,.OKAL!FO/?4> oxOf CAHFOtofc " / ) ji. ^ y -^ V/^-./ A I iGi ^^ A I IQK "^"^ ^ -^ <I5130NV-S01^ f S a- %a3AiNn-3\\v^ 1 1 irr 1 1 1 irr in 1Y0/ <^UIBRARYQ^ JO' <% ^OF-CAUFOfyfc THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF MOLIERE. ITHIK ; stems THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF M O L I E R E RENDERED INTO ENGLISH BY HENRI VAN LAUN A NEW EDITION With a Prefatory Memoir, Introductory Notices and Notes ILLUSTRATED WITH NINETEEN ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL PROM PAINTINGS AND DESIGNS BY Horace Vernet, Desenne, Johannot and Hersent COMPLETE IN SIX VOLUMES VOLUME III PHILADELPHIA GEORGE BARRIE, PUBLISHER TABLE OF CONTENTS. VOLUME THREE. THE PRINCESS OF ELIS. La Princesse d'1 Elide DON JUAN; OR, THE FEAST WITH THE STATUE. Don Juan ; ou, Le Festin de Pierre 69 LOVE is THE BEST DOCTOR. LAmour Medecin 135 THE MISANTHROPE. Le Misanthrope 171 THE PHYSICIAN IN SPITE OF HIMSELF. Le Medecin Malgre lui 247 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOLUME THREE. PAGB THE PHYSICIAN IN SPITE OF HIMSELF. Act II., Scene 4. Le Medecin Malgre lui Frontispiece DON JUAN. Act II., Scene 5. Don Juan; ou, Le Festin de Pierre 94 THE MISANTHROPE. Act II., Scene 5. Le Misanthrope 208 LA PRINCESSE D'ELIDE. COMEDIE-BALLET. THE PRINCESS OF ELIS. A COMEDY-BALLET IN FIVE ACTS. ( THE ORIGINAL PARTLY IN PROSE AND PARTLY IN VERSE) STH MAY 1664. INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. IN the month of May 1664, Louis XIV. entertained the Queen-mother, Anne of Austria, and his own wife, Maria Theresa, with a brilliant and sumptuous fete at Versailles. It began on the 7th, and lasted a whole week. The duke de Saint-Aignan was commissioned to superintend the the he was the materials arrangements ; and plan adopted suggested by which he discovered in the 6th and jth cantos of Ariosto's epic poem, Orlando Furioso, which describe the sojourn of Rogero in the isle and palace of the enchantress Alcina. The king was Rogero, whilst the princes and courtiers personified the other characters mentioned in the poem. We shall give a description of this fete farther on. In this fete, the second day was distinguished by the representation of The Princes of Elis ; and subsequent days saw the production of The Bores, The Forced Marriage, and the first three acts of Tartuffe. For their services on this occasion, Moliere's troupe received the sum of 4,000 livres. The Princess of Elis, a comedy-ballet, was intended to represent the struggle between the affections of the male and female sex, a struggle in which victory often remains with the one who seems the farthest from ob- taining it. Shakespeare has also attempted to sketch this strife in Muck ado about Nothing, in As You like it, and in A Midsummer Night's Dream. at Moliere composed this comedy-ballet the special request of the king ; and it was conceived in a romantic vein suitable to the character of the fete. The author's natural flow of wit and humour was checked by the necessity of accommodating himself to the conventionalities of courtly and it must admitted that Moliere deal of propriety ; be mingled a good water with his wine, in order to please the fastidious palates of the cour- tiers. He borrowed his subject from Moreto's Spanish comedy, ElDesden con el Desden (Scorn for Scorn). The idea is pretty, and there is abund- ant room for the of the development plot and passion ; but genius of the adapter was cramped, and The Princess o/E/is is certainly not one of his happiest efforts. He has narrowed, rather than improved upon, the treat- ment of Moreto he has blunted the of the ; edge Spaniard's keenness, and, taking the situations almost too punctiliously, has rendered them bare and barren. He the scene to Elis transports ; and the Count of Urgel, the Prince of Beam, the Count of Foix, are disguised under the Princes of and Messena. hurried Ithaca, Pylos, He was in his work ; and, almost 3 4 THE PRINCESS OF ELIS. as if himself craving for relief from an unwelcome mood, he created and sustained the character of the fool Moron, a coward who gives good advice, and is, on the whole, not unlike Butler's Hudibras. The piece was again produced in July of the same year at Fontaine- in it bleau, before the Pope's Legate ; and November and December, had a run of twenty-five days at the theatre of the Palais- Royal. It undoubt- edly hit the mark with some amongst Moliere's contemporaries whose tastes were similar to those of the court. As an ephemeral production, therefore, designed for a temporary purpose, it may be held to have been successful. James Miller wrote a play called The Universal Passion, acted at the Theatre, Drury Lane, on the 28th of February, 1737, which consists of Shakespeare's Much ado about Nothing, and Moliere's Princess of Elis. He acknowledges his obligations to Shakespeare, but does not say any- thing about the French dramatist. In the dedication of The Universal Passion to Frederick Frankland, Esq., it is stated, thai "the strict Regard manners is the . I have had to Decency and good ... principal Merit . the World is at present happily inclin'd to support what is produced with that Intention." The Prologue, spoken by Mr. Gibber, harps on the same string, and ends thus : " Howe'er, this Merit he at least can claim, 's his That sacred Decency constant Aim ; There's nought but what an Anchoret might hear, No Sentence that can wound the chastest Ear . To your Protection Shakespeare's Offspring take, And save the Orphan for the Father's Sake." George Hyde wrote Love's Victory ; or the School for Pride, a comedy in five acts, founded on the Spanish of Moreto, and performed at Covent- Garden, November 16, 1825. As Moliere borrowed from the same source, there is a great similarity in the plot of both plays, but Hyde has chiefly followed the arrangement of a German author, West, and can therefore hardly be said to have imitated Moliere. As we have already mentioned, Moliere's play formed part of the court entertainment, and was published in Les Plaisirs de V Isle Enchantee: Course de Bague, Collation ornee de Machines, Comedie de Moliere de la Princesse d? Elide, meslee de Danse et de Musique Ballet du Palais d'Al- cine, feu d'Artifice : Et autres Festes galantes et magnifiques ; faites par le Roy a Versailles, le 7 May, 1664. Et continuees plusieurs autres yours. Paris, Robert Ballard, 1663. Although the description of The Pleasures of the Enchanted Island was not written by Moliere, who wrote only it is comedy, inserted in the first collected edition of our author's works ; and I give it here as a specimen of the complimentary style of the official catalogue of entertainments of Louis XIV. I am indebted for the com- pleteness and accuracy of nearly all the notes which illustrate Les Plaisirs de I' Isle Enchantee, to M. Paul Lacroix, the Biblioth^caire de 1' Arsenal, well known as the Bibliophile Jacob, who kindly communicated to me the genealogy and short history of the noble ladies and gentlemen who took part in the festivities at Versailles. These fetes, given nominally in honour of the two Queens, but in reality to please the queen, Mademoi- " selle de la Valliere, whom the king delighteth to honour," lasted seven the days ; description opens thus : " The King, wishing to give to the Queen and the whole Court the pleasure of some uncommon entertainments, in a spot adorned with all THE PRINCESS OF ELIS. 5 thebeauties to be admired in a Country Seat, chose for that purpose Ver- sailles, four leagues from Paris. It is a seat which may justly be called aa Enchanted Palace so much have the embellishments of Art seconded the care which Nature has taken to render it perfect. It is every way charm- ing ; everything pleases both within and without : gold and marble vie there in and it is not so beauty and splendour ; although extensive as some of her Majesty's other Palaces, yet all things there are so polished, so well contrived, and so perfect, that nothing can equal them. Its symmetry, the richness of its furniture, the beauty of its walks, and the infinite number of its flowers, as well as of its orange-trees, render the neighborhood of that place worthy of its singular rarity. The different animals within the two parks and the menagerie, wherein are several courts, in the figure of stars, with ponds for the water-fowl, together with great structures, add pleasure to magnificence, and create a palace in which nothing can be found to criticise." 1 First Day of the Pleasures of the Enchanted Island. It was in this beautiful place that on the fifth of May all the Court met, and that the King treated above six hundred persons till the fourteenth, not reckoning a great number of persons necessary in the dancing and in the besides all kinds of workmen who came from Paris so that play, ; they looked like a small army. The very heavens appeared to favour his Majesty's designs, since in a season in which it almost always rains, there was only a slight wind, which seemed to rise solely in order to show that the King's foresight and power were proof against the greatest inconveniences. High cloths, wooden buildings, run up almost in an instant, and a prodigious number of torches of white wax, to supply daily the place of above four thousand wax can- dles, resisted the wind, which everywhere else would have rendered these diversions almost impracticable.