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"I have a surprising facility in writing my verses," said the young tragic author ingenuously. "I want to teach you to write them with difficulty," answered Boileau, "and you have talent enough to learn before long." Andromaque was the result of this novel effort, and was Racine's real commencement. He was henceforth irrevocably committed to the theatrical cause.
Eve and her serpent seem to me a pretty little case of symbolical adultery; you must suppress the Psalms of David, inspired by the highly adulterous love affairs of that Louis XIV. of Judah; you must make a bonfire of Mithridate, le Tartuffe, l'Ecole des Femmes, Phedre, Andromaque, le Mariage de Figaro, Dante's Inferno, Petrarch's Sonnets, all the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the romances of the Middle Ages, the History of France, and of Rome, etc., etc.
It was here, too, that the most exalted and noble masterpieces of Corneille and Racine Le Cid, Andromaque and Phèdre were first enacted.
We now boarded the ship, which I should have said was the Andromaque, and having searched every part of her to ascertain that none of her crew or any prisoners she might have taken remained on board, we set her on fire fore and aft, so effectually that even had the Frenchmen returned and attempted to put out the flames they would have found it impossible to do so.
I thought of the preceding night, of the Orestes of Andromaque who agreed to sacrifice Pyrrhus. A literary situation indeed.... Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had reckoned eight days to get to the wooded country of the Awellimiden, forerunners of the grassy steppes of the Soudan. He knew well the worth of his beast.
Gray's bard might be sent to the lock-up, but even he would find bail. "C'est imiter quelqu'un que de planter des choux." Corneille's tragedy of "Pertharite" was acted unsuccessfully in 1659. Racine made free use of it in his more fortunate "Andromaque." Dryden's publisher. Preface to the Fables.
They then played Andromaque; and, whether it was that the actresses were better chosen, or gained in grace through experience, it was only too well represented for Madame de Maintenon, causing her to fear that this amusement would fill them with sentiments the reverse of those which she wished to inspire.
My dear, let us be careful never to compare Racine with him, let us always feel the difference; never will the former rise any higher than Andromaque. Long live our old friend Corneille! Let us forgive his bad verses for the sake of those divine and sublime beauties which transport us. They are master-strokes which are inimitable." Corneille had seen Bajazet.
Next comes M. Bregaint in a scene from Andromaque: he is so bad, so very bad, that the audience are moved to sudden outbursts of hilarity by his grand tragic points. He is succeeded by a boy of sixteen, tall and graceful, with a fine tragic face of the heroic Kemble mould, and great blue-gray eyes that dilate or contract beneath the impulses of the moment a born actor from head to foot.
After speaking of lyric tragedies, I should have mentioned those which are either in rehearsal, or intended to be brought forward at this theatre. They consist of Hecube, Andromaque, Semiramis, and Tamerlan. Although none of them are spoken of very highly, they will, in all probability, succeed in a certain degree; for a piece scarcely ever has a complete fall at the opera.
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