Her husband Pertharite, who had been believed to be dead, is alive: he returns and is made prisoner by Grimoalde, and Rodolinde, fearing ruin, decides to avenge him or to perish with him. But he sees the situation in which he finds himself with his consort in a different light objectively: he sees it as a conquered king, who bows his head to the decision of destiny, recognises the right of the conqueror and holds ever aloft in his soul the idea of regal majesty. So he asserts it with firmness and serenity, going beyond all personal feelings, in order that he may consider only what appertains both to the rights and duties of a king:
Quand ces devoirs communs out d'importunes lois,La majesté du trône en dispense les rois;Leur gloire est au-dessus des règles ordinaires,Et cet honneur n'est beau que pour les cœurs vulgaires.Sitôt qu'un roi vaincu tombe aux mains du vainqueur,Il a trop mérité la dernière rigueur.Ma mort pour Grimoald ne peut avoir de crime:Le soin de s'affermir lui rend tout légitime.Quand j'aurai dans ses fers cessé de respirer,Donnez-lui votre main sans rien considérer;Epargnez les efforts d'une impuissante haine,Et permettez au Ciel de vous faire encor reine.
The courageous and sagacious Nicomède speaks kingly words of a different sort, well calculated to arouse him and make him lift up his head, to the vacillating father, who wishes to content both Rome and the queen, establish agreement between love and nature, be father and husband:
—Seigneur, voulez-vous bien vous en fier à moi?Ne soyez l'un ni l'autre.—Et que dois-je être?—Roi.Reprenez hautement ce noble caractère.Un véritable roi n'est ni mari ni père;Il regarde son trône, et rien de plus. Régnez;Rome vous craindra plus que vous ne la craignez.Malgré cette puissance et si vaste et si grande,Vous pouvez déjà voir comme elle m'appréhende,Combien en me perdant elle espère gagner,Parce qu'elle prévoit que je saurai régner.
Let us listen also for a moment to the Christian Theodora, who has been granted the time to choose between offering incense to the gods and being abandoned to the soldiery in the public brothel:
Quelles sont vos rigueurs, si vous les nommez grâce!Et que choix voulez-vous qu'une chrétienne fasse,Réduite à balancer son esprit agitéEntre l'idolâtrie et l'impudicité?Le choix est inutile où les maux sont extrêmes.Reprenez votre grâce, et choisissez vous-mêmes:Quiconque peut choisir consent à l'un des deux,Et le consentement est seul lâche et honteux.Dieu, tout juste et tout bon, qui lit dans nos pensées,N'impute point de crime aux actions forcées;Soit que vous contraigniez pour vos dieux impuissansMon corps à l'infamie ou ma main à l'encens,Je saurai conserver d'une âme résolueÀ l'époux sans macule une épouse impollue.
She really doesbalanceherself mentally at the parting of the ways placed before her, analyses it and formulates her determination, rejecting as cowardly both the choice of the sacrilege and of the shameful punishment and casting it in the teeth of her unworthy oppressors. It is the only answer that befits the Christian virgin, firm in her determination of saving her constancy in the faith and modesty, which resides not only in the will, but also in desire itself. The expression of her intention has just such a tone and adopts just the formulae of a theologian speaking by her mouth—"le consentment," "l'époux sans macule," "l'épouse impollue."
InTheseusof theOedipethe poet himself protests against a conception that menaces the foundation of his spirit itself, because it offendsthe idea of free choice and makes unsteady the consciousness that man has of being able to determine upon a line of conduct according to reason. He is protesting against the ancient idea of fate, or rather against its revival in modern form, as the Jansenist doctrine of grace:
Quoi! la nécessité des vertus et des vicesD'un astre impérieux doit suivre les caprices,Et Delphes, malgré nous, conduit nos actionsAu plus bizarre effet de ses prédictions?L'âme est donc toute esclave: une loi souveraineVers le bien ou le mal incessamment l'entraîne;Et nous ne recevons ni crainte ni désirDe cette liberté qui n'a rien à choisir,Attachés sans relâche à cet ordre sublime,Vertueux sans mérite et vicieux sans crime.Qu'on massacre les rois, qu'on brise les autels,C'est la faute des dieux et non pas des mortels:De toute la vertu sur la terre épandueTout le prix à ces dieux, toute la gloire est due:Ils agissent en nous quand nous pensons agir;Alors qu'on délibère, on ne fait qu'obéir;Et notre volonté n'aime, hait, cherche, évite,Que suivant que d'en haut leur bras la précipite!D'un tel aveuglement daignez me dispenser.Le Ciel, juste à punir, juste à récompenser,Peur rendre aux actions leur perte ou leur salare,Doit nous offrir son aide et puis nous laisser faire....
What indignation, what a revolt of the whole being against the thought that"quand on délibère, on ne fait qu' obéir"! How he defends the liberty, not only of the"virtus,"but also of the"vices,"the liberty"de nous laisser faire!"This eloquence of the will and of liberty, this singing declamation, is the true lyricism of Corneille, intimate and substantial, and not the so-called "lyrical pieces," which he inserted into his tragedies here and there. These are lyrical in the formal and restricted scholastic sense of the term, but they are often as affected as the monologue of Rodrigue, which is accompanied by a refrain. Others have demonstrated in an accurately analytical manner that he lacks lyricism or poetry of style; that the construction of his phrase is logical, with its "because," its "but," its "then," that he over-abounds in maxims and altogether ignores metaphor, the picturesque and musicality. But the same writer who has maintained this, has also declared that his poetry is to be found, if not in the coloured image and in the musical sound, then certainly "in the rhythm, in the wide or rapid vibration of the strophe, which extends or transports the thought" (Lanson): that is tosay, in making this admission, he has confuted his previous mean and narrow theory concerning poetry and lyricism. The other judgment is to the effect that Corneille is not a poet by style, but by the conception and meaning of his works—that he is a latent poet or one who dressed up his thought in prose. But it is unthinkable that there should exist latent poets, who do not manifest themselves in poetic form. The truth of the matter is that where Corneille felt as a poet, he expressed himself as a poet, without many-coloured metaphors, without musical trills and softnesses of expression, but with many maxims, many conjunctive particles, declaratory and expressive of opposition. He employed the latter rather than the former, because he had need of the latter and not of the former. His rhythm too, which has been so much praised and owing to which his alexandrine rings out so differently from the mechanical alexandrines of his imitators, the rhetoricians, is nothing but his spirit itself, noble and solemn, debating and deliberating, resolute, unafraid and firm in its rational determinations.
Corneille's keenest adversaries have always been compelled to recognise in him a residuum, which withstood their destructive criticism.Vauvenargues said that "he sometimes expressed himself with great energy and no one has more loftly traits, no one has left behind him the idea of a dialogue so closely compacted and so vehement, or has depicted with equal felicity the power and the inflexibility of the soul, which come to it from virtue. There are astonishing flashes that come forth even from the disputes and upon which I commented unfavourably, there are battles that really elevate the heart, and finally, although he frequently removes himself from nature, it must be confessed that he depicts her with great directness and vigour in many places, and only there is he to be admired." Jacobi, in an essay which is an indictment, was however, compelled to excogitate or to beg for the reason of such fame; he found himself obliged to praise the many vivacious scenes, the depth of discourse, the loftiness of expression, to be found scattered here and there in those tragedies. Although Schiller did not care for him at all, he made an exception for "the part that is properly speakingheroic," which was "felicitously treated," although he added that "even this vein, which is not rich in itself, was treated monotonously." Schlegel was struck with certain passages and with the style which is often powerful and concise and De Sanctis observed that Corneille was in his own field, when he portrayed greatness of soul, not in its gradations and struggles, but "as nature and habit, in the security of possession." A German philologist, after he has run down the tragedies of the "quadrilateral," judges Corneille to be "a jurist and a cold man of intellect, although full of nobility and dignity of soul, but without clearness as to his own aptitudes, and without original creative power." This writer declares that "nowhere in his works do we feel the breath of genius that laughs at all restraints," but he goes on to make exception for the splendour of his "language." It seems somewhat difficult to make an exception for the language, precisely when discussing the question of poetical genius!
NOTE. [Schiller, etc...] I draw attention to it in this note, because I have never seen it mentioned: it is to be found in theCharactere der vornehmsten Dichter aller Nationen.... von einer Gesellschaft von Gelehrten(Leipzig, 1796), Vol. V, part I, pp. 38-138.
We certainly find monotony present in the figures that he sets before us, repetitions of thoughts and of schemes, analogies in the matter of process. Aconcordantia corneliana,explicatory of this side of his genius could beconstructed and perhaps the sole reason that this has not been done is because it would be too easy. Steinweg, whom we have quoted above, has provided a good instance of this. But even the monotony of Corneille must not be looked upon altogether as a proof of poverty, or a defect, but rather as an intrinsic characteristic of his austere inspiration, which was susceptible of assuming but few forms.
I cannot better close this discussion of Corneille than with the citation of a youthful page of Sainte-Beuve, which contains nothing but a fanciful comparison, but this comparison has much more to say to us, who have now completed the critical examination of his works, than Sainte-Beuve was himself able to say in his various critical writings relative to the poet, for he there shows himself to be at one moment inclined to be uncertain and to oscillate, at another inclined to yield to traditional judgments and conventional enthusiasms. This affords another proof, if such be necessary, that it is one thing to receive the sensible impression aroused by a poem and another to understand and to explain it. "Corneille"—wrote Sainte-Beuve,—"a pure genius, yet an incomplete one, gives me, with his qualities and hisdefects, the impression of those great trees, so naked, so gnarled, so sad and so monotonous as regards their trunk, and adorned with branches and dark green leaves only at their summits. They are strong, powerful, gigantic, having but little foliage; an abundant sap nourishes them; but you must not expect from them shelter, shade or flowers. They put forth their leaves late, lose them early and live a long while half dismantled. Even when their bald heads have abandoned their leaves to the winds of autumn, their vital nature still throws out here and there stray boughs and green shoots. When they are about to die, their groans and creakings are like that trunk, laden with arms, to which Lucan compared the great Pompey."