XVIII.

OF THE PERVERSION OF MATERNAL LOVE-CLEOPATRA IN THE RODOGUNE OF CORNEILLE-THE COQUETTE MOTHER OF QUINAULT.

HOWEVER strong and ardent maternal love may be, there are nevertheless passions which extinguish it; there are mothers who forget nature; there are ambitious or coquetish women, who no longer remember that they are mothers. Such is, in Rodogune, the Cleopatra of Corneille; such is The Coquette Mother of Quinault.

We may remark that it is only the bad passions which attack and shake maternal love. The good respect it, for all the virtues aid and sustain, instead of combating each other. Religious enthusiasm itself does not destroy maternal love. We read in the acts of the martyrs that Saint Perpetua, having at last succeeded in having her child with her in her prison, "The prison," says she, "immediately became to me a palace, so that I preferred this abode to any that they could have chosen for me." These are touching words, and manifest the harmony which exists between piety and the sweetest affections of the human heart. It is otherwise with ambition and vanity. They drive away maternal love from the heart of which they take possession; and vanity, mean and contemptible as it is in its nature, is not in this respect less imperious and tyrannical than ambition. itself. Ismene, in The Coquette Mother, is not less heartless than Cleopatra in Rodogune.

The character of Cleopatra in Corneille, is odious from one end of the piece to the other; it inspires nothing but horror. Never a single emotion of maternal tenderness, never a single remorse is felt by this mother, who wishes her two sons to perish in order to destroy her rival; never

is nature reclaimed in her heart; and when she exhibits it, it is to do violence to it, and sacrifice it to her ambition and her revenge:

And you, you wish me

The ridiculous return of a foolish virtue,

A tenderness as dangerous as it is importunate ?
I do not wish for a son the husband of Rodogune,

And I no longer see in him the remains of my blood,

If he drives me from the throne and puts her in my rank.

Act v. scene 1.

Nevertheless, the sweet and natural sentiments have their part in Rodogune, and pity is contrasted with horror. The touching and pure affection which the two brothers feel for each other, and the interest which it excites, compensate for the dread which Cleopatra inspires. What we admire in this tragedy is: that where the good sentiments disappear in the mother, they reappear in the two brothers, and fraternal love comes to make amends to us for the forgetfulness of maternal tenderness. Thus the sweet and pure emotions recover their ascendant, and the spectator is not condemned to the torment of finding nothing which is worthy of esteem and pity; he is disposed to pity these two brothers, who, terrified at their both loving Rodogune and finding themselves rivals, promise each other never to be wanting in fraternal friendship:

Notwithstanding the splendor of a throne and the love of a woman,
Let us cause friendship to reign so powerfully in our souls,
That extinguishing in their loss a corrupting regret,
Let us find our happiness in fraternal love.

Act. i. scene 3.

This noble and touching friendship of the two brothers resists the efforts which Cleopatra makes. She in vain endeavors to arm them against each other; they repel her odious counsels. Cleopatra, desperate at seeing the virtue of her sons thwart her schemes of revenge and ambition, not being able to count upon them either to strike Rodogune, or to destroy each other, relies only upon herself; for she does. not think of renouncing her hatred or her ambition, she does not think of becoming a mother again. She feigns it for a moment, but only that she may more effectually destroy her enemies, that is to say, her rival and her children. She

braves every thing, the vengeance of the gods and the vengeance of men. Let us hear this invocation of hatred and anger, the most terrible which the Theatre has ever witnessed:

I must either condemn, or crown my hatred.
Were the people in madness for its new masters
To water their tombs with my odious blood,
Were the Parthian avenger to find me defenceless,
Were Heaven to equal the punishment to my offence,
I would never consent to abandon the throne!
It would be better to die by a stroke of lightning,
It would be better to merit the strangest fate.
Let Heaven fall upon me, provided I'm avenged!
I would receive the blow with a calm visage!
It is sweet to perish after our enemies.
And with whatever rigor destiny treats me,
I lose less in dying than in living their subject.

Act v. scene 1.

Never were ambition, anger, revenge, all the passions which can devour the human heart, expressed with more grandeur and energy. Let us not forget, however, and it is here that the thought returns of the observations which we are making with regard to maternal love; the title of mother which Cleopatra preserves, although she so cruelly forgets it, this same title, in rendering it more criminal, contributes to render it more terrible, and lends to her passions a terrible grandeur worthy of tragedy. If Cleopatra were not a mother, she would immediately lose a part of the tragic horror which she inspires. She would be no more than an ordinary ambitious woman;-she would be only an angry and vindictive woman. It is necessary, in order to terrify us, that we should remember those maternal sentiments which she has extinguished; and the sacred title of mother is still felt even where it is destroyed.

But if Corneille avails himself, as a tragic poet, of this title of mother, which renders Cleopatra more frightful, he has also taken care to inform us that, in those courts of Asia, which he has understood and painted with so much penetration, in those countries where the family tie is loosened and destroyed by polygamy, their morals and usages diminish the strength of maternal sentiments. One is no longer son, husband, or father; one is king; one is neither daughter nor

mother; one is queen. Egotism controls the affections of nature, and it is that which Corneille explains to us, by the mouth of Seleucus, with that political sagacity which is one of the peculiarities of his genius:

Ah, my brother, love is not very strong
For sons brought up in exile;

And, having brought us up almost in slavery,

She [Cleopatra] has remembered them only to increase her rage. I discover the disguise of her pretended tears;

We have in her heart but little part;

She is wise in proclaiming this great love of a mother;
But she loves and considers only herself;

And although she exhibits a language so sweet,
She does all for herself and nothing for us.

Act ii. scene 4.

Although there is a kind of resemblance between ambition and coquetry, and both of them have the same need of succeeding, or of pleasing, there is, nevertheless, a great difference between the coquette mother of Quinault and the Cleopatra of Corneille. They resemble each other only in one point; passion extinguishes maternal love in them. The Ismene of Quinault is neither hateful nor vindictive; she only suffers in seeing her daughter each day become more beautiful near her, who each day remains more beautiful with difficulty. She would be a good mother, if her daughter were only ten or twelve years old; but she is sixteen; it is that which displeases her. See how, in the conversation between Ismene and Laurette, her confidant, all those secret vexations of a woman who does not wish to seem to be old, naturally break out.

Ismene. With what eye can I see (I who, by my address, Believe that I could pique myself on my youth,)

An adored daughter, and who, in spite of my cares,

Obliges me to confess that I have thirty years at least.
And as to judge harshly people are too much disposed,

If we acknowledge thirty years, do they not believe that we are forty?

Laurette. It is true that the world is full of slanderers;

But we can still be beautiful at forty years.

Ismene. We can be; but it is the age of retirement;

Beauty loses its rights, even though it were perfect;

And gallantry, as soon as we become old,

Is only confined to the beauty of the mind.

Laurette. You are too well made, and it is a mere notion,

Ismene. A daughter at sixteen years easily outshines a mother. I in vain endeavor, by a thousand cares, to re-establish

Whatever charms my age can diminish,

And to preserve, by art, the natural beauty

Which is derived from youth, and which passes away with it.
My daughter destroys all as soon as she is near me;

I feel myself become ugly as soon as she is near me;
And youth in her, and simple nature,

Do more than all my art, my cares, and my dress.
Was there ever a subject of a more just anger ?

Act ii. scene 2.

But we do not perceive in this the violent passions which move or irritate us, but only ridiculous ones, which make us laugh. The heart of Ismene is not corrupt; she is good and amiable with all the world; she is only in bad humor with the sixteen years of her daughter. Moreover, Ismene believes herself a widow. Her husband has been absent for eight years, without any one having heard from him. They believe him to be dead, and even Ismene puts on mourning. Hence the temptation which she felt to take a young husband, for her husband was old and ugly. This young husband, whom she has already chosen, is Acanthe, the son of her neighbor. But Acanthe loves Isabelle, the daughter of Ismene; he has only fallen out with Isabelle, as lovers quarrel; and it is by the aid of this quarrel, artfully kept up by the intrigue and trickery of Laurette, one of those rare waitingmaids in comedy who do not take part with the daughter against the mother; it is by means of this quarrel that Ismene hopes to replace her daughter Isabelle in the heart of Acanthe. She agrees with the father of Acanthe, who, although old and ugly, would also wish to marry the young Isabelle, in bartering, if we may so speak, with their children. Cremante will marry Isabelle, Acanthe will marry Ismene. All that is wanting to this agreement is the consent of Acanthe, and Acanthe does not refuse. But, (and it is above all there that the comedy breaks out,) in the scene in which Acanthe consents to marry Ismene, he only speaks to her of Isabelle, of the love which he had for Isabelle, and the treachery with which he believes that she has repaid his tenderness. In a word, his passion for Isabelle breaks out at each word, and inflicts upon the vanity of Ismene the most cruel and the most just torment which vanity can suffer, the torment of seeing itself forgotten and despised; and that without Acanthe