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and wife, the last remaining humans on earth after a terrible deluge,
instructed by Jupiter to repopulate the world by throwing rocks over
each other's heads. Benserade's version ends with a tongue-in-cheek
remark on this strange manner of creating human beings:
De leur travail comme ils s'y comportoient,
Corps, testes, bras, mains, pieds, jambes sortoient:
Ils firent 13. ce qu'on ne voit plus faire.
A coups de pierre.
Many of Benserade's ballets were written to celebrate victories,
or to praise Louis XIV. The prologues to his ballets often contained
apostrophes to the King and the Vers pour le Roi praised whatever
character he was playing (usually Jupiter, or the Sun), often encourag­
ing him in his amours at the same time.
The fact that Louis played such characters as Jupiter or the
Sun brings us to the point that there was a whole mythology of the court
over which Louis reigned as a benign god. Critics often point out that
MoliSre's Amphitryon expresses this idea, and we now see that it was
certainly not new to the court. All the noble lords and ladies who
danced in the ballets played parts appropriate in mythology to their
relationship to the King.
All was not apotheosis and praise in the Vers pour le Roi, how­
ever, and in the ballets in which he was encouraged in his amorous
intrigues, Louis played gentler roles such as Le Printemps, or Un
Ardent. In fact, Fournel believes these exhortations to love are of
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