NOTES A MONSEIGNEUR LE CARDINAL DUC DE RICHELIEU This dedicatory letter is of great interest. Extravagant flattery was customary in epistles of this kind, and Corneille, particularly, never understood the art of flattering with delicacy. Yet, to interpret it merely as an evidence of this spirit would conceal its real import. It is well known that one of the causes precipitating the Quarrel of the Cid lay in the tone of the Excuse à Ariste,1 one of the early poems of Corneille, in which he presents his excuses to a friend for not writing a lyric poem which had been asked of him, because his muse excelled in dramatic composition. Utilizing this opportunity, he then praises his work, and boldly claims that he owed his fame as a dramatist solely to his merit. Je ne dois qu'à moi seul toute ma renommée, 11. 50-52. Published in 1637, after the appearance of the Cid, when Corneille was drawing a yearly pension from Richelieu (though without question composed several years earlier), it contains the following line, which could easily be construed by the cardinal as evidence of the deepest ingratitude: Et les vers à présent Aux meilleurs du métier n'apportent que du vent. 1 Cp. Euvres Complètes, x, pp. 74-78. 11. 27-28. Richelieu must have been offended by this attitude, and it is very probable that his prominent position in the famous Quarrel was to a certain degree determined by this proud boast of Corneille, which irritated other authors as well. The first of the two passages cited here served as text for several pamphlets published during the dispute. The whole poem should be read in connection with this letter, but enough has been cited to indicate Corneille's attitude of mind when he resolved to dedicate Horace to the cardinal. The letter contains evident references to Richelieu's munificence, and the constant theme is to magnify his influence upon the theatre, and to confess that the writer's literary reputation was due, not to his own merits, but to the cardinal's protection. In fact, the lines of the Roman poet Horace adapted to himself at the end are a complete retraction of the boastful claims of the Excuse, which must have been perfectly evident to Richelieu. For one who can read between the lines, the letter thus becomes an important document, indicating the result of the Quarrel, and showing Corneille's attitude upon the eve of the publication of the play which follows after the Cid. Compare also the note to line 1301. 2. bienfaits; the reference is to the annual pension of 1,500 livres, which Corneille had received since 1635. 3. muse de province; Corneille lived in Rouen until 1662. 4. Scipion et Lælie. The reference is to a passage in the prologue of Terence's Andria. Scipio and Lælius were looked upon in Rome as the collaborators of Terence, and some even maintained that they were the real authors of the comedies that go under his name. This belief was commonly accepted in the XVII. century. Honnête homme meant gentleman with polished manners and learning. 5. Richelieu died the following year (1642), and was already sick, when Corneille wrote these lines. 6. It is all your gift that I am pointed out by passers-by as a scenic artist not to be despised. That I am inspired and please, if such be the case, is your work. The lines are taken from Horace, Odes, book iv., ode 3. Corneille changed the third line, which in the original reads Romanae fidicen lyrae, a player on the Roman lyre, i. e., a lyric poet. TITUS LIVIUS This extract from Livy's History of Rome, chapters XXIIIXXVI, was added by Corneille to the editions of the play which appeared between 1648 and 1656. Part of chapter XXIV, relating incidents falling between the conclusion of the Treaty between the Romans and Albans, and the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii, was omitted by him, as having no direct bearing upon the plot of the play. EXAMEN 1. The Examens were written by Corneille for the complete edition of his plays, which he published in 1660. They formed a continuous essay there, divided into sections only to agree with the plays contained in the different volumes of the edition. Since 1692 it has been the custom to print each portion of the Examens with the play to which it belongs. 2. Boileau said in the preface to his Traité du Sublime, translated from Longinus, "les trois premiers actes (of Horace) sont à mon avis le chef-d'œuvre de cet illustre écrivain." 3. Cp. the stage directions to ll. 1318–1321. 4. The rule that blood must not be shed upon the stage, to which Corneille alludes here, was based upon Horace's Ars Poetica, 11. 179-188. The reference to Aristotle's Poetics is to chapter XI at the end. 5. Corneille refers here to Seneca's tragedy, Medea, which he had reworked in 1635. The Latin author had, indeed, represented Medea killing her children before the eyes of the spectators, contrary to the advice of Horace, Ars Poetica, 1. 185, to which Corneille has just alluded. 6. The reference is to Corneille's Discours sur la Tragédie, the second of three essays which appeared in the same year as the Examens. In the passage alluded to here, he suggested, that in the plays dealing with the story of Orestes, the death of Clytemnestra might be shown on the stage, if Orestes attacked Ægisthus, and she, wishing to protect her lover, rushed between the two, and thus received the blow intended for another; cp. Euvres Complètes, I p. 81. 7. In the passage which follows Corneille answers the criticisms of the Abbé d'Aubignac; cp. Introduction, p. vi. |