Remorentin la parte rememore:
Cognac s'en cogne en sa poitrine blême,
Anjou faict jou, Angoulême est de même.
These fine ideas are not such as at once present themselves to express the grief of nations. Many instances of this depraved taste might be adduced; but we shall content ourselves with this, which is the most striking of all.
In the second era of the human mind in France—in the time of Balzac, Mairet, Rotrou, Corneille—applause was given to every thought that surprised by new images, which were called "wit." These lines of the tragedy of "Pyramus" were very well received:
Ah! voici le poignard qui du sang de son maître
Sest souillé lâchement; il en rougit, le traître!
Behold the dagger which has basely drunk
Its master's blood! See how the traitor blushes!
There was thought to be great art in giving feeling to this dagger, in making it red with shame at being stained with the blood of Pyramus, as much as with the blood itself. No one exclaimed against Corneille, when, in his tragedy of "Andromeda," Phineus says to the sun:
Tu luis, soleil, et ta lumière
Semble se plaire à m'affliger.
Ah! mon amour te va bien obliger
À quitter soudain ta carrière.
Viens, soleil, viens voir la beauté,
Dont le divin éclat me dompte,
Et tu fuiras de honte
D'avoir moins de clarté.
O sun, thou shinest, and thy light
Seems to take pleasure in my woe;
But soon my love shall shame thee quite,
And be thy glory's overthrow.
Come, come, O sun, and view the face
Whose heavenly splendor I adore;
Then wilt thou flee apace,
And show thy own no more.
The sun flying because he is not so bright as Andromeda's face, is not at all inferior to the blushing dagger. If such foolish sallies as these found favor with a public whose taste it has been so difficult to form, we cannot be surprised that strokes of wit, in which some glimmering of beauty is discernible, should have had these charms.
Not only was this translation from the Spanish admired:
Ce sang qui, tout versé, fume encor de courroux,
De se voir répandu pour d'autres que pour vous.
—CID, act ii, sc. 9.
This blood, still foaming with indignant rage,
That it was shed for others, not for you;—
not only was there thought to be a very spirited refinement in the line of Hypsipyle to Medea, in the "Golden Fleece": "I have attractions only; you have charms;" but it was not perceived—and few connoisseurs perceive it yet—that in the imposing part of Cornelia, the author almost continually puts wit where grief alone was required. This woman, whose husband has just been assassinated, begins her studied speech to Cæsar with a "for":