The Complete Plays of Jean Racine. Jean Racine
The Complete Plays of Jean Racine
The Complete Plays of Jean Racine
Volume 5: Britannicus
Translated into English rhymed couplets with critical notes and commentary by
GEOFFREY ALAN ARGENT
THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
UNIVERSITY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA
All Rights Reserved
CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that performances of BRITANNICUS (“Play”) are subject to royalty. This Play is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by Universal Copyright Convention, the Pan-American Copyright Convention, the Berne Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including professional and amateur stage rights, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound recording, and all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as CD-ROM, CD-I, DVD, information storage and retrieval systems, and photocopying, are strictly reserved.
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Please Note
After having received permission to produce this Play, it is required that the translator GEOFFREY ALAN ARGENT be given credit as the sole and exclusive translator of the Play on the title page of all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all cases where the title of the Play appears for purposes of advertising or publicizing the production. The name of GEOFFREY ALAN ARGENT must appear on a separate line immediately beneath the title line and in type size equal to 50 percent of the size of the largest letter of the title of the Play and the acknowledgment should read
JEAN RACINE’S BRITANNICUS
Translated into English Rhymed Couplets by GEOFFREY ALAN ARGENT
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data will be found in the back of this book.
FOR
Leslie Eric Comens
“DIO, CHE NELL’ALMA INFONDERE AMOR VOLESTI E SPEME, GIURIAMO INSIEM DI VIVERE E DI MORIRE INSIEME.”
“TREUE TRINK’ ICH DEM FREUND. FROH UND FREI ENTBLÜHE DEM BUND BLUT-BRÜDERSCHAFT HEUT!”
AND
IN THIS BICENTENNIAL OF THEIR BIRTH, TO
Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)
AND
Richard Wagner (1813–1883),
FOR THE PRICELESS TREASURES THEY HAVE BEQUEATHED TO US
CONTENTS
Racine’s Dedication
Racine’s First Preface
Racine’s Second Preface
Britannicus
Britannicus: Notes and Commentary
Appendix A
Appendix B
Bibliography
This translation of Britannicus, Racine’s fifth play, is one of a series that, when complete, will offer in English translation all twelve of Racine’s plays (eleven tragedies and one comedy), only the third such traversal since Racine’s death in 1699. This traversal, in addition, is the first to be composed in rhymed iambic pentameter couplets. My strategy has been to reconceive Racine in that pedigreed indigenous English verse form in order to produce a poetic translation of concentrated power and dramatic impact. After all, as Proust observes, “the tyranny of rhyme forces good poets into the discovery of their best lines”; and while subjected to that tyranny, I took great pains to render Racine’s French into English that is incisive, lucid, elegant, ingenious, and memorable. For I believe that the proper goal of a translation of a work of literature must be, first and foremost, to produce a work of literature in the language of the target audience. For a considerably more expansive discussion of my approach to translation, as well as a vigorously, rigorously argued rationale for my decision to employ rhymed couplets, I direct the interested reader to the Translator’s Introduction that appears in Volume I of this series, devoted to my translation of Racine’s first play, The Fratricides.
This translation is based on the definitive 1697 edition of Racine’s theater as it appears in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade edition of 1980, edited by Raymond Picard. The 1697 text represents Racine’s final thoughts on this play. The divergences between the first edition (1670) and the last are, with three exceptions, relatively inconsequential. Most of them involve minor textual emendations that Racine made for his later editions, all of which represent clear, if subtle, improvements over the earlier versions. All three of the noteworthy changes occur in Act V (and indeed I devote a note to each). The first involves Racine’s deletion of eight lines for Britannicus that originally preceded line V.i.56. I have consigned these lines, translated into rhymed couplets, to note 12 for Act V, where, in addition, I expatiate on several cogent reasons for deleting verses that do no service either to Britannicus or to Britannicus. The second significant change, a more consequential one, in that it restructures the second half of Act V, involves Racine’s removal of an entire, albeit brief, scene, signaled by the reappearance of Junia, who has, to say the least, an awkward moment when she encounters Nero after Britannicus’s murder. Again, I offer this scene, comprising all of twelve lines, as well as the original version of the last few lines of the prior scene and the first few lines of the following scene (all for Agrippina) — which Racine had to modify when he jettisoned the intervening scene — translated into rhymed couplets, in note 31 for Act V. That this intrusive scene was an undoubted miscalculation on Racine’s part was soon recognized by Racine himself, notwithstanding his having at first, in the face of criticism from friend and foe alike, defended its dramatic necessity with much vehemence but little cogency in his first preface, for, soon after the first edition was published, he discreetly removed the scene, ensuring that, in the subsequent editions of 1676, 1687, and 1697, it would never again rear its ugly head. (See the seventh paragraph of Racine’s first preface for his specious defense of this scene and note 11 for my refutation thereof.) The third change of any significance occurs in V.vi, in Agrippina’s final denunciation of Nero, where Racine replaces a single, entire line (a rare occurrence among Racine’s emendations); the original line can be found in note 38 for Act V, where I comment on the greater gain and the lesser loss involved in the line substitution.
Of far greater significance, however, than this single-line rewrite and those two deletions of Racine’s, which I have implemented in conformance to the 1697 edition, is the momentous and unprecedented