogate him a little. Do you believe, Socrates, that the sun turns round, and that the Areopagus acts by divine right?
You have no authority to ask any questions, but I have authority to teach you what you are ignorant of: it is of little importance to society, whether the sun or the earth turns round, but it is of the utmost consequence, whether the men who turn with them be just or unjust: virtue only acts from the right divine, and you and the Areopagus have no rights but those which your country has bestowed on you.
Illustrious and most equitable judges, let Socrates retire.
[Melitus makes a sign, Socrates is carried out.
[Proceeds.
Most august Areopagus, instituted by heaven, you hear what he says: this dangerous fellow denies that the sun turns round, and that you act by right divine: if these opinions prevail, adieu to magistracy, and adieu to the sun: you are no longer judges appointed by Minerva; you will become accountable for your proceedings; you must no longer determine but according to the laws; and if you once depend on the laws, you are undone: punish rebellion therefore, revenge earth and heaven: I am going: dread you the anger of the gods if Socrates is permitted to live.
[Anitus goes out, and the Judges demur.
I don’t care to quarrel with Anitus; he is a dangerous man to offend. If he troubled himself with the gods only it would not signify.
[To his brother sitting near him.
Between you and me, Socrates is in the right; but then he should not be in the right so publicly. I care no more for Ceres and Neptune than he does; but he should not speak out to the whole Areopagus what he ought to have whispered: yet after all, what is there in poisoning a philosopher, especially when he is old and ugly?
If there be any injustice in condemning Socrates, it is Anitus’ business and not mine: I lay it all upon his conscience: besides, it grows late, we lose our time; let us talk no more about it: to death with him.
Ay, ay, they say he’s a heretic, and an atheist; to death with him.
Call Socrates.
[He is brought in.
Blessed be the gods, the plurality of voices is for death; Socrates, the gods by us condemn you to drink hemlock.
We are all mortal: nature condemns you also to death in a short time, probably you may meet with a more unhappy end than mine: the distempers which bring on death are much more painful than a cup of hemlock. I thank those amongst my judges who pleaded in favor of innocence; for the rest, they have my pity.
[Going out.
Certainly this man deserved a pension from the state, rather than a cup of poison.
I think so too; but why would he quarrel with a priest of Ceres?
After all, it is best to get rid of a philosopher: those fellows have always a certain fierceness of spirit which should be damped a little.
One word with you, gentlemen: would not it be right, whilst our hand is in, to make an end of all the geometricians, who pretend that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones? they are a mighty scandal to the foolish people that read their works.
Ay, ay, we’ll hang them all the next session; let’s go to dinner.
[Alone.
I have been long prepared for death; all I fear at present is, that my wife Xantippe will be troubling me in my last moments, and interrupt me in the sweet employment of recollecting my soul, and preparing myself for eternity: I ought to busy myself only in the contemplation of that supreme being, before whom I am soon to appear: but here she comes; I must be resigned to all things.
socrates, xantippe,with the Disciples of Socrates.
Well, my poor man, what have these gentlemen of the law concluded? have they fined you, are you banished, or acquitted? my God! how uneasy have I been about you! pray take care this don’t happen a second time.
No, my dear, this will not happen a second time, I’ll answer for it; give yourself no uneasiness about anything. My dear disciples, my friends, welcome.
[At the head of his disciples.
You see us, beloved Socrates, no less concerned for you than Xantippe; we have gained permission of the judges to visit you; just heaven! must we behold Socrates in chains! permit us to kiss those bonds which reflect shame on Athens. How could Anitus and his friends reduce you to this condition?
Let us think no more of these trifles, my friends, but continue the examination we were making yesterday into the soul’s immortality. We observed, I remember, that nothing could be more probable, or at the same time more full of comfort and satisfaction, than this sweet idea; in fact, matter we know changes, but perishes not; why then should the soul perish? can it be that, raised as we are to the knowledge of a God through the veil of this mortal body, we should cease to know him when that veil is removed? no, as we think now, we must always think; thought is the very essence of man; and this being must appear before a just God, who will recompense virtue, punish vice, and pardon weakness and error.
Nobly said: but what does this fellow here with his cup?
[Enter the Jailer, or Executioner of the Eleven, carrying a cup of Hemlock.
Here Socrates, the senate have sent you this.
Thou vile poisoner of the commonwealth, would you kill my husband before my face? monster, I’ll tear you to pieces.
My dear friend, I ask your pardon for my wife’s rude behavior: she has scolded me all her life; she only treats you as she does her husband; excuse her impertinence: give me the cup.
[He takes the cup.
O divine Socrates! why may not we take that poison for you? horrible injustice! shall the guilty thus condemn the innocent, and fools destroy the wise? you go then to death!
No, my friends, to life: this is the cup of immortality: it is not this perishable body that has loved and instructed you; it is my soul alone that has lived with you, and that shall love you forever.
[He is going to drink.
I must take off your fetters first: ’tis always done.
Do it then, I beg you.
[He scratches his leg.
You smile!
I smile at the reflection, that pleasure should arise from pain: thus it is that eternal felicity shall spring from the miseries of this life.
[Drinks the poison.
Alas! what have you done?
Ay, for a thousand ridiculous discourses of this kind the poor man has lost his life: indeed, my dear, you will break my heart; I could strangle all the judges with my own hands. I did use to scold you indeed, but I always loved you notwithstanding; these polite well-bred gentlemen have put you to death: O my dear, dear husband!
Be calm, my good Xantippe; weep not, my friends; it becomes not the disciples of Socrates to shed tears.
How can we avoid it on so dreadful an occasion? this legal murder!
Thus it is that men will often behave to the worshippers of one true God, and the enemies of superstition.
And must Socrates be one of those unhappy victims?
’Tis noble to be the victim of the deity: I die contented. I wish indeed that, to the satisfaction of seeing you, my friends, I could have added the happiness of embracing Sophronimus and Aglae: I wonder they are not here: they would have made my last moments more welcome.
Alas! they know not that you have already undergone the judges’ dreadful sentence: they have been talking to the people, and praising those magistrates who would have acquitted you. Aglae has laid open the guilt of Anitus, and published his shame and dishonor: they perhaps might have saved your life: O dear Socrates, why would you thus precipitate your fate?
aglae, sophronimus.
[Entering.
Divine Socrates, be not afraid: be comforted, Xantippe: worthy disciples of Socrates, do not weep.
Your enemies are confounded: the people rise in your defence.
We have been talking to them; we have laid open the intrigues and jealousy of the wicked Anitus: it was my duty to demand justice for his crime, as I was the cause of it.
Anitus hath saved himself by flight from the rage of the people: he and his accomplices are pursued: solemn thanks have been given to those judges who appeared in your favor: the people are now at the gates of the prison, and wait to conduct you home in triumph.
Alas! ’tis lost labor!
O Socrates, why would you so hastily obey?
Live, dear Socrates, the benefactor of your country, the model of future ages; O live for the general happiness of mankind!
Ye noble pair, my virtuous friends, it is too late.
You stayed too long.
Alas! too late? what mean you? just heaven!
Has he then already drunk the fatal draught?
Sweet Aglae and dear Sophronimus, the law ordained that I should take the poison: I obeyed the law, unjust as it is, because it oppressed myself alone: had the injustice been done to another, I would have resisted it. I go to death, but the example of friendship which you give the world, and your nobleness of soul shall never perish: your virtue is greater, much greater, than the guilt of those who accused me. I bless that fate which the world may call misfortune, because it hath set in the fairest light the goodness of your hearts. My dear Xantippe, be happy; and remember, that to be so, you must curb your impetuous temper. My beloved disciples, listen always to the voice of that philosophy which will teach you to despise your persecutors, and pity human weakness: and you, my daughter Aglae, and my son Sophronimus, be always what you now are.
How wretched are we that we cannot die for you!
Your lives are valuable, mine would have been useless: take my tender last farewell; the doors of eternity are opened to receive me.
He was a great man! O I will rouse up the whole nation.
May we raise up temples to Socrates, if ever mortal man deserved it!
At least may his wisdom teach mankind that temples should be raised to God alone!
End of the Third and Last Act.