XV. OF MATERNAL LOVE-MEROPE IN TORELLI, MAFFEI, VOLTAIRE, AND ALFIERI. THE character of Andromache is the purest and most touching expression of maternal love; but it does not express all the energy of this love. Maternal tenderness cannot express a more sweet and penetrating language, but it may become more passionate and violent; it cannot inspire more pity, but it can inspire more terror. That is the difference between Andromache and Merope. Euripides, among the ancients, and among the moderns, Torelli, Maffei, and Alfieri in Italy, and Voltaire in France, have made this character the subject of their respective dramas. We will briefly notice the expression which these different poets have given to maternal love. The mythologist, Hygin, has preserved the argument of the tragedy of Euripides. The subject is simple and affecting. Polyphon has killed Chresphon, king of Messenia, has massacred his sons, and married his widow, Merope. Telephon alone, of the sons of Chresphon, has escaped from the massacre. Merope has committed him, while yet an infant, to the care of an inhabitant of Elis. But when afterwards he felt himself become strong and brave, Telephon comes to Messenum and announces to Polyphon, that he has killed the son of Merope. The tyrant receives him with joy. Merope, who has been informed of the arrival of a stranger, who has come to receive of Polyphon his reward for a murder, commences to tremble for the life of her son; and very soon after, the old man whom she employed as a messenger in Elis, coming to announce to her that he has not been able to find Telephon, she no longer doubts of her misfortune. She goes in search of Telephon, whom she finds sleeping in the palace, and throws herself upon him with her dagger in her hand to avenge her son, when the old man advancing, recognizes Telephon, and checks Merope. Telephon does not delay to kill the tyrant, and to recover the throne of his father. Such is the subject of the tragedy of Euripides, which is interesting without being complicated. In the sixteenth century, in 1595, Count Torelli, who, like many Italian writers of that century, mingled business with letters, and who was an ambassador and poet, has, in his Merope, taken the argument of Euripides in all its simplicity, and it is that which has made him so successful. His piece is, (if we may be permitted to borrow a phrase from architecture,) a rebuilding of the tragedy of Euripides; not that he has attempted to put together the fragments of the Merope of Euripides; he has done better: he permitted himself to be inspired with the subject of the antique tragedy, without occupying himself with the fifty or sixty verses of Euripides, scattered here and there, and which were not even collected in the sixteenth century; and as he had a love for the antique literature, and as the Italian genius is the offspring of the Greek, there are, we dare say, many scenes of the tragedy of Torelli which seem to have been taken from Euripides. Telephon has truly the simplicity and grandeur of the personages of the antique tragedy, when returning to Messenum, poor, unknown, persecuted, but full of joy and confidence, he salutes this country so much longed for: "O, Country! Dear and beloved Country! My eyes, so long deprived of seeing you, can at length feast themselves upon your beauty! Here is the asylum where I was brought up; here is the land which the invincible Hercules, my ancestor, has given to his descendants, and from which I have been unjustly banished! Sacred temple! which my father has so long perfumed with incense; Altar! watered by him with the blood of so many victims, I entreat you come to my assistance, and to request heaven to permit my hands to fulfil my revenge! Hall of my ancestors! magnificence of my fathers! whence comes it that in seeing you, I am both happy and sad? It is here that I was born the son of one of your kings, and yet the injustice of fate has torn me from your bosom; I have lost my father and my country, and so many dear and faithful subjects; there is now only Nessus to recognize me, Nessus alone whom I would wish to find; but I do not dare to ask any one, for the palace of the tyrant is full of suspicions: the walls, the windows, the doors, have eyes and ears to spy out my steps and to report my words."* He very soon relates to the tyrant that he himself has killed Telephon the son of Merope; and at this news, Polyphon, full of joy, and no longer wanting confidence in the stranger, makes him his guest and his friend. Telephon then wanders about freely in the palace of his fathers, and arrives in the centre where stands the marble throne of Chresphon. He reposes with a mixture of respect and joy upon this paternal seat; for Apollo predicted to him that he would find the end of his misfortunes, when he would be seated upon the throne of his father; and full of the hopes and recollections which this throne revives in him: "It is then here," he exclaims, "that after so great and such long misfortunes, I must find rest. How sweetly my limbs re * O cara amata patria, io gli occhi pasco Lungamente digiuni Della tua dolce e sì bramata vista! Ov'io si dolcemente fui nodrito: Quest'è la terra pur, ch'Ercole invitto, Foste da tante vittime, impetrate Dal cielo a un pio d'un empio omai vendetta! Contesti di diversi e puri marmi, Lasso me, ch'ora il rivedervi insieme Mi diletta e m'attrista. Io pur qui nacqui D'un vostro caro re, principe vostro ; E pur dal vostro grembo iniqua sorte Mi svelse, e perdei padre e regno insieme, Che soggetti mi fur fedeli e cari, Un sol mi riconosce: Nesso solo, Vorrei Nesso trovar; ma non ardisco Par ch'abbiano le porte occhi et orecchie [Edit. de Vérone, 1723, p. 356.] pose! O Apollo! Apollo! To enter into this palace, as I have to-day, an unexpected and an unknown guest, to recline upon this sacred seat, the end of my misfortunes, how many mountains, how many roads have I not traversed in my flight! How many sleepless nights! I know not what languishing and ecstatic joy steals over my senses; my head falls back in spite of myself; sweet sleep, the sleep of the paternal roof comes over my eyes. Alas! can I close my eyelids? Alone, unarmed, exposed to so many hatreds, who will watch over me? But no, I feel it, I cannot resist the fatigue which overwhelms me, or rather the overpowering influence of the god, who has conducted me hither; it is then to him that I must resign myself. May he protect me! May he save my innocence from the perils which encompass it."* And while he is sleeping in the seat of his father with such high hopes, and invoking the protection of the gods, the chorus at the bottom of the Theatre is indignant at seeing this man silent and sleeping on the throne of his father, when he has just killed his son. It is here that the chorus of Torelli resembles the chorus of the ancients and becomes dramatic: "He sleeps, [it chants,] as if upon a delicious bed; he sleeps full of calmness and security, at the moment of danger and death; he sleeps, the villain and murderer! * O quanto dopo un grave e lungo affanno, Quanti colli ho trascorsi e quante valli, Page 379. And his eyes are now closed as if to repose, his eyes which are so soon to be closed in eternal night! O Jupiter! It is thou who takest away prudence and judgment from men, who, burdened with the weight of their crimes, have permitted the time of repentance to escape and exhausted the fountain of thy clemency! It is thou who fillest them with audacity and hopes, and who urgest them on like blind men, down the precipice which must soon ingulf them!"* At this moment, Merope enters raving with anger, grief and revenge, with her dagger in her hand, and preparing to sacrifice Telephon. Before striking him, she orders him to be bound, in order that he may suffer death while awake. Telephon then, ready to receive the mortal stroke, exclaims, "Is this then, Apollo, thy oracle? Is it thus that I must find repose upon this seat? Is it death which awaits me then? Alas! my father will not be thus avenged! And myself unfortunate will not be more so than he! Death has for me but one consolation; it is that at least I die in my palace, and expire upon the throne where I ought to live. Merope. Ye gods! Who art thou? Tell me, this palace, this throne which is thine, this father who will not be avenged. Speak; speak, do not delay, do not endeavor to deceive me in this terrible moment! Who art thou? Telephon. There is no person here who knows me but Nessus, the old servant of the queen. And it is then that Nessus, running and meeting Telephon, exclaims, "Cast away this dagger, Ŏ Queen! It is Telephon! It is your son. This is the stage effect so long expected, which made the Greeks tremble: for Plutarch in one of his essays, in which * Quasi tra lievi e delicate piume, Page 380. |