SOURCE: "The 'Profane' Plays, 1664-1677, in Jean Racine, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1939, pp. 99-221.

When one has said the best one can of Racine's first two tragedies, the fact remains that they are mediocre works and give no intimation of the genius that suddenly unveiled its full radiance with the performance of Andromaque at the Hôtel de Bourgogne or at court some time in November 1667. It is no exaggeration to say "its full radiance," for though personal taste may place this or that play of Racine ahead of Andromaque for one reason or another, though the extreme greatness of the title role may give Phèdre precedence, though the dramatist may be deemed to have achieved a firmer and chaster style in Britannicus and his religious plays, yet he never wrote again a play so instinct with life and passion in every nook and cranny of its being, so completely an emanation of his own genius and so independent of extraneous influence, nor one with so many equally interesting characters and written in such a successful blend of colloquial and poetic speech. In Andromaque Racine emerges completely from the shadow of Corneille which had clouded his natural gifts before, and which is to dog him again in the tragedies that follow; the influence of Quinault, though present in greater measure, is of a superficial kind. No more "great souls" plotting schemes of ambition, no more political debates on the rights of kings and conquerors; on the other hand, no more dallyings of languorous worldconquerors with coquettish queens. Racine's own particular contribution to drama and literature, the revelation of amour-passion in all its tragic splendor, its exaltations and despairs, its self-sacrifice and its criminality, bursts forth in a perfect carnival of love and hate which engulfs three of the four leading characters and leaves only the serene figure of Andromache above the storm.

Such a sudden passage from the literary exercises of a clever sophomore to the searing truth of life itself seems to suggest the intervention of a personal experience on the part of the dramatist….

Andromaque is often counted among the tragedies imitated from the Greek. But, as Racine points out, the subject of Euripides' Andromache is quite different from his own play, and he borrowed little from it except some suggestions for the portrait of Hermione. Some similarities between situations in Racine's play and those of French predecessors, like Rotrou's Hercule Mourant and Corneille's Pertharite, have been pointed out, but their importance is slight. The main source of Andromaque is the passage of eighteen lines from Virgil's Aeneid, Book III, which Racine quotes in his Preface. The framework of the play recalls that type of the old pastoral drama which presented a chain of lovers (Orestes loves Hermione, who loves Pyrrhus, who loves Andromache). The influence of Quinault is perhaps to be seen in the extent to which the dialogue is studded with the jargon of gallantry—one of the few serious blemishes in an otherwise almost perfect work of art.

The situation at the opening of the play may be summarized as follows: The scene is the palace of Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, and now king of Epirus. Pyrrhus is in love with his Trojan captive, Andromache, who, however, in her fidelity to her dead husband, Hector, refuses to yield to his advances. Also at the court of Pyrrhus is Herimone, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, waiting for Pyrrhus to carry out his promise of marriage to her. When the play opens, Orestes, an old lover of Hermione's, has just arrived, ostensibly as ambassador of the Greeks to persuade Pyrrhus to hand over to them Astyanax, the son of Hector

and Andromache, but with the secret hope of winning Hermione away from Pyrrhus. Obviously, the less he succeeds in his ambassadorial mission, the more likely he is to accomplish his own hopes; for, if Pyrrhus refuses to give up Astyanax, Andromache in gratitude may accept his love, and Hermione in despair may return to Orestes. Such is the ideal crisis-situation with which we are presented when the curtain goes up, and which must be settled within twenty-four hours. The interest will consist in watching how, out of this situation, Racine spins his web of psychological action and reaction.

The four characters mentioned in this summary—Pyrrhus, Orestes, Andromache, and Hermione—obviously will mark the limits of the magnetic field over which the electric current of the action is to play. There are some minor characters of the confident variety, whom we can deal with as we meet them. But the four protagonists are among the most remarkable of Racine's or, indeed, of any dramatist's creations. They all have the three-dimensional qualities of Shakespeare's people, which can hardly be said of so many of the characters in any other one play of Racine. They all attain a universal quality through blending the traditional Greek figure with the traits of Racine's own contemporaries; they even seem to take on a surprisingly modern coloring at times. Andromache adds to her prestige as the widow of Hector the charm of a Christian tenderness and resignation (as Chateaubriand pointed out), and one cannot help fancying that some memory of the pious, serene women of Port-Royal went into her composition; it has even been suggested that that great political exile, Henriette de France, widow of Charles I and mother of Racine's patroness, the Duchesse d'Orléans, may have sat for the portrait in part. Hermione is not only the daughter of Helen; she is also a grande dame, full of sensitive orgueil like the Duchesse de Bouillon, and ready, like her, to dabble in crime when her sensibilities are hurt. Pyrrhus is a barbarian king, but he is also an amorous monarch like Louis XIV. He is more of a mixture even than that; in his interviews with Hermione, he shows himself something of a psychological bully, not to say a sadist; he is something we do not associate with French classicism, "a problematic nature," as the Germans used to say. As for Orestes, he is, under the guise of a man pursued by the Furies, an extraordinary portrayal of the neurotic, suffering from an inferiority complex, trying desperately to keep his hysteria down, but bursting out in accesses of fatalistic bitterness until finally he goes down in defeat and madness.

The structure of the play illustrates perfectly Racine's art of bringing an apparent simplicity into a rather complicated action. There are really two separate themes, the attempt of Pyrrhus to gain the love of Andromache, and Orestes' plan to carry off Hermione. But, by making Hermione's attitude to Orestes depend on Andromache's attitude to Pyrrhus, Racine has made Andromache and her decision the pivot of the play, thereby giving the latter perfect unity and fully justifying Andromache's place in the title.

With this preamble let us attempt the task of analyzing (with the aid of quotations) that most representative of all Racine's tragedies, Andromaque. This attempt, if it has any measure of success, should carry us straight into the heart of Racine's dramaturgy.

Act I

The first scene is an admirable example of the scène d'exposition which the crisis-character of French tragedy necessitates at the beginning in order to put the hearer in possession of the situation. The art is to combine this with dramatic naturalness. When the curtain goes up we find Orestes in conversation with his old friend Pylades, whom he is surprised to meet at the court of Pyrrhus. Explanations are naturally called for on both sides, and in the course of the dialogue we learn of Orestes' "mélancolie." Then in a long speech, which is a perfect model of well-composed exposition but at the same time a passionate self-revelation, Pylades and we are informed both of the ostensible and the underlying reasons for Orestes' appearance at Pyrrhus' court. The speech reaches its culmination in these closing lines, which reveal Orestes' desperate fatalism and his ultimate purpose, and which illustrate well Racine's flexible use of the Alexandrine line for expressing the quick succession of various emotions, resignation, passionate resolve, and urgent curiosity:

Je me livre en aveugle au destin qui m'entraîne.

J'aime: je viens chercher Hermione en ces lieux,
La fléchir, l'enlever, ou mourir à ses yeux.
Toi qui connais Pyrrhus, que penses-tu qu'il fasse?
Dans sa cour, dans son cœur, dis-moi ce qui se passe.
Mon Hermione encor le tient-elle asservi?
Me rendra-t-il, Pylade, un bien qu'il m'a ravi?

Pylades sends the neurotic suddenly into ecstasy by the artfully dropped remark about Hermione, when he is relating her humiliation at Pyrrhus' hands:

Quelquefois elle appelle Oreste à son secours,

then urges him to concentrate on his actual mission and deliver his message to Pyrrhus in such a way as to anger him against the Greeks and thus bring him and Andromache closer together.

Pressez: demandez tout, pour ne rien obtenir.

This line of Pylades is the clue to the policy Orestes pursues in the next fine scene, which is the interview between Pyrrhus and the ambassador. The courtly dignity of Orestes' opening address to the monarch might be a model for one of Louis XIV's own ambassadors appearing at a foreign court. Nor does he make in this speech any overt threats; he simply sets forth the displeasure of the Greeks at the protection offered the Trojan child by Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus answers without anger at first, but with that ironical impatience we shall see is characteristic of him. The tone of lordly contempt at once characterizes him:

La Grèce en ma faveur est trop inquiétée.
De soins plus importants je l'ai crue agitée,
Seigneur; et, sur le nom de son ambassadeur,
J'avais dans ses projets conçu plus de grandeur.

But, as his speech continues, his rising anger is registered with great delicacy, until the final words,

L'Epire sauvera ce que Troie a sauvé.

Now, Orestes, seeing his scheme working out as he hoped, decides to clinch the matter by introducing threats. At once the action warms up. To the preceding long speeches succeed fragments of dialogue. Pyrrhus blazes out at the Greek threats. Let them come and attack him!

Qu'ils cherchent dans l'Epire une seconde Troie.
At Orestes' mention of Hermione, who will, he says, intervene on behalf of the Greeks, Pyrrhus relapses into bored irony:
Hermione, Seigneur, peut m'être toujours chère;
…..
Vous pouvez cependant voir la fille d'Hélène
…..
Après cela, Seigneur, je ne vous retiens plus,
Et vous pourrez aux Grecs annoncer mon refus.

Now the action is started! Pyrrhus has made a decision—the decision Orestes hoped he would make.

After Orestes departs to see Hermione, Phoenix, the confidant of Pyrrhus, expresses surprise that the latter should send Orestes to Hermione, his old love. At this Pyrrhus' irritation bursts out and he reveals his true attitude to Hermione in this realistically expressive speech:

Ah! qu'ils s'aiment, Phoenix, j'y consens. Qu'elle parte.
Que, charmés l'un de l'autre, ils retournent à Sparte:
Tous nos ports sont ouverts et pour elle et pour lui.
Qu'elle m'épargnerait de contrainte et d'ennui

He is about to make further explanations when Andromache appears; at once he is all eyes for her.

Andromache is wafted onto the stage on the wings of lines as soft as swan's-down. These exquisite verses not only sing to us all of Andromache's subdued sorrow and resignation, but they paint for us all the refinement and delicacy of her character. Their effect seems only attainable in a language having the peculiar evenness of accent of French:

Je passais jusqu'aux lieux où l'on garde mon fils.
Puisqu'une fois le jour vous souffrez que je voie
Le seul bien qui me reste et d'Hector et de Troie,
J'allais, Seigneur, pleurer un moment avec lui:
Je ne l'ai point encore embrassé d'aujourd'hui.

But Pyrrhus is determined to utilize his decision to protect Astyanax in order to wrest an acceptance of his love from Andromache. He begins to allude darkly to Greek threats. Andromache shows alarm, whereat Pyrrhus allays her fears but at the same time pleads for some reward for his protection of her son. Andromache upbraids him for being generous only for the sake of a reward. This nettles Pyrrhus somewhat, but he restrains himself and offers, in return for Andromache's love, to restore her son to the throne of Troy. Andromache's answer is admirable for its mingled pathos and pride:

Seigneur, tant de grandeurs ne nous touchent plus guère.
Je les lui promettais tant qu'a vécu son père.
Non, vous n'espérez plus de nous revoir encor,
Sacrés murs, que n'a pu conserver mon Hector!
A de moindres faveurs des malheureux prétendent,
Seigneur; c'est un exil que mes pleurs vous demandent.
Souffrez que loin des Grecs, et même loin de vous,
J'aille cacher mon fils, et pleurer mon époux.

Votre amour contre nous allume trop de haine;
Retournez, retournez à la fille d'Hélène.

Pyrrhus replies that he cannot, and remarks how much joy the love he shows Andromache would cause Hermione if he showed it toward her. At that, all Andromache's suppressed memories of Pyrrhus and his father's wrongs to her and her race well up, and she bursts out:

Et pourquoi vos soupirs seraient-ils repoussés?
Aurait-elle oublié vos services passés?
Troie, Hector, contre vous révoltent-ils son âme?
Aux cendres d'un époux doit-elle enfin sa flamme?
Et quel époux encor! Ah! Souvenir cruel!
Sa mort seule a rendu votre père immortel,
Il doit au sang d'Hector tout l'éclat de ses armes,
Et vous n'êtes tous deux connus que par mes larmes.

Stung by these defiant words, Pyrrhus, in his turn, fires up. He threatens to revoke his decision not to hand over Astyanax to the Greeks.

La Grèce le demande, et je ne prétends pas
Mettre toujours ma gloire à sauver des ingrats.

Mollified somewhat by Andromache's sorrow at this threat, he dismisses her with the following words, which close the act and leave once more the great decision in suspense, after we thought it had been settled:

Allez, Madame, allez voir votre fils.
Peut-être, en le voyant, votre amour plus timide
Ne prendra pas toujours sa colère pour guide.
Pour savoir nos destins j'irai vous retrouver.
Madame, en l'embrassant, songer à le sauver.

Act II

The second act is Hermione's, as the first was Andromache's. That makes our task of analysis more difficult, for, settledness of purpose being Andromache's dominant trait, a scene in which she appears lends itself fairly well to summary, whereas there is no way of representing in abbreviated form the infinite variety, the constant twistings and veerings of Hermione's impetuous, impulsive temperament under the pressure of her humiliating situation. Nowhere in literature has an agitated spirit been represented with more minute fidelity than in the amazing portrait of Hermione in this and the following acts. But we must renounce the hope of giving here even an approximate idea of that portrait and concentrate on following the main line of the action.

At the rise of the curtain we find Hermione awaiting Orestes' visit. She has consented to see him, but is already regretting having given that consent. She tells her confidante, Cléone, that she shrinks from meeting the man whose love she had once slighted and who now will be in a position to triumph over her. Cléone tells her not to fear; Orestes loves her too madly to think of triumphing over her. Why not leave with Orestes, since she says she hates Pyrrhus anyway? To which Hermione replies, deceiving herself, that she wants to break with Pyrrhus violently, not just slip away; then she says, brokenheartedly:

II n'y travaillera que trop bien, l'infidèle.

Cléone is horrified to think that Hermione is waiting for some greater insult and suggests that, if Pyrrhus could ever offend her, he has done enough to offend her already. Hermione replies with a speech which is very typical of her agitation; it passes from pathos and self-pity to anger, which leads to the decision to leave; then she is pulled up by the thought of Pyrrhus' possible repentance after she left; then her anger wells up again; then she decides to stay in order to torture the lovers. I quote this whole speech as a fine example of Racine's subtle analysis:

Pourquoi veux-tu, cruelle, irriter mes ennuis?
Je crains de me connaître en l'état où je suis.
De tout ce que tu vois, tâche de ne rien croire;
Crois que je n'aime plus, vante-moi ma victoire;
Crois que dans son dépit mon cœur est endurci;
Hélas! Et s'il se peut, fais-le moi croire aussi.
Tu veux que je le fuie. Hé bien! Rien ne m'arrête:
Allons. N'envions plus son indigne conquête:
Que sur lui sa captive étende son pouvoir.
Fuyons…. Mais si l'ingrat rentrait dans son devoir!
Si la foi dans son cœur retrouvait quelque place!
S'il venait à mes pieds me demander sa grâce!
Si sous mes lois, Amour, tu pouvais l'engager!
S'il voulait…! Mais l'ingrat ne veut que m'outrager.
Demeurons toutefois pour troubler leur fortune;
Prenons quelque plaisir à leur être importune;
Ou, le forçant de rompre un nœud si solennel,
Aux yeux de tous les Grecs rendons-le criminel.
J'ai déjà sur le fils attiré leur colère:
Je veux qu'on vienne encor lui demander la mère.
Rendons-lui les tourments qu'elle me fait souffrir;
Qu'elle le perde, ou bien qu'il la fasse périr.

Then Cléone objects: If Andromache had any complicity in the affair, why should she show so much coldness to Pyrrhus? This brings a very human retort from Hermione. In her jealousy she suspects Andromache's apparent coldness of being a form of coquettishness, and she contrasts this supposed subtlety with her own straightforwardness; she has not "led" Pyrrhus "on" enough….

Then, in a striking passage, she recalls the romantic circumstances (the return of the heroes from Troy) in which she fell in love with Pyrrhus, ending with the absurdly natural reproach to Cléone that she and all the others, who shared her enthusiasm for Pyrrhus, were responsible for her betrayal, even before Pyrrhus betrayed her. After all, Orestes has his points.

Il sait aimer du moins, et même sans qu'on l'aime.
Et peut-être il saura se faire aimer lui-même.
Allons, qu'il vienne enfin.

But when Cléone says, "Here he is!" out comes this exquisite cri du cœur:

Ah! Je ne croyais pas qu'il fût si près d'ici.

The scene between Hermione and Orestes is an extraordinary duet in which each tries to be diplomatic and at the same time unconsciously wounds and exasperates the other. Hermione wants to keep Orestes for possible use and yet cannot help showing him that all her love is for Pyrrhus; Orestes wants to persuade her to leave with him but keeps offending her by reminding her that Pyrrhus is neglecting her. Here is a fragment of this fencing-match:

But when he says incidentally,

Car enfin il [Pyrrhus] vous hait; son âme ailleurs éprise
N'a plus…,

her pride stiffens up and she interrupts,

Qui vous l'a dit, Seigneur, qu'il me méprise?
…..
Jugez-vous que ma vue inspire des mépris?
Peut-être d'autres yeux me sont plus favorables.

Then Orestes in his turn stiffens:

Poursuivez: il est beau de m'insulter ainsi.
Cruelle, c'est donc moi qui vous méprise ici?

Finally she bids him go to Pyrrhus and tell him he must choose between Astyanax and her. If he chooses Astyanax, then she will leave with Orestes. Another decision has been made, and Orestes, already knowing, as he supposes, Pyrrhus' decision, goes into a characteristic rhapsody of triumph after Hermione has left.

Then comes the first great coup de théâtre or péripétie of the play. While Orestes is exulting with that hybris which, according to the Greeks, always invites divine Nemesis, Pyrrhus enters and with a few hammer-strokes annihilates Orestes' happiness. He apologizes for rejecting so abruptly Orestes' overtures in the name of the Greeks, and announces his final decision to hand over Astyanax to him. While Orestes is trying to recover from this blow, Pyrrhus staggers him with the further announcement that he will marry Hermione the next day, and then delivers the knockout blow with the ironic command to Orestes to carry this news to Hermione and to prepare to give her in marriage the next day to him (Pyrrhus).

Then we remember that the first act closed with Andromache going off to make her final decision, and we realize that this decision, an unfavorable one, has been communicated to Pyrrhus and has motivated his change of heart, but that Racine, with cunning art, so as to provide a tremendous surprise at this point, has not put this scene between Pyrrhus and Andromache on the stage.

The current of the play now sets in a contrary direction. Yet so careful is Racine to prepare his most distant effects, and so nuancé is his psychology, that in the last scene of this act, after Orestes has staggered off the stage, he suggests that that current might easily resume its first course again. This is the scene where Pyrrhus, after thumping himself, so to speak, on the chest and boasting to Phoenix that he has mastered his love instincts, begins to slip back immediately toward Andromache, and ends with proposing to have another interview with her, deceiving himself with the idea that his purpose is to show her more completely his scorn for her. Phoenix, however, holds up the mirror to his true backsliding, and the scene ends with Pyrrhus reluctantly consenting to carry out his resolve to marry Hermione. It is really a scene of the most exquisite high comedy, worthy of Molière, and shows that Racine could have excelled in that genre as well as in the farce-comedy of Les Plaideurs. This caused great heart-searchings among contemporary critics like Boileau who appreciated the truth to nature of the scene but knew they should not approve of such mingling of comedy with tragedy. For the modern reader, exempt from such qualms, it adds to the fascination of the play.

Act III

The effect of Pyrrhus' announcement on the neurotic Orestes is to drive him into a state of desperation, which appears in his dialogue with Pylades in scene 1. He will carry Hermione off by violence. Pyrrhus' cruel irony has particularly got under his skin:

II veut pour m'honorer la tenir de ma main.
Ah! Plutôt cette main dans le sang du barbare….

The last line prepares us for the denouement. Racine then gives a remarkable picture of a man suffering under the delusion of persecution. Pyrrhus is marrying Hermione only to make him (Orestes) desperate:

Le cruel ne la prend que pour me l'arracher.

And just at the moment when Hermione was turning to him!

Ses yeux s'ouvraient, Pylade; elle écoutait Oreste,
Lui parlait, le plaignait. Un mot eût fait le reste.

But Pylades does not believe that.

Jamais il ne fut plus aimé.

Orestes would be well-advised to forget her. If he married her, she would hate him all her life.

Orestes makes a remarkable answer:

C'est pour cela que je veux l'enlever.
…..
Non, non, à mes tourments je veux l'associer.

His bitterness reaches great heights, and in lines of power and metallic resonance Racine practically draws the picture of the homme fatal of Romanticism:

Mon innocence enfin commence à me peser.
Je ne sais de tout temps quelle injuste puissance
Laisse le crime en paix et poursuit l'innocence.
De quelque part sur moi que je tourne les yeux,
Je ne vois que malheurs qui condamnent les Dieux.
Méritons leur courroux, justifions leur haine,
Et que le fruit du crime en précède la peine.

Pylades abandons the hope of dissuading him from his plans to carry off Hermione, and promises to aid him; only let him conceal his purposes. He sees Hermione approaching and leaves.

The situations of Hermione and Orestes in this interview are reversed. Now it is Hermione who must restrain her temptation to triumph. Her new embarrassment is as skillfully portrayed as her previous one. Through her deprecating utterances one feels (and Orestes feels) her joy bursting forth:

Qui l'eût cru, que Pyrrhus ne fût pas infidèle?
…..
Je veux croire avec vous qu'il redoute la Grèce.
…..
Mais que puis-je, Seigneur? On a promis ma foi.
…..
L'amour ne règle pas le sort d'une princesse.

But this make-believe only irritates Orestes. However, he restrains his anger, and takes leave of Hermione with bitter dignity:

Tel est votre devoir, je l'avoue; et le mien
Est de vous épargner un si triste entretien.

After his departure Hermione expresses to Cléone her surprise at his moderation, but Cléone opines that there is something ominous about it. When Cléone suggests that there may be a connection between the ultimatum of the Greeks and Pyrrhus' decision, Hermione bursts out in indignation, then in triumph:

Tu crois que Pyrrhus craint? Et que craint-il encor?
…..
Non, Cléone, il n'est point ennemi de lui-même.
Il veut tout ce qu'il fait; et, s'il m'épouse, il m'aime.
Mais qu'Oreste à son gré m'impute ses douleurs;
N'avons-nous d'entretien que celui de ses pleurs?
Pyrrhus revient à nous. Hé bien, chère Cléone,
Conçois-tu les transports de l'heureuse Hermione?
Sais-tu quel est Pyrrhus? T'es-tu fait raconter
Le nombre des exploits…. Mais qui les peut compter?
Intrépide, et partout suivi de la victoire,
Charmant, fidèle enfin, rien ne manque à sa gloire.
Songe….

Here Hermione has her great moment, as Orestes had had his in the previous act. And her exultation, her hybris, is rising, as did his. Will it bring Nemesis, as his had done? We are in the middle of Act III, where the final decisions of Fate are made. Hermione must beware.

At this critical climax of the tragedy, Andromache enters in tears. The scene which follows is short, but it is the keystone of the play. We spoke above of the galbe of French tragedy, its symmetry as of a shapely vase. Here it is beautifully illustrated. This clinching scene is in the precise mathematical center of the play; it is the only one in which the two main protagonists meet; and it settles everything. It is at the apex of the dramatic pyramid, which rises to it on one side and falls away on the other.

It is Andromache who is in despair now over the fate of her son. In lines of exquisite pathos and eloquence she pleads with Hermione to use her influence with Pyrrhus to save him:

Mais il me reste un fils. Vous saurez quelque jour,
Madame, pour un fils jusqu'où va notre amour;
Mais vous ne saurez pas, du moins je le souhaite,
En quel trouble mortel son intérêt nous jette,
Lorsque, de tant de biens qui pouvaient nous flatter,
C'est le seul qui nous reste, et qu'on veut nous l'ôter.

This alone was lacking to Hermione's triumph. Will she be able to keep her head and answer with wisdom and magnanimity? No. She answers with cold scorn, and thereby decides her own fate and that of all the other people in the play:

S'il faut fléchir Pyrrhus, qui le peut mieux que vous?
Vos yeux assez longtemps ont régné sur son âme.
Faites-le prononcer; j'y souscrirai, Madame.

As Hermione sweeps from the stage, Andromache is at first overwhelmed. It is Céphise, the humble confidante (as I pointed out above), who, at this very apex of the drama, suggests that Andromache take Hermione's ironically proffered advice literally:

Je croirais ses conseils, et je verrais Pyrrhus.
Un regard confondrait Hermione et la Grèce.

At this moment Pyrrhus appears. He pretends to be seeking Hermione and not to notice Andromache, who points out to Céphise how little influence she can have on him. But Pyrrhus' asides to Phoenix tell us that he is only waiting for Andromache to show that she notices him. When Pyrrhus utters ostentatiously the words,

Allons aux Grecs livrer le fils d'Hector,

Andromache throws herself at his feet and implores his pity. He is unresponsive at first, but when, in her desperation, she has appealed to him by some harmless flattery which has caused her to be accused of "coquetterie vertueuse," he says briefly to his confidant,

Va m'attendre, Phoenix,

and we know that again he is in Andromache's power if she decides to make the slightest concession. It is his turn to make an eloquent plea to her to accept his love for her son's sake as well as for her own. But at the close his plea takes on a very firm and menacing tone, and we know that this time Andromache's decision will be final for both of them….

When he leaves the stage, Andromache remains with Céphise. The closing scene is an expression of the most heart-rending anguish, as Andromache wrestles with her contending passions of fidelity to Hector and love for her son. She comes to no decision, but undertakes to arrive at one after consultation with the dead.

Allons sur son tombeau consulter mon époux.

It is in the course of this scene that there occurs one of those few passages of set rhetoric that can be quoted (and this one often is quoted) apart from their context. It is the famous picture of the sack of Troy, the vision which Andromache calls up of that dreadful night when Pyrrhus first burst upon her view. How, she says to Céphise, can she accept the hand of the man whom she first saw in those circumstances?

Songe, songe, Céphise, à cette nuit cruelle,
Qui fut pour tout un peuple une nuit éternelle,
Figure-toi Pyrrhus, les yeux étincelants,
Entrant à la lueur de nos palais brûlants,
Sur tous mes frères morts se faisant un passage,
Et de sang tout couvert échauffant le carnage.
Songe aux cris des vainqueurs, songe aux cris des mourants,
Dans la flamme étouffés, sous le fer expirants,
Peins-toi dans ces horreurs Andromaque éperdue:
Voilà comme Pyrrhus vint s'offrir à ma vue;
Voilà par quels exploits il sut se couronner;
Enfin, voilà l'époux que tu me veux donner.

This is often quoted as an example of the "rhetoric" of French tragedy, but in its context the heightened style corresponds to the climactic moment of Andromache's desperation. The reader of the preceding pages will not think it typical of Racine's normal style, though quite suitable in the place where it occurs.

Act IV

At the close of Act III the issues of the play were in suspense again, as they were at the end of Act I. But in Act IV the irrevocable decisions are finally arrived at. It is an act heavy with fate and contains some of the most powerful scenes a dramatist has ever composed.

In scene 1 we find Andromache and Céphise together, and learn from Céphise's first speech that Andromache has decided to accept Pyrrhus' hand. But Céphise does not know all of Andromache's decision, and when Andromache says, "Allons voir mon fils," Céphise wonders why there is any hurry about that, as she is free to see him any time now. She is horrified at Andromache's reply:

Céphise, allons le voir pour la dernière fois.

It then appears that Andromache has decided to marry Pyrrhus, thereby binding him (for she has no doubt of his honor) to protect her son, but then to slay herself after the ceremony and thus preserve her fidelity to Hector. She then bids Céphise promise to bring up her son, and her instructions to her regarding his education are couched in verse of incomparable beauty, bearing the same authentic stamp of Andromache as the verse which first introduced her:

Fais connaître à mon fils les héros de sa race;
Autant que tu pourras, conduis-le sur leur trace.
Dis-lui par quels exploits leurs noms ont éclaté,
Plutôt ce qu'ils ont fait que ce qu'ils ont été.
Parle-lui tous les jours des vertus de son père,
Et quelquefois aussi parle-lui de sa mère.
Mais qu'il ne songe plus, Céphise, à nous venger:
Nous lui laissons un maître, il le doit ménager.
Qu'il ait de ses aïeux un souvenir modeste:
II est du sang d'Hector, mais il en est le reste:
Et pour ce reste enfin j'ai moi-même en un jour
Sacrifié mon sang, ma haine et mon amour.

These smooth legato measures make a dramatic contrast with the shrill staccato outbursts of Hermione in the rest of the act; for all the remainder of it belongs to her, and it is one of the most remarkable feats in sustained and intense passion drama has ever seen. On the departure of Andromache and Céphise, Hermione and Cléone come on the stage, and Cléone's first words suggest the dangerous mood Hermione is in. She is consumed by deep and silent fury, having learned of Pyrrhus' new betrayal. On Cléone's expressing alarmed astonishment at her continued silence regarding this insult, she snaps out these words:

Fais-tu venir Oreste?

At this moment Orestes arrives and launches out in a rapturous expression of gratitude for being summoned by Hermione. But she cuts him short with:

Je veux savoir, Seigneur, si vous m'aimez.

Orestes starts protesting his devotion, to be cut short again with:

Vengez-moi, je crois tout.

Orestes misunderstands; he thinks she means he should stir up the Greeks to attack Pyrrhus. She soon sets him right:

Orestes is aghast, but his hesitation infuriates Hermione. In her mad impatience she pours out in a furious tirade her hatred and her love for Pyrrhus all mixed together, logic and consideration for Orestes' feelings all thrown to the winds:

Ne vous suffit-il pas que je l'ai condamné?
Ne vous suffit-il pas que ma gloire offensée
Demande une victime à moi seule adressée;
Qu'Hermione est le prix d'un tyran opprimé;
Que je le hais; enfin, Seigneur, que je l'aimai?
Je ne m'en cache pas; l'ingrat m'avait su plaire,
Soit qu'ainsi l'ordonnât mon amour ou mon père,
N'importe: mais enfin réglez-vous là-dessus.
Malgré mes vœux, Seigneur, honteusement déçus,
Malgré la juste horreur que son crime me donne,
Tant qu'il vivra, craignez que je ne lui pardonne.
Doutez jusqu'à sa mort d'un courroux incertain:
S'il ne meurt aujourd'hui, je puis l'aimer demain.

To Orestes' further pleading for postponement of the murder until that night, at least, comes the dreadful cry:

Mais, cependant, ce jour il épouse Andromaque.
…..
Revenez tout couvert du sang de l'infidèle;
Allez, en cet état soyez sur de mon cœur.

At Orestes' further protests, her fury rises to the pitch of madness:

C'est trop en un jour essuyer de refus.
Je m'en vais seule au temple, où leur hymen s'apprête,
Où vous n'osez aller mériter ma conquête.
Là, de mon ennemi je saurai m'approcher:
Je percerai le cœur que je n'ai pu toucher;
Et mes sanglantes mains, sur moi-même tournées,
Aussitôt, malgré moi, joindront nos destinées:
Et, tout ingrat qu'il est, il me sera plus doux
De mourir avec lui, que de vivre avec vous.

When Orestes gives his desperate consent to do the deed and rushes out, Hermione is left a prey to doubts as to whether she can trust him to really do it. She thinks for a moment of doing the deed herself. Then she wonders whether Orestes, if he does slay Pyrrhus, will make him realize he is dying Hermione's victim. And, above all, Andromache must be kept away from his dying gaze! Last comes the savage cry:

Chère Cléone, cours! Ma vengeance est perdue,
S'il ignore en mourant que c'est moi qui le tue.

Just at the height of this deafening fortissimo, Pyrrhus is seen approaching. A terrific revulsion occurs in Hermione. Perhaps at the last moment Pyrrhus is coming back to her:

Ah! Cours après Oreste; et dis-lui, ma Cléone,
Qu'il n'entreprenne rien sans revoir Hermione.

A last terrible disillusionment is in store for poor Hermione. The scene which now begins (the last of Act IV) is perhaps the most original in the play. It anticipates the modern fondness for morbid moods and piquant psychological situations, and shows astonishing accuracy in the notation of them. It is also instinct with pathos and tragedy of the profoundest kind. It is the last chance both for Pyrrhus and Hermione—his last chance to escape death, her last chance to recover her lover. I wish I could quote this whole great scene. It consists of four fairly lengthy speeches, two by each of the characters. Pyrrhus' first words reveal his curious mood of frank apology mingled with what I called above "psychological cruelty." There is something still stranger; there is the confession that Andromache is marrying him without loving him, and even out of this he seems to get a grim and morbid satisfaction:

L'un par l'autre entraînés, nous courons à l'autel
Nous jurer, malgré nous, un amour immortel.
Après cela, Madame, éclatez contre un traître,
Qui l'est avec douleur, et qui pourtant veut

l'être.
Pour moi, loin de contraindre un si juste courroux,
Il me soulagera peut-être autant que vous.

Hermione, who sees by these words that her last hope, which had flickered up once more at Pyrrhus' approach, is gone, utters slowly and heavily a speech charged with all the hatred into which her love has been temporarily transformed. With withering scorn she sneers at Pyrrhus' pretended frankness and his real inconstancy:

Non, non, la perfidie a de quoi vous tenter;
Et vous ne me cherchez que pour vous en vanter.
…..
Me quitter, me reprendre, et retourner encor
De la fille d'Hélène à la veuve d'Hector?
…..
Tout cela part d'un cœur toujours maître de soi,
D'un héros qui n'est point esclave de sa foi,

then, in two terrible lines, she seems to correctly diagnose his attitude,

Vous veniez de mon front observer la pâleur,
Pour aller dans ses bras rire de ma douleur.

(Notice how the throwing-back of the accent to "rire" makes the word almost scream out Hermione's indignation at Pyrrhus' cruelty.)

If a man could say anything fitted to raise Hermione's cold fury to a still higher pitch, Pyrrhus replies by saying that thing. He takes her hatred at its face value, not as love turned inside out:

Je rends grâces au ciel que votre indifférence
De mes heureux soupirs m'apprenne l'innocence.
…..
Mes remords vous faisaient une injure mortelle;
Il faut se croire aimé pour se croire infidèle.
…..
J'ai craint de vous trahir, peut-être je vous sers.
…..
Rien ne vous engageait à m'aimer en effet.

The poison of these words reaches the depths of Hermione's heart, and she reacts in one of the most passionate speeches that Racine ever wrote. I shall quote most of it. Notice the way in which the meter, the accenting of the syllables, infallibly brings out the emotional emphasis; notice the ebb and flow of passion, now headlong and menacing, now subdued and pleading; and observe particularly the subtle shift during several lines from the tu to the vous form of address, where for the moment the fierceness of her love-hatred which justifies the familiar second singular gives way to a restrained, courteous form of final appeal made in the formal second plural; and finally note how, as she scrutinizes Pyrrhus' face and sees no sign of sympathy or coöperation, her passion surges up again and she reverts to the brutal-tender tu:

Je ne t'ai point aimé, cruel! Qu'ai-je donc fait?
…..
Je t'aimais inconstant, qu'aurais-je fait fidèle?
Et même en ce moment où ta bouche cruelle
Vient si tranquillement m'annoncer le trépas,
Ingrat, je doute encor si je ne t'aime pas.
Mais, Seigneur, s'il le faut, si le ciel en colère
Réserve à d'autres yeux la gloire de vous plaire,
Achevez votre hymen, j'y consens. Mais du moins
Ne forcez pas mes yeux d'en être les témoins.
Pour la dernière fois je vous parle peut-être:
Différez-le d'un jour; demain vous serez maître.
Vous ne répondez point. Perfide, je le voi,
Tu comptes les moments que tu perds avec moi!
Ton cœur, impatient de revoir ta Troyenne,
Ne souffre qu'à regret qu'un autre t'entretienne.
Tu lui parles du cœur, tu la cherches des yeux.
Je ne te retiens plus, sauve-toi de ces lieux:
Va lui jurer la foi que tu m'avais jurée,
Va profaner des Dieux la majesté sacrée.
Ces Dieux, ces justes Dieux n'auront pas oublié
Que les mêmes serments avec moi t'ont lié.
Porte aux pieds des autels ce cœur qui m'abandonne;
Va, cours. Mais crains encor d'y trouver Hermione.

As Hermione rushes with this last warning from the stage, Phoenix expresses fear as to her purpose. But Pyrrhus turns coolly to him, saying:

Andromaque m'attend. Phoenix, garde son fils.

Act V

The last act begins with a long distracted monologue by Hermione, more or less in the tradition of French tragedy. Even at this more than eleventh hour she wavers between her love and her hatred of Pyrrhus. At the end of the speech she is inclining toward saving him at the last moment:

L'assassiner, le perdre? Ah! devant qu'il expire….

At this juncture Cléone enters and informs Hermione of Pyrrhus' radiant happiness as he leads his bride to the altar. In a line that paints vividly the bridegroom's bliss, she tells how she saw him

S'enivrer en marchant du plaisir de la voir.

At once Hermione is again all hate. But she longs to know if Pyrrhus did not give some sign of worrying about what she might do.

Mais as-tu bien, Cléone, observé son visage?
Goûte-t-il des plaisirs tranquilles et parfaits?
N'a-t-il point détourné ses yeux vers le palais?

Cléone replies,

Madame, il ne voit rien. Son salut et sa gloire
Semblent être avec vous sortis de sa mémoire.

Here let us give a full section of the dialogue:

Cléone says that Orestes had entered the temple, still hesitant. Then Hermione flies into another fury, where the humiliation and despair of the proud woman whom both suitors have gone back upon are rendered once more with great power. Her outburst ends with wild and whirling words, announcing she will do the deed herself:

Je ne choisirai point dans ce désordre extrême:
Tout me sera Pyrrhus, fût-ce Oreste lui-même.
Je mourrai; mais au moins ma mort me vengera:
Je ne mourrai pas seule, et quelqu'un me suivra.

As she utters this shriek, Orestes, pale and haggard, suddenly appears in the doorway, and she hears these words:

Madame, c'en est fait, et vous êtes servie:
Pyrrhus rend à l'autel son infidèle vie.

From Hermione comes nothing but three stunned words,

Il est mort?

Orestes, oblivious to the transformation that is taking place in Hermione, gives a detailed account of the scene in the temple where Pyrrhus, just as he was putting the crown on Andromache's head, was attacked by such a crowd of Greeks that Orestes himself could not find a place to strike. He himself saw Pyrrhus fall at the altar; and then he hurried out to come and carry off his beloved Hermione. Hermione has yet only half realized what has taken place. She gasps out,

Qu'ont-ils fait?

Orestes thinks she is disappointed that he did not slay Pyrrhus with his own hand as her envoy.

Pardonnez à leur impatience.
…..
Mais c'est moi dont l'ardeur leur a servi d'exemple;
…..
Madame, et vous pouvez justement vous flatter
D'une mort que leurs bras n'ont fait qu'exécuter.
Vous seule avez poussé les coups….

These words, intended to appease her, have the effect of arousing her at last to full consciousness of what has happened; all her hatred for the dead Pyrrhus vanishes and her love comes rushing back in a tide. She springs at Orestes like a tigress, and overwhelms him with a tirade which ends with that famous cry, the masterpiece of irony and unreason, "Qui te l'a dit?"

Here the play, as psychological action, virtually ends. The rest is the clearing-up of "unfinished business" which the tradition of tragedy, as Racine states in one of his prefaces, requires. We have Orestes' consternation, then the news of Hermione's suicide and Andromache's succession to control of the state, and finally the onset of Orestes' madness.

I trust that my analytical summary of this play will have made clear to the reader Racine's methods in the conduct of plot, the nature of his characterization, and the main features of his style. No play of his could represent all of these so fully as Andromaque. It is to be hoped that some tenacious misconceptions about French tragedy have been dispelled and that its passionateness, the continuity of its psychological action, its elimination of every irrelevance, its vivid portraiture of real life, and the forceful simplicity and directness of its style have impressed themselves on the reader.

Andromaque had a sensational success, equaling that of Le Cid thirty years before. Madame de Sévigné, who saw it played by a country troupe at Vitré near her country residence of Les Rochers in Brittany, had to admit its effectiveness: "I went to the play; it was Andromaque, which made me weep more than six tears; that's enough for a country troupe." However, the Corneille clique, on the whole, gave it grudging admiration. Saint-Evremond, in a Lettre à M. de Lionne, said, "All in all, it is a fine play, much above the average but a little below greatness," and in a second Lettre made the curious remark that "one might go further in the passions." From the stinging epigrams of Racine against the Marquis de Créqui and the Comte d'Olonne we infer what their conversational criticisms against Andromaque were. But the sharpest attack on the play was the parody by Subligny, La Folle Querelle ou la Critique d'Andromaque, played by Molière's troupe in 1668 and suspected by some at the time of being from Molière's own hand.

The criticisms against Andromaque were mainly of the niggling sort, such as were characteristic of seventeenth-century criticism and such as Corneille had had to put up with a generation before. Racine had failed to observe some of the minute laws of the theater; he had altered history more than a dramatist is permitted to do; he had not observed verisimilitude in making a gentleman like Pyrrhus go back on his engagement, etc., etc. Often the criticisms destroy each other: to some Pyrrhus is too brutal, to others he is too refined and galant for a barbaric king. But there were just two lines of criticism that got under Racine's skin. One was Subligny's objections to certain of his expressions as insufficiently correct and pure. The style of Britannicus will be noticeably more carefully worked over, chaster than that of Andromaque. Above all, the critics, while praising the moving character of his play, seemed to question his ability to rise to the "beautés pleines" of Corneille and write a great historical and political tragedy. Racine's reply will be to write Britannicus….

Britannicus was first performed at the Hôtel de Bourgogne on December 13, 1669. In the "Second Preface" (written for the 1676 edition of his plays) Racine said: "This is the one of all my tragedies on which I may say that I have bestowed the most pains … if I have done anything solid and deserving of praise, most connaisseurs agree that it is this same Britannicus." From this passage of Racine himself comes the common designation of this play as the "pièce des connaisseurs." This phrase, taken along with Racine's remarks, suggests very neatly both the stronger and the weaker points of Britannicus. Racine has put into the making of this play all his talent and artistic conscience, but, I think, a somewhat less full measure of spontaneity than he put into Andromaque. As a matter of fact, Britannicus is what the French call a gageure; it originated in the deliberate desire to beat Corneille at his own game, the great Roman play of political ambition and plots. This inevitably put a certain constraint on Racine, and it is a great tribute to the flexibility of his talent that he came off with such honors as he did.

The central theme of the play is the emergence of Nero the monster from Nero the benevolent monarch of the early years of his reign; and the immediate provocation of this vicious development is the sudden sensual passion he conceives for Junia, the fiancée of Britannicus, and his resulting jealousy and criminal intents regarding the latter. This is the real Racinian core of the play and of all that is most typical of the dramatist in its characterization and situation. But this inner plot is enmeshed in a grandiose fabric of Agrippina's machinations to recover her influence over Nero out of the hands of his adviser Burrhus and of the tug of war between Burrhus, the virtuous counsellor and Narcissus the evil one, for the soul of Nero. The play ends with the poisoning of Britannicus by Nero.

Racine found his material mainly in Tacitus, to whom his debt extends far beyond the limits of the historic facts. In his second Preface, indeed, he is rather overmodest about his own originality: "I had copied my characters from the greatest painter of antiquity, I mean from Tacitus. And I was then so filled with my reading of this excellent historian that there is hardly a striking touch in my tragedy that did not come from his suggestion." It may be added that many of the speeches are veritable centos of Tacitus. But Racine's deepest debt to Tacitus, probably, is the atmosphere which pervades the play, and this is perhaps its most striking feature. Andromaque seems to take place outside of time and space, so complete is the interpenetration of ancient and modern traits in its characters. Britannicus is definitely localized in Nero's Rome. The spell of imperial Rome—and of just that moment of imperial Rome—is upon us from the first line to the last, its grandeur and its corruption, its sense of world-responsibility and its criminality; and this is subtly conveyed without any recourse to the Romantic methods of calling up local color, without any descriptions of Lucullan banquets or visions of the Circus Maximus. To a large extent this atmosphere is summoned up simply by the style itself, which is of Tacitean terseness, like the inscriptions hammered out on a Roman coin. Here, instead of the passionate expansiveness of Andromaque, we have a menacing reticence and concentration. The music is not that of the high notes of the violin and the woodwinds; it is the diapason of the double-basses and the tubas. This is, no doubt, what Boileau meant when he said that Racine had never written more "sententious verses." Ever since the seventeenth century, critics have been agreed that the style of Britannicus has a sustained purity and firmness unequaled by any of his other "profane" tragedies, and is freer from the abuses of the jargon of gallantry.

The center of interest, of course, is Nero himself, one of the greatest portraits of a historic figure in dramatic literature. From the moment the young voluptuary enters the stage, saying to Narcissus:

Narcisse, c'en est fait, Néron est amoureux

to the last terrible line—surely one of the most remarkable that ever ended a play—in which the horrified Burrhus leaves us, as the curtain falls, looking down a perspective of the criminal future,

Plût aux Dieux que ce fût le dernier de ses crimes!

we sit spellbound before this remorseless unfolding of a vicious nature. For that is what it is—an unfolding, not a development. There would be no time within the twenty-four-hour scheme of French tragedy for the development of a virtuous nature into a criminal one. Racine says: "I am not representing him as a virtuous man, for he never was one. In a word, he is a monstre naissant." The rapid unfolding of the monster is explained by the sudden concourse of his violent passion for Junia with Agrippina's insistent nagging and Narcissus' wily temptings. The psychological action of the play is made up of the alternating advances of Nero toward villainy and his relapses into virtue according as he lends an ear to Narcissus or to Agrippina and Burrhus.

And just there we put our finger on what seems to me a relative weakness in the play as compared with Andromaque. The sparks which the current of the plot—or the dialogue—is constantly emitting in the latter play come from the fact that all the characters between whom the current passes carry an equal charge of emotion. Now in Britannicus Nero himself is heavily charged, but the other personages who converse with him—though we know theoretically that they too are feeling intensely—too often use an oratorical style, full of moral and political argument rather than of direct passion. This does not apply to the superb duel between Nero and Britannicus in Act III, nor, in general, to the interviews between Nero and Narcissus, especially the masterly decisive interview in Act IV. In the latter Racine manages to make us feel, under the reasonings of Narcissus—surely worthy of rank with Iago as one of the two arch-insinuators of literature—the throbbing of his evil and self-seeking heart. I must confess that I do not feel these throbbings under the well-marshaled arguments of Burrhus nor even under those of Agrippina, grand as this latter figure is in its statuesque way. As for Britannicus and Junia, though they come to life occasionally they are admitted to be, on the whole, rather conventional figures. Corresponding to this lower tension of the psychological action is the relatively archaic character of the dialogue. In Andromaque Racine had developed a wonderfully flexible scheme of broken and semi-colloquial dialogue within the framework of the Alexandrine couplets. In Britannicus he reverts, again under the shadow of Corneille, to the older forms of the long harangue—Agrippina's speech to Nero in Act IV has over one hundred lines—and of stichomythia (the modeling of the retort in a dialogue on the same lines as the speech of the first interlocutor).

I should be very sorry, however, if, by using several times the expression "the shadow of Corneille," I left the impression that the net result of Racine's gageure was the production of an imitation of Corneille. I am speaking of a cause, not of an effect. The general effect of the play is not Cornelian, but thoroughly Racinian. Even Agrippina, the nearest of all Racine's characters, except Mithridates, to the heroic types of the older dramatist, is a study in nuances that Corneille would have been either incapable or contemptuous of. She is shown not merely as the ambitious plotter but as the mother who resents the loss of her influence over her son, not merely as the clever dialectician but as the woman liable to imprudent fits of temper. Similarly Burrhus and Narcissus are much more complex, much less tout d'une pièce, than such types would be in Corneille. Burrhus' virtue is mitigated by certain prudential considerations; Narcissus is a villain of a subtlety and psychological insight never before seen in drama outside of Shakespeare.

After these general considerations on Britannicus, I shall refer to or quote some of the more striking passages of the play, without, however, attempting a continuous analysis of the action after the manner of our dissection of Andromaque.

The first act is Agrippina's. In two long discussions, one with her confidante Albine, and one with Burrhus, she complains of the way in which Nero and his advisers are treating her; she is particularly alarmed by the news of the abduction by Nero of Junia, Britannicus' fiancée. Britannicus had been jockeyed out of the succession to the imperial throne on the death of his father, Claudius, by Agrippina's machinations in behalf of Nero, her son by Domitius Ahenobarbus. But now Agrippina, in order to preserve a sort of balance of power, is supporting the marriage of Britannicus and Junia against Nero's wishes. Agrippina's speeches are imposing in their metallic Roman gravity and show the "sententious" quality of the style at its most striking….

The second act begins with the fine scene between Nero and Narcissus containing the justly celebrated speech in which the former describes the circumstances under which his sudden passion for Junia flamed up. The description is not only marvelously picturesque in itself (it has been compared to a Delacroix painting)—thereby dispelling the idea that Racine's style is always abstract—but the importance attached to the influence of romantic accessories in the genesis of a love affair is surely very modern. Further, the whole aesthetic coloring of the passage suggests the Nero who died exclaiming, "Qualis artifex pereo"; certain lines even suggest discreetly the decadent and the sadist in him. The piece is striking also for the musical beauty of the verse….

Later in the act comes the almost equally fine scene between Nero and Junia in which he declares his intention to make her his wife. The dissimulation, the steel hand under the velvet glove, and the cruel irony of Nero are painted in masterly strokes. Did the pride of the Roman emperors ever blaze forth in such terrifying splendor as in the short dialogue where Nero declares his plans to the astounded Junia? Junia has just said that, in paying court to her, Britannicus is but following Agrippina's, and therefore, she supposes, Nero's own wishes.

Toward the end of this scene Nero adds horror to her amazement by announcing a cruel stratagem. He has told Narcissus to admit Britannicus to Junia's presence and to leave him under the impression that this interview has been procured for him without Nero's knowledge. He now announces to Junia that Britannicus is about to appear before her. Her joy at this announcement is quelled by Nero's further explanation:

Je pouvais de ces lieux lui défendre l'entrée;
Mais, Madame, je veux prévenir le danger
Où son ressentiment le pourrait engager.
Je ne veux point le perdre. Il vaut mieux que lui-même
Entende son arrêt de la bouche qu'il aime.
Si ses jours vous sont chers, élognez-le de vous,
Sans qu'il ait aucum lieu de me croire jaloux.
De son bannissement prenez sur vous l'offense;
Et soit par vos discours, soit par votre silence,
Du moins par vos froideurs, faites-lui concevoir
Qu'il doit porter ailleurs ses vœux et son espoir.

When Junia objects that, even if she could obey Nero in her words, her eyes would betray her real feelings to Britannicus, Nero replies,

Caché près de ces lieux, je vous verrai, Madame.
Renfermez votre amour dans le fond de votre âme.
Vous n'aurez point pour moi de languages secrets:
J'entendrai des regards que vous croirez muets:
Et sa perte sera l'infaillible salaire
D'un geste ou d'un soupir échappé pour lui plaire.

(Note the boldness of expression of the fourth line in the above.)

This scene is not only very dramatic in itself, but it ushers in another scene (the interview announced) the peculiar intensity of which can be imagined from the very way in which it is announced. Junia carries out Nero's cruel instructions with great skill. She warns Britannicus in these significant, yet noncommittal words:

Vous êtes en des lieux tout pleins de sa puissance.
Ces murs même, Seigneur, peuvent avoir des yeux;
Et jamais l'Empereur n'est absent de ces lieux.

Britannicus, naturally, misunderstands her attitude and goes out heartbroken.

The high-spot of Act III is the superb encounter between Nero and Britannicus. While Agrippina and Nero are in consultation, Junia escapes to seek Britannicus and, finding him, reveals the secret of her strange behavior during the recent interview. As Britannicus throws himself at her feet in remorse for his misunderstanding of her intentions, Nero enters. The spirited passage at arms which follows, in which Racine manages to convey the majesty of a Roman emperor as well as the jealousy, the controlled fury, and the arrogance of Nero, is largely composed in the archaic form of stichomythia mentioned above, which gives it a flavor of the encounter between Don Diègue and Don Gomez in Le Cid….

The famous scene between Agrippina and Nero in Act IV, which begins with the mother's homely and patronizing,

Approchez-vous, Néron, et prenez votre place,

to the son who has just put her under virtual arrest, and which ends with Nero's apparent yielding to her wishes, is utterly incapable of illustration by extracts. But some idea of the snakelike Narcissus at his best (or worst) in the last scene of Act IV where he neutralizes the effect of Burrhus' pleadings in the preceding scene may be gained from the following fragment. Narcissus arrives with the news that preparations are complete for the poisoning of Britannicus. Note the cool cynicism of his first speech, his quick utilization of Nero's revised decision to enforce still more strongly his own point of view, and the short, sharp struggle with Nero's conscience which he brings to triumphant issue by his poisonous allusion to Agrippina's boastings.

It is impossible to quote the lengthy closing speech of the scene; but the psychological subtlety of Narcissus is well illustrated by this fragment:

It is unnecessary to dwell on Act V. Except for the effective final line (quoted above), the denouement has been usually admitted to be lacking in power and to be too long drawn-out. It has nothing of the sharp dramatic impact that is so striking in the close of Andromaque.

Britannicus was not a success at first. This was a great chagrin to Racine, for he considered it, as we have seen, one of his most painstaking efforts. Yet in his second Preface he admits "that its success did not at first come up to my hopes." This is confirmed by the testimony of Boursault, who in the opening pages of his novel Artémise et Poliante (1670) has left us a vivid account of the play's first performance. We see old Corneille "alone in a box" and the members of the authors' cabale scattered about, "for fear of being recognized." Boursault reports that all admitted the beauty of the verse but criticized severely the action and the characters. From pointed and bitter references in Racine's first Preface we gather that Corneille had put himself at the head and front of this critical offending. One of the objections that Racine takes up concerns his alteration of the ages of Britannicus and Narcissus. "I should not have spoken of this objection," he adds, "if it had not been made with some heat by a man who has taken the liberty to make an emperor reign twenty years who reigned only eight." This is an unmistakable reference to Corneille's Héraclius. Later on he asks, "What would one have to do to satisfy such finicky judges? It would be easy, if one were willing to betray good sense. All that would be necessary would be to depart from nature in order to plunge into the fantastic … for example, represent some drunk hero who would fain make his mistress hate him out of pure gayety of heart, a Lacedæmonian who is a great talker, a conqueror who did nothing but utter love-maxims, a woman who gave lessons in pride to conquerors." These last are definite allusions to Corneille's plays Attila, Agésilas, and Pompée. Britannicus had the effect therefore of exacerbating the quarrel between Racine and Corneille's party.

It is probable that from the reception of his Britannicus Racine concluded that the taste for great political discussions was passing away and that he would do better to confine himself to the passion of love, which, after all, was his forte and which had served him so well in Andromaque. In Bérénice he was to find a way of doing this and at the same time of preserving a Cornelian element.