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Cornell University Library 
 PQ 1777.S45 
 
 Corneille and the Spanish drama, 
 
 3 1924 027 259 328 
 
(iCoIumliia SEni&ersitjr 
 
 STUDIES IN ROMANCE PHILOLOGY AND 
 LITERATURE 
 
 CORNEILLE 
 
 AND THE SPANISH DEAMA 
 
•J^^^y^' 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 THE SPANISH DRAMA 
 
 BY 
 
 J. B. SEGALL, Ph.D. (Columbia) 
 
 INSTRUCTOR IN FRENCH, COLLEOE OF THE CITY OF 
 
 NEW YORK; SOMETIME FELLOW IN ROMANCE 
 
 LANGUAGES IN COLUMBIA UNIVBKSITT 
 
 Wefa garfe 
 
 THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PEESS 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, Agents 
 
 66 Fifth Avenue 
 
 1902 
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 Ali rights reuerved 
 
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 Copyright, 1902, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped June, 1902. 
 
 J. S. CuBhIng & Co. -- Berwick & Smith 
 Norwood Masa. U.S.A, 
 
8Eo ttjz iWemorg of 
 MY PATHEE 
 
NOTE 
 
 The present work was completed but not 
 ready for the press when a book by M. Mar- 
 tinenche, La comedia espagnole en France au 
 dix-septieme giecle, was published. Of this 
 book, a portion deals with Corneille's relation 
 to the Spanish drama. The two works, how- 
 ever, differ entirely, both in method of treat- 
 ment and results. Despite the partial identity 
 of subject, they have little, if anything, in 
 common. 
 
 vil 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAOE 
 
 I. Spanish Influences 1 
 
 II. Early Plays 6 
 
 III. Clitandre 11 
 
 IV. L'Illusion 20 
 
 V. Le Cid 30 
 
 1. Las Mocedades del Cid ... 31 
 
 2. The Cid compared with the Mocedades 
 
 del Cid 54 
 
 3. Changes undergone by the Mocedades 
 
 del Cid 89 
 
 VI. Le Menteur 94 
 
 1. The Menteur compared with the Ver- 
 
 dad Sospechosa .... 94 
 
 2. Changes undergone by the Verdad 
 
 Sospechosa 126 
 
 VII. La Suite du Menteur .... 131 
 
 VnL Heraclius 139 
 
 IX. Don Sanche d'Aragon .... 145 
 is. 
 
I. SPANISH INFLUENCES 
 
 Ever since the reign of Charles V., Spain 
 had, for a considerable period, been the pre- 
 ponderating power in Europe. Her armies 
 invaded the Old and the New World. Toward 
 the end of the sixteenth century, the Two Sici- 
 lies, Sardinia, a considerable part of Northern 
 Italy, Cerdagne and Rousillon, Franche-Comte, 
 and the Netherlands, were all in the hands of 
 the Spaniards. As the allies of the Ligue, they 
 penetrated into the very heart of France, and 
 in 1591 a Spanish garrison was established 
 in Paris. The Catholics, constituting the vast 
 bulk of the French people, sympathized with, 
 and were assisted by Spain, the classical land 
 of religious orthodoxy. Both during the reli- 
 gious struggles between Catholics and Hugue- 
 nots, and later, during the Spanish wars, the 
 French came into closer contact than before 
 with their southern neighbors. Spanish poli- 
 tics and diplomacy, the Spanish army and 
 
2 CORNEILLE 
 
 military tactics, were admired and emulated. 
 Various monastic orders were introduced from 
 Spain ; Jesuitism itself, destined to become 
 such a strong social force in France, was there 
 born and nurtured. 
 
 It was during the first half of the seven- 
 teenth century that the influence of Spanish 
 literature became established, developing along- 
 side the Italian and classic influences. Spanish 
 was learned by the cultured classes throughout 
 Western Europe, and grew to be the means 
 of intercourse between strangers. In France 
 especially, Spanish was assiduously cultivated. 
 It was the language of Louis XIII.'s wife, who 
 kept a troupe of Spanish actors, and at whose 
 court Spanish fashions were in great vogue. 
 
 Spanish literature had been flourishing ever 
 since the middle of the sixteenth century and 
 exerting considerable sway north of the Pyr- 
 enees. The Spanish drama and novel found 
 hosts of readers and imitators in France, and 
 both the chivalrous and pastoral romances were 
 modelled after Spanish patterns. The romance 
 of chivalry, which was the favorite reading of 
 the Middle Ages, and which had long since dis- 
 appeared from France, was reintroduced under 
 
SPANISH INFLtlENCES 3 
 
 Francis I., an admirer of the ideals of knight- 
 •liood, by various writers, but especially by 
 D'Herberay des Essarts, who translated several 
 of those romances from Spanish, notably Amadis 
 des O-aules (1540-48), which soon started a 
 multitude of imitations. The reaction against 
 the chivalrous romance likewise arose under 
 Spanish influence, for Honore d'Urfe's AstrSe 
 (1610-27) is fashioned after Jorge de Monte- 
 mayor's Diana enamorada, itself, however, of 
 Italian inspiration. The picaresque novel, too, 
 found its way in France, and stimulated there 
 the production of imitations. 
 
 Spanish influence, however, made itself most 
 felt in the drama. Neither Jodelle, nor Gar- 
 nier, nor Montchretien, had succeeded in creat- 
 ing a public stage; their plays were represented 
 in colleges and at the festivities of the great 
 only, the first attempt toward the formation of 
 a classical theatre thus proving a failure. With 
 Hardy's activity (1599-1631 or 1632), however, 
 began a new era for the French theatre. His 
 plays brought new life and movement upon the 
 stage, and the people were again attracted in 
 large numbers. Hardy's manner, his extraor- 
 dinary fertility — he wrote some seven hun- 
 
4 CORNEILLB 
 
 dred plays — would point to a close connection 
 with tlie Spanish drama. He appears, however, 
 to have drawn more largely from the ancients 
 and the Italians. The extent to which he is 
 indebted to the Spanish would, moreover, be 
 ^^ar ^-to estimate, owing to the relatively small 
 number of his plays that have come down to us. 
 
 Besides Hardy's plays, the stage, before the 
 appearance of the Oid (1636), presented the 
 tragi-comedies and pastoral dramas of Racan, 
 Mairet, and Gombauld ; Theophile's tragedy, 
 Pyrame et FhisbS(x^i&T2c\i the first produc- 
 
 R"of^StfoiirduRyerrS^dScudery; Mairet's 
 Sophonisbe, a great success, and the first tragedy 
 of the classical type ; and finally the early 
 plays of Corneille himself. Most of these poets 
 imitated foreign authors, Italian to some ex- 
 tent, but mainly Spanish. The Spanish drama 
 and novel furnished inexhaustible sources for 
 materials, having come to be regarded as the 
 common property of all. The novels of Cer- 
 vantes, and Lope de Vega's dramas, above all, 
 were the great storehouses whither French 
 poets resorted for plots, intrigues, and inci- 
 dents. 
 
 French literature was just then at the begin- 
 
SPANISH INFLUENCES 5 
 
 ning of a new epoch, while the Spanish had 
 already attained to the summit of its develop- 
 ment. Here was a sufficient reason for the 
 French writers to turn to the Spaniards for aid 
 and inspiration. Spain's political predomi- 
 nance, her traditional affiliations and close 
 relations with France, the kinship of the lan- 
 guages, must, moreover, have materially facili- 
 tated an imitation of her literature. At a 
 moment when the French drama, still in its 
 infancy, was striving after perfection, it could 
 not but look toward the Spanish drama, which 
 had already realized its masterpieces. The 
 playwrights of the epoch fell under that in- 
 fluence, nor did Corneille, the greatest of them 
 all, escape it. It is Corneille's relation to the 
 Spanish drama that will be traced in the follow- 
 ing essay. 
 
II. EARLY PLAYS 
 
 COKNBILLB^ is not one of those poets who 
 achieved great fame at one bound. Before the 
 appearance of his first great play, he had served 
 an apprenticeship of about seven years. M4lite, 
 his earliest play, is a comedy, and appeared in 
 1629, after which his pen rested for nearly 
 three years. In 1632 he produced OUtandre, a 
 tragi-comedy. From this year down to 1635 
 he wrote four comedies in rapid succession : La 
 Veuve (1633), La aalSrie du Palaia (1634), 
 La Suivante (1634), La Place Royale (1635). 
 Also in 1635, together with Boisrobert, Col- 
 letet, Rotrou, and I'Estoile, Richelieu's cinq 
 auteurs, he wrote the ComSdie des Tuileries, 
 after a plan furnished by the cardinal, who had 
 a pronounced liking for the theatre, and de- 
 sired, it appears, to add literary reputation to 
 
 1 Bom June 6, 1606, at Bouen ; died September 30, 1684, 
 in Paris. 
 
EARLY PLAYS 7 
 
 his political fame. The third act of this 
 comedy is generally attributed to Corneille. 
 In 1635 he produced MSdSe, his first attempt at 
 classical tragedy. Another comedy, L^IUusion, 
 preceding the Oid but by a few months, was 
 played in 1636. 
 
 By the year 1635, Corneille was one of the 
 best-known dramatic poets of the time. His 
 reputation was established, and acknowledged 
 by those who rivalled with him for theatrical 
 glory. Corneille had, however, not yet been 
 able to see his way clear ; he had not yet dis- 
 covered in what particular form of drama he 
 might excel. For while advancing, in some 
 respects, beyond the other poets of his time, he 
 had, as yet, produced no play that raised him, 
 in the estimation of his contemporaries, above 
 the rank and file of the dramatic poets of the 
 time. The plays above mentioned are no longer 
 read; nor are they produced on the stage to- 
 day ; indeed, had not been so for years even 
 during the classical period. Nothing in them 
 predicted the powers which the poet was to 
 display before long ; or, at least, very little, 
 and this little has only, after laborious toil, 
 been discovered by critics and biographers who. 
 
8 COBNEILLB 
 
 prompted by a desire of establishing a greater 
 unity in the poet's life, have endeavored to un- 
 earth, as it were, the great Corneille from these 
 early attempts. Not only was his conception 
 of life slowly developing during this period, as 
 indeed it did during his period of perfection ; 
 but even his language, the theory of his art, 
 were but gradually emerging from his hands. 
 He was groping about and feeling in all direc- 
 tions for what was most congenial to his talent. 
 Perhaps Corneille had hoped to be the Plautus 
 of his country. He not only wavered between 
 comedy and tragedy ; he even searched yet for 
 the mould in which to cast his materials. 
 
 Most of Corneille's productions of this forma- 
 tive period are comedies of intrigue, and little 
 is found in them by way of reality and com- 
 pleteness of character. The plots are weak, 
 and the situations have but little of the comical 
 in them. We have, moreover, but a variation of 
 the same theme in the different comedies : the 
 same lovers crossed and thwarted by another 
 lover, who resorts to false letters, kidnapping, 
 and other similar strategies, in order to attain 
 his aim. There are five or more lovers in every 
 one of those comedies, and, as a rule, two 
 
EARLY PLAYS 9 
 
 happy couples at the end. The characters 
 are not sufficiently individualized, and genuine 
 wit and humor are almost entirely lacking. 
 
 There is, nevertheless, a distinct advance 
 in Corneille's early comedies above his pre- 
 cursors and contemporaries. In them almost 
 everything pertaining to the farce is done 
 away with. There is a marked tendency to 
 cut loose from the conventional iigures handed 
 down by the old French farce and Italian corn- 
 media delV arte, and thus to approach reality 
 to a greater extent than had been done before. 
 It is the part of society he knows from his 
 own experience that Corneille tries to bring 
 upon the stage ; and while he does not suc- 
 ceed in creating lifelike characters, he is con- 
 sciously striving to give a true picture of the 
 things that had come under his direct notice. 
 In his Grolerie du Palais and La Place Royale, 
 he puts the plots in definite and well-known 
 places in Paris, thus imparting to these plays 
 greater reality. In his preface to La Veuve, 
 he says distinctly : " La comedie n'est qu'un 
 portrait de nos actions et de nos discours, et la 
 perfection des portraits consiste en la ressem- 
 blance. Sur cette maxime je tache de ne 
 
10 CORNEILLB 
 
 mettre en la bouche de mes acteurs que ce que 
 diroient vraisemblablement en leur place ceux 
 qu'ils representent, et de les faire discourir en 
 honnetes gens, et non pas en auteurs." Cor- 
 neille, thus attempting to depict the life of 
 polite folks, must of course discard those man- 
 ners which, although having disappeared from 
 the life of refined society, had, as happens so 
 frequently, continued to subsist, owing to 
 theatrical tradition and routine, on the boards 
 of the stage. There is less conventionality 
 and more decency in Corneille's early come- 
 dies than in the old French comedy. 
 
III. CLITANDRE 
 
 Corneille's second play, Clitandre, a tragi- 
 comedy, produced in 1632, throws not a little 
 light upon his early development. He here 
 first shows a knowledge of the dramatic unities ; 
 here too, as later in the Cid, it is to a purely 
 romantic subject that he attempts, at least in 
 one respect, to apply the classical canons. 
 
 Clitandre is a veritable romance, strongly 
 resembling the chivalrous romances still so 
 much in vogue at the time. Noble knights 
 and ladies, the joys and woes of their loves, 
 their jealousies and bravery, are all brought 
 before our eyes. The following is a brief ab- 
 stract of the play. 
 
 Pymante, the villain, loves Dorise. She, how- 
 ever, has bestowed her affections upon Rosi- 
 dore. Pymante, therefore, resolves to kill his 
 rival. A challenge purporting to come from 
 Clitandre, but really drawn up by two of his 
 servants bribed by Pymante, lures Rosidore 
 11 
 
12 CORNEILLB 
 
 into the woods adjoining the king's castle. 
 Meanwhile, Rosidore is smitten with the 
 charms of Caliste, whom Dorise, who is in- 
 fatuated with Rosidore, under the pretext of 
 proving to her that he is untrue, succeeds in 
 enticing to the same woods. Both Pymante 
 and Dorise are planning to rid themselves of 
 their rivals by killing them. Rosidore and 
 Caliste walk right into the snare laid for them ; 
 and, as it happens, the four turn up in the 
 forest on the same spot, and at the same mo- 
 ment. Dorise is just about to cut o£E Caliste's 
 head with a great sword, when Rosidore, 
 wounded, rushes in pursued by Pymante and 
 Clitandre's two servants, the three disguised 
 as peasants. The valiant Rosidore slays one 
 of the servants, but, on the point of doing 
 away with another of his assailants, breaks 
 his sword against a tree. At this critical mo- 
 ment, he catches sight of a sword swung in 
 the air ; it is the one Dorise is just brandish- 
 ing over the head of fair Caliste. Never was 
 sword more welcome; he snatches it from 
 Dorise's villanous hand, saves his lady's life, 
 runs the other servant through, and puts 
 Pymante to flight. Dorise likewise flees. 
 
CLITANDEB 13 
 
 Meanwhile, Caliste faints away, and Rosidore, 
 thinking her dead, decides to commit suicide 
 upon her body; he is, at considerable length, 
 soliloquizing as to the advisability of his reso- 
 lution, when Caliste comes to herself ; taking 
 him for Pymante, and believing he has killed 
 Rosidore, she entreats him to take her life. 
 But she soon recognizes him, and each dis- 
 covering that the other is alive, they make for 
 a village near by, where Rosidore may have 
 his wounds dressed, and Caliste recover from 
 her fright. All that, and more, is seen on the 
 stage in the first act alone. 
 
 Dorise, in her flight through the woods, finds 
 the garments cast away by one of Clitandre's 
 servants, and puts them on, for fear of being 
 discovered. She meets Pymante, who recog- 
 nizes her in spite of her disguise in man's cloth- 
 ing. His protestations of love becoming a trifle 
 too aggressive, she resorts in self-defence, no 
 longer having her sword with her, to a hair-pin, 
 and successfully puts out one of his eyes. Again 
 she flees, her one-eyed lover after her. He is 
 about to destroy her, when Floridan, " le fils du 
 roi," appearing suddenly on the scene, engages 
 him in combat, and, assisted by Dorise, manages 
 
14 COBNEILLE 
 
 to overcome him. Meanwhile, Clitandre is taken 
 for the would-be assassin of Rosidore ; he is 
 thrown into jail and sentenced to death by the 
 "roi." But Pymante's guilt is discovered in 
 time. Rosidore marries Caliste, while Cli- 
 tandre, by way of compensation for the injury 
 inflicted upon him, receives Dorise for his wife 
 at the just king's hands. , 
 
 Olitandre is a dramatized romance, bombastic 
 and inflated in language. It bristles with exag- 
 gerations and improbabilities, and is full of the 
 most intricate occurrences, all being crowded 
 into the space of twenty-four hours. Accord- 
 ing to the theory then obtaining, comedy pic- 
 tured reality, while the ideal creations of poetry 
 belonged to the province of tragedy. In MSlite 
 (1629) Corneille had attempted to portray the 
 manners of actual life; but when the poet sought 
 to give artistic expression to the ideal, before 
 he was ripe enough to draw from history blended 
 with his own life-experience, he utilized in his 
 first attempt at tragedy the conventional figures 
 and stereotyped adventures of the chivalrous 
 romance. Taste, restraint, reality, are as yet 
 wholly wanting. Romantic as it is, Olitandre 
 affords an illustration of Corneille's conception 
 
CLITANDRE 15 
 
 of art toward 1632, showing how very remote 
 he was, but four years before the production of 
 the Cid, from the classic ideal. 
 
 It would hardly be worth while to give the 
 contents of Corneille's early plays ; and if this 
 has been done for Clitandre, it is by no means 
 because it is superior to the others. It is, 
 on the contrary, both in conception and execu- 
 tion, inferior to most of his other early plays. 
 No one has criticised Clitandre more severely 
 than Corneille himself. In his Preface he says: 
 "II faut neanmoins que j'avoue que ceux qui 
 n'ayant vu representer Clitandre qu'une fois, ne 
 le comprendront pas nettement, seront fort ex- 
 cusables." And many years later, in 1660, when 
 Corneille wrote his Hxamens to his plays, feel- 
 ing somewhat ashamed of that juvenile produc- 
 tion, he asserts that Clitandre was but a jest 
 intended to prove by a reduotio ad absurdum 
 the superiority of Milite — this play having 
 been criticised for the simplicity of its plot and 
 style, and furthermore for the non-observance 
 of the unity of time : — 
 
 " J'entendis que ceux du metier la blamoient 
 de peu d'efifets, et de ce que le style en etoit 
 trop familier. Pour la justiiier centre cette 
 
16 [^CORNEILLB 
 
 censure par une espece de bravade et montrer 
 que ce genre de pieces avoit les vraies beautes 
 de theatre, j'entrepis d'en faire une reguliere 
 (c'est-a-dire dans les vingt et quatre beures), 
 pleine d'incidents, et d'un style plus eleve, 
 mais qui ne vaudroit rien du tout : en quoi 
 je reussis parfaitement." 
 
 Far from seeing in Clitandre a literary ruse, 
 one may look upon it as an interesting illustra- 
 tion of the poet's conception of his art at the 
 time. For it is plain that what displeased 
 Corneille in Clitandre, in his later years, was 
 its exaggeration and untruth. 
 
 If Corneille's first attempt at anything like 
 tragic effect is altogether romantic in spirit, the 
 requirements of reason, of classicism, if pref- 
 erable, are already becoming manifest. When 
 writing Melite, he did not know, as he himself 
 declares, anything about the classical precepts; 
 only after having finished it, he learned of the 
 existence of the unity of time. But his Preface 
 to Clitandre is almost entirely given up to a 
 consideration of the classical canons ; indeed 
 almost every preface he writes henceforth deals 
 with the rules laid down for the theatre. The 
 unities from now on form his constant preoccu- 
 
CLITANDEB 17 
 
 pation. In that preface, he exhibits, neverthe- 
 less, a remarkable spirit, asserting his right to 
 follow those precepts only when he thinks fit, 
 and to disregard them if he chooses. He wishes 
 by all means to preserve his independence. 
 " Que si j'ai renferme cette piece dans la regie 
 d'un jour, ce n'est pas que je me repente de n'y 
 avoir point mis Milite, ou que je me sois resolu 
 a m'y attacher dorenavant." The observ- 
 ance of the unity of time constitutes, however, 
 the sole classical feature of Clitandre. There is 
 no unity of place ; the events occur now in the 
 " chateau du roi," now in the woods, and now 
 in a jail. The scene is laid nowhere ; by chang- 
 ing in later editions the " roi " into a " roi 
 d'Ecosse," Corneille did not materially add to 
 the definiteness of the place. All the incidents 
 appear on the stage, instead of being narrated 
 by messengers, although Corneille is well aware 
 that this is not in conformance with the rules : 
 " Quiconque voudra bien peser I'avantage que 
 Taction a sur ces longs et ennuyeux recits, ne 
 trouvera pas etrange que j'aye mieux aime di- 
 vertir les yeux qu'importuner les oreilles . . . 
 et que me tenant dans la contrainte de cette 
 methode, j'en aye pris la beaute, sans tomber 
 
18 COBNEILLE 
 
 dans les incommodites que les Grecs et les 
 Latins, qui I'ont suivie, n'out su d'ordinaire ou 
 du moins n'ont ose eviter." What admirable 
 independence of judgment is here shown by 
 Corneille, and what a pity he did not adhere 
 to that idea in his later development. 
 
 Thus Clitandre may be said to disclose Cor- 
 neille's early attitude toward dawning classi- 
 cism ; how he makes his first concession to it ; 
 and how on the whole he maintains his inde- 
 pendence thereof. It reveals, furthermore, his 
 frame of mind, his love for spirited action, his 
 sympathy for the romantic. Olitandre pos- 
 sesses all the movement, the freedom from re- 
 straint, and the exaggerations of the Spanish 
 drama ; as soon as Corneille becomes acquainted 
 with it, it will necessarily attract and inspire 
 him. By that time, however, he will already, 
 to some extent, have undergone the influence 
 of classicism. 
 
 The first play Corneille wrote under this 
 classical influence was MSdie, a tragedy, in 
 1635. It is a very close imitation of Seneca 
 with, here and there, some parts from Euripi- 
 des, and some additions of his own. Although 
 classical in subject and form, it too is pervaded 
 
CLITANDRE 19 
 
 by the romantic spirit of the epoch. The gal- 
 lantry, for instance, of Mgee and Creuse, the 
 tendency toward the mystic in making Medee 
 exercise her witchcraft on every occasion, are 
 romantic traits. Events are heaped up too 
 much, and some, by their very nature ex- 
 cluded from the classical drama, are exhibited 
 upon the stage. Above all, the language used 
 throughout lacks all classical qualities. In his 
 Uxamen, the author himself declares : " Quant 
 au style, il est fort inegal en ce poeme ; et ce 
 que j'y ai mele du mien approche si peu de ce 
 que j'ai traduit de Seneque, qu'il n'est point 
 besoin d'en mettre le texte en marge pour faire 
 discerner au lecteur ce qui est de iui ou de 
 moi." 
 
IV. L'lLLUSION 
 
 Aptek MSdee, Corneille returned to comedy: 
 the Illusion appeared but a few months before 
 the Cid. Following are, in brief, the contents 
 of this play : — 
 
 Clindor, a young nobleman, unable to endure 
 his father's harsh treatment, forsakes his pa- 
 rental home for parts unknown — not neglect- 
 ing, however, to take along a portion of its 
 treasure, and sets out upon a career of adven- 
 tures and hardships. After some years, how- 
 ever, the old Pridamant, regretting his severity, 
 starts out in quest of the prodigal son. He 
 searches the length and breadth of the land, 
 but to no avail ; as a last resource, he applies 
 to the wisdom of Alcandre, a famous magician. 
 The first act, the prologue to the play according 
 to the author, presents Alcandre, near a grotto, 
 his abode, engaged in consultation with Prida- 
 mant and a friend of the latter. The next 
 three acts form a comedy by themselves, by 
 20 
 
L'lLLUSION 21 
 
 far the more interesting part of the play, 
 showing Clindor's whereabouts and doings, 
 his love troubles, his dangers, his imprisonment, 
 and his condemnation to death, and finally 
 his happy escape from prison, and his elope- 
 ment with his sweetheart Isabelle. All these 
 vicissitudes, the all-powerful magician, by his 
 charms, conjures up before the eyes of both 
 Pridamant and the audience. Lastly, in the 
 fifth act, Alcandre shows the distressed father 
 what became of Clindor and Isabelle after 
 their flight. They have turned actors, of which, 
 however, Alcandre fails to acquaint Pridamant, 
 and are just seen representing the principal 
 parts in the last act of a most pathetic roman- 
 tic tragedy : Clindor is killed, and Isabelle 
 nearly dies from her grief. When the cur- 
 tain drops, concealing the awful catastrophe 
 from the eyes of the grief-stricken father, he 
 believes the events he has been witnessing have 
 actually occurred, as did, indeed, those which, 
 but a short while before, were evoked by the 
 astute magician's wand. He is in despair, 
 when the curtain — the one on the- stage 
 upon the stage — rolls up again, and both 
 the reassured father and the delighted au- 
 
22 CORNEILLE 
 
 dience perceive Clindor, safe and sound, seated 
 with the rest of the troupe around a table, 
 and counting the receipts of the show for the 
 evening, each pocketing the share earned by 
 his histrionic efforts. 
 
 There are thus, as it were, three plays, three 
 actions, which envelop one another. The 
 whole is a fantastic romantic comedy, wherein 
 witchcraft plays a very conspicuous part, this 
 being about the only resemblance the Illusion 
 bears to MSdSe, the preceding piece, from 
 which it differs as much as MSdSe does from 
 the classical tragedy. In the Illusion, then, it 
 is seen, Corneille once more shows his pre- 
 dilection for the romantic. In it, moreover, 
 we shall discover the first evidences of his 
 acquaintance with Spanish literature. 
 
 The second, third, and fourth acts set forth, 
 as was indicated, Clindor's life. After num- 
 berless vicissitudes, he enters, at Bordeaux, 
 the service of Matamore, a Gascon captain. 
 He first acts as intermediary between his mas- 
 ter and Isabelle ; but soon succeeds in winning 
 her love for himself. Isabelle, meanwhile, is 
 pledged by her father to Adraste, a young 
 nobleman. On the other hand, Lyse, Isabelle's 
 
L'lLLUSION 23 
 
 maid, in love with, and hence jealous of, Clin- 
 dor, betrays him to Adraste. Olindor, attacked 
 by his rival, kills him, is thrown into jail, and 
 sentenced to death. Lyse, however, repentant 
 of the mischief she had wrought her mistress, 
 induces the jailer, by a promise to marry him, 
 to let Clindor escape. Isabelle visits her 
 lover in his prison, and both prisoner and 
 jailer, each accompanied by his sweetheart, 
 start out upon a merry journey. 
 
 This comedy — for such it is in spite of the 
 tragic incident of Adraste's death — inserted 
 in the middle of the play, is well conceived, 
 simple in plot, and skilfully conducted. The 
 language is remarkably plain and concise, and 
 relatively free from the affectations that mar 
 so much of Corneille's best work. Here and 
 there, agreeable humor, grace of speech, and 
 quickness of repartee truly comical, enliven 
 the dialogue. On the whole, the characters 
 of Isabelle and Lyse are well drawn in their 
 happy mixture of wit, irony, and artfulness, 
 with sincere and heart-felt sentiment. Isabelle, 
 to be sure, is less artful than her maid; she 
 loves Clindor and does not hesitate to confess 
 to him her affection; while Lyse, in her 
 
24 CORNEILLE 
 
 pleasing pertness, her vivacity and energy, 
 already announces the endless array of those 
 soubrettes of the comedy, who far from being 
 introduced into the plots, as are, indeed, the 
 suivantes of the tragedy, by the sheer necessities 
 created by too rigid an application of the classi- 
 cal canons, were to play such an important 
 part in the comedies of Corneille's successors. 
 The figure of Matamore, the braggart captain, 
 is generally considered as establishing a connec- 
 tion between Corneille and Spanish literature. 
 However, this character, although it originally 
 represented a caricature of the Spanish officer, 
 is one of the conventional stock figures of the 
 Italian commedia delV arte, as inevitable in this 
 theatre as the eternally-duped Pantaloon, the 
 pedantic Latin-jabbering Doctor, and the zanni 
 of all kinds. Various Italian troupes had vis- 
 ited Paris ever since 1584, and each had its 
 actor impersonating that formidable swaggerer; 
 in Corneille's own time, Nicolo Barbieri's com- 
 pany played there, — from 1625 to 1642; among 
 its members we meet the captain Bellorofonte 
 Martellione. Corneille might well have seen 
 this capitano during his repeated visits from 
 Rouen to Paris since 1629. 
 
L'lLLUSION 25 
 
 The cowardly, blustering soldier seems to be 
 a native growth of the French theatre: he is 
 found in the early French farce. Later, in the 
 second half of the sixteenth century, this rodo- 
 montading swashbuckler loses somewhat in his 
 national appearance, and under the modifying 
 influence of the Italian comedy he becomes 
 the captain, sometimes a Frenchman, but with 
 predilection a foreigner from the South, an 
 Italian, or a Spaniard — in the Illusion he is 
 a Gascon. He appears, among others, in Baif 
 (ie Brave, 1567) ; Grevin (^Les Esbahis) ; Odet 
 de Turnebe (^Les Contents, 1584) ; Larivey (ies 
 Trompeurs') ; Godard (JLes BSguises, 1594) ; 
 Frangois d'Amboise (^Les Napolitaines^. Shortly 
 before the Illusion, we meet the captain in 
 Montlue's ComSdie des Proverbes (1633) ; in 
 AgSsilan de Oolchos (1635) by Rotrou, Cor- 
 neille's friend. In 1636, the year of the Illu- 
 sion, is produced Le Railleur ou la satyre du 
 temps. In the preface, the author, Marechal, 
 claims that his is the first French play in verse 
 in which the captain appears : " Je dirai 
 pourtant en sa faveur que c'est le premier 
 capitan en vers qui a paru dans la scene fran- 
 gaise, qu'il n'a point eu d'exemple et de modele 
 
26 CORNEILLE 
 
 devant lui, et qu'il a precede, au moins du 
 temps, deux autres qui Font surpasse en tout 
 le reste, et qui sont sortis de deux plumes si 
 fameuses et comiques dans Vlllusion et les 
 Visionnaires." 
 
 The captain, therefore, was a familiar type, 
 both upon the French and the Italian stage in 
 Paris by the time the Illusion was produced, 
 and despite his name, there is nothing in Ma- 
 tamore that points to any direct connection 
 with Spanish literature. The captain contin- 
 ued upon the stage after the production of the 
 Illusion. He appears in Les Visionnaires 
 (1637) by Desmarest ; in Rotrou's Clarice ou 
 L' Amour constant (1641) ; in Scarron's Les 
 Boutades du Oapitan Matamore (1646), and in 
 his Mariage de Matamore; in Cyrano de Ber- 
 gerac's PSdant JouS (1654) ; and in La Fon- 
 taine's Uunuque (1654). 
 
 In the eighteenth century, the captain turns 
 up again in Lesage's Point d'honneur (1725), 
 adapted from Ifo hay amigo para amigo by 
 Francisco de Rojas. Modernized forms are met 
 with in Angler's Aventuriire (1848), and in 
 Daudet's immortal Tartarin. In Gautier's 
 Oapitaine Fracasse, the real captain looms up 
 
L'lLLUSION 27 
 
 again : in the Chateau de Bruyere, a troupe of 
 strolling comedians play the Rodomontades du 
 Capitaine Matamore, a most brilliant resuscita- 
 tion of the old farcical figure. 
 
 For the first unmistakable influence of Span- 
 ish literature upon Corneille, it is not to Mata- 
 more we must look, but to the brave and more 
 sympathetic, if not less adventurous, Clindor. 
 This figure seems to have been suggested to 
 CorneiUe by the heroes of the novela picaresoa, 
 which began to flourish in Spain toward the 
 middle of the sixteenth century. Clindor is 
 nothing else but a pioaro. His somewhat 
 checkered career is best told in the words of 
 the magician Alcandre to Pridamant, Clindor's 
 father : — 
 
 " H vous prit quelque argent, maia ce petit butin ' 
 A peine lui dura du soir jusqu'au matin ; 
 Et pour gagner Paris, il vendit par la plaine 
 Des brevets i chasser la fievre et la migraine, 
 Dit la bonne aventure, et s'y rendit ainsi. 
 Lk, comme on vit d'esprit, il en vdcut aussi. 
 Dedans Saint-Innocent il se fit secretaire ; 
 Apres, montant d'dtat, il fut clerc d'un notaire. 
 Ennuy^ de la plume, il la quitta soudain, 
 Et fit danser un singe au faubourg Saint-Germain. 
 II se mit snr la rime, et I'essai de sa veine 
 Em'ichit les chanteurs de la Samaritaine. 
 
28 COENEILLE 
 
 Son style prit apres de plus beaux ornements ; 
 
 II se hasarda meme a f aire des romans, 
 
 Des chansons pour Gautier, des pointes pour Guillaume. 
 
 Depuis, il traflqua de chapelets de baume, 
 
 Vendit du mithridate en maitre operateur, 
 
 Eevint dans le Palais, et fut soUiciteur. 
 
 Enfin jamais Buscon, LazariUe de Torraes, 
 
 Sayavedre, et Gusman, ne prirent tant de formes." 
 
 Lazarillo de Tormes by Hurtado de Mendoza, 
 appeared in 1553 ; it was the first of the long 
 series of the picaresque iiovels. It was trans- 
 lated into French in 1560, and then in 1620. 
 Guzman and Sayavedra are characters of Gruz- 
 man de Alfaraehe by Mateo Aleman, published 
 in 1599, and done into French twice, in 1600, 
 and in 1632. It was again translated, much 
 later, by Lesage. Buscon, finally, is the chief 
 personage of Quevedo y Villega's famous His- 
 toria de la vida del buscon llamado Don PcMos ; 
 it came out in 1626, and was turned into 
 French in 1633. 
 
 It thus appears that Corneilla was acquainted 
 with the picaresque novel ; and his citation of 
 its most noted heroes in connection with Clin- 
 dor, renders it not improbable that they may 
 even have suggested this character. 
 
 "We find then, in Corneille, before the Cid, 
 
L'lLLUSION 29 
 
 a romantic spirit, which was largely due to the 
 influence of Spanish life and literature. This 
 romanticism is conspicuous even in the classical 
 MSdSe ; in Qlitandre, and partly in the Illusion, 
 Corneille reintroduces the fantastic world of 
 chivalry. In the play that immediately pre- 
 ceded the Oid, we meet a character drawn after 
 a Spanish model, the adventurous picaro. 
 Classical purity and directness of language are 
 as yet nowhere reached. The unities, Corneille 
 applies in a sort of half-hearted way ; he has 
 not yet attained to a clear conception of his 
 art. But the mock-heroic Matamore and the 
 shiftless picaro do not long retard Corneille in 
 his onward course. He soon abandons these 
 burlesque characters for the ideal hero. It is 
 in Spanish literature that he seeks inspiration, 
 and he at last encounters it in the national hero 
 of Spain, the much-sung Cid. The romantic 
 hero of mediaeval Spain then becomes the hero 
 of the classical French tragedy, finally estab- 
 lished by Corneille. 
 
V. LE CID 
 
 The Cid, represented for the first time in 
 December, 1636, or January, 1637, was a great 
 success, a veritable triumph, for Corneille. 
 All Paris, the court and the people, noble- 
 men and bourgeois, were carried away by it. 
 Very strange, indeed, would it have been, 
 had such a tremendous success not aroused the 
 jealousy and envy of his rivals. Their wrath 
 was unchained. The very men who, not so 
 very long before, had sounded his praises, and 
 greeted him, at his debut, as a great poet, now 
 turned against him in a body, and the Cid was 
 declared by savants and poets alike to be infe- 
 rior by far to the author's preceding plays, the 
 mere titles of which are scarcely remembered 
 to-day. The taste of the public was of no 
 account, it was claimed, and its verdict had to 
 yield to that of men who knew Aristotle, and 
 who could discourse about the rules laid down 
 by him in his Poetics. The names of all the 
 30 
 
LE cm 31 
 
 great poets of antiquity were hurled at the 
 author's head. There broke out one of the live- 
 liest pen-and-ink wars known in literary his- 
 tory, waged both in prose and in verse, and 
 occupying some three years. Rotrou alone 
 stood by Corneille in this strife against critics 
 like Chapelain and the Abbe d'Aubignac, 
 and against such poets as Mairet, Scudery, 
 Claveret, and many others, who in this way 
 mainly transmitted their names to posterity. 
 Even Richelieu himself was mixed up in the 
 affair. Relations between them had been 
 rather strained since Corneille refused to re- 
 main one of his five authors; the introduction 
 upon the French stage of the national hero of 
 Spain could not quite suit Richelieu's anti- 
 Spanish politics ; and the justification of the 
 duel and of private vengeance, the spirited 
 pride and insubordination manifested by the 
 count, might well have been thought to mili- 
 tate against the stringent measures directed by 
 the cardinal against the turbulent aristocracy. 
 
 1. Las Mocedadbs del Cid 
 
 It is said that M. de Chalon, an officer of the 
 court of Anne d'Autriche, where Spanish was 
 
32 COBNEILLE 
 
 spoken and Spanish literature cultivated, hav- 
 ing retired to Rouen, and there met Corneille, 
 recommended to him the study of Guillem de 
 Castro. Whether this report be authentic or 
 not, the fact is that CorneiUe's acquaintance 
 with Guillem de Castro's Lag Mocedades del Oid 
 proved to be the turning-point in his life, and 
 a most important event in the history of the 
 classical tragedy. Let us examine the relations 
 between the French and the Spanish Oid; the 
 growth and development of Corneille's first 
 masterpiece ; the process which the subject 
 of the Oid underwent, and the ultimate 
 changes it suffered in passing from the roman- 
 tic drama of Spain to the classical tragedy of 
 the French. 
 
 Guillem de Castro, a contemporary of Lope 
 de Vega, and one of the most noted dramatic 
 poets of the age, was born at Valencia in 1569. 
 His life was an adventurous one ; he was a 
 captain in the Spanish army ; served in Italy ; 
 and died in poverty at Madrid in 1631 — about 
 five years before the production of Corneille's 
 Oid. He was held in great esteem by Lope de 
 Vega, who dedicated to him some of his 
 dramas. 
 
LE CID 33 
 
 Las Mocedades del Oid is an historical drama. 
 The subject is taken from the heroic epoch of 
 mediaeval Spain, when the Christian Spaniards 
 carried on their wars of deliverance from 
 Moorish rule. The Cid, the hero of the play, 
 was long the idol of the Spanish people, the 
 embodiment of the Christian knight. The 
 events happen toward the end of the eleventh 
 century ; they take up nearly a year ; the 
 scene is laid in various places, now at Burgos, 
 the capital of Fernando, king of Castile, now 
 in Galicia, now again in the mountains. A 
 series of splendid tableaux is unrolled, showing 
 Rodrigo's prowess and sense of honor and duty, 
 his love of Jimena, his exploits against the 
 enemies of his country, his loyalty to the king, 
 and his piety ; in short, the ideal of the Middle 
 Ages. The frame to these pictures is furnished 
 by the mediaeval manners ; and the background 
 is formed by the national conflicts with the 
 Moors, and the hostilities between rival Spanish 
 states. The comedia famosa is divided into 
 two parts, with the first of which only, com- 
 plete in itself, we are here concerned, it being 
 the one to which Corneille is indebted for his 
 Qid. Each part consists of three acts. 
 
34 CORNEILLB 
 
 A. First Act 
 
 A splendid hall at Burgos. The king, in 
 presence of his court, before the altar of Santi- 
 ago, Spain's patron, dubs the young Rodrigo a 
 knight. The very first scene of the play thus 
 brings before our eyes the most important act 
 of chivalrous life. At the same time the prin- 
 cipal motives of the drama are, right at the 
 beginning, adroitly and distinctly indicated : 
 the valor of young Rodrigo ; Jimena's passion, 
 and also that of Dona Urraca ; Count Lozano's 
 pride ; and the violent temper of Don Sancho. 
 Dona Urraca, the infanta, fastens the spurs to 
 Rodrigo's boots, and the queen presents him 
 with a horse. During that solemn ceremony, 
 the love for the handsome young knight is seen 
 budding, as it were, in the hearts of both Dona 
 Urraca and Jimena. While the ladies, accom- 
 panied by Don Sancho, go out to see him mount 
 his steed, the king informs the grandees of his 
 realm that he has selected a governor for the 
 prince. He confers that great honor upon the 
 old Don Diego Lainez. Count Lozano, how- 
 ever, a presumptuous, arrogant vassal, believing 
 that he deserves the distinction himself, ques- 
 
LE cm 35 
 
 tions Don Diego's capacity to fill that high 
 office. A violent quarrel ensues between him 
 and Don Diego. The king's efforts to inter- 
 fere prove useless ; the passions of the two 
 noblemen take their course in spite of the re- 
 spect due to the monarch, and finally the count 
 slaps Don Diego's face. The outraged old 
 man, weak and staggered, is powerless. The 
 count, indeed, asks the king's pardon, but confi- 
 dent of obtaining support from his numerous 
 retainers, boldly defies him. — The drama has 
 been set into motion with considerable effect. 
 
 Don Diego, weighed down by his disgrace, 
 arrives at his home, wild and furious ; he meets 
 his three sons who, having just returned from 
 court, suspend their weapons on the wall. 
 " Now you hang up your swords ? " he asks, 
 maddened with anger; surprised and fright- 
 ened, they do not understand him. Without 
 offering any explanation, he orders them to 
 leave. Remaining alone, he tests his arm by 
 trying to handle his faithful old sword ; but 
 his strength fails, and he despairs. Then fol- 
 lows a scene in which Don Diego, as in the 
 old ballads, calling his sons in one after the 
 other, tries their strength and courage. He 
 
36 COBNEILLE 
 
 first presses the hands of his two younger sons 
 in his ; they cry out with pain, whereupon he 
 indignantly dismisses them, as being too weak 
 and cowardly to avenge his disgrace. He 
 then calls in Rodrigo, who is angry, because, 
 although the oldest, he was not appealed 
 to first. Don Diego bites his son's finger; 
 Rodrigo, infuriated, declares he would slap his 
 face, were it not that he was his father. Don 
 Diego embraces him, tells him his shame, and 
 asks him to wash off the stain from his honor 
 with the blood of the count, who, he says, is 
 one of the bravest men of the realm. Rodrigo, 
 left alone, gives vent to his grief. He loves 
 Jimena so ardently, how could he kill her 
 father ? But his father has lost his honor, the 
 family's fair name has been dishonored. There 
 is but one remedy, the count's death. His 
 father is insulted, and it matters little who the 
 offender is. — His hesitation does not last long, 
 and the conception of chivalrous honor quickly 
 prevails over his love for the count's daugh- 
 ter. 
 
 The scene changes to a square before the 
 king's palace. On a balcony, Dona Urraca 
 and Jimena, still under the impression of the 
 
LE CID 87 
 
 knighting scene, speak admiringly of Rodrigo. 
 Enter the count, accompanied by his kinsman 
 Peranziiles, who, acting upon orders from the 
 king, tries to induce him to apologize to Diego. 
 Lozano flatly refuses. He does not fear any- 
 body, he declares: sooner should Castile be 
 undone than he. Satisfaction by words would 
 only disgrace him, without doing the least good 
 to Don Diego, whose honor it would patch up 
 with a piece taken from his own. The sword 
 alone can decide. Thus arguing, they pass the 
 two girls, and disappear at the other end of 
 the square. Dona Urraca and Jimena have 
 observed them from the balcony without, how- 
 ever, being able to overhear their conversation; 
 but Jimena's apprehensions are aroused by the 
 violent gesticulations and the furious counte- 
 nance of her father. Her fears are yet height- 
 ened when Rodrigo, visibly excited, appears 
 before the palace, in quest of the count. Lo- 
 zano and Peranzules return. At the same mo- 
 ment Don Diego issues from the door of his 
 house, with his relative Arias Gonzalo. Ji- 
 mena's presence causes Rodrigo to waver in 
 his resolution to kill her father, but Don 
 Diego's exhortations impel him to instant 
 
38 CORNEILLE 
 
 action. In his desire to prevent a clash, if 
 possible, Peranzules is anxious to avoid Rod- 
 rigo. But the count, declaring that it is not 
 his wont to swerve from his way, walks straight 
 on, when Rodrigo boldly stops him. After a 
 short quarrel, the count insults him, and 
 pressed close by the impetuous attack of the 
 youth, draws his sword. Jimena is with great 
 difficulty prevented by Dona Urraca from pre- 
 cijjitating herself from the balcony, while the 
 old Diego continues to urge his son to avenge 
 his disgrace. The two men leave fighting. 
 An instant later a cry is heard. Jimena, fol- 
 lowed by Dona Urraca, rushes out wildly, only 
 to find her father dead. Don Diego rejoices 
 over the victory of his son. Peranzules sets 
 the count's men on Rodrigo, who returns upon 
 the stage fighting with them. But Dona 
 Urraca interferes and saves his life. Her 
 cry of admiration, "Oh valiente castellano! " 
 aptly expresses the fundamental note of the 
 thrilling events of the first act. 
 
 In this highly dramatic act, full of stirring 
 action and rapid movements, the scenes follow 
 in logical and necessary connection, with no 
 foreign episodes intervening ; and the interest 
 
EE CID 39 
 
 is gradually rising, and sustained to the end. 
 The heroic Rodrigo is the central figure. He 
 is made a knight, honored by the king and the 
 queen, distinguished by the princess and Jimena; 
 the feeling of honor, and of duty toward his 
 father, prevails over his love for the woman he 
 worships ; and, lastly, he achieves his first val- 
 orous deed in defeating in single combat the 
 bravest soldier of Castile, on the very day he 
 was knighted. There we have the true cheva- 
 lier : he has won the hearts of the noblest and 
 fairest ladies, vanquished the most valiant man 
 of the kingdom, and, what is more, succeeded 
 in conquering his own self. 
 
 B. Second Act 
 
 Arias Gonzalo and Peranzules rush into the 
 kingly palace, bringing the fatal news of the 
 count's death. After them come in on one side 
 Jimena, her handkerchief soaked in the blood of 
 her father ; and on the other, Don Diego, the 
 cheek that had been slapped besmeared with his 
 enemy's blood. She demands Rodrigo's death. 
 The old man comes to surrender himself; he 
 claims that being the one who incited his son to 
 
40 CORNEILLB 
 
 the deed, he ought to suffer the penalty for it. 
 Through this rudeness of manners, this ferocious 
 display of blood, there appears a trait of gal- 
 lantry in the old Diego : " I do not wish to 
 grieve you, Jimena ; you are a woman, you may 
 speak first." The king promises justice to 
 Jimena, and orders that Don Diego be impris- 
 oned ; upon the entreaty of the prince Don 
 Sancho, however, he is intrusted to his care. 
 
 Upon her return home, the desolate Jimena 
 finds in her house Rodrigo, who, instead of go- 
 ing to his father, whom he did not see since the 
 fight, comes to deliver himself up to the ven- 
 geance of the woman he adores, offering her his 
 dagger to kill him. She, however, declares she 
 will pursue him as the murderer of her father, 
 but will not take his life with her own hand. 
 She avows he acted like a true knight in aveng- 
 ing his outraged father, but says that it behooves 
 her as a faithful daughter to see that the mur- 
 derer should be punished. Meanwhile, Don 
 Diego, fearing for his son's life, which is threat- 
 ened by the dead count's friends and kinsmen, 
 anxiously awaits him in a solitary place at the 
 outskirts of the city, where Rodrigo promised 
 to join him. It is a dark night. Don Diego is 
 
LE CID 41 
 
 growing more and more restless, but his misgiv- 
 ings soon yield to triumphant joy. He at last 
 presses his beloved son to his longing breast. To 
 conciliate the king, he gives Rodrigo the com- 
 mand over five hundred of his friends, sending 
 him forth against the Moors, who were making 
 an inroad upon Castile ; he hopes that by de- 
 feating the enemy, Rodrigo will win his master's 
 pardon. With these knights, the benediction 
 of his father, and his good sword, the youth 
 now starts out on a long series of heroic 
 adventures. 
 
 Meanwhile, Dona Urraca, with the queen, her 
 mother, have also left the court. Seated at a 
 window, in the tower of one of the royal castles, 
 she is plunged in sweet reveries, her gaze wan- 
 dering over the beautiful scenery before her, 
 vividly portrayed in her simple and naive words. 
 The deep quiet reigning all around her, inter- 
 rupted only by the chirping of the birds and 
 the babbling of the brooks, suggests to her, by 
 contrast, the din and turmoil of the court, 
 where, she says, some wreak revenge, while 
 others are clamoring for justice. She has grown 
 tired of court life, she declares. Suddenly, 
 Rodrigo's image emerges from the depths of 
 
42 CORNEILLE 
 
 her soul. What has become of the young 
 knight for whom she buckled the spurs, she 
 wonders ? Is he safe or in danger ? She does 
 not know what ails her — the thoughts of him 
 fill her with profound melancholy. All at once 
 she beholds a troop of knights riding by. She 
 calls to them — to the captain with the yel- 
 low plume. He comes nearer, she says, he 
 thrusts his lance into a tree, dismounts and 
 bows to her. What does she see ? " How 
 lucky ! " < The captain with the yellow plume is 
 Rodrigo, who — by sheer chance — meets Doua 
 Urraca, on his way to fight the Moors. Never, 
 perhaps, was knight more gallant than Rodrigo 
 on this occasion. He receives her good wishes, 
 and thus equipped, sallies forth "para veneer 
 moros." 
 
 The following scene shows a battle between 
 the Spaniards and the Moors in the Oca Moun- 
 tains. War-cries are heard before the com- 
 batants appear upon the stage. A cowardly, 
 good-natured, and humorous shepherd, the gra- 
 cioso of the play, rushes in, fleeing before the 
 enemy in great terror. Shaking with fear, he 
 climbs to the top of a hill, and there hides behind 
 a rock. From that safe place he bravely defies 
 
LE CID 43 
 
 the Moors, who are now following close upon 
 his heels. The trumpets of the Christians, how- 
 ever, and the cries of " Santiago! " and " Cierra 
 Espana! " call them away. Our good shepherd 
 cautiously ventures out from his hiding-place, 
 and with manifest glee watches the exciting 
 spectacle of the battle, of which, perched upon 
 his elevated post, he gives in droll and terse ver- 
 nacular a most glowing description, punctuating 
 the fall of each Moor with a cry of exuberant 
 joy. He valiantly encourages the Spaniards 
 and bestows his praise lavishly upon them. 
 Above all, a horseman with a yellow plume upon 
 his helmet elicits his most jubilant admiration. 
 It is Rodrigo, who now appears fighting single- 
 handed a band of Moors. He captures their 
 king, and then leaves hastily: for he has, as he 
 informs us, four more Moorish kings to vanquish 
 yet on that same day. " By God, how I've en- 
 joyed that sight ! This is the way, from on 
 high, you must see those things ! " joyfully ex- 
 claims the good shepherd, hastening after Rod- 
 rigo and his prisoners. 
 
 Again we are in the court at Burgos. The 
 prince, Don Sancho, is taking a lesson from his 
 fencing-master in the presence of Don Diego. 
 
a CORNEILLE 
 
 He grows angry at his teacher, and attacks him 
 furiously ; and it is only Don Diego's interfer- 
 ence that saves the latter's life. Don Sancho 
 refuses to continue his fencing practice ; he pre- 
 tends to know more than his master. It is, he 
 declares, not of the sword that he is afraid ; for 
 it was predicted to him that he would die by a 
 javelin thrown by a near relative of his. At 
 this point enters Dona Urraca, his sister ; a page 
 carries before her a hunting-spear covered with 
 the gore of a wild boar, which she has just 
 killed. The daring and adroitness of his sister 
 excite still more the superstitious and impetu- 
 ous prince, and he insults her. This episode, 
 like many others interspersed throughout the 
 play, is intended for the development of the 
 characters, and also for the preparation of 
 events which are to occur in the second part of 
 the dramatic poem. We then see Don Fernando 
 receiving the captured Moorish king whom 
 Rodrigo despatched to Burgos to announce his 
 victory and his arrival. Upon his return from 
 his triumphant expedition, Rodrigo is most 
 cordially welcomed by the king, who, by this 
 time, seeing in him only the meritorious and 
 valuable captain, has forgotten all about the 
 
LE CID 45 
 
 count's death, and his solemn pledge to Jimena 
 to punish the murderer of her father. It is 
 upon that occasion that, the captive king ad- 
 dressing Rodrigo as "el mio Cid " (my lord, in 
 Arabic), Don Fernando confers upon the valiant 
 knight that appellation as a title of honor. 
 
 At this juncture — some three months after 
 her father's death — appears Jimena, in mourn- 
 ing, now for the second time demanding jus- 
 tice; a very unfavorable moment, indeed, to 
 obtain redress against the Cid, who has now 
 become indispensable to the king. Don Fer- 
 nando embraces him in her very presence ; the 
 only punishment he inflicts upon him is to ban- 
 ish him from court by sending him forth 
 against the enemy to obtain fresh victories. 
 This closes the second act. 
 
 In the first act, the events occur in and about 
 the court at Burgos ; moreover, they follow, 
 flowing from one another, in quick succession, 
 and turn around one chief point : Rodrigo's 
 revenge — the triumph of his duty over his 
 love. The second act, however, is less cohe- 
 rent. The place changes more frequently : with 
 Rodrigo we are transported now to the royal 
 castle, now to the field of battle, and then back 
 
46 COENEILLE 
 
 again to Burgos. When he returns, three 
 months have elapsed, to mark which several 
 scenes are inserted : we assist at the quarrel 
 between Don Sancho and his fencing-master, 
 and between Don Sancho and his sister; and 
 likewise at the meeting between Don Fernando 
 and the Moorish king. These scenes, as well as 
 the great episode of the battle with the Moors, 
 complete the characters and the entire picture 
 as. well. "^A great fragment of life and nature 
 is thus brought before us : we see not only- 
 palaces, the court life with its knights and 
 ladies, but also pleasant country scenes, wild 
 mountains, the clash of armies ; and besides 
 the brave, high-minded knight, the grotesque 
 poltroon shepherd. But while all these inci- 
 dents are important enough in their way, we 
 have -wq.ndered from the^^majn^anti^rin : Jimena, 
 with her woes and her love, and even Eodrigo 
 himself are well-nigh forgotten. Thus the 
 interest is scattered, and consequently the dra- 
 jiiatic^effect^,^|ggggng4_; there is, to be sure, a 
 gain in variety for the eye, in pieturesque- 
 ness, in breadth of scope; but the attention 
 of the onlooker is correspondingly diminished ; 
 Smd the conflict of forces, the psychological 
 
LB CID 47 
 
 and moral problem, in a word, is gradually lost 
 sight of. 
 
 O. Third Act 
 
 Dona Urraca confides to Arias Gonzalo her 
 apprehensions for her future ; her father is old, 
 and her brother her relentless enemy ; she loves 
 Rodrigo, but he is in love with Jimena, who 
 returns his affection. The king, entering, 
 allays her fears, and then announces to his 
 council that he will charge Rodrigo with the 
 conquest of Calahorra, a region disputed by the 
 Aragonese, his neighbors. For the third time 
 now, the courageous and persistent Jimena 
 appears demanding Rodrigo's punishment. The 
 king, Gonzalo having whispered into his ear 
 that she loves Rodrigo, here resorts to a ruse, 
 in order to test the strength of her affection ; 
 he has a servant bring in the false report of 
 Rodrigo's death. Jimena falls into a swoon. 
 When told the truth, she declares that it was 
 from sheer joy at the glad news of her enemy's 
 death that she has fainted. She then at once 
 recommences to press her prosecution, and pre- 
 vails upon the king to publish, in conformance 
 with an old usage, a decree promising her per- 
 
48 COBNEILLE 
 
 son and the whole of her fortune to him who 
 will bring her Rodrigo's head. The old Diego 
 and the others are loud in their admiration for 
 Jimena's filial love, and her deep sense of 
 
 honor. 
 
 Once more we leave the court. (The Cid 
 would not be the perfect knight, the embodi- 
 ment of the cardinal virtues of the national 
 character, the i deal of the people — were he not 
 a pious Christian. | The Cid, triumphant over 
 his passion, avenging his father and rehabilitat- 
 ing the outraged honor of the family ; valorous 
 in single combat ; true and constant in his love 
 and gallant toward ladies ; victorious over the 
 enemy and loyal to his king — all that has been 
 sufficiently portrayed. Now we shall see him 
 pious and devout, full of brotherly love for the 
 poor, the lowly, the wretched. — Accompanied 
 by two soldiers and our shepherd, the Cid, on 
 his way to Calahorra, arrives at daybreak at a 
 solitary field, in advance of his army. They 
 take a short rest. The soldiers and the shepherd 
 wish to eat. First let us pray, says the Cid. 
 It is better to pray after eating, the shepherd 
 rejoins. He cannot understand how the Cid, 
 a knight, can be so pious. Evidently, to his 
 
LE CID 49 
 
 mind, the soldier and the pious cannot be united 
 in one and the same man ; his experience has 
 ever shown them to be separated and distinct, 
 with virtues and vices of their own, peculiar to 
 their occupation in life. Soldiers are fighting 
 for the monks, and the monks are praying for 
 the soldiers. He — the shepherd — usually does 
 neither ; Ifus'business is to eat and drink his fill, 
 to enjoy himself to his heart's content. A de- 
 vout soldier, a knight with a rosary in his hand 
 — what an absurdity ; that tickles him ; he must 
 laugh at the very idea. But the Cid explains 
 to him that a knight may very well be a good 
 Christian ; for in fighting the heathen he does 
 his duty toward God. At this a voice is heard 
 from behind a bush, "Not by fighting alone 
 are the heavens gained ! " It is the voice of a 
 leprous beggar, who, having gone astray, had 
 fallen into a ditch, where for two days he has 
 lain without any food. The soldiers and the 
 shepherd, dreading contagion, refuse to help him 
 in his sorry plight. But the Cid seizes the 
 leper's hand, which is covered with hideous 
 wounds, and kisses it. The beggar promises 
 him the heavens for this act of charity. The 
 Cid then spreads his cloak over the wretch ; and 
 
50 CORNEILLB 
 
 then sits down to share his meal with him, eat- 
 ing from the same platter ; while the mere sight 
 of the loathsome leper is sufficient to provoke a 
 feeling of nausea in the others, and deprive 
 them of their robust appetite. The shepherd 
 most pitifully watches the ham and the wine 
 rapidly vanish before his greedy eyes. Then 
 the Cid urges the leprous beggar to go to sleep : 
 he wiU keep watch over him. But he himself 
 is soon overpowered by an irresistible slumber. 
 Upon his awakening, the leper has disappeared. 
 The Cid sees his footprints upon the rocks ; and, 
 his flowing white garments floating in the air. 
 Saint Lazarus — for the miserable leprous beg- 
 gar was none else — bestows his blessing upon 
 him, and then rises heavenward. — Here we 
 have the mysticism of the Middle Ages. The 
 Cid has already conquered "all"" the worldly 
 goods ; he now, by an act of Christian charity, 
 and above all, of Christian humility, has won 
 eternal bliss. The Cid and the shepherd, the 
 saint and the leper, side by side, — what an inti- 
 mate blending of the sublime and the common- 
 place, of the ideal and real. 
 
 That episode having taken place far away 
 from Burgos, another scene is here interposed 
 
LE CID 51 
 
 to fill the gap caused by the Cid's return 
 to court. Again we meet the king with his 
 council. Aragon has delegated Don Martin 
 Gonzales, some sort of a giant, a veritable Ma- 
 tamoros, to settle, by means of a duel, the pend- 
 ing dispute over the possession of Calahorra. 
 But there being no Gastilian who dares fight 
 the giant, the king decides to conquer the 
 contested region with his army. Don Martin 
 and the Cid are then announced. Don Mar- 
 tin's impertinent and provoking attitude irri- 
 tates Rodrigo, and a hot quarrel, in by 
 no means polite language, ensues between 
 them. They both repair to a place near the 
 frontier of Castile and Aragon, to fight out 
 the duel which is to settle the Calahorra 
 trouble. Don Martin, confident of victory, 
 hopes at the same time to gain the hand of 
 Jimena and her fortune, for he has heard of the 
 king's public decree. Jimena, having received 
 from him a letter to that effect, and expecting 
 Rodrigo to succumb to the feared giant, hastily 
 dons a white nuptial robe, and hurries over to 
 court ; her suspense and anxiety are wrought 
 to the highest pitch, and she must needs at 
 once learn the result. To mark the time taken 
 
52 COENEILLE 
 
 up by the duel, another scene is here inserted, in 
 which the king and his son are seen engaged in 
 a violent quarrel in full council : Don Sancho, 
 namely, opposes his father's plan to divide the 
 royal domains among his children, for he de- 
 sires to be sole heir to the entire country. 
 Jimena arrives in time to hear the outcome of 
 the duel. It is announced that a knight has 
 just arrived from Aragon, carrying with him 
 Rodrigo's head, and asking for the privilege of 
 placing it at her feet. Then, at last, Jimena's 
 long-restrained tears burst forth. She proudly 
 avows her love for Rodrigo, and all she has 
 suffered in sacrificing that love to her duty and 
 honor. She begs the king to allow her to 
 retire to a cloister, and compel Don Martin to 
 content himself with her fortune. Suddenly, 
 there appears — Rodrigo ! Why, he explains, 
 a knight from Aragon, with Rodrigo's head, 
 was heralded. Is he not coming from Aragon ? 
 and, thank God, not without a head — Don 
 Martin's is outside on the point of his lance. 
 And he places Rodrigo's head at her feet, for, 
 indeed, the king's decree did not specify 
 whether this head was to be on the trunk, or 
 severed from it. But should she wish the 
 
LE CID 63 
 
 head alone, she might immediately cut it off her- 
 self with his sword. This logic proves irre- 
 sistible,, and Jimena, yielding to the pressure 
 brought to bear upon her by the king, the 
 marriage is celebrated that very evening. Thus 
 the comedia famosa is concluded with a prac- 
 tical joke — and by Rodrigo's union with 
 Jimena, about one year after he killed her 
 father, while without, from the point of Rod- 
 rigo's lance, the giant's bloody head looks down 
 upon the wedding jollifications. 
 
 The third act p resents still less coh erence 
 than the second, and a greater number of dis- 
 connected episodes. Nearly one quarter of the 
 act is taken up by the leper scene alone. Our 
 attention is diverted by all sorts of political 
 affairs ; Dona Urraca's appre!iension~7or~~ECT~~ 
 future after the king's death, and her enmity 
 with the prince ; the king's resolutions con- 
 cerning the fate of his possessions, and Don 
 Sancho's opposition to his plans ; and finally, 
 the dispute over Calahorra, with which, how- 
 ever, the interest of the two lovers is adroitly 
 mingled. Upon the whole, the relation be- 
 tween Rodrigo and Jimena is but little touched 
 upon. We do not, indeed, lose sight of Rod- 
 
54 CORNEILLE 
 
 rigo, but we, do not see hiffl as a lover ; he ap- 
 pears as a charitable and humble Christian; 
 and in the duel with Don Martin, he fights for 
 his country, not for his love. Rodrigo's charac- 
 ter has been rendered more complete, as have 
 also the characters of'some of the other person- 
 ages ; but the unity of dramatic effect has been 
 destroyed, and^the tragical elementgradually 
 vanishing away. 
 
 2. The Cid compared with the Mocedades 
 DEL Cid 
 
 A. First Act 
 
 The first scene, the knighting of Rodrigue, 
 is left out. The characters are supposed to be 
 only abou^ ^^nt y-four ho^^=^ef ore us, and they 
 cannot, therefore, develop from their begin- 
 nings. That scene is, besides, in all its details, 
 so faithful to the Spanish mediseval usages that 
 Corneille must needs omit it. Nor do we assist 
 here at the birth of the love of the infanta 
 and Chimene for Rodrigue. It is for his fine 
 physical qualities that Rodrigue is admired in 
 the Spanish play. " How well the armor be- 
 comes you. . . . How robust, how well built 
 
LE CID 56 
 
 he is," the king declares. The infanta's lan- 
 guage is also full of similar praise : " A brave 
 knight he will be, gallant and valorous. With 
 what strength, ease, and grace he sat in his 
 saddle and broke a lance ; how he saluted, and 
 at the same time gave his horse the spurs ! " 
 No .such, admiration .for the hero's physical 
 strength and dexterity is found in the Cid ; 
 it is his courage and the moral beauty of his 
 character alone that are brought out in relief. 
 
 At the opening of the Cid, Rodrigue and 
 Chimene have for some time been in love. 
 Moreover, their parents know of their mutual 
 affection and have virtually assented to their 
 union. In the first scene, Elvire, the suivante, 
 informs Chimene that her father approves of 
 her inclination, and that Don Diegue will ask 
 him for her hand that very day, after the 
 king's council, at which a governor will be 
 elected for the prince. The^ marriage, then, 
 is almost a matter of certainty, and this renders 
 the conflict more intense than in the original. 
 
 The council scene is omitted. The prince 
 does not appear in the Cid, and the selection of 
 a governor for him is of no intrinsic interest. 
 The council, therefore, is barely mentioned, it 
 
66 CORNEILLE 
 
 being of importance only in so far as it leads up 
 to the outrage suffered by Don Diegue — the 
 starting-point and cause of the tragic conflict. 
 
 The clash between him and the count occurs 
 accordingly not in the council-chamber; it 
 takes place in a square before the royal palace. 
 Upon their leaving the council together, the 
 two men are all alone. — This is the only stir- 
 ring event that is represented upon the stage ; 
 the others, as the count's death, Rodrigue's 
 duel with Don Sanche in the Cid, with Don 
 Martin in the original, happen off the stage 
 in both plays, and are merely related to the 
 spectators ; the battle with the Moors occurs 
 upon the stage in the original, but not in the 
 Old. 
 
 In the Spanish play Don Diegue's outburst 
 of rage and despair, and his meetings with his 
 sons, occur in his house, as does also Rod- 
 rigue's soliloquy. 'f:In the Cid, the entire action 
 is laid upon the open square before the palace. 
 By means of this conventional arrangement, the 
 continual shifting of the action from place to 
 place is obviated, and the connection between 
 the incidents thus kept up. Among the many 
 inconvenients of this stage artifice is, that fre- 
 
LE CID 57 
 
 quently events which, by their very nature, 
 require privacy, must be placed in a public 
 thoroughfare. It is quite within the limits of 
 probability, CorneiUe believes, that conversations 
 and quarrels, like the one between the count 
 and Don Diegue for instance, should happen in 
 such a place. But he does have some misgivings 
 as to the propriety of making Don Diegue be- 
 wail his misfortune in an open square ; the old 
 man, he concedes, could not do this without 
 attracting crowds of people around him; and 
 this would lead to complications which the poet 
 is unwilling to deal with. The suitable place 
 for Don Diegue's furious outbreak would, the 
 poet holds, be his own house ; but this could 
 not be accomplished without a change of scene 
 which, as was said, must remain the same 
 throughout the play. This difficulty seems to 
 have not a little preoccupied Corneille's mind ; 
 and this is the possible solution he suggests: 
 " Par une fiction de theatre on pent s'imaginer 
 que Don Diegue et le comte, sortant du palais 
 du roi, avancent toujours en se querellant, et 
 sont arrives devant la maison du premier, lors- 
 qu'il regoit le soufflet qui I'oblige a y entrer, 
 pour y chercher du secours. Si cette fiction 
 
68 CORNEILLE 
 
 poetique ne vous satisfait point, laissons-le 
 dans la place publique, et disons que le con- 
 cours du peuple autour de lui apres cette 
 offense, et les offres de service que lui font les 
 premiers amis qui s'y rencontrenfc, sont des 
 circonstances que le roman ne doit pas oublier, 
 mais que ces menues actions ne servant de rien 
 a la principale, il n'est pas besoin que le poete 
 s'en embarrasse sur la scene, . . . ces sortes 
 d'accompagnements ont toujours mauvaise 
 grace au theatre." — But, it may be objected, 
 crowds are sure to gather also when the count 
 disarms Don Diegue, or when Rodrigue solilo- 
 quizes in that same square : the very same 
 difficulty is met here, as indeed in some of 
 the other scenes. If it is at all admitted, for 
 the sake of theatrical convenience or owing to 
 mechanical stage necessities, that all the events 
 of a play may be placed in a square or street, it 
 will not do to be too fastidious with certain 
 particular events merely because they may 
 seem to be less liable than others to occur in 
 such places. The fact that Corneille sees him- 
 self compelled to complicate the convention- 
 ality of the unity of place, with which he starts 
 out, by additional theatrical " fictions," proves 
 
LE CID 59 
 
 the unsatisfactoriness of that classical canon. 
 That conventionality has its decided inconven- 
 ients, and the poet must simply put up with 
 them ; or else reject it altogether and adopt, 
 if the material conditions of the stage permit, 
 the much more practical and rational expedi- 
 ent of the multiplicity of place. 
 
 The scene where Don Diegue tries the 
 strength and courage of his three sons is like- 
 wise left out ; his two youngest sons do not 
 appear in the play at all. Instead of biting 
 Rodrigue's finger, the desperate man appeals 
 to his moral courage and his honor. In lieu of 
 the rather lengthy exhortation of Don Diegue, 
 we have, in the Old, a lively dialogue, and 
 Rodrigue's anxious impatience to learn the 
 name of his father's offender is put to a severe 
 test. ;|^^In the Cid, moreover, Don Diegue, while 
 urging his son toward vengeance, is fully aware 
 of his love for Chimene : th e tragic conflict is 
 therefore intensified at the very outset. 
 
 Rodrigue, reduced to the sad. alternative of 
 either killing the father of Chimene or leaving 
 the blot of disgrace upon his family, solilo- 
 quizes in stanzas, all ending with the rhyme 
 Ohimene-peine. He analyzes his feelings, rea- 
 
60 ■ CORNEILLB 
 
 soiling now with his love, now with his honor. 
 There is less of this subtle argumentation in the 
 original, where Rodrigue speaks of the count's 
 courage, and apostrophizes the sword his father 
 gave him. 
 
 " O Dieu 1 r^trange peine ! 
 En cet affront mon pere est I'ofiense 
 Et I'offenseur le pere de Chimfene 1 " 
 
 is translated from, — 
 
 " Mi padre el of endido, extrana pena I 
 Y el ofensor el padre de Jimena." 
 
 Or, at the end of the last stanza : — 
 
 " Ife soyons plus en peine, 
 Puisque aujourd'hui mon p^re est I'offensd, 
 Si I'ofienseur est pere de Chimene," 
 from, — 
 
 " Habiendo side 
 Mi padre el ofendido, 
 Poco importa que fuese, amarga pena ! 
 El ofensor el padre de Jimena 1 " 
 
 These stanzas, and especially the rhymes 
 mentioned, are rather artificial, and ill-suited 
 to the deep agitation of Rodrigue. Corneille 
 himself strongly disapproved of them. In the 
 Examen of Andromede (1660), he claims the 
 
LE CID 61 
 
 right to occasionally make use of stanzas in his 
 plays. He adds however : " Mais U faut eviter 
 le trop d'affectation. C'est par la que les 
 stances du Cid sont inexcusables et les mots de 
 peine et Chimene, qui font la derniere rime de 
 chaque strophe marquent un jeu du cote du 
 poete, qui n'a rien de naturel du cote de I'ac- 
 teur." 
 
 However, some of the conceits of the original, 
 Corneille did not imitate, as : — 
 
 " Qud hard, suerte atrevida, 
 Si el es el alma que me did la vida? 
 Qxl6 hare, terible calma ! 
 Si ella es la vida que me tiene el alm^a ? " 
 
 £. Second Act 
 
 Don Arias, instructed by the king, attempts 
 to induce the count to ask Don Diegue's par- 
 don. Don Gomes, however, refuses : — 
 
 " Je I'avoue entre nous, quand je lui fis I'affront, 
 J'eus le sang un peu chaud, et le bras un peu prompt, 
 Mais puisque e'en est fait, le coup est sans remfede." 
 
 These lines correspond to, — 
 
 " Confieso que fud locura, 
 Mas no la quiero enmendar." 
 
62 CORNEILLE 
 
 This may serve as an instance of the greater 
 simplicity and conciseness of the language of 
 Guillem de Castro. His style, when free of 
 conceits — which likewise abound in Corneille 
 — is more natural, and in its naivete frequently 
 approaches the popular tone of the old Spanish 
 ballads, some of which are even incorporated in 
 the Mbeedades del Old. 
 
 In the original, the count maintains that 
 honor can be satisfied only by the death of 
 the offender. The same idea prevailed of 
 course among the French nobility; thousands 
 fell in duels, and since the time of Henry IV. 
 the severest punishments were inflicted upon 
 such combatants. Richelieu, too, had to con- 
 tend against the mania of the duel. This 
 may account for Corneille's having left out, 
 in later editions, the following lines: — 
 
 " Les satisfactions n'apaisent point une ame, 
 Qui les re9oit a tort, qui les fait se diffame, 
 Et de pareils accords I'effet le plus commun 
 Est de dishonorer deux hommes au lieu d'un." 
 
 The original reads: — 
 
 " Satisfaccion? 
 Ni darla ni recibirla. 
 
LE CED 63 
 
 fil que la 6.6 y la recibe 
 Es muy cierto quedar mal, 
 Porque el uno pierde honor, 
 y el otro no cobra nada ; 
 El remitir a la espada 
 Los agravios es mejor." 
 
 The count is not a whit less arrogant, nor 
 less,_ conscious of his power than the Spanish 
 tsaal.. ijL-da. Casfara : -t- 
 
 " Un jour seul ne perd pas un homrae tel que moi, 
 Tout I'etat piSrira, s'il faut que je perisse. 
 
 Perderme ? No, 
 Que los hombres come yo 
 Tienen mucho que perder. 
 Y ha de perderse Castilla 
 Antes que yo." 
 
 But in the original, it is in the presence of 
 the king that the count uses such language 
 and, what is more, dares strike Don Diegue, and 
 boldly defies the monarch himself. 
 
 The encounter between the count and Rod- 
 rigue is a close imitation of de Castro, espe- 
 cially in the quick, animated dialogue between 
 them : — 
 
 "A moi, comte, deux mots. — Parle. — Ote-moi d'un 
 
 doute. 
 Connais-tu bien Don Diegue ? — Oui. — Parlona bas, 
 
 ecoute." 
 
64 CORNEILLE 
 
 The Spanish, however, is more forcible yet: — 
 
 " Conde I — Qui^n es? — A esta parte 
 Quiero decirte quien soy. — 
 Que me quieres? — Quiero hablarte. 
 Aquel viejo que esta alK 
 Sabes quidn es ? — Ya lo s^, 
 For qu^ lo dices? — For qu^? 
 Habla bajo, escucha." 
 
 The very first words in reply to Rodrigue's 
 " Conde ! " are " Quien es ? " Indeed, no words 
 better befitting both his character and the 
 circumstance could have been placed in the 
 count's mouth. Hardly a few hours have 
 elapsed since he saw Rodrigue, and now he 
 wiU not even know who he is. The words 
 " ote-moi d'un doute " are due to the necessity 
 of a rhyme with "ecoute." And the words 
 "parlous bas, ecoute," the two men being alone, 
 are altogether uncalled for ; in de Castro, 
 where the clash, Rodrigue's provocation, the 
 quarrel that follows, and partly also the duel, 
 all happen in the presence of the kinsfolk and 
 friends of both parties, those words have a 
 direct bearing upon the situation. One may 
 easily fancy how Rodrigue, with a hushed 
 voice, and turning his head and hand slightly, 
 
LE CID 65 
 
 points to "aquel viejo" — his old father who 
 exhorts him to the combat. Guillem de Castro's 
 scene is much superior to Corneille's, and by 
 far more impressive ; indeed, the excitement 
 into which the spectator is wrought must be 
 overwhelming. The constant tendency to 
 simplify events, and thus render them more 
 intelligible and more likely ; the omissions 
 necessitated by the unities ; and, furthermore, 
 the fear of overdoing and exaggeration, caused 
 Corneille to drop the environment — the milieu 
 — and confine himself to a dialogue which, 
 though it takes place between the chief actors, 
 is far from being an adequate substitute of 
 the original scene, so highly dramatic in its 
 intense realism and powerful effect. — Upon 
 the other hand, the tragic conflict is somewhat 
 heightened in the Old ; for the count is aware 
 that his daughter loves the man whom he means 
 to kill. 
 
 The characters, too, suffer a material change. 
 Thus, in the French play, both the coimt and 
 Rodrigue, in spite of their violent tone, keep 
 within bounds of due politeness ; they treat 
 each other like courteous noblemen, and even 
 compliment each other mutually. In the orig- 
 
66 CORNEILLE 
 
 inal, they utter most formidable threats, nor are 
 they any too scrupulous in the choice of their 
 expressions. Indeed, the attitude of the count 
 is essentially different. He does not for a mo- 
 ment cast off his aristocratic^ dignity. He 
 would be glad,Tie avers, to be able to destine 
 his daughter to Rodrigue ; he is charmed to see 
 him set his duty above his love, and show that 
 high virtue behooving a "chevalier parfait," 
 such as he would desire for his son-in-law. 
 And he concludes : — 
 
 " Viens, tu f ais ton devoir, et le fils d^g^nfere 
 Qui survit un moment k I'honneur de son pere." 
 
 There is, on the contrary, a great deal of swag- 
 gering brutality in the original. Instead of 
 " jeune presomptueux ! " the count there cries 
 to Rodrigue, " quita, rapaz ! " He calls him 
 derisively " novel caballero," a puppy who " has 
 milk on his lips." In his reply, Rodrigue 
 swears that he will mix that milk of his lips 
 with the blood of the count's breast. And 
 when Rodrigue becomes more aggressive, the 
 count gently hints that, even as he slapped his 
 father's cheek, so will he now give him a thou- 
 sand kicks. In short, we have here knights of 
 
LE CID 67 
 
 the eleventh century, or pretty much so, where- 
 as CorneUle^s .personages are nobles of the 
 seventeenth century, men who despatch their ad- 
 versaries politely, w;ith a smile and an apology 
 on their lips. 
 
 We now see the infanta consoling Chimene, 
 whose happiness has been so suddenly de- 
 stroyed. They do not yet know what has 
 occurred between the count and Rodrigue ; 
 but Chimene apprehends a challenge on the 
 part of her lover ; and when a page reports 
 having seen him engaged in a quarrel with her 
 father near the palace, she rushes out wildly to 
 forestall the impending calamity. While the 
 infanta expresses to her suivante her revived 
 hopes of obtaining Rodrigue for herself — in- 
 stead of turning him over to Chimene as has 
 been her intention ; while, in the scene suc- 
 ceeding, the king orders Don Alonse to arrest 
 the count, and, at the same time, communicates 
 the news of the approach of the Moors — 
 Chimene precipitates herself upon the square 
 before the court. But she is too late. Don 
 Alonse returns and brings the sad tidings of 
 the count's death, and announces that Chimene 
 is on her way to the palace to demand redress 
 
68 CORNEILLB 
 
 from the king. The dramatic interest is con- 
 siderably weakened by the declaration made by 
 the king : — 
 
 " Ce que le comte a fait semble avoir xa6vit6 
 Ce digne chatiment de sa Wm^rite." 
 
 ■ The scene in which Chimene and Don Diegue 
 appear before the king is, like most of the 
 other great scenes of the play, imitated after 
 de Castro; the development is the same, and 
 here and there a few words are translated. It 
 is introduced by Chimene's desperate cry, 
 " Sire, sire, justice ! " just as in the original, 
 " Justicia, justicia pido ! " Some exaggerations 
 in Chimene's language are imitated and even 
 improved upon by Corneille : — 
 
 " Ce sang qui tout sorti fume encor de courroux 
 De se voir repaudu pour d'autres que pour vous." 
 
 This conceit, not found in de Castro, is indeed 
 not objectionable in itself ; but Voltaire, in his 
 Commentaries on Corneille, has a right to ask 
 whether such words are becoming a daughter 
 while her father breathes his last. Scudery, 
 enlightened though he was by his envy, to 
 use Voltaire's expression, failed to censure 
 
LE CID 69 
 
 such concetti; they were in the taste of the 
 time, he himself indulging in them more freely 
 than his contemporaries. 
 
 " Le sang sur la poussi^re ^crivait mon devoir," 
 
 is a translation of, — 
 
 " Y esoribid en este papel 
 Con sangre mi obligacion." 
 
 GuUlem de Castro's lines, — 
 
 "YoUegud . . . 
 A mi padre, que mi habld 
 For la boca de la herida, . . ." 
 
 are thus developed by Corneille : — 
 
 " Ou plut6t sa valeur en cat 6tat r^duite 
 Me parlait par sa plaie, et Mtait ma poursuite ; 
 Et pour se faire entendre au plus juste des roia. 
 Par cette triste bouche elle empruntait ma voix." 
 
 By that sad mouth — the wound — the count's 
 valor asks Chimene to lend to it her voice, 
 so that it may be heard by the most just of 
 kings ! 
 
 On the other hand, some of de Castro's most 
 exaggerated metaphors are omitted by Corneille, 
 thus : — 
 
70 CORNEILLE 
 
 " A tus ojos poner quiero 
 Letras que en mi alma estin 
 
 Y en los mios, como iman, 
 Sacan lagrimas de acero." 
 
 This conceit, as well as the count's blood upon 
 Chimene's handkerchief, and upon the withered 
 cheek of Don Diegue, are wanting in the Cid. 
 It is not by such crude means that CorneiUe 
 strives to produce his effects. The sight of 
 blood displeased the public of his time, and 
 was not tolerated upon the classic stage. In 
 the original, Don Diegue's declaration that 
 his outrage had to be washed off with the 
 count's blood is far from being a mere figure 
 of speech; that blood actually is on his face, 
 and it is with the most vivid details he de- 
 scribes how he himself placed it there : — 
 
 " Yo VI, Senor, 
 Que en aquel pecho enemigo 
 La espada de m.i Rodrigo 
 Entraba a buscar mi honor. 
 Llegu^, y halMe sin vida, 
 
 Y puse con alma exenta , 
 El corazon en mi afrenta 
 
 Y los dedos en mi herida. 
 Lavd con sangre el lugar 
 Adonde la mancha estaba ; 
 Porque el honor que se lava, 
 Con sangre se ha de lavar." 
 
LE CID 71 
 
 In the French play, the cheek of Don Diegue 
 is not besmeared with blood, and these lines 
 have no room in it. 
 
 O. Third Act 
 
 No sooner has Rodrigue slain the count than 
 he goes to hear his sentence from the mouth of 
 Chimene. The scene between Rodrigue audi 
 Elvire, and the one between Rodrigue and 
 Chimene, are both imitated after the Spanish 
 model ; the ideas and feelings expressed are 
 much the same, and quite a number of lines 
 are translated. The scene between the twoi 
 lovers is one of the most beautiful of the 
 tragedy ; but its effect is less strong than that 
 of the corresponding scene of the original, 
 from which it is almost entirely borrowed. 
 The language in de Castro is simple and 
 natural, while in the Qid the lovers vie with 
 each other in conceits, clever repartees, and 
 shrewd arguments, and discuss the conflict 
 between love and duty with a subtlety and 
 acuteness entirely incompatible with their deep 
 grief. Never have two lovers talked more 
 . ^opMstically. Their ingenuity in discovering 
 all sorts of points of honor is simply astound- 
 
72 CORNEILLE 
 
 ing. Rodrigue offers Ms sword to Chimene 
 to kill him, saying that he killed her father 
 not only to avenge his and satisfy honor, but 
 also to deserve of her love. Chimene replies 
 that he, by doing his duty, has taught her to 
 do hers, and that honor now commands her to 
 avenge her father. To which Rodrigue retorts 
 that by slaying the count he showed himself 
 worthy of her, and that she must now take 
 his life if she desires to be worthy of him ; 
 and he again offers her his sword, declaring 
 that he will only be too happy to die "d'un 
 coup si beau." Chimene declines to kill him, 
 but saj'^s she will see that vengeance is wreaked 
 by others. But, says Rodrigue, it was he him- 
 self that killed her father ; why, then, should 
 she employ another hand than her own. And 
 Chimene replies that he committed the murder 
 unaided ; neither would she, therefore, owe her 
 revenge to his love or to his despair. " Rigour- 
 eux point d'honneur ! " exclaims Rodrigue, — 
 indeed, so rigorous as to offend both art and 
 reality. 
 
 The other two scenes of this act are likewise 
 imitated from the Spanish author. Don Diegue 
 is waiting to meet his son ; when Rodrigue at 
 
LE CID 73 
 
 last arrives, from the house of Chimene, he 
 sends him against the Moors, who are threaten- 
 ing Seville by water. Don Diegue's language 
 in these scenes, as indeed all throughout the 
 play, in its vigor and dignity favorably con- 
 trasts with that of the other characters. At 
 times it closely follows the original : — 
 
 " Touche ces cheveux blancs k qui tu rends I'honneur ; 
 Viens baiser cette joue, et reconnais la place 
 Ou fut empreint I'afEront que ton courage efface. 
 Toca las blancas canas que me honraste, 
 Llega la tiema boca a la mejilla 
 Donde la mancha de mi honor quitaste." 
 
 4 
 
 It may here be observed how the love of 
 Chimene and Rodrigue is made by Corneille 
 the turning-point of the play. For what in 
 the original is merely an episode, though a 
 very important one, becomes in the Oid the 
 main element of the tragedy. In the Spanish 
 play Don Diegue knows nothing of his son's 
 love, and, consequently, does not speak of it. 
 Neither does Rodrigue, who just left Chimene, 
 say aught of his love. In the Cid, however, 
 Don Diegue at once says to his son, — 
 
 " Ne m§le point de soupirs k ma joie.'" 
 
74 CORNEILLE 
 
 In the original, Don Diegue sends his son 
 against the enemy merely in order to con- 
 ciliate the king's wrath, and it is remembered 
 how, during Rodrigue's expedition, we forget 
 all about Chimene, our attention being directed 
 to the other features of the play. But here 
 she remains throughout the one thought of 
 Rodrigue ; Don Diegue himself thinks of his 
 son as of a' lover ; exhorting him to go and 
 fight the Moors, he points out that his con- 
 quest of the foe is the sole means of appeas- 
 ing Chimene and regaining her love : — 
 
 " Force par ta vaillanoe 
 La justice au pardon, et Chimfene au silence. 
 Si tu I'aimes, apprends que revenir vainqueur 
 C'est I'unique moyen de regagner son ooeur." 
 
 B. Fourth Act 
 
 In the original, we follow Rodrigue on his 
 campaign, assist at his accidental meeting with 
 the princess in the king's country-seat, witness 
 the battle with the Moors and the capture of 
 their king. We see the choleric temper of the 
 prince Don Sancho bursting out against his 
 fencing-master, and his violent quarrel with his 
 
LE CID 75 
 
 sister ; and lastly hear the captive king report 
 the exploits of Rodrigue. All this is omitted 
 in the French play. Instead, we see here, be- 
 fore Rodrigue's return, Elvire bringing word to 
 Chimene of his victory over the Moors during 
 the preceding night. The infanta comes to 
 persuade Chimene to sacrifice her vengeance to 
 the public weal ; but she is only pleading her 
 own cause, for now that Rodrigue has won such 
 signal distinction, her hopes of marrying him 
 herself have again revived. But Chimene is 
 as relentless as ever. The king, however, re- 
 admits Rodrigue into his favor, and bestows 
 upon him his gracious pardon, saying, — 
 
 " J'excuse ta chaleur k venger ton offense, 
 Et I'etat defendu me parle en ta defense. 
 Crois que dorenavant Chimene a beau parler, 
 Je ne I'ecoute plus que pour la consoler." 
 
 This ingenuous utterance deprives the plot of 
 all tragic tension, for it is quite clear now that 
 the endeavors of Chimdne wiU have no result 
 whatever, and that Rodrigue's life is not in the 
 least endangered. This is the second time now 
 that that most awkward king forestalls the so- 
 lution, thus considerably weakening the interest 
 of the action. — Upon his demand Rodrigue gives 
 
76 CORNEILLE 
 
 an account of the battle against the Moors ; 
 this narrative, told in simple, fluent, straight- 
 forward and vigorous language, is certainly 
 among the most vivid and eloquent in the clas- 
 sic tragedy. ?teut however beautiful it be, it 
 may well be doubted whether it fully makes up 
 for the tableau of the Spanish play, in whose 
 place it stands. For we get here but a pale 
 reflection, as it were, of reality — which reaches 
 us only after it has passed through the mind of 
 Rodrigue, and which we perceive with his eyes 
 instead of our own. — Corneille does not strive 
 to directly affect the senses, and, as a result, 
 the total impression is far from being strong 
 and vivid enough, and the emotions are not 
 sufficiently arousedi^ The unities of time and 
 place prevent the poet from removing Rodrigue 
 to any distance : they help preserve the unity 
 of action, which would be impaired by follow- 
 ing Rodrigue upon his various adventures. 
 We would be led astray from what principally 
 interests us ; the tragical conflict would be slack- 
 ened, and but slow to revive when again brought 
 before us. Corneille does not attempt to dis- 
 port our imagination, or cater to curiosity ; his 
 endeavor is rather to satisfy the demands of 
 
LE CID 77 
 
 reason. To frequent changes of picturesque 
 tableaux, he prefers the concentration upon one 
 psychological fact. Large crowds do not ap- 
 pear upon the classic stage, owing to its small 
 size. Nor would they present much interest 
 to refined spectators, but rather divert their 
 attention from the chief characters. The spec- 
 tacle of a battle might do for a popular per- 
 formance well enough, but is considered beneath 
 the dignity of a tragedy. Hosts of fighting 
 Spaniards and Moors might indeed move a 
 crowd of simple-minded amusement-seekers, 
 but must leave indifferent a select audience, 
 or even provoke a smile of sceptical incredu- 
 lity. Besides, who among that aristocratic 
 public care aught for common troopers ? Have 
 they not there the brave leader himself, the 
 real victor, the one personage of any con- 
 sequence ? For his heroic narrative, in that 
 noble, lofty tone, in that choice language, they 
 would fain sacrifice all the Castilians and Moors 
 in the world^ The fact is, the Spanish play ad- 
 dresses itself to all classes, satisfying all of its 
 elements, while Corneille's Cid appeals to the 
 nobility alone, expressing its ideals, and con- 
 forming to its tastes and beliefs. 
 
78 CORNEILLE 
 
 A great variety of dissimilar and improbable 
 events, with the whole globe for the scene of 
 action; a motley agglomeration of clamorous 
 sounds and glaring colors; the freest scope 
 for the creations of fancy; a direct and over- 
 powering affection of the senses — such were 
 the features wherewith the romances of the 
 period were dazzling the imagination of the 
 many. But the tragedy, which best embodied 
 the reaction against the romanesque spirit of 
 the age, held that art in uttermost contempt. 
 To be moved, the nobles wanted no such 
 strong appeals : they preferred a discreet sug- 
 gestion to a great tableau — the lifelike repre- 
 sentation of the victorious captain to the 
 doubtful picture of a battle. 
 
 In the Spanish play, right after the return 
 of Rodrigue from his expedition, Chimene 
 appears at court, pressing her suit against 
 him, and the king, though extending a most 
 cordial welcome to him, and even embracing 
 him in her presence, sees himself compelled 
 to send him again into exile. During this 
 absence of his, Chimene for the third time 
 now comes to demand justice, and upon her 
 request, as is remembered, the king issues a 
 
LE CID 79 
 
 decree, pledging her hand and fortune to him 
 who will bring her lover's head. — In the Oid, 
 Rodrigue is not banished, and Chimene — who 
 appears here but twice as a supplicant — is not 
 held out as a prize, at the mercy of the first- 
 come adventurer of the land. It is one of 
 her suitors, Don Sanche, — a character, more- 
 over, encountered early in the play, — who, 
 with her own consent, undertakes to avenge 
 her by fighting the duel with Rodrigue — and 
 there is no political motive here for this 
 
 combat. '"' 
 
 It is the third appearance of Chimene be- 
 fore the king that is imitated in this act. As 
 in the original, Chimene, after fainting at the 
 false news of Rodrigue's death brought in to 
 test her love by order of the king, pretends 
 it was the joy at the tidings that has over- 
 whelmed her. But here, as indeed throughout 
 the play, she is more subtle and ingenious 
 than in the original where she opens her plea 
 with the naive and touching words of an old 
 ballad. Moreover, Corneille here, as upon 
 other occasions, improves upon the original. 
 Chimene, namely, declares that supposing it 
 was grief that caused her to swoon, it was 
 
80 1 COKNEILLE 
 
 i 
 
 the' grief that Rodrigue died a glorious death 
 for his country, instead of being hanged on 
 the gallows in expiation of his murder, as 
 he deserved. And she winds up by saying, 
 that she rejoices in his victory over the enemy; 
 for his fame being so great now, he is a by 
 far worthier object for her sacred vengeance 
 than before. 
 
 In Guillem de Castro's play, the duel, as was 
 seen, is fought primarily for the possession of 
 Calahorra. The political motive is altogether 
 --AsfiflL froin___th€- -French play, and thus the 
 eljgment^^^J^^a. is Again made more, pro.minent. 
 Don Sanche, moreover, as was said, is not a 
 stranger to Chimene, a new person appearing 
 suddenly to hasten the solution — a deus ex 
 machina ; from the very first scene of the play 
 he has been known as her wooer ; he even had 
 upon a previous occasion offered his sword to 
 avenge her father's death. 
 
 E. Fifth Aet 
 
 In the Mbcedades del Cid, it is to the boun- 
 dary between Castile and Aragon that Don 
 Martin and Rodrigue go to fight the duel. For 
 
LE cm 81 
 
 the tliird time it is that Rodrigue leaves 
 Burgos : to mark the lapse of time thus occa- 
 sioned, two scenes are inserted. These acquaint 
 us with new events by way of introduction to 
 the second part of the play ; but interrupt the 
 continuous development of the chief action. 
 Again a council is held, at which Don Diego is 
 present. The life of the Cid, the brave general, 
 is menaced by a giant, his eventual death en- 
 tailing the loss of Calahorra, a Spanish province. 
 Does the king express his uneasiness at the im- 
 pending peril, or does the father show any 
 anxiety at the fate of his son ? By no means. 
 The Cid and Calahorra itself are completely 
 forgotten by the king, by Don Diego, and, in 
 all probability, also by the spectators. In- 
 stead, the old king makes his last will and 
 testament, and our turbulent prince violently 
 protests against the partition of the royal 
 domains. These two scenes are of course 
 omitted by Corneille, who strives to concen- 
 trate the interest upon the main events of 
 the play. Owing to this omission, there is 
 not sufficient material left for the fifth act, 
 and this may account for the second visit of 
 Rodrigue to Chimene, the scene which opens 
 
82 CORNEILLE 
 
 that act. Of all the greater scenes, this is the 
 only one not imitated from the Mocedades del 
 Cid, and it may well be doubted whether this 
 addition constitutes an improvement upon the 
 original. 
 
 Before going to fight the duel, then, with 
 Don Sanche, Rodrigue comes to bid Chimene 
 a last farewell. Already on his first visit he 
 begged her to kill him. Then, says he, she 
 did not deign to take his life with her own 
 hand ; and he will be happy now to die for the 
 sake of her honor. His faithful love forbids 
 him to defend himself, and he will adore the 
 hand of the man that will do away with him. 
 Apparently, Rodrigue is anxious to hear from 
 Chimene that she still loves him. But she 
 shrewdly argues that his honor demands that 
 he defend himself, and vanquish his adversary. 
 Whereupon he proves to her that the lustre of 
 his honor, already so dazzling owing to his 
 victory over the Moors, will, on the contrary, 
 grow more brilliant, were he to die for her 
 honor of his own free wiU. Finally, her per- 
 suasions failing to prevail upon Rodrigue, 
 Chimene prays him not to let her fall into the 
 hands of Don Sanche : — 
 
LE CID 83 
 
 " Va, songe h ta defense, 
 Pour forcer mon devoir, pour m'imposer silence, 
 Et si tu sens pour moi ton coeur encore epris, 
 Sora vainqueur d'un combat dont Chim^ne est le prix." 
 
 This scene fairly bristles with arguments and 
 subtleties entirely incompatible with genuine 
 feeling. In his Hxamen of the Cid, Corneille 
 himself draws attention to the insincerity and 
 artificiality in that scene — as indeed in that of 
 Rodrigue's first visit to Chimene, in the third act : 
 " Les pensees de la premiere des deux (scenes) 
 sont quelquefois trop spirituelles pour partir de 
 personnes fort affligees. . . . Pour ne deguiser 
 rien, cette offre que fait Rodrigue de son epee 
 a Chimene, et cette protestation de se laisser 
 tuer par Don Sanche, ne vous plairaient pas 
 maintenant. Ces beautes etaient de mise en 
 ce temps-la, et ne le seraient plus en celui-ci. 
 La premiere est dans I'original espagnol, et 
 I'autre est tiree sur ce modele. Toutes les deux 
 ont fait leur effet en ma faveur ; mais je ferais 
 scrupule d'en etaler de pareilles a I'avenir sur 
 notre theatre." 
 
 While Rodrigue is away to meet Don Sanche, 
 the infanta bemoans, in dull stanzas, her un- 
 happy love. Then she talks with her suivante 
 
84 CORNEILLE 
 
 about the duel and Rodrigue. She yet has 
 some lingering hope of winning him, but at last 
 she generously decides to give him to ChimSne. 
 In another scene, Chimene and Elvire, both in 
 the greatest suspense, likewise speak about the 
 combat. ^,,These talks are by no means enter- 
 taining ; Ibut tedious and tiresome as they are, 
 they are more appropriate than the episodic 
 scenes in the original. The threatening catas- 
 trophy is at least not forgotten, the attention is 
 fixed, and the final outcome holds a larger place 
 in our interest than it does in the Mboedades del 
 Old. 
 
 Chimene and Elvire are interrupted by the 
 return of Don Sanche. Upon the bidding of 
 Rodrigue, by whom he has been disarmed, he 
 comes to offer his sword to Chimene. Rodrigue 
 could not bring it himself, he explains, his duty 
 having called him to the king. At sight of 
 the sword, Chimene is led to believe that Don 
 Sanche has killed Rodrigue ; she obstinately 
 refuses to listen to an explanation, and hastens 
 straightway to the king's palace. Although 
 there is a change of place here, there is no scene 
 inserted to mark the time she needs to reach 
 the court. There she finds Don Sanche. But 
 
LE CID 85 
 
 curiously enough Rodrigue has not yet arrived. 
 Thus confirmed in the belief of his death, she 
 openly declares her love for him. It does not 
 appear that Rodrigue had been in the palace. 
 What about the urgent duty that had called 
 him to the king ? The artifice is transparent. 
 Chimene must needs again confess her love 
 before the king : hence also her improbable 
 misunderstanding with Don Sanche. 
 
 Already upon a former occasion, by the false 
 report of Rodrigue's death, Chimene was forced 
 into a public confession of her love, which, how- 
 ever, she withdrew when she heard that she had 
 been imposed upon. This deception is repeated 
 in the Spanish play by means of a trick, played 
 upon her this time by Rodrigue himself ; he 
 arrives, it is remembered, with two heads, as he 
 jestingly puts it, one upon his shoulders and the 
 other outside on the point of his lance. To 
 elicit from Chimene this second declaration, 
 Corneille could not very well resort to such a 
 rude joke. Something else had to be invented, 
 and hence both the strange misunderstanding 
 on the part of Chimene, and the unexplained 
 tardiness of Rodrigue. 
 
 Dramatically weak and artificial as the end 
 
86 CORNELLLE 
 
 is in both plays, it is, in the Cid, more elevated 
 in feeling, and also more in keeping with the 
 dignity of the characters. That brutal jest 
 contrasts most singularly with the generosity 
 shown by Rodrigue toward his Tanqu ished ad- 
 yersary. So far indeed from being brutal, the 
 characters in the Qid are entirely too noble: 
 they not only all, without a single exception, 
 act most nobly, but ever and ever discourse 
 upon their noble sentiments in most noble lan- 
 guage. Thus Don Sanche declares that, though 
 conquered, he feels happy ; nay, even cherishes 
 his defeat, for it renders possible " le beau 
 succes d'une amour si parfaite." So, too, the 
 inevitable infanta, who arrives bringing Rod- 
 rigue with her in order once more to give him 
 to Chimene; her perpetual magnanimity is posi- 
 tively tiresome. Rodrigue, of course, is much 
 too generous to claim Chimene as the prize of 
 his victory. Again he lays his head at her feet 
 — for the third time now — and bursts into an 
 exaggerated rapture of amorous enthusiasm. 
 
 The Rodrigo of the Mocedades del Cid is an 
 idealized portrait of the mediaeval knight; gen- 
 erous to his friends and fanatically jealous of 
 his honor; loyal to his king and gallant toward 
 
LE CID 87 
 
 ladies ; devout and superstitious ; rugged of 
 manner and cruel to his enemy; straightforward 
 in his actions, and plain and blunt in his speech. 
 The Rodrigue of the Oid is the courtier of 
 the time of Louis XIII., idealized. He is 
 refined and elegant, polished and dignified, and 
 above all, magnanimous to his foe. But he 
 is rhetorical and stilted, artificial and sophistic, 
 bombastic and precieux. To be sure he moved 
 in the Hotel Rambouillet, read the romances 
 and lyrics fashionable in the year 1636, and 
 very likely himself rhymed gallant sonnets, and 
 warbled sweet and tender madrigals. 
 
 It is no longer possible for Chimene to refuse 
 Rodrigue after the open avowal of her love. 
 She had, moreover, virtually pledged herself 
 when she exhorted him to defeat Don Sanche : — 
 
 " Sors vainqueur d'un combat dont Chimfene est le prix I " 
 
 The king grants her one year for mourning. 
 
 Thus Chimene, after persistently clamoring 
 for the death of the man who slew her father, 
 consents, the very day after the perpetration of 
 the deed, to marry him — with the body of the 
 murdered count yet lying in the house awaiting 
 burial. In the original, it is only about a year 
 
88 CORNEILLE 
 
 after the catastrophe that Chimene yields to the 
 marriage. 
 
 Poetically, the conflict betwixt love and duty 
 is susceptible of widely divergent solutions. 
 To cite, for comparison's sake, but two instances. 
 In Lope de Vega's Ustrella de Sevilla, the 
 heroine's lover kills her only brother; Estrella 
 frees the murderer from prison, forgives him, 
 and then retires into a cloister: here we have 
 complete abnegation and self-sacrifice, along 
 with most passionate love. Her duty triumphs 
 over her love, and that duty, moreover, spells 
 neither vengeance nor honor. On the other 
 hand, in Romeo and Juliet, passion has no 
 counter-balance whatsoever; it holds sole and 
 undivided sway. In the Old, there is neither 
 this blind passion nor that angelic resignation; 
 duty and an acute sense of honor battle against 
 love, and this conflict is the characteristic 
 element in Corneille's classic play; but it is 
 not duty that carries the day. 
 
 The dSrwdment in Romeo and Juliet consists 
 in the death of the unfortunate lovers — a 
 highly tragical solution, and one brought abojit 
 by sheer fatality. In Estrella de Sevilla, the 
 lovers remain alive, but they do not become 
 
LE CID 89 
 
 united. Realizing the terrible gap that sepa- 
 rates her from the murderer, Estrella, by a 
 volitional act of her own, renounces her happi- 
 ness, and withdraws from the world. Surely, 
 this close is tragical, and it is also moral. In 
 the Cid, the lovers are left safe and sound, and 
 are even joined in marriage. The conflicting 
 elements are reconciled in an entirely optimis- 
 tic sense — the conclusion is not tragical. 
 Strictly speaking, the Cid is not a tra ged y. I t 
 is, as originally entitled, a tragi-comedy — a 
 tragidie heureuse. And inasmuch as finally 
 love prevails over duty, common morality is 
 disregarded. Honor alone — as understood in 
 the seventeenth century in France — is satisfied 
 in Comeille's Cid. 
 
 3. Changes undekgone by the Moceda- 
 DBS DEL Cid 
 
 In the comparison of Guillem de Castro's and 
 Corneille's plays, there have been noted the 
 chief differences in their general make-up, in 
 the conceptions of the dramatic art held by the 
 poets, in the construction of the plots, and in 
 the portrayal of the characters; it has been 
 
90 COENEILLE 
 
 attempted to lay bare the manner in which the 
 Cid of Corneille grew out of the Moeedades del 
 Old. It has been shown how the romantic play 
 of Guillem de Castro became the classical play 
 of Corneille. MCorneille's chief preoccupation 
 was to attain intensity of tragical effect. To 
 this effort were due almost all of the changes 
 introduced by him. Thus, by the elimination 
 of everything comic or grotesque, he satisfied 
 one of the primary requirements of the classical 
 theory of art, the strict separation of the tragic 
 and comic elements — whidi TeadS^ to a greater 
 intensity of effect. By the omission of all 
 events foreign to the moral conflict, he 
 achieved unity of action — which is essential 
 for the intensity of effect. Again, the unity 
 of action cannot be easily attained if the 
 events are scattered through a long and fre- 
 quently interrupted interval of time, and over 
 different places; hence arises the need of the 
 unities of time and place. Some of the princi- 
 paL„exfints„.bmig, by Ihe applTcation , of the 
 thEfiaJunities,-discarded.iEam_tlm-atagfi».±b.ey are 
 replaced by jaa^jjtjxes .and conversations. All 
 these eliminations render the drama si mpler , 
 clearer, more intelligible. CorneiUe's play thus 
 
LE CID 91 
 
 gains in cohesion, in simplicity, in unity of 
 purpose, and in intensity of effect — qualities 
 inherent in the classical work of art. On the 
 other hand, the numerous incidents revealing 
 the various phases in the development of the 
 personages being omitted, the play loses in 
 Xarifity, in picturesqueness, and in completeness 
 of character . Classicism, in the seventeenth 
 century, was the formulation of the demands 
 of rationalism in art ; sentimentality, mysticism 
 and superstition, the blending of the tragical 
 with the grotesque, the exaggerations of the 
 imagination — these were all equally banished, 
 and the dramatic unities themselves are nothing 
 else but the postulates of reason applied to 
 the technique of the theatre. 
 
 It has, moreover, been seen how the main 
 event seized upon by Corneille is conceived by 
 him after his own manner ; that a more thor- 
 ough-going psychological analysis is attempted, 
 the moral idea more emphasized, the tragic con- 
 flict heightened. The events of mediaeval life, 
 rude, romantic, of unbridled imagination, are 
 either omitted or changed. All that is pecul- 
 iarly Spanish or mediseval disappears. We have 
 dwelt, in passing, on those changes. Physical 
 
92 COBNEILLE 
 
 bravery is supplanted by moral courage, the 
 rudeness and crudity reigning all through the 
 Spanish play vanish, politeness and gallantry 
 taking their place. The prowess of Rodrigo on 
 horseback ; the testing by Don Diego of the 
 courage of his sons ; his cheek besmeared with 
 the count's blood, and the handkerchief of 
 Jimena soaked therein ; the nicknames and 
 threats exchanged between the count and Rod- 
 rigo ; the bullying of Don Martin ; the loath- 
 some scene of the leper — all these have no 
 place in Corneille's play. In a word, the man- 
 ners undergo a total transformation. Nor do 
 the characters remain the same. Don Sanche, 
 in spite of his insignificance, is an improvement 
 upon Don Martin. The infanta, too, differs 
 from Dona Urraca ; although that feeble, lifeless 
 character, wavering to and fro with the regu- 
 larity of a pendulum, is not, by any means, a 
 happy creation. Much more important, is the 
 change introduced at the very beginning of 
 the play; Don Diegue and the count know 
 about the love of Rodrigue and Chimene, who 
 consider themselves as betrothed by the con- 
 sent of their parents. It is easily seen that 
 this simple alteration must intensify the tragical 
 
LE CID 93 
 
 conflict. The most important change, however, 
 is that suffered by Rodrigue and Chimene. 
 Chimene is made much more prominent, and 
 the love of the two becomes the central fact 
 around which pivot all the others. Never for 
 a moment is our attention diverted from their 
 love : it engrosses the minds of the spectators, 
 and fills their hearts with emotional sympathy. 
 Such are the changes undergone by the Mo- 
 cedades del Cid. The line of action, the main 
 situations, are all preserved, and often closely 
 imitated ; but the manners are altogether differ- 
 ent, the characters intensified, new motives 
 substituted, the moral conflict enhanced, the 
 action unified and concentrated — the Spanish 
 romantic epic drama has become a French classic 
 tragedy. 
 
VI. LE MENTEUR 
 
 1. The Mentbue compared with the 
 Verdad Sospechosa 
 
 Nearly four years pass after tlie representa- 
 tion of the Cid without any sign from Corneille. 
 The period between 1640 and 1644, however, is 
 one of great activity for the poet, and marks 
 the height of his development. Horace, Cinna, 
 Polyeucte, PompSe, cross the boards in rapid 
 succession. In 1644 Corneille again returns to 
 the comedy with the Mentewr ; in the Ilpitre 
 prefixed to this play the author says : " Etant 
 oblige au genre comique de ma premiere repu- 
 tation, je ne pouvais I'abandonner tout-a-fait 
 sans quelque espdce d'ingratitude. II est vrai 
 que comme, alors que je me hasardais a le quit- 
 ter, je n'osai me fier a mes seules forces, et que 
 pour m'elever a la dignite du tragique, je pris 
 I'appui du grand Seneque, . . . ainsi, quand je 
 me suis resolu de repasser du heroique au naif, 
 94 
 
LE MBNTETJR 95 
 
 je n'ai ose descendre de si haut sans m'assurer 
 d'un guide, et me suis laisse conduire au fameux 
 Lope de Vega, de peur de m'egarer dans les 
 detours de tant d'intrigues que fait notre 
 Menteur." 
 
 It was only in 1660, when lie wrote his Exa- 
 mens, that Corneille discovered the Verdad 
 Sospeohosa, the model of his Menteur, to be the 
 work of Kuiz de Alarcon, a contemporary of the 
 old Lope de Vega Carpio. — Let us compare 
 the two plays, and note the chief deviations of 
 the Menteur from the original, the Verdad Sos- 
 pechosa by Juan Ruiz de Alarcon y Mendoza. 
 
 A. First Act 
 
 Dorante, the liar, returns from Poitiers, where 
 he has studied law, to the house of his father 
 Geronte, a nobleman residing in Paris. The 
 opening scenes present some difference from 
 the original. In the French play, Geronte 
 yields to his son's wish to leave Poitiers and 
 come to Paris, because of the latter's intention 
 to exchange the law for the military career. 
 The ardent desire of the young man to quit 
 the provincial town, and his Digests and Codes, 
 
96 CORNBILLE 
 
 in order to lead a soldier's merry life in the gay 
 capital, is no doubt intended by the poet as a 
 trait which is to reveal at the very outset our 
 hero's light-mindedness. 
 
 In the Spanish play, Don Beltran calls his 
 son, Don Garcia, who studies letters in the Uni- 
 versity of Salamanca under the guidance of a 
 letrado, to Madrid, to take the place of his 
 deceased brother at court. In the first scene, 
 Don Garcia, in student's attire, accompanied by 
 his tutor, is most affectionately welcomed by 
 his father. Don Beltran gives him Tristan, an 
 old servant of the house — the gracioso of the 
 play — to serve him as his valet. 
 
 In the second scene, Don Beltran inquires of 
 the letrado whether his son has any vices. After 
 first bringing out Don Garcia's good qualities, 
 the letrado confesses that his pupil has the habit 
 of lying. Great astonishment and sorrow are 
 shown by the honest Don Beltran. He would, 
 he asserts, rather see his son squander his entire 
 fortune in debauchery or gambling, or spend 
 his days in fights and brawls ; nay, his very 
 death would be preferable by far to what is, he 
 declares, the most detestable of all vices. Don 
 Beltran, whose greatest desire it is to see his 
 
LE MBNTEUR 97 
 
 son married, is in despair. For where is the 
 well-bred girl, he asks, that would wed a man 
 whose reputation as a liar has been established ? 
 So he concludes that Don Garcia must marry at 
 once, before the rumor of his vice has had time 
 to spread abroad. 
 
 These two scenes are omitted in the Menteur. 
 Geronte (Don Beltran) is ignorant of his son's 
 fatal habit, and his reason for endeavoring to 
 bring about a speedy marriage is to make sure 
 of grandchildren, before the probable departure 
 of Dorante — his only son — for the scene of 
 war. 
 
 In the opening scene of the Menteur, Dorante, 
 who has discarded his student's dress, and is 
 accompanied by his valet Cliton, makes his debut 
 both in gallantry and lying. Like all the other 
 scenes of any significance, this one is imitated 
 after Alarcon. It is in the Tuileries that 
 Dorante and Cliton inspect the heau monde ; 
 the place, in the original, is in the Platerias 
 (to-day the Calla Mayor), at Madrid. The 
 talk between them differs in the two plays. 
 Tristan's satirical remarks about the starched 
 high shirt-collars then in vogue in Spain, and 
 his spirited description and classification of the 
 
98 CORNEELLE 
 
 ladies in Madrid do not appear in the Menteur. 
 Fresh from the province, Dorante, rather anx- 
 ious to acquaint himself with the usages pre- 
 vailing in the capital in the matter of gallantry, 
 asks Cliton to inform him "comme en ce lieu 
 Ton gouverne les dames." But reality in the 
 shape of two pretty girls in a coach, which 
 stops in front of a shop, interrupts their gossip, 
 and Cliton is forthwith despatched to find out 
 from the coachman who they are. One of them, 
 Clarice (Jacinta), slips, and the clever Dorante 
 gallantly helps her to her feet. There follows 
 an exchange of argumentative compliments, 
 subtle and pointed, quite in the style of the 
 prScieuses of the time ; in the original, the 
 language is marked by an abundance of those 
 conceits and flowery metaphors so characteristic 
 of Spanish taste. — Dorante assures Clarice he 
 has been in love with her for the past twelve 
 months ; relates in bombastic speech his mili- 
 tary exploits, and his share in the victories of 
 the French armies in Germany. — In the Spanish 
 play, Garcia passes himself off as an Indiana — 
 a Peruvian nabob — boasts of his immense 
 wealth, and begs leave to buy up then and 
 there an entire jeweller's shop for her — an 
 
LE MENTEUR 99 
 
 oifer which, to his considerable relief, is gra- 
 ciously declined. — In the Menteur, Cliton, who 
 has meanwhile returned from his errand, amazed 
 at the romancing of his master, repeatedly inter- 
 rupts him, pulling him by the skirts of his coat ; 
 and each time he does so, Dorante turns round 
 and swears at him in a subdued voice. — A parte 
 remarks being excluded from the French stage, 
 this decidedly farcical by-play between master 
 and servant is somewhat surprising ; the more 
 so as it is absent from the original, and Cor- 
 neille, in his Hxamen, speaking of this feature 
 so familiar to the Spanish drama, takes pains to 
 express his aversion to it. — All of a sudden, 
 Alcippe, the intended husband of Clarice, with 
 his friend Philiste — both fellow- students of 
 Dorante at Poitiers — are seen by the girls to 
 approach. In order not to arouse his suspicion, 
 Clarice leaves hurriedly ; not, however, without 
 some encouraging words to Dorante. 
 
 All the information Cliton succeeded in draw- 
 ing from the coachman is, that the more beauti- 
 ful of the two girls is called LucrSce, that she 
 is his mistress, that she resides in the Place 
 Royale (la Vitoria, in the original), and finally 
 that he does not know who the other girl is. 
 
100 COENEILLE 
 
 Now the susceptible Dorante has no doubt 
 whatever but that the more beautiful is the 
 girl he spoke to — the one he fell in love with. 
 He is quite convinced it is Lucrece. It could 
 not be the other girl, he argues, for she had not 
 even sense enough to put in a word or two in 
 the conversation. In vain Cliton ventures to 
 think her the more beautiful ; silence being, 
 to his mind, the finest quality in woman. 
 But Dorante persists in his view. The fact 
 is, that the girl he is smitten with is not 
 Lucrece, but her friend Clarice, the very girl 
 chosen by his father to be his wife. — This mis- 
 take it is that causes all the intricate devel- 
 opments of the comedy, the whole trouble. 
 
 Alcippe (Don Juan de Sosa) now steps in, 
 talking to his friend Philiste (Don Felix), in 
 a rather animated fashion, about an entertain- 
 ment which he supposes was given to Clarice 
 by one of her adorers on the river the night 
 previous, with ■ supper, music, fireworks, and 
 dancing. Dorante overhears the first few 
 words, which contain the substance of the 
 whole affair. Mutual recognition follows. 
 Invited to continue his story, Alcippe yields 
 but reluctantly, with considerable parsimony 
 
LE MENTEUR 101 
 
 of detail. Dorante then assumes a knowing 
 smile, and proceeds to supplement these scant 
 remarks, intimating that he knows all about 
 it. Why, he says, it was he who gave the 
 entertainment — a mere bagatelle ; and adds 
 that he has courted the lady in question for a 
 whole month incognito at Paris. Cliton does 
 not neglect to interrupt him, and indignantly 
 pull his coat-tails. Dorante then disposes of a 
 most vivid description of that fete, so full of 
 glowing colors and realistic touches, that in 
 the Spanish play, Don Juan, carried away by 
 the force of his eloquence, declares, notwith- 
 standing his jealousy, that he would rather 
 miss the most brilliant carousal than that fine 
 narrative. — In spite of Corneille's more elabo- 
 rate and refined diction, this narration is hardly 
 an improvement upon that of the original ; it 
 is at best but a very excellent paraphrase. — 
 Persuaded of the faithlessness of Clarice, Al- 
 cippe departs furiously, determined to break 
 with her. — Alone with his valet, Dorante ex- 
 plains matters : his love will appear greater 
 to Clarice if she thinks it has lasted an entire 
 year ; he will stand better chances of success 
 as a valiant soldier than as a learned law-stu- 
 
102 COENEILLE 
 
 dent ; and lastly he will never allow himself 
 to be hoodwinked by anybody's swaggering. 
 
 B. Second Act 
 
 The second act in the Menteur shows, at its 
 beginning, Geronte asking Clarice, who has 
 just returned from her adventure with Do- 
 rante, for her hand in behalf of his son. This 
 is done, in the original, in the presence of her 
 guardian, Don Sancho, an old friend of Don 
 Beltran's ; in the Menteur, this personage, as 
 also the father of Lucrece, who appears in the 
 last act of the Verdad Sospechosa, is omitted. — 
 It is one of the rules of the classical theatre 
 to reduce the number of characters of a play 
 to those absolutely necessary, and it especially 
 shrinks from introducing such as appear but 
 once or twice, or only toward the end. The 
 principle is to keep before the audience the 
 same characters from the beginning to the close. 
 A personage appearing only in the first scene 
 of the last act, in the first edition of the Men- 
 teur, was left out in the subsequent editions. 
 This omission of subsidiary characters con- 
 siderably detracts from the completeness of 
 
LE MENTEUR 103 
 
 reality, and has otherwise its serious drawbacks. 
 In the present case, for instance, the preserva- 
 tion of those characters would be much more 
 in keeping with the proprieties, the bienseances, 
 so strictly observed by classicists. 
 
 Fearing to arouse Alcippe's jealousy, Clarice 
 does not wish to receive Dorante, and suggests 
 that she would like to see him without his 
 knowing it ; Geronte consents to pass by her 
 house with him and stop below the window. 
 
 Alone with Isabelle, her maid, Clarice con- 
 fides to her that she rather likes the gallant 
 stranger whose acquaintance she made that 
 morning in the Tuileries, and that she is grow- 
 ing rather tired of Alcippe, who has been con- 
 tinually holding off the marriage for the last 
 two years. In the original, Jacinta has also 
 been kept waiting by her lover for quite a 
 while ; but she is nevertheless still attached to 
 him, and declares she would feel unhappy were 
 she to marry some one else. Clarice is much 
 more practical. She is quite ready to leave 
 Alcippe, but before giving him up she would 
 make sure of Dorante — since Alcippe " vaut 
 toujours mieux que rien," as she candidly ex- 
 plains. Isabelle advises that Lucrece — who 
 
104 CORNBHiLE 
 
 has not to dread the jealousy of a loTer — 
 should write a note to Dorante, inviting him to 
 appear that night in front of her house, at the 
 Place Royale. To that end Isabelle is dele- 
 gated to Lucrece. 
 
 Alcippe now rushes in wildly, direct from his 
 interview with Dorajite ; his suspicion is con- 
 firmed, having seen Geronte leave the house of 
 his sweetheart. He vehemently charges Clarice 
 with infidelity. She is not a little surprised 
 when she makes the discovery that she passed 
 the preceding night feasting with one Dorante; 
 as yet she does not know that to be the name of 
 her gallant admirer. In vain she protests she 
 does not know him. At last, Alcippe, to make 
 up, desires her to give him her hand and two 
 kisses — the latter are an improvement upon the 
 original. " Je n'ai pas le loisir, mon pere va 
 descendre," she retorts. In the original, Ja- 
 cinta leaves Don Juan with the words : " La 
 mano? Sale mi tio." In a short monologue 
 Alcippe now gives vent to his rage, and then 
 departs to send Dorante a challenge for a duel. 
 Of all the scenes so far mentioned, the one con- 
 taining this monologue is the sole not figuring 
 in the Verdad Sospechosa. 
 
LB MENTEUR 105 
 
 As agreed, Geronte passes with Dorante and 
 Cliton before the house of Clarice. He pro- 
 poses to his son Clarice for a wife — that is, it 
 will be remembered, the very girl Dorante has 
 fallen in love with, but whose name he thinks 
 is Lucrece. To save himself from what he 
 erroneously conceives to be a hateful marriage, 
 he invents on the spur of the moment a most 
 ingenious story. When a student at Poitiers 
 namely, he was received one night by a noble 
 young lady, Orphise by name. Unluckily, her 
 father, Armedon, surprised them, leaving him 
 barely time enough to hide behind the bed. 
 Armedon was about to depart, and he already 
 believed himself safe, when his watch started 
 off striking the hour. Orphise explained to her 
 father that it was a watch which a cousin had 
 given her to have repaired. But at that junc- 
 ture the pistol he was holding in his hand went 
 off by accident. Orphise fainted, Armedon ran 
 away shouting for help ; he himself rushed out, 
 fought the two brothers of the girl and the 
 whole household, but his sword broke into three 
 pieces, and he was ultimately obliged to retreat 
 into the room. There, with the assistance of 
 Orphise, who had meanwhile come to herself, he 
 
106 CORNEILLE 
 
 barricaded tlie door, piling up against it tables, 
 chairs, sofas, everytbing ; however, a wall was 
 burst in, and he was surrounded by Armedon, 
 his sons, and his servants, who threatened to 
 take his life. Moved by the tears of Orphise, 
 and still more by the sight of the swords of his 
 assailants, he capitulated, and eventually mar- 
 ried the girl. Orphise not being wealthy, 
 though of noble birth, he had feared to in- 
 form his father of his marriage. — The good, 
 credulous Geronte pardons his son, and hastens 
 to break the unpleasant news to the father 
 of Clarice, and to take back the word he had 
 given. 
 
 This "trait de gentillesse" of Dorante is 
 borrowed from the Verdad Sospeehosa, with but 
 few changes of detail ; the attending circum- 
 stances, however, differ. There, Don Beltran 
 and Garcia dismount their horses in the Park 
 of Antocha, at the outskirts of Madrid. Don 
 Beltran, whose information from the letrado 
 concerning the vice of Dorante has meanwhile 
 been corroborated by Tristan, severely lectures 
 his son on his fatal habit. Now it is right 
 after this reproof that Garcia disposes of that 
 famous marriage yarn — a contrast the effect of 
 
LE MENTEUR 107 
 
 which is destroyed in the Menteur by the post- 
 ponement of the paternal reprimand to the last 
 act. However, the old man not suspecting his 
 son's vicious habit down to nearly the close of 
 the Menteur, his continued blind credulity is 
 rendered much more plausible. 
 
 Just before that scene in the Park of Antocha, 
 we are in the room of Jacinta ; she and Isabelle 
 are looking out through the window, as agreed 
 upon with Don Beltran. How astonished is 
 she to see at Don Beltran's side the opulent 
 Perulero ; the gallant nabob from Peru, who 
 vowed that he had been in love with her a 
 whole year, is none else but the student Garcia, 
 fresh from the University of Salamanca the 
 night previous — Don Beltran's own son. 
 Despite his impudent lies, which love, aided by 
 the cunning Isabelle, interprets in her favor, 
 Jacinta decides to accept him. Instead of this 
 amusing scene between the girls we see, in 
 the Menteur, Clarice alone looking out from 
 a window of her house, and from a window 
 of her residence Lucrece with Isabelle; they 
 all merely watch Dorante as he talks to his 
 father. 
 
 Informed by Isabelle of the wish of her mis- 
 
108 COBNEILLE 
 
 tress, Lucrece sends down with her maid Sabine 
 the requested billet doux to Dorante who, upon 
 seeing the name of Lucrece on it, is of course 
 confirmed in his initial blunder regarding the 
 name of the girl he loves. So he sends Cliton 
 into the house of Lucrece to learn from the 
 domestics something about her family and for- 
 tune. 
 
 No sooner has Cliton started on this errand, 
 than a letter containing a challenge from Alcippe 
 is handed to Dorante by a valet. In the Span- 
 ish play this note is delivered to Garcia in his 
 own room. He reads it aloud to himself, but 
 Tristan, his valet, is not supposed to hear aught 
 of it, and thus knows nothing of the challenge 
 or the duel to follow it. 
 
 " Hier au soir je revins de Poitiers, 
 D'aujourd'hui seulement je produis mon visage, 
 Et i'ai dejk querelle, amour et mariage," 
 
 Dorante says to himself, highly elated over his 
 exploits, and sets out to meet Alcippe. Such 
 are also Garcia's words : — 
 
 " Vine ayer, y en un momento 
 Tengo amor y casamiento, 
 Y causa de desafio." 
 
LE MENTEUB 109 
 
 Q. Third Act 
 
 In the first scene we see Dorante and Alcippe 
 after the fight. Philiste has interposed and 
 made peace. — In the original, the duel is 
 actually witnessed. — Dorante appeases Al- 
 cippe's jealousy by a new lie : his sweetheart, 
 he declares, is a married woman — a stranger 
 in the city. With an air of bravado and de- 
 fiance he then leaves for the rendezvous 
 appointed by Lucrece. — Philiste then informs 
 Alcippe that Dorante only arrived at Paris the 
 night before, and slept soundly in his bed ; and 
 furthermore, that the rumor about the nightly 
 entertainment given to Clarice was false, and 
 all due to Alcippe's page mistaking two friends 
 of Lucrece's who left her house, for herself and 
 Clarice. Alcippe then decides to reconcile 
 himself to his fiancee ; but he quickly departs 
 upon seeing her and Isabelle coming out from 
 her house. 
 
 The two girls go over to the house of 
 Lucrece, bound for the projected meeting with 
 Dorante. Clarice has already been acquainted 
 by Geronte of Dorante's supposed marriage at 
 Poitiers ; however, disappointed as she is, she 
 
110 CORNEILLE 
 
 intends to speak to him, anxious to hear what 
 he may possibly have to say about his love for 
 her, and impatient, moreover, to confound the 
 impostor with her wrath and just indignation. 
 She and Lucrece are then seen at the window 
 of the latter's house. Isabelle is sent away to 
 be on the lookout. Dorante and Cliton appear 
 on the square. It is night. Now Clarice speaks 
 to Dorante from the house, and under the name 
 of Lucrece. Her face is muffled up by the 
 mantilla, which serves so well the purposes of 
 the intrigues of the Spanish comedia de capa 
 y espada. Dorante of course swears eternal 
 love to her, and persisting in his error, calls 
 her Lucrece. At which the girls, ignorant to 
 be sure of the mistake he is laboring under, 
 suppose that he has suddenly transferred 
 his affection from Clarice to Lucrece. He 
 denies that he is married, wherein surely he 
 speaks the truth : they cannot, however, put 
 faith in this denial, for they already are famil- 
 iar with the extreme fertility of his imagina- 
 tion. He then explains that he invented the 
 marriage story in order to escape the odious 
 union with one Clarice. " But I was told that 
 to-day you spoke to Clarice of your love to 
 
LE MENTEUB 111 
 
 her," Clarice bursts out. " To none other but 
 to you did I speak, Lucrece," protests Dorante, 
 convinced of the veracity of his assertions. 
 " Impostor ! Impudence ! " Clarice cries and 
 quits the dumbfounded Dorante, who has for 
 this once told the truth — but to no avail. His 
 declaration, however, that he loves Lucrece has 
 its effect upon the girl who really bears that 
 name, for, from the very start, she too has had 
 a pronounced liking for the clever, gallant Do- 
 rante. Perhaps he says the truth after all, she 
 reflects, in maintaining that he is not married. 
 Thus, while the love of Clarice for Dorante is 
 on the wane, that of her friend is growing. 
 
 Now this is a novel experience for Dorante. 
 It is impossible for him to comprehend how it 
 came about that while his romancing has invari- 
 ably been given credence, now that he has 
 spoken the sheer truth, no one would believe 
 him. In a meditative mood he mutters, " Je 
 disais verite," whereupon Cliton replies : — 
 
 " Quand un menteur la dit, 
 En passant par sa bouohe elle perd son credit." 
 
 Garcia's surprise in the original is still 
 greater, and Tristan's answer sharper and more 
 
112 CORNEILLE 
 
 concise: " Estoy loco. Verdades valen tan 
 poco. — En la boca mentirosa." 
 
 It is late in the night, and Dorante retires, 
 hoping Clarice will be in better humor the next 
 morning. 
 
 So far Corneille follows Alarcon pretty 
 closely in the plot. No new scenes of any 
 account are added, and most of the scenes of 
 the original are imitated in detail ; the same 
 ideas, the same feelings, the same witticisms even 
 being reproduced. Alarcon, however, prolongs 
 the intrigue in a manner which Corneille was 
 debarred from imitating both by the formal 
 conditions of his art and the differences in the 
 national customs. In the Spanish play namely, 
 Garcia is now to become once more the victim of 
 his fatal self-deception. From Camino, Lucre- 
 cia's escudero, Tristan learns that she will go 
 on a certain evening to pray in the chapel of 
 the convent of Magdalena. This valuable piece 
 of information, sold by Camino for hard cash, 
 is delivered with the ready consent of his 
 scheming mistress. There Garcia meets the 
 girls. Previous to this, he sent a note to Lu- 
 crecia promising to marry her. This letter 
 she has just given, in the chapel, to Jacinta, 
 
LE MENTEUR 113 
 
 who is reading it aloud. Garcia, having stepped 
 up unnoticed, overhears part of it and recog- 
 nizes his letter. Seeing it in the possession of 
 Jacinta, he is nciost naturally again confirmed in 
 his mistake as to her name. And so he at once 
 gallantly accosts her, thinking she is Lucrecia. 
 The girls now suppose him to have suddenly 
 re-transferred his affection upon Jacinta, and 
 instantly muffle up their faces in their man- 
 tillas. Now Jacinta wishes to prove to Lucrecia 
 that she was mistaken in believing his protes- 
 tations of love, and his promise of marriage. 
 To this Lucrecia agrees, and whispers to 
 her friend that she shall speak to Garcia, 
 but not let him know who she — Lucrecia — is. 
 Garcia makes love to Jacinta, speaks of their 
 meeting at the Platerias, reminds her of the 
 nightly rendezvous of three days before, and 
 finally mentions his letter. 
 
 Nor does this imbroglio stop here. It be- 
 comes more intricate, and hence less plausible. 
 Garcia, namely, at last calls Jacinta "Lucre- 
 cia. " One would now naturally expect that it 
 was high time for the girls to guess finally that 
 he knew Jacinta under a wrong name, and one 
 would also expect that Garcia himself would at 
 
114 COENEILLE 
 
 length see through his mistake. Instead, a 
 most curious thing happens. Cunning Jacinta 
 makes the following reflections : " To be sure 
 he recognized Lucrecia, and, as he really loves 
 her, he now, perceiving his error, is attempting 
 to induce her to think that he has all the time 
 been believing it was she he spoke to ; that is 
 why the shrewd Garcia calls me now Lucrecia." 
 The jealous Lucrecia on her side makes a reflec- 
 tion no less ingenious : " My perfidious friend 
 Jacinta and tricky Garcia are making love to 
 each other right here before my very eyes. 
 She has treacherously given away my name to 
 him, and he calls her Lucrecia so that I may 
 believe that he thinks he is speaking to me." 
 The girls have, of course, not the slightest sus- 
 picion, let it be remembered, of Garcia's mis- 
 taken notion. To them it must seem that he 
 is courting Jacinta by day, and Lucrecia by 
 night. As for Garcia, he continues to labor 
 under his fatal error. All three are bewildered 
 — though not nearly as much as the spectator 
 or the reader — and the whole affair is much 
 more involved than before, and, it appears, be- 
 yond any reasonable expectation of its ever 
 getting cleared up. — Evidently, the Spanish 
 
LE MENTEUR 115 
 
 poet, not content with the qui pro quo he had 
 brought about some three days before, aided by 
 the darkness of the night, was bent upon re- 
 peating the trick in the day ; but wisely chose 
 for this the chiaroscuro of a convent chapel — a 
 place to which the classic poet could, for more 
 than one reason, not very conveniently accom- 
 pany him. 
 
 Such a scene would hardly be possible in the 
 broad daylight on a public square, and Corneille 
 could not transfer the place of action at his 
 pleasure. It could, moreover, not be carried out 
 successfully without making ample use of d parte 
 remarks, with which it is fairly bristling. The 
 exigencies of the classical drama prevent the 
 French poet from following the tortuous sinu- 
 osities of the Spanish intrigue. 
 
 D. Fourth Act 
 
 On the next day, early in the morning, 
 Dorante and Cliton are waiting on the square 
 for Sabine, whom they hope to induce by means 
 of money to serve as go-between. Cliton tells 
 his master that Alcippe had a duel, he does not 
 know with whom. This is an excellent oppor- 
 
116 CORNEILLE 
 
 tunity for Dorante to vent his imagination on 
 his "unique secretaire"; it was he, he says, 
 that had the duel ; and he adds that he killed 
 Alcippe in the fight. Cliton is bewailing the 
 sad lot of Alcippe, when the latter suddenly 
 turns up. " Les gens que vous tuez se portent 
 assez bien," whispers Cliton into his master's 
 ear. Alcippe is on his way to bring Clarice 
 the news of the long-expected arrival of his 
 father, an event that at last renders their mar- 
 riage possible. When he has left, Dorante ex- 
 plains to the still bewildered Cliton, that most 
 probably he was revived by one of those won- 
 derful remedies recently discovered. He him- 
 self, he asserts, possesses such a " poudre de 
 sympathie." Cliton volunteers to serve him 
 for nothing, if he will but let him have some 
 of that mysterious powder. " One must pro- 
 nounce a few Hebrew words while applying it," 
 objects Dorante, " and you do not know any He- 
 brew." — " Vous savez done I'hebreu." — "L'he- 
 breu ? parfaitement. J'ai dix langues, Cliton, a 
 mon commandement." — "Vous avez tout le 
 corps bien plein de v^rites. II n'en sort jamais 
 une." The entire incident is taken from Alar- 
 con, as also Cliton's witty sally: — 
 
LE MENTEUR 117 
 
 " Cuerpo de verdades Ueno 
 Con razon el tuyo llamas 
 Pues ninguna sale dfl." 
 
 Some pretty traits of the original, however, 
 Corneille failed to reproduce. Thus the pathetic 
 " pobre Don Juan ! " of the almost weeping 
 Tristan, and the exceedingly comical " Cosa 
 extrana ! " with which Garcia himself gives ex- 
 pression to his surprise at Don Juan's resurrec- 
 tion. — Again, in the vivid account of his duel, 
 Garcia tells of a cure performed by such a won- 
 derful charm. And to overcome his valet's 
 scepticism, he assures him that he himself saw 
 it done : " Esto no me lo contaron ; Yo mismo 
 lo vi. — Eso basta. — De la verdad, por la vida, 
 No quitare una palabra." 
 
 Geronte now arrives, saying : — 
 
 " Je vous cherchais, Dorante. 
 
 Dorante. 
 
 Je ne vous cherchais pas, moi. Que mal k propos 
 
 Son abord importun vient troubler mon repos I 
 
 Et qu'un pfere incommode un homme de mon ^ge." 
 
 This is not the only remark behind the back 
 of his father on the part of Dorante; such lan- 
 guage is not to be found in Alarcon's comedy, 
 where Garcia never exceeds the bounds of filial 
 
118 CORNEXLLE 
 
 respect. The good father desires Dorante to go 
 to Poitiers, and bring his wife to Paris. Dorante 
 pretends that she is with child, and could not 
 venture on such a journey — continually making 
 mocking remarks to his valet about his father's 
 credulity. Then wishing to write to Dorante's 
 father-in-law, Geronte asks for his name : he 
 has forgotten it. But so has Dorante ; Py- 
 randre, he advances at haphazard. Was it not 
 Armedon, inquires his father? To be sure, 
 ArmedonI Pyrandre is but another name of 
 his, which he took from one of his estates — a 
 reply that proves quite satisfactory to the all 
 too easy Geronte. This scene is also borrowed 
 from Alarcon. 
 
 The rest of the act presents but little interest. 
 Sabine, the maid of Lucrece, a figure substituted 
 by Corneille for the escudero Camino, occupies 
 here quite a prominent place. She engrosses 
 our attention in the remaining four scenes, 
 which are due to Corneille's invention. She 
 first talks to Dorante, who gives her a letter for 
 Lucrece, and money for herself. She then has 
 a conversation with Cliton, informing him that 
 her mistress loves Dorante. After this Lucrece 
 tells Sabine to say that she — Lucrece — tore 
 
LE MENTEUR 119 
 
 the letter without having read it. The same in- 
 struction is given by Lucrecia to Camino, who 
 no more obeys this order than Sabine. Lucrece 
 permits Sabine to give, nevertheless, some hope 
 to Dorante : she is to inform him in what 
 places and at what hours her mistress is usually 
 seen. Similarly, Camino is to tell Tristan, on 
 his own authority, that Lucrecia will be in the 
 convent on a certain evening : a precise state- 
 ment, however, which leads to the imbroglio 
 in the chapel above mentioned. The same in- 
 definiteness, — a faint echoing, as it were, from 
 the original, — due to the omissions rendered 
 necessary by the limitations of the classic drama, 
 is to be met with again in the next scene. 
 Clarice there suggests to Lucrece that it is 
 about time to go to the " temple." This word is 
 the sole vestige of the picturesque chapel scene 
 in the Verdad Sospechosa. Not only could 
 Corneille not utilize that scene, the very word 
 Sglise was banished from the classic stage. 
 
 M. Fifth Act 
 
 Geronte asks Philiste to inform him about Do- 
 rante's — mythical — father-in-law. Of course. 
 
120 CORNEILLE 
 
 Philiste knows nothing about either Pyrandre 
 or Armedon, nor has he ever heard of the beau- 
 tiful Orphise, for that matter. In a sarcastic 
 tone he tells Geronte that the marriage, even 
 like the evening party on the river, is nothing 
 but an offspring of his son's fertile fancy. 
 
 There now follows a short monologue of 
 Geronte, suggested by the one of Don Beltran, 
 but different in the details. In the vigorous 
 expression of his sorrow and despair over his 
 dishonor, Geronte somewhat reminds us of Don 
 Diegue in the Qid. 
 
 Enter Dorante and Cliton. This is one of the 
 most beautiful scenes of the comedy, and is 
 entirely devoid of comical elements. In the 
 original, there are two such severe reprimands 
 on the part of the father. The one, in the first 
 act, which, as is remembered, immediately pre- 
 cedes Garcia's improvisation of his marriage 
 story ; the other, in the third act, the last in 
 Alarcon's comedy. Out of these two scenes 
 Corneille constructs his touching meeting be- 
 tween the outraged father and his unscrupulous 
 son. Its tone is somewhat more violent than 
 in the corresponding scenes of the original. 
 But, in the main, the ideas are the same. 
 
LE MENTEUR 121 
 
 The very first words of Geronte addressed to 
 Dorante, "Etes-vous gentilhomme ? " intro- 
 duce the same discussion as to what consti- 
 tutes a real nobleman — his blood or his 
 deeds — as the " Sois caballero, Garcia ? " of 
 Don Beltran. But Don Beltran's recollec- 
 tion of the truthful Gabriel, his dead son, 
 lends to the pathos of his outburst a more sad 
 and tender strain. 
 
 Finally Dorante gives his father a reason 
 why he forged that marriage story : being 
 in love with Lucrece he wished to escape the 
 union with Clarice — he is of course still inter- 
 changing the two names. The indulgent Ge- 
 ronte then decides to give him a last trial ; the 
 father of Lucrece being an old friend of his, he 
 will at once go and ask him for her hand. But 
 if what Dorante says again proves a lie, he 
 swears he will kill him. With this menace 
 Geronte indignantly departs. — Not a whit less 
 earnest, but more temperate, and in a bitter, 
 ironical tone, Don Beltran, in the Spanish play, 
 doubting whether to believe or disbelieve his 
 son's disavowal of his marriage, declares he 
 will, before applying for the hand of Lucre- 
 cia, send for information to Salamanca. For, 
 
122 CORNEILLE 
 
 says he, though he felt sure before, that his 
 marriage was a mere invention, Garcia now by 
 his very confession has rendered him uncer- 
 tain : — 
 
 " Que ya temo que en decirme 
 
 Que me enganaste, me enganas. 
 
 Que aunque la verdad sabfa 
 
 Antes que k hablarte Uegara, 
 
 La has heoho ya sospechosa 
 
 Tii con solo confesarla." 
 
 Again the liar has told the truth — but again 
 to no avail. 
 
 We are nearing the close. In both plays our 
 young hero marries, not Clarice (Jacinta), the 
 girl he first met and loved, but her friend Lu- 
 crece ; however, the manner this is brought 
 about differs so considerably, that they may be 
 said to have different solutions. Garcia's mar- 
 riage to Lucrecia is under compulsion. An 
 inevitable outcome of the preceding events, it 
 appears as a just punishment of the liar — 
 rather lenient, of course, in its way. Dorante, 
 on the other hand, marries Lucrece voluntarily. 
 At the eleventh hour he suddenly changes his 
 mind, and transfers his affection upon her. 
 This unexpected change of front, CorneiUe at- 
 tempts to prepare in the course of the conversa- 
 
LE MENTEUR 123 
 
 tion carried on by Dorante and Cliton after the 
 furious G^ronte has left to ask for the hand of 
 Lucrece. , Dorante confesses to his valet his 
 penchant for Lucrece — whose name, of course, 
 he yet thinks is Clarice. He must, however, 
 he says, renounce this inclination, since his 
 father has gone to get the other girl for him. 
 Now Sabine appears with the information that 
 her mistress loves him. Enter Clarice and 
 Lucrece. This meeting of the girls with 
 Dorante was suggested to Oorneille by the 
 chapel scene of the original. 
 
 No sooner has Dorante caught sight of Cla- 
 rice than he begins to court her — still thinking 
 that her name is Lucrece. The two girls are now 
 at their wits' end, for only the night before, he 
 declared that he detested her, and vowed that 
 he adored the other. Finally Clarice calls her 
 friend by name, saying, "Lucrece, ecoute un 
 mot." Then only it is that Dorante dis- 
 covers the mistake he has been laboring under 
 all the time. Cliton, who has just found out 
 the truth from the garrulous Sabine, whispers 
 into his master's ear how he was mystified by the 
 girls the previous night. Dorante now boldly 
 maintains that he knew all about that intrigue. 
 
124 COEKEILLE 
 
 that he never cared for Clarice, that his atten- 
 tions to her in the Tuileries were mere gal- 
 lantry, and that it was Lucrece he has been in 
 love with from the very start. The liar tri- 
 umphs ; and to convince her of the truth of his as- 
 sertion, he has but to point to Geronte, who is 
 just returning with the consent he has obtained 
 from the father of Lucrece. She accepts him, 
 while Alcippe wins Clarice for his bride. 
 
 In the Examen of the Menteur, Corneille ex- 
 plains the change he operated in the treatment 
 of the end of the play. A less forced marriage, 
 he thought, would be more to the taste of the 
 French public than the somewhat rough close 
 of the original. — There, indeed, we see Don 
 Sancho, the uncle of Jacinta (Clarice), visiting 
 Lucrecia's father, Don Juan de Luna, an old 
 nobleman. They are both in a room facing a 
 garden, where the two girls are preparing sup- 
 per. It is late in the evening. Don Juan de 
 Sosa (Alcippe) arrives, and informs Don Sancho 
 that he at last secured the charge he has so 
 long been waiting for, and is thus in a position 
 now to marry Jacinta. Don Sancho is happy 
 to give him his niece, and passes in the garden 
 to call her in. Enter Don Beltran, Garcia, and 
 
LE MENTEUR 125 
 
 Tristan. Don Beltran takes his old friend Don 
 Juan de Luna aside, and obtains from him the 
 hand of Lucrecia for his son, while Garcia most 
 courteously congratulates Don Juan de la Sosa 
 upon his new charge. Don Juan de Luna then 
 steps over to Garcia, and gives him his hand in 
 token of agreement to the marriage proposed by- 
 Don Beltran. At that moment Don Sancho 
 returns from the garden accompanied by the 
 girls. Don Juan de Luna then whispers a few 
 words to Lucrecia, after which Don Sancho 
 calls upon the two lovers to approach each to 
 his girl. The suspense of the spectators at 
 that juncture may easily be fancied. Garcia, 
 anxious to prove to his father that he told the 
 truth in asserting that his love for Lucrecia had 
 compelled him to invent the story of the mar- 
 riage, and desirous above all to retrieve in this 
 way his honor, advances with a triumphant 
 mien toward Jacinta, while Don Juan de la 
 Sosa likewise goes up to her. In vain does 
 Garcia persist that she is the one he loves. 
 His father threatens to kill him, and Don Juan 
 de Luna is quite ready " to wash his dishonor 
 'with Garcia's blood." Garcia submits to force, 
 as he himself says, and offers Lucrecia his hand. 
 
126 COENEILLE 
 
 Quite apart of the intrinsic superiority of this 
 solution, the art and skill with which this last 
 scene is conducted cannot but elicit our admira- 
 tion. There is nothing strained or affected, the 
 language is delightful in its naivete and exqui- 
 site urbanity. The greatest effects are attained 
 by the simplest of means. The scene of intimate 
 family transactions and their intricacies is com- 
 plete in its appropriate domestic setting, and 
 with the presence of the father and guardian of 
 the girls. By placing the last scenes in the 
 street, and excluding from them the subsidiary 
 personages, Corneille considerably weakens the 
 theatrical illusion. Perhaps no other scene so 
 well shows the almost insuperable difficulties 
 encountered in adapting the free, untrammelled 
 Spanish drama to the rigid rules of French 
 classicism. 
 
 2. Changes undergone by the Vekdad 
 sospechosa 
 
 It has not been attempted in this analysis 
 to compare the Menteur with the Verdad 
 Sospechosa textually. The plots and their 
 construction, the characters and the actions, 
 
LE MENTEUR 127 
 
 have been mainly considered. It has been 
 seen that Corneille's comedy is an imitation, 
 and to some extent a translation, of the drama 
 of Alarcon; that the first three acts closely 
 follow the original; that in the last two, 
 Corneille, forced to omit part of the intrigue, 
 and furnish adequate substitutes, departs from 
 his model; that the chief incidents of these 
 two acts also are borrowed from Alarcon; 
 and finally that in his solution, Corneille alto- 
 gether abandons the original, inasmuch as he 
 disregards the Spanish poet's prime intention, 
 to wit, the inevitable punishment of mendacity 
 by its own consequences — the leading idea of 
 the Verdad Sospechosa. Evidently Corneille 
 did not find the end suificiently comical. A 
 classic play had to be either tragical or comical 
 throughout, and he was bent above all to 
 preserve the unity of effect in his Menteur. 
 
 It has, moreover, been seen that, as in the 
 Old, Corneille adapts the Spanish play to 
 French usages, and to the rules of the French 
 theatre. With the first he has not much trouble. 
 For the soldier just arriving from the battle- 
 fields of Germany does, after aU, as well as 
 the opulent Indiana fresh from the gold mines 
 
128 CORNEILLE 
 
 of Peru : the other changes made out of regard 
 for the difference in the national manners are 
 scarcely noticeable. — Nor has he any trouble, 
 for that matter, with the unity of time : the 
 three days or so of the Verdad Sospechosa are 
 easily compressed into the thirty-six hours of 
 the Menteur. — It is only when the unity of 
 place is applied that the real difficulties turn 
 up. By placing all the events in the Tuileries 
 and the Place Royale, Corneille deprives us 
 of a good many interesting scenes, as that of 
 the Park of Antocha, where the duel takes 
 place, the scene in the convent, and others. — 
 Instead of our seeing the various phases of 
 the action in their proper surroundings, so 
 that we may catch a glimpse of the different 
 milieux, instead of our being successively intro- 
 duced, for instance, into the house of Don Bel- 
 tran, of Don Sancho, of Don Juan, — the events 
 are all brought down to us, on an open square, 
 where the personages go hither and thither, 
 apparently for no other reason than that the 
 playwright will have them do so. The fact 
 is, this square is no particular place at all; it 
 is anything you choose — oil vous voudrez. 
 It is quite possible to accept without any 
 
LE MENTEUR 129 
 
 difSculty whatever the theory that all the 
 events of a play may happen in one place, and 
 that a public one. But it does not require a 
 greater effort of our imagination to make the 
 assumption that the action changes from one 
 place to another — a practice both more con- 
 venient and more faithful to reality, for thereby 
 we gain alike in theatrical verisimilitude and 
 truth of detail j and characters need not be 
 eliminated, nor events omitted or transposed. 
 The very object of the unities, the greater 
 verisimilitude, is defeated; because, as in the 
 Cid, they are applied to events that in advance 
 refuse to be comprised by them. This remark 
 does not derogate from the value of a dramatic 
 system that intelligently obeys those unities 
 — but then the appropriate subject-matter 
 must needs be selected. 
 
 Regarding the relation of the Menteur to the 
 original, Corneille himself makes some state- 
 ments which, however, do not quite tally with 
 one another. In the Epitre to the Menteur, he 
 says: "En un mot, ce n'est ici qu'une copie 
 d'un excellent original qu'il (Lope de Vega) 
 a mis au jour sous le titre de la Verdad Sos- 
 pechosa." But he greatly underrates his in- 
 
130 CORNEIIiLE 
 
 debtedness to the Spanish play when he says 
 in his Au lecteur: "La plupart des incidents, 
 Men qu'ils soient imites de I'original n'ont 
 presque point de ressemblance avec lui pour 
 les pensees ni pour les termes qui les expri- 
 ment." Neither this latter preface nor the 
 Epitre were incorporated in the definite edition 
 of the poet's works prepared by him in 1660, 
 to which he added the Examens — critical dis- 
 courses on his various plays. In the Examen 
 of the Menteur., his final view is clearly and ade- 
 quately set forth in but few words : " J'ai 
 tache de la reduire a notre usage et dans nos 
 regies." And when he says in the opening 
 words : " Cette piece est en partie traduite, en 
 partie imitee de I'espagnol," the whole truth 
 is unequivocally expressed, and the opinion of 
 even a casual reader of the two plays confirmed. 
 One thing, however, belongs to the author, and 
 that is the style. It is more finished, more 
 polished than that of the original. Moreover, 
 the alexandrine verse, elegant, stately, and re- 
 fined, though not very compact, imparts to the 
 Menteur a characteristic physiognomy : the 
 play is, to use Corneille's own phrase, " habille 
 a la frangaise." 
 
VII. LA SUITE DU MENTEUR 
 
 In the Epitre accompanying the earliest 
 edition of the Menteur, Corneille declares 
 that whether that play be judged to be stolen 
 or borrowed from the Spanish, he has fared so 
 well by it, that he does not expect it to be the 
 last taken from them. And he kept his word. 
 Immediately after the Menteur, in the same year 
 — 1644 — the Suite du Menteur passed upon 
 the boards, its success, however, as the author 
 himself owns, not coming in any way near that 
 of its predecessor. The Suite du Menteur is an 
 imitation of Lope de Vega's Amar sin saber 
 d quiSn, a comedy found by Corneille in the 
 same volume of Spanish plays in which he had 
 read the Verdad Sospechosa. All the dramas 
 of that volume go under Lope de Vega's name, 
 but Amar sin saber d quiSn really belongs to 
 this poet. The following is a succinct account 
 of the Spanish play. 
 
 131 
 
132 COENEILLE 
 
 Don Juan de Aguilar, a nobleman hailing 
 from Sevilla, being on his arriyal at Toledo 
 falsely suspected of having killed one Don 
 Pedro in a duel, is thrown into jail. Don 
 Fernando, the rival in love and actual mur- 
 derer of Don Pedro, has his sister Leonarda 
 send Don Juan some money, under pretence of 
 having fallen in love with him when she saw 
 him led to prison past her house. Her maid, 
 Ines, brings a love-letter and two hundred 
 escudos to the prisoner, and on her next 
 visit the portrait of her mistress. Don Fer- 
 nando, being known as the rival of the killed 
 man, is confronted with Don Juan for identi- 
 fication. But Don Juan, who knows him to 
 be the guilty man, having by mere chance been 
 a witness of the duel, feigns not to recognize 
 him ; and to divert all suspicion from him, 
 even disposes of an entirely imaginary but very 
 circumstantial description of the murderer. 
 This generous action of Don Juan's, and the 
 glowing account of his person given both by 
 Don Fernando and Ines, work havoc upon the 
 susceptible and sentimental Leonarda. It is 
 now in real earnest that she falls in love with 
 him. On the other hand, her kindliness in 
 
LA SUITE DU MENTEUB 133 
 
 helping him, a mere stranger, her interest in 
 him, and lastly her beauty as revealed by her 
 picture, conquer the impressionable Don Juan. 
 Thus, both grow to love each other " sin saber 
 a quien" — without knowing whom. A visit 
 of Leonarda to Don Juan in his prison 
 strengthens their young affection. Upon this 
 occasion she appoints a rendezvous to take 
 place before her house that very night. 
 
 Leonarda, however, is courted by a friend of 
 Don Juan's, Don Luis de Ribera, a highly con- 
 nected nobleman. He bails Don Juan out of 
 prison, thus enabling him to keep his appoint- 
 ment with Leonarda. At the rendezvous, 
 before her balcony, Don Juan makes the un- 
 pleasant discovery that Don Luis is also in 
 love with her. The following morning, Don 
 Fernando brings Don Juan into his house to 
 put up there during his stay in Toledo. Hear- 
 ing of this, Don Luis begs Don Juan to win 
 for him Leonarda's good will, and instructs 
 him to ask for her hand. For the second time 
 now Don Juan shows his generosity. Rather 
 than injure his friend and benefactor in his 
 prior rights, he sacrifices Leonarda, though he 
 knows that she loves him, and leaves the city 
 
134 COENEILLE 
 
 abruptly. After his departure, Leonarda con- 
 fesses to Don Luis her affection for Don Juan. 
 Don Luis, indignant that his friend has dared 
 outdo him in magnanimity, speedily sets off in 
 his pursuit. He overtakes him in a road-inn 
 on the way to Madrid, and still being his 
 surety, takes him to Toledo saying he will put 
 the fugitive back in prison. He brings him, 
 however, to Leonarda. His marriage with her, 
 Don Luis explains jestingly, is the prison which 
 he has intended for Don Juan. 
 
 Lope de Vega's Amar sin saber d quiSn, it 
 need hardly be said, has no connection what- 
 soever with Alarcon's Verdad Sospechosa. It is 
 of course not a continuation of this play; more- 
 over, it preceded it probably by a few years. 
 There is besides not the slightest resemblance 
 between these two plays. They are altogether 
 of a different order. And above all, the charac- 
 ter of the liar does not appear in Amar sin saber 
 d qwi6n. 
 
 Corneille, in imitating the plot of Lope de 
 Vega's play, makes his comedy a sequel to his 
 Menteur. To effect this, he changes Don Juan, 
 the hero of the original, into Dorante, the well- 
 known character from the Menteur ; substitutes 
 
LA SUITE DU MENTEUR 135 
 
 the familiar Cliton for the gracioso Limon ; 
 and calls Don Luis by the name of Philiste, 
 Dorante's fellow-student at Poitiers. He leaves 
 out a few subsidiary persons, as Lisena, for 
 whom the duel was fought and who, at the 
 end of the Spanish play, is married to Don 
 Fernando ; as also the fellow-prisoners of Don 
 Juan, the jail officials, and the alguazils. The 
 less important incidents, as well as those that can- 
 not be utilized owing to the application of the 
 unity of place, are omitted: as the duel, the arrest 
 of Don Juan and Limon, a conversation between 
 Limon and some criminals in the prison, the 
 scene between Don Luis and Don Juan at the 
 road-inn. Other incidents are somewhat altered. 
 Thus Melisse (Leonarda) does not visit Dorante 
 in jail twice, but only once, and then in the guise 
 of a servant girl — her maid's sister. The con- 
 fession of Melisse of her love for Dorante is not 
 made to Philiste in his presence alone, but in that 
 of all the persons of the play. And it is imme- 
 diately after hearing that avowal from Melisse 
 that Philiste cedes to her Dorante, who cannot 
 very well — the rule of the unity of place does 
 not allow — depart from Lyons, where the action 
 of the French play is situated. 
 
138 COENEILLE 
 
 The main change, however, is the transforma- 
 tion of Don Juan into Dorante, who appears as 
 the author of the generous deeds of the former. 
 Apparently, Corneille desired to rehabilitate 
 the reputation of his liar. He had, it seems, 
 conceived something like a paternal affection 
 for this offspring of his fancy. Already in the 
 Menteur he had treated him most leniently by 
 making him marry the woman he was in love 
 with. His sympathy for the clever and in- 
 genious Dorante appears indeed from his re- 
 marks about him. Thus, in his Diseours du 
 poime dramatique, he says: "II est hors de 
 doute que c'est une habitude vicieuse que de 
 mentir ; mais il debite ses menteries avec une 
 telle presence d' esprit et tant de vivacite que 
 cette imperfection a bonne grace en sa personne, 
 et fait confessor aux spectateurs que le talent 
 de mentir ainsi est un vice dont les sots ne 
 sent point capables." In the Epitre accom- 
 panying the Suite du Menteur, he speaks of 
 Dorante's lies as " friponneries d'ecolier." — It 
 is evident that Corneille, wishing to follow 
 up the success of the Menteur, conceived the 
 idea of writing a sequel where its hero, who 
 had met with such kind reception, would be 
 shown cured of his vice. 
 
LA SUITE DU MENTEUR 137 
 
 There is one trait in Amar sin saber d quien 
 which may have suggested to Corneille the idea 
 of turning it into a continuation of the Men- 
 teur, and identifying the heroes of the two 
 plays. That is the assertion of Don Juan that 
 he does not know Don Fernando, and especially 
 the vivid and detailed description he improvises 
 of Don Pedro's murderer. Here, to Corneille's 
 mind, is a falsehood not only justified by the 
 end, but one which constitutes a noble deed. 
 However that may be, the fact is, that in the 
 Suite du Menteur, the author starts out to rep- 
 resent Dorante as still lying, but under the 
 force of circumstances this time, and from purely 
 generous motives. Yet Dorante is to some ex- 
 tent still attached to his old habit ; at times he 
 lies quite gratuitously, or evinces too lively an 
 appreciation of the falsehoods of his valet. — 
 Cliton jestingly enumerates the various motives 
 his master has assigned for each of the lies he 
 has disposed of in the course of the day : -^ 
 
 " Et vous savez mentir par gfodrosit^ 
 Par adresse d'amour, et par ndcessit^, 
 Quelle conversion I " 
 
 And Dorante himself says : — 
 
 " L'occasion convie, aide, engage, dispense ; 
 Et pour servir un autre on ment sans qu'on y pense." 
 
138 COENEILLE 
 
 One is somewhat surprised at the contrast 
 between the Dorante of the Menteur and the 
 Dorante of the Suite du Menteur ; the former, 
 selfish, disrespectful, mendacious ; the latter, 
 staid, generous, self-sacrificing. But one is 
 amazed at the introduction the poet gives Do- 
 rante at the very opening of the Suite du 
 Menteur. It appears that Dorante deserted 
 Lucrece the very day set for their wedding, 
 making away with her dowry — and the moment 
 after he has confessed to his valet his folie, as 
 he is pleased to style the betrayal of Lucrece 
 and his theft, when Cliton inquires whether he 
 is in jail for murder or larceny, he naively 
 replies, " Suis-je fait en voleur ? " It is not 
 merely the old Dorante, the reckless liar of the 
 Menteur, but the Dorante as here introduced, 
 the rogue and thief, that suddenly develops into 
 the noble hero of the Suite. Don Juan, in the 
 original, presents no such incongruities of 
 character, simply because he is not taken over 
 bodily from another play, and commanded to 
 change his nature for the occasion. He is the 
 honest hero of an artistic drama, complete in 
 itself, with neither predecessor nor suite — 
 ATnar sin saber d quiSn. 
 
VIII. H^RACLIUS 
 
 Few words will be necessary about this trag- 
 edy of Corneille. After the Suite du Menteur 
 were produced Rodogune (1645), ThSodore 
 (1645), and in 1647 HeracUus. With Heraclius 
 is connected a long, and at times rather ani- 
 mated, discussion over the origin of its main 
 idea. It was in the Mercure, in 1724, that at- 
 tention was first drawn to the similarity between 
 HSraelius and Calderon's Hn esta vida todo es 
 verdad y todo mentira. It was there maintained 
 that the main idea, and some lines, were bor- 
 rowed by Corneille from Calderon, two pas- 
 sages of HSraelius being brought in support of 
 that claim, one of which, however, hardly offers 
 any resemblance. In his Commentaries to Cor- 
 neille, Voltaire makes the same assertion. His 
 opinion was subjected to a searching examination, 
 with the result that some French critics most 
 139 
 
140 CORNEILLE 
 
 emphatically decided for Corneille's priority, 
 and the Spanish, aided by a few German savants, 
 just as emphatically declared Calderon to be 
 the originator of the main idea of the play. 
 
 Nor are the facts of the case such as to allow 
 of more than a probable conclusion. Marty- 
 Laveaux and Viguier make the following 
 point. Corneille's HSracliua was produced in 
 1647, while Calderon's play was first printed in 
 1664 : the anterior date of HSracUus seeming 
 thus to decide in favor of the French poet. 
 To this the Spanish poet Harzenbusch, in his 
 edition of Calderon, replies that the Spanish 
 play in question must have been printed 
 toward the year 1622. Neither this print 
 nor any text supporting that date have, how- 
 ever, been produced by him or anybody else. 
 Another contention of the French critics is, 
 that Corneille always confessed with the great- 
 est frankness the sources of his plays, and they 
 point above all to his open declarations of his 
 indebtedness to the Spanish in the Cid, the 
 Menteur, and the Suite du Menteur, and later in 
 his Don Sanche d'Aragon. What reason have 
 we then to assume, say they, that Corneille 
 cpuld have concealed his debt in this one case. 
 
irfeBACLIUS 141 
 
 and how can it, furthermore, be accounted for 
 that he explicitly asserts his originality as far 
 as Hiradius is concerned ; for his Uxamen 
 begins with these words: "Cette tragedie a 
 encore plus d'efPort d'invention que celle de 
 Rodogune, et je puis dire que c'est un heureux 
 original dont il s'est fait beaucoup de belles 
 copies sitot qu'il a paru." — But just these re- 
 peated loans of Corneille from the Spanish 
 drama are invoked by the Spanish and German 
 critics in favor of their claim. It is more 
 probable, they say, that we have here another 
 imitation by Corneille of a Spanish drama, than 
 that "the giant Calderon" — who, according to 
 one of his earliest panegyrists, imitated no one 
 — condescended to rob " the dwarf Corneille," 
 or, as a German critic calls him, the Gallic 
 crow. Moreover, they add, Calderon knew no 
 French. This was not absolutely necessary, 
 retort the French critics, for Calderon might 
 have heard of ffSraoUus upon the occasion of 
 his visit to Paris in 1660 — reported by the 
 Jesuit Tournemine in his Avertissement des 
 (Euvres de Corneille, 1738. But, it is rejoined, 
 that visit of Calderon to Paris is not mentioned 
 by anybody save that Jesuit father, and who 
 
142 COENEILLE 
 
 is it would take any stock in Jesuitic testi- 
 mony ? 
 
 Besides the date, which speaks for Corneille, 
 Viguier considers the following fact as a de- 
 cisive proof of the priority of HSraelius. Both 
 in the preface and the JExamen, Corneille indi- 
 cates his historic source, and also shows in de- 
 tail how he changed the historic data, and 
 invented all of the intricacies of the play. To 
 suppose this to have been but a trick on the 
 part of Corneille intended to mislead the reader 
 into the belief that he had drawn directly from 
 the sources would, says Viguier, be attributing 
 to Corneille "the profound perversity of an 
 impudent plagiarist." — However, this is no 
 absolutely conclusive proof either: did not 
 Corneille turn to the historian Mariana and 
 the old Spanish ballads only after he had read 
 Guillem de Castro ? — Again, the Spanish crit- 
 ics allege that Calderon was much more likely 
 to get the idea of his play from La Rueda de la 
 Fortuna (1616) of Mira de Mescua, a contem- 
 porary of Lope de Vega, than from Corneille's 
 HSraelius ; and our German critic gently insin- 
 uates that Corneille not only robbed Calderon, 
 but probably also pilfered the riches of La Rueda 
 de la Fortuna. 
 
H:feRACLIUS 143 
 
 The opinion regarding the ownership of in- 
 tellectual products was, of course, in those days 
 different from what it is to-day. The right of 
 individual property did not then extend to the 
 realm of thought. Ideas stored up in literary 
 works were not only the common property of 
 all who could read or go to the playhouse, but 
 likewise of those who felt inclined to try their 
 hand at giving them shape and life as it best 
 suited their own taste. Just as those of Italy, 
 so the literary productions of Spain were util- 
 ized considerably by many of the English dram- 
 atists, before, during, and after Shakespeare's 
 activity. In Spain itself, there is perhaps not 
 one dramatic author who is not more or less 
 indebted to his great predecessors for some of 
 his ideas or even entire plots. Lope de Vega's 
 works especially were the rich storehouse from 
 which all the later poets drew to the best of 
 their ability. From him Mira de Mescua and 
 Guillem de Castro obtained the plots of some 
 of their best comedies. After Mira de Mescua, 
 again, it was that poets like Guillem de Castro, 
 Tirso de Molina, Alarcon, and Calderon imi- 
 tated many a play. The subjects treated by the 
 Spanish dramatists came in time to be regarded 
 
144 CORNEILLE 
 
 as common property of the poets, much as were, 
 among the Greeks, the myths of theit national 
 life ; the younger dramatists constantly turned 
 back to their great forerunners. The same 
 views obtained among the French dramatists ; 
 they took their ideas and subjects wherever they 
 could get them. German critics, and especially 
 von Schack, summarily imputed to them plagi- 
 arism as regards their southern neighbors. Von 
 Schack, however, later frankly avowed his mis- 
 take and recognized the originality of the French 
 poets even when the subjects treated by them 
 were not their own.^ — In conclusion it may be 
 said, that even if it be shown that Calderon's 
 play suggested that of Corneille, that would 
 not diminish the right of ownership of the lat- 
 ter. For as far as plot, construction, and inci- 
 dents are concerned, there is absolutely no 
 resemblance between HSraclius and En esta vida 
 todo es verdad y todo mentira. 
 
 1 See his introduction to a translation of selected plays 
 by Calderon in the Cotta'sche Bibliothek. 
 
IX. DON SANCHE D'ARAGON 
 
 This comSdie hSroique, separated from HSra- 
 clius only by Andromide (1650), appeared on 
 the stage in 1650. Here we have another point 
 of contact of Corneille with the Spanish drama, 
 which is, however, of very slight significance. 
 According to Corneille himself, this play did not 
 meet with any lasting success; indeed, it dropped 
 out of the repertoire of the theatres in Paris after 
 the first few representations, and was resumed 
 for a while only toward the middle of the eigh- 
 teenth century. It is noticeable as an attempt 
 at what is commonly called to-day the drama, 
 that is, a play with a serious subject, but no 
 tragical conclusion. In his JSpitre, Corneille 
 even suggests that instead of princes, as the 
 main characters of tragedies, there might be 
 used, and to better purpose too, men and 
 women of our own station of life — a bold 
 opinion for the time, and one the poet did not 
 dare put into practice. 
 
 145 
 
146 CORNEILLB 
 
 The central figure of this play is Don Sanche, 
 son of the King of Aragon ; but, brought up by 
 a poor fisherman, he believes that he is his son. 
 Through his valorous deeds in the wars against 
 the Moors, he wins the esteem of the king of Cas- 
 tile, and the heart — and finally the hand — of 
 his sister, later queen of Castile. " Le sujet n'a 
 pas grand artifice. C'est un inconnu, assez 
 honnete homme pour se faire aimer de deux 
 reines. L'inegalite des conditions met un ob- 
 stacle au bien qu'elles lui veulent durant quatre 
 actes et demi ; et quand il faut de necessite 
 finir la piece, un bonhomme semble tomber des 
 nues pour faire developper le secret de sa nais- 
 sance, qui le rend mari de I'une, en le faisant 
 reconnaitre pour frere de I'autre." Such are, 
 in Corneille's own words, the contents of the 
 play. 
 
 Only part of the first act is imitated from the 
 Spanish. It is Corneille himself who informs 
 us of this in his Examen : " Ce qu'a de fastueux 
 le premier acte est tire d'une com^die espagnole 
 intitulee el palacio confuso." He does not, 
 however, indicate the name of the Spanish 
 author. La Huerta, in his Oatalogo alphabetico 
 de las commedias (Madrid, 1785), mentions two 
 
DON SANCHE D'ARAGON 147 
 
 dramas of that name, one by Mira de Mescua, 
 the other by Lope de Vega : he adds, however, 
 he succeeded in seeing only the latter. Von 
 Schack holds there is but one such drama, and 
 that belongs to Mira de Mescua. But neither 
 he nor any other of the historians of the Span- 
 ish drama give an account of any such play. 
 It could not be found in any of the libraries of 
 Paris. As it is, taking Corneille's word for it, 
 the imitation would amount to but one scene of 
 the first act, that in which occurs the clash be- 
 tween Don Sanche and the Spanish grandees. 
 Thus, even if M Palacio Gonfuao were within 
 reach, very little could be gained toward the 
 further elucidation of Corneille's relation to 
 the Spanish drama. 
 
 In Don Sanche d'Aragon, Corneille is for the 
 last time seen in touch with the Spanish drama; 
 with a result, however, vastly inferior to that 
 obtained through the Old — his first inspiration 
 drawn from Spain, fourteen years before. 
 
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