LA MORT DE MITRIDATE - University of Liverpool

Act II
Qui sert à mon chagrin d’une juste dispense.
535 Si parmy les mortels on voit un homme heureux,
Je le fus à l’égal que je fus 19 amoureux.
J’aimay ce que la terre avoit de plus aymable,
Et pour moy mon soleil eut une 20 amour semblable.
Nos cœurs de mesme feu doucement allumez,
540 Brusloient innocemment sans estre consommez.
Si je souffrois pour elle, elle souffroit de mesme,
Et reciproquement nostre ardeur fut 21 extréme.
Enfin je possedois l’abbregé 22 plus parfaict
Des ouvrages plus beaux que la nature ait faict.
545 Le Ciel me l’envia, la terre en 23 fut jalouse,
Et les plus froids objects adoroient mon espouse :
Qui fut (me conservant une immuable foy) 24
Pour tout autre de glace, 25 & de flamme pour moy.
Sa vertu surpassoit une vertu commune,
550 Enfin rien ne manquoit à ma bonne fortune,
Et jamais un mortel n’eut mieux ses vœux contens,
Si j’eusse eu ce bonheur pour 26 le garder long-temps.
[p.28]
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Originally this verb was in the present tense, as it is in the Pléiade text.
The article was originally printed as masculine, but was changed to feminine as the
page was reset, providing a good example of how the gender was not fixed at the time.
Throughout the play amour is feminine.
Another example of the tense being rethought: this verb was originally in the present.
F: ‘On dit aussi, Un abregé des merveilles du monde, quand on veut bien louer une
chose, ou une personne qui a toutes sortes de perfections, & où on trouve tout ce qu’on
peut voir de beau ailleurs’.
The en was only added in the reprinting; the Pléiade text does not supply it. Without it
the line still has 12 syllables.
As originally set and printed, grands was spelt out in full, resulting in line 532 being
too long to be contained in the one line. The word grands was therefore accommodated
by being given the following line to itself. This had the repercussion that the
page was one line short, ending at line 547. In the resetting the problem was solved by
a tilde being used in order to squeeze grãds into line 532, thus creating the space for
line 548 to be added to the bottom of the page.
Originally printed as grace but corrected in the carton. Scherer sensed what had
happened and corrected to glace. The comma was added in the reprinting.
The original reading of this phrase was ‘le bonheur de’; this is the reading in the
Pléiade text. But the problem with the first reading was a certain obscurity in that the
pronoun le seemed to refer to something outside the line rather than to bonheur. In
correspondence, Alain Riffaud has commented that with the revised line ‘l’attention
est reportée sur “ce bonheur” et on lit mieux le pronom “le” comme un anaphorique de
“bonheur”. Le sens est le suivant: “Jamais un mortel n’aurait été plus satisfait que moi
si j’avais pu éprouver ce bonheur non pas brièvement mais pour longtemps”’. Un-
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