Esther

Esther

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Title: Esther
Author: Jean Racine
Editor: I.H.B. Spiers
Release Date: May 7, 2005 [EBook #15790]
Language: French / English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESTHER
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Produced by Al Haines

Heath's Modern Language Series.

ESTHER
TRAGÉDIE EN TROIS ACTES
PAR
RACINE.

EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND APPENDICES,
BY

I. H. B. SPIERS,

SENIOR ASSISTANT MASTER WILLIAM PENN CHARTER
SCHOOL,
PHILADELPHIA.

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO

COPYRIGHT, 1891,
By I. H. B. SPIERS.

PREFACE.
The tragedy of Esther commends itself to moderately advanced
students of the French language by the fact that it is both the easiest and
the shortest masterpiece of French tragic literature. For such students
the present edition has been prepared. The text has been modified in all
minor points of spelling and grammar so as to conform with present
usage. The notes are intended either to make clear such matters of
history or grammar as offer any difficulty, or to emphasize that which
may be especially instructive from a literary, historical, or grammatical
point of view.
The appendix contains, in addition to a brief statement of the rules of
French verse, a systematic presentation of quotations from the play
illustrating a few of the grammatical points on which experience
teaches that the student's knowledge, in spite of grammars, is likely to
be vague.
The editor desires to acknowledge gratefully his indebtedness to M.
Paul Mesnard's exhaustive work in the _Collection des Grands
Écrivains de la France_, published under the direction of M. Ad.
Régnier (Paris, 1865), and also to the excellent editions of Mr. G.
Saintsbury (Oxford, 1886), and of Prof. E. S. Joynes (New York,
1882).
I. H. B. SPIERS.
WILLIAM PENN CHARTER SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA.

INTRODUCTION.
1. LIFE OF RACINE.
Jean Racine, unquestionably the most perfect of the French tragic poets,
was born in 1639, at La Ferté-Milon, near Paris. He received a sound
classical education at Port-Royal des Champs, then a famous centre of
religious thought and scholastic learning. At the early age of twenty he
was so fortunate as to attract, by an ode in honor of the marriage of
King Louis XIV., the favor of that exacting monarch,--a favor which he
was to enjoy during forty years. Yet more fortunate in the friendship of
Molière, of La Fontaine, and especially of his trusty counsellor,
Boileau, he doubtless owed to them his determination to devote himself
to dramatic literature.
His first tragedies to be put upon the stage were _La Thébaïde_ (1664)
and Alexandre (1665), which gave brilliant promise. In 1667 appeared
_Andromaque_, his first chef-d'oeuvre, which placed him at once in the
very front rank by the side of Corneille. From that time forth, until
1677, almost each year was marked by a new triumph. In 1668, he
produced his one comedy, _Les Plaideurs_, a highly successful satire
on the Law Courts, in the vein of the "Wasps" of Aristophanes. In 1669,
he resumed his tragedies on historical subjects with _Britannicus_,
largely drawn from Tacitus, followed by _Bérénice_ (1670), Bajazet
(1672), Mithridate (1673), _Iphigénie_ (1674), and _Phèdre_ (1677),
the last two being inspired by Euripides.
Incensed at a literary and artistic cabal, by which a rival play of
_Phèdre_, by Pradon, was momentarily preferred to his own, Racine
now withdrew from the stage. Appointed soon after to the not very
onerous post of historiographer to the King, he lived for a period of
twelve years a retired life in the bosom of his family.
In 1689, at the request of Mme. de Maintenon, the secret wife of Louis
XIV., he produced _Esther_, and in 1691, _Athalie_, both drawn from
the Scriptures and intended for private performance only. Embittered
by the indifference with which the latter tragedy was
received,--although posterity has pronounced it his
masterpiece,--Racine definitely gave up the drama. He died in 1699,
after a few years devoted to his _Histoire du Règne de Louis XIV._, his
death being hastened by grief at having incurred the King's displeasure
on account of a memoir on the misery of the people, which he wrote at

the request of Mme. de Maintenon.
A devoted husband and father, an adroit but sincere courtier, Racine
has won the regard of posterity by his life as well as its admiration by
his literary genius. As a poet, he was endowed with the purest gift of
expression ever granted to a mind imbued with the works of the
classical