LA MORT DE MITRIDATE - University of Liverpool

La Mort de Mitridate
including, ultimately, his own (ll. 155, 1031, 1277, 1340, 1546, 1720). The theme
of méconnaissance runs throughout the play, as characters no longer recognize
people they have known and loved. The interview between Pharnace and Bérénice
begins with husband and wife tossing the term backward and forward between
them. The baroque topos of appearance versus reality comes into play as well as
Bérénice points out the difference between Pharnace’s physical appearance: ‘le
mesme’ (III.3.810) and the reality of the ‘honteux changement’ (l. 808) to his
character. The shock for Pharnace is his wife’s changed behaviour, which
contrasts with Pharnace’s use of the vocabulary of immutability earlier in the play
to describe Bérénice’s love for him: ‘une amour semblable’ (II.4.538), ‘mesme
feu’ (l. 539), ‘elle souffroit de mesme’ (l. 541), ‘reciproquement’ (l. 542), ‘une
immuable foy’ (l. 547). There is irony when at the end of the scene together the
protean Pharnace declares his unchangeability: ‘…il n’est rien d’assez fort pour
me faire changer’ (III.3.984). He thus incarnates other aspects of the baroque to
those of his father.
Pharnace is also more interesting as a character because he is torn by
psychological conflicts which provide him with a dilemma. Although he is able
for the most part to suppress his conflicting emotions with a little help from the
Romans, it is important for the development of the play that the possibility exist
that he may be won back over to the side of his wife and father and family. For
the audience to believe that such a turn of events is possible, Pharnace needs to be
a conflicted soul. Otherwise, the two central interviews with his wife (III.3) and
father (IV.3) will never have the power to persuade an audience that the direction
of the play may change, and any attempts at suspense on the dramatist’s part will
be undermined as a consequence. In Act II, scene 4, therefore, he is humanized.
Pompée having left and not yet bullied by Émile, Pharnace starts to reveal cracks
in his façade of unflinching loyalty to Rome. The fate of his father moves him to
declarations such as: ‘Mais dieux de quels remords je me sens agiter! / Quel tardif
repentir me vient persecuter!’ (ll. 479-80); ‘J’ay pour plus grand fleau ma seule
conscience’ (l. 489). His love for his wife is an even greater source of disquiet and
doubt as he confesses to Émile: ‘Sçache que ma douleur ne vient plus que
d’amour’ (l. 523), ‘Que cette passion engendre tous mes soins’ (l. 528). La
Calprenède also precedes Pharnace’s interview with his father with a scene in
which the son reveals residual filial feelings: ‘Mais que mon cœur pressé de
divers mouvemens, / Garde, avec regret, ses premiers sentimens’ (IV.2.1095-96).
Indeed, the play only works if we believe Pharnace can be moved sufficiently, and
since that is reliant on the conquest of weakness and persuading him to seek selfpreservation
with Mitridate’s side, we, like Christopher Gossip, might not believe
he can be moved sufficiently, even if such conflicting emotions are meant to
provide a dilemma for Pharnace, a situation which the Romans fear enough for
them to keep him under constant surveillance. 99
99 Gossip writes: ‘This unattractive personality is not explored in any depth: passing
expressions of guilt and regret are forgotten in an overriding concern for selfpreservation
which leaves no room for any lasting doubt in him or any true pity in us’,
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