Voltaire/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
ZAIRE.
In the preface to a tragedy addressed to Bolingbroke, he thus speaks of the difficulties offered to composition in French verse: "That which affrighted me most in re-entering on this career was the severity of our poetry, and the slavery of rhyme. I regretted the happy liberty you have of writing your tragedies in blank verse; of lengthening, and more, of shortening, nearly all your words; of making the verses run into one another; and of creating, in case of need, new terms, which are always adopted among you when they are sonorous, intelligible, and necessary. An English poet, said I, is a free man, who makes his language subservient to his genius; the French is a slave to rhyme, obliged sometimes to make four verses in order to express what an Englishman would render in one. The Englishman says all he wishes—the Frenchman only what he can; the one travels in a vast highway—the other marches in shackles, in a narrow and slippery path.
"But we can never shake off the yoke of rhyme—it is essential to French poetry. Our language does not agree with inversions; our verses do not suffer the running of one into another—at least this liberty is very rare; our syllables cannot produce a sensible harmony by their long or short measures; our cæsuras and a certain number of feet would not suffice to distinguish verse from prose. Besides, so many great masters—Corneille, Racine, Boileau—have so accustomed our ears to the harmony of rhyme, that we could not endure any other; and he who wished to deliver himself from the burthen which the great Corneille carried, would be regarded with reason, not as a bold genius adventuring in a new route, but as a weak man who could not journey in the ancient ways."
The tragedy of "Brutus," acted on a private stage, was not permitted to appear in print, and was not represented till many years later. But he gave "Eryphile" to the stage, which was a failure; and, very soon after, "Zaire," which had a prodigious success. It was in this play that he first exchanged the classic for the romantic style, without, however, ceasing to preserve the unities, and, no longer the imitator of Racine and Corneille, became himself the founder of a school. "Zaire," he says, "is the first drama in which I have dared to abandon myself to all the sensibility of my heart: it is my only tender tragedy."
"Those who are fond of literary history," says the advertisement to the play, "will like to hear how the piece was produced. Many ladies had reproached the author with not putting enough love into his tragedies; he replied that he did not believe it to be the proper place for love; but since they must absolutely have amorous heroes, he would do as others did"… "The idea," he says, again, "struck me, of contrasting in the same picture, honour, rank, country, and religion on the one side, with the tenderest and most ill-starred love on the other; the manners of Mahometans with those of Christians; the court of a soldan with that of a king of France; and to cause Frenchmen to appear for the first time upon the tragic stage."
The plot of the piece, forming a very pretty and ingenious tale, will be best condensed from his own sketch of it, written for a friend:—
Palestine had been wrested from the Christian princes by Saladin. Noradin, of Tartar race, had then rendered himself master of it. Orosman, son of Noradin, a young man full of greatness, virtue, and passion, began to reign with glory in Jerusalem. He had brought to the Syrian throne the spirit of liberty of his ancestors. He despised the rigid rules of the seraglio, and did not desire to augment his dignity by remaining invisible to strangers and to his subjects. He treated Christian slaves with mildness. Among them was a child, taken in Noradin's reign, in the sack of Cæsarea. This child having been recovered, at the age of nine, by the Christians, was brought to St Louis, the king of France, who undertook the charge of bringing him up. He took in France the name of Nerestan, and, returning to Syria, was again made prisoner, and shut up among the slaves of Orosman, and here he met once more in slavery a girl with whom he had been captured in Cæsarea. This girl, Zaire, was ignorant, as well as Nerestan, of her birth; she only knew that she had been born a Christian, as he and some other slaves a little older than herself assured her. She had always preserved an ornament which enclosed a cross, the only proof that she possessed of her religion. Another slave, Fatima, born a Christian, and placed in the seraglio at the age of ten, imparted to Zaire what little she knew herself of the religion of her fathers. Young Nerestan, who was free to see Zaire and Fatima, animated with the zeal then proper to French cavaliers, and with the tenderest friendship for Zaire, sought to incline her to Christianity. He proposed to purchase Zaire, Fatima, and ten Christian knights with the property he had acquired in France, and to carry them to the Court of St Louis. He had the boldness to demand from the Soldan permission to return to France on his parole, and the Soldan had the generosity to allow it. Nerestan set out, and was two years absent from Jerusalem.
Meanwhile the beauty of Zaire increased with her years, and the touching simplicity of her character aided still more than her beauty to render her lovable. Orosman saw and conversed with her. A heart like his could not love otherwise than madly. He resolved to throw off the effeminate habits which had been the bane of so many Asiatic sovereigns, and to possess in Zaire one who should share his heart with the duties of a prince and warrior. The faint ideas of Christianity, barely traced on the heart of Zaire, vanished at sight of the Soldan; she loved him no less than she was loved by him, without letting ambition mix in the least with the purity of her tenderness. This is how she speaks to her confidante Fatima:—
Not I, who but for this o'ermastering love
Perchance had been a convert to the Cross,
But, wooed by Orosman, I all forgot.
I see but him, and my enraptured soul
Brims o'er with bliss to find itself adored.
Call up in your own thought his feats, his grace,
That powerful arm which many kings hath crushed,
That charming brow whence glory radiates,
I speak not of the sceptre he confers;
No, gratitude were but a small return,
A slighting tribute, all too poor for love—
My heart craves Orosman and not his crown.
I may too easily believe his flame;
But if the heavens had been harsh to him,
Condemning him to chains that I have borne,
And placing Syria's realm beneath my rule,
Either my love deceives, or Zaire[1] to-day
Would stoop as low to raise him to her side."
Nor is the Soldan less impassioned in his vows. After telling her of his readiness to forego the customs of Mahometan kings, and to make her his only mistress and wife, he thus closes the speech:—
A love which answers my consuming flame.
My heart is one that owns not moderate joys;
Faint love would make me think myself abhorred:
Such is the character of all my mind.
Boundless my wish to worship, solace you;
If the same ardour glows within your breast,
At once I wed you—not on other terms;
The perilous constraint of marriage-ties
Would be my bane if it were not your bliss."
It is at this moment that young Nerestan returns from France. He had brought with him the ransom of Zaire, Fatima, and the ten cavaliers. "I have redeemed my word," he said to the Soldan, "it is now for thee to hold to thine; but know that I have exhausted my fortune in the purchase. Nothing but honourable poverty remains for me, and I am about to return to my bonds." The Soldan, admiring the courage of the Christian, and himself born for generous actions, remitted all the ransoms, gave him a hundred knights for ten, and loaded him with presents, but, at the same time, signified that Zaire could not be purchased and was indeed above all price. Also he declined to give up among the redeemed a prince of Lusignan, captured long ago in Cæsarea.
This Lusignan, the last of the stock of the kings of Jerusalem, was an old man, venerated throughout the East, and whose name alone might be dangerous to the Saracens. It was he whom Nerestan had chiefly wished to redeem. The youth appeared before Orosman overwhelmed with the double refusal. The Soldan observed his trouble, and experienced from that moment the beginnings of a jealousy which the generosity of his character enabled him to stifle; however, he ordered that the hundred cavaliers should be ready to set out with Nerestan next day.
Zaire, on the point of becoming sultana, wished to give Nerestan one proof of gratitude; she threw herself at Orosman's feet to beg liberty for old Lusignan. Orosman could deny her nothing; the captive was brought from his prison. The redeemed Christians were with Nerestan in the outer courts of the seraglio, weeping the doom of Lusignan; above all, the Chevalier de Chatillon, the close friend of the unfortunate prince, could not make up his mind to accept that freedom which was refused to his master,—when Zaire entered among them, bringing with her him whom they had despaired of seeing more.
Lusignan, dazzled with the light, which he had been deprived of during twenty years of captivity, could scarcely endure it, not knowing where he was, nor whither they were conducting him. Seeing at last that he was among his countrymen, and recognising Chatillon, he gives way to the joy mingled with bitterness which the wretched feel in their consolations. He inquires to whom he owes his deliverance. Zaire, presenting Nerestan, answers that it is to him that all the Christians owe their liberty. When the old man learns that Nerestan has been brought up in the seraglio with Zaire, he beseeches them to tell him of the fate of his children. "Two," he says, "were seized in the cradle when I was taken in Cæsarea; two others, with their mother, were killed before my eyes. I have heard that my youngest son and my daughter were brought to this seraglio. Have you, Nerestan, Zaire, Chatillon, no knowledge of what has become of these sad remains of the race of Godfrey and of Lusignan?"
While he thus questioned them, he perceived on Zaire's arm an ornament enclosing a cross, and remembered that his daughter had worn such when carried to the font—Chatillon had placed it on her—and she had been snatched from his arms before she could be baptised. The likeness in feature, the age, the scar of a hurt his little son had received, all convinced Lusignan that he still had children in Zaire and Nerestan. Nature spoke to the hearts of all three at once, and expressed itself in tears. "Embrace me, my dear children," cried Lusignan, "and look once more on your father." Zaire and Nerestan could not tear themselves from his arms. "But alas!" exclaimed this unhappy old man, "shall I taste an unmixed joy? Heaven that restores my daughter, does it restore her as a Christian?" At these words Zaire blushed and trembled, and avowed herself a Mahometan. Grief, religion, and nature lent strength at this moment to Lusignan: he embraced his daughter, pointing to the Holy Sepulchre; and animated by despair, by zeal, and aided by so many Christians and by his son, he strongly moved her. She cast herself at his feet and promised to become a Christian.
Thus far Voltaire; and this will appear, to most, the doubtful point of the play. How people may feel who unexpectedly see for the first time their nearest relations, of whose existence they had remained in ignorance, is a problem which few can solve; but we may be tolerably certain that a young girl such as Zaire would be unlikely to renounce her lover and change her faith in a moment, at the bidding of a newly-found father. However, if this difficulty be tided over—in which good acting might greatly help—things go smoothly through the rest of the plot:—
At this moment comes an officer to separate Zaire from her father and brother, and to arrest all the French knights, and, as Lusignan is removed, he binds her by an oath to secrecy. This sudden severity was the result of a council held by Orosman. St Louis's fleet had sailed from Cyprus—as was feared, for the Syrian coast; but a second courier having brought the news of the departure of St Louis for Egypt, Orosman was reassured, for he was himself the enemy of the Soldan of that country. Thereupon he ordered that the Frenchmen should be sent to their king, and now thought only of repairing by the magnificence of his nuptials the wrong which in his anger he had done to Zaire.
"Whilst the preparations were made, Zaire, in grief, asked permission from the Soldan to see Nerestan once more. Orosman, too glad of an occasion to please her, was so indulgent as to permit the interview. Nerestan saw Zaire, but it was to tell her that her father was ready to expire; and that, in his last moments, his joy at having recovered his children was mingled with sorrow at not knowing whether she would become a Christian; and that, while dying, he had ordered her to be baptised that day by the Pontiff of Jerusalem. Zaire, melted and overcome, promised everything, and swore to her brother that she would be a Christian, that she would not marry Orosman, and that to be baptised should be her first care.
Scarcely had she given this promise when Orosman, more amorous and more beloved than ever, comes to conduct her to the mosque. Never had any one a heart more torn than Zaire's; she was drawn one way by her family ties, her name, her new faith—and another by the best of men, who adored her. She no longer knew herself; she gave way to grief, escaped from the arms of her lover, and, quitting him in despair, left him overwhelmed with surprise, grief, and anger.
The suspicions of jealousy were reawakened in the heart of Orosman. Pride prevented them from appearing, but his suppressed indignation thus shows itself in their next interview:—
Listening, unshamed, to dictates all too dear,
Found glory in submission to your chains.
I deemed myself beloved, and, sooth, your lord,
At your feet sighing, well might look for love!
I will not, like a jealous, doting fool,
Give vent to anger in resentful words;
Stabbed cruelly, yet for complaint too proud,
For poor pretence too generous, too great,
I come to tell you that a cold disdain
Will be of your caprice the fit award.
Attempt not to deceive my tenderness,
To seek for arguments whose glozing art,
Veiling repugnance with illusive tints,
Might lure a lover back who still were blind;
Who in his dread of shame would fain refuse
To know the cause that bids you outrage him.
Lady, 'tis past: another shall ascend
The throne my love has deigned to offer you;
Another will have eyes, and know, at least,
What value on my heart and hand to set.
Fixed my resolve, though it may cost me dear.
Know Orosman is capable of all;
Rather, far rather, would I lose you now
And die afar, distracted with the loss,
Than hold you mine, if to your wavering faith
It costs one sigh that is not breathed for me.
Go—never more will I behold your charms.
'Zaire.
Thou only wouldst possess my wildered soul!
Well, since 'tis true I am no longer loved,
My lord—
"Orosman.
That I adored, that I abandon you,
That I renounce you, that you so desire,
That other laws presiding… Zaire, you weep?"
"Zaire, you weep?" seems to have been the great point of the play. "These words," says Voltaire, "make a grand effect on our stage."
Zaire's love increases with the indulgent tenderness of her lover. She casts herself in tears at his feet and beseeches him to defer the marriage till the morrow. She calculates that her brother will then be gone—that she will have received baptism—that she will have acquired the strength to resist; she even flatters herself that the Christian religion will permit her to love a man so generous, so virtuous, to whom nothing is wanting but to be a Christian. Struck with these ideas she speaks to Orosman with a tenderness so natural, a grief so genuine, that he yields again, and agrees to live this one day without her. He was sure of being loved, was happy in the thought, and shut his eyes to all else.
He had, however, in the first movements of jealousy, ordered the seraglio to be closed to all Christians. Nerestan, finding it shut, and not suspecting the cause, wrote a pressing letter to Zaire desiring her to open the secret door leading to the mosque, and recommending her to be faithful to her word. The letter fell into the hands of a guard, who carried it to Orosman. The Soldan could scarcely believe his eyes; he no longer doubted his own misfortune and the criminality of Zaire. To have loaded a stranger, a captive, with benefits; to have given his heart, his crown, to a slave-girl; to live only for her, and to be betrayed by her; to be deceived by the semblance of the tenderest affection; to experience at once the most violent love, the blackest ingratitude, and the vilest perfidy,—was, without doubt, a horrible condition; but Orosman wished to find her innocent. He sent the letter to her by an unknown slave. He flattered himself that she would not listen to Nerestan, who alone seemed to him guilty. He ordered that he should be arrested and bound, and went himself at the hour appointed to the place of rendezvous to await the effect of the letter.
The letter is delivered to Zaire: she reads it trembling, and after long hesitating, tells the slave that she will expect Nerestan, and orders that he shall be admitted. Of all this the slave informs Orosman.
The unhappy Soldan goes wild with grief. Weeping, he draws his dagger. In the darkness Zaire comes to the rendezvous. Orosman, hearing her voice, lets his dagger fall. She draws near—she calls upon Nerestan, and at that name Orosman stabs her.
At that moment Nerestan is brought in, in chains, with Fatima. Orosman, beside himself, addresses Nerestan, whom he terms his rival: "'Tis thou who tearest Zaire from me," he said; "look on her before she dies. Let your punishment begin with hers." Nerestan approaches the body. "What do I see? My sister! Barbarian, what hast thou done?" At the word sister, Orosman is as a man who wakes from a deadly dream; he knows his error—he sees all he has lost—he is too deeply plunged in horror to complain. Nerestan and Fatima speak to him, but he understands nothing of what they say except that he was loved. He calls on Zaire—runs to her—they stop him—he falls back in the stupor of despair. "What is to be my doom?" said Nerestan. After a long silence the Soldan orders his fetters to be taken off, loads him and the other Christians with presents, and then kills himself beside Zaire.
This play, translated by Aaron Hill, a gentleman who was once manager of Drury Lane, and wrote a tragedy with the appalling title of "The Fatal Vision," was acted in London in 1735. Mrs Cibber (daughter-in-law of Colley Cibber), then only eighteen, made her first appearance as Zaire, and achieved an extraordinary degree of success. A young gentleman "of fortune and condition" made an equally decided failure as Orosman. The play long retained its place on the list at Covent Garden, where Master Betty (who died only a year or two ago) acted Orosman, and Charles Kemble, Nerestan. Played by good actors, it was no doubt capable of producing strong effects of the kind to which our grandfathers were perhaps more sensitive than we are—effects quite consistent with the conventional and declamatory style of the English as well as French tragedians of the time.
Voltaire continued to write tragedies up to the end of his life, producing twenty-six in all, of which the concluding specimen, from one of the most popular of many that were eminently successful, has now been given.
The reader who knows his Shakespeare, and who studies a tragedy or two of Voltaire, or Addison's "Cato," will see that there are two very different principles on which to write a play. One is, to regard it as a picture of life; to give to the characters some of the individuality of real men and women—that individuality of course being made to suit and strengthen the plot; to disregard time and space, so as to obtain latitude for the free development of story and of character; to call on the spectator of the drama for the many concessions required to meet the exigencies which these conditions entail; to mix, as in life, high with low, laughter with tears, rude jests with sublime sentiments; and to make the language and manners of the characters correspond with them in their range from the lover, the patriot, the tyrant, down to the knave, the jester, and the sot. This, the Shakespearian method, admits so many side-lights from the world without, as to impart a spacious, open-air character to the drama, as if the stage were merely an eddy in the great tide of human affairs which sweeps past almost within sight and hearing.
The Voltairian drama (the drama of the ancients, and of Corneille and Racine) makes illusion and situation its chief aims. The time occupied by the action of the story is the same as that occupied by the performance of the piece; the scene does not shift—the spectators are to be persuaded that they are looking at a crisis in the affairs of the characters which would naturally reach its catastrophe in the time during which they observe it. Nothing is admitted that does not tend to the development of the plot; every speech is directed to that end. This naturally gives to the whole piece an air of isolation, as if the characters had no other business in life than what they are doing on the stage. What Voltaire's characters say is always effective, the language vigorous, the matter directly to the point; but no picture is given either of manners, or the times, or of human life.
It is not attempted here to decide which method is the better adapted to the stage. There can be no question which gives more pleasure and profit to the reader of a play. The opportunities for such wisdom and wit and poetry as shall be of general application, to be quoted, and remembered, and put by for use, must necessarily be much fewer when the energy of the dramatist is absorbed in the action of the piece, under conditions which tax all his art and ingenuity. The principle of maintaining an elevation above the level of common life excludes a vast range of Shakespearian characters—not only the grave-diggers and clowns and jesters, but many to whom we accord high rank in the serious drama: Shylock, and Cassio, and Kent, and even Lear himself, would all be pronounced unsuitable, even monstrous. But on the other hand, the Voltairian method intensifies the interest—the attention of the audience is focussed upon effective situations leading up to the catastrophe. Want of individuality even might be defended on the ground that, as ready-made suits ought to fit average and not exceptional people, so it is easier to find good representatives of parts in which the actor can adapt the part to himself, than of those in which he must adapt himself to the part. Many Zaires and Alzires might be found for one Lady Macbeth or Cleopatra. In all that he aimed at—in versification, language, situation, and stage effect—Voltaire was one of the most successful of dramatists. A note in Forster's 'Life of Goldsmith' says: "Gray placed Voltaire's tragedies next to those of Shakespeare… Gray's high opinion of Voltaire's tragedies is shared by one of the greatest authorities on such matters now living, Sir E. B. Lytton, whom I have often heard maintain the marked superiority of Voltaire over all his countrymen in the knowledge of dramatic art, and the power of producing theatrical effect."
- ↑ Zaïre, a dissyllable in the French play, is made a monosyllable here, as being more euphonious to English ears and better suited to English verse.