LA MORT DE MITRIDATE - University of Liverpool

La Mort de Mitridate
past. It is a precarious future, but for Pharnace it is a way of surviving for the
moment. Both Bérénice and Mitridate realize that it is a friendship in name only.
In her interview Bérénice calls her husband ‘le serf des Romains’ (III.3.820), a
word which recurs at the end of the play as Émile takes command. Pharnace, on
his knees before the corpses of his family, asks: ‘Pompée à son depart vous a-il
ordonné, / De me traiter en serf, lui qui m’a couronné ?’ (V.4.1753-54). Mitridate
is dead, Rome has what it wants, Pharnace can revert from an ami d’éternelle
durée to the status of a serf couronné. And the first cogs in the machinery of
Mitridate’s prophecy: ‘Tu seras ruiné par cette Republique’ (IV.3.1298) begin to
engage, for ‘le châtiment du révolté’ is also an important aspect of the baroque
imaginary. 108
Mitridate prefers not to survive under such a system. Indeed he knows what
awaits him, should the Romans get hold of him. His exhortation to Pharnace to be
his own man: ‘Puis que ta liberté depend de ton vouloir’ (IV.3.1148), reveals the
importance of the individual will to Mitridate. His decision to die by his own hand
means that he carries through to the end his philosophy of life and that he cheats
Rome one last time, for they will not have the pleasure of seeing him in one of
their triumphs. He declares: ‘Rome à qui je ravis un superbe ornement, / Ne me
verra vaincu que par moy seulement….’ (V.3.1661-62). His ultimate cheat, that
through his death Pharnace’s claim to the throne becomes legitimate, means one
last victory for the old order of things, when crowns passed through birth and
inheritance rather than through appointment from Rome. True to his principles,
Mitridate succeeds in turning utter defeat into victory. Like Souiller’s baroque
father, Mitridate is both ‘humilié et triomphant’ (p. 85).
Although La Mort de Mitridate should not be read allegorically, the conflict
between a philosophy of the individual and the power of the state which La
Calprenède dramatizes is one which echoes the political tensions of the 1630s.
The play falls into Rohou’s category of ‘tragédie d’opposition’: a ‘tragédie
anticentraliste’ which is against ‘la construction d’un ordre nouveau’ (pp. 147-48).
The irony, of course, is that to do so, its author enthusiastically adopts the
dramaturgy of the new order: rational and disciplined.
‘Ce devoir du sang’: Family Tragedy
From his first play La Calprenède realized the dramatic value to be had from close
ties of birth or affection between characters. The choice La Calprenède made to
expand the number of women from the two daughters mentioned in Appian and
the fact that five members of the royal family are dead by the end means that the
play can inevitably be viewed as the tragedy of a family. The pleasure afforded an
audience by such situations is noted by Corneille, commenting on Aristotle’s
recommendation:
108 Souiller, p. 91.
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