LA MORT DE MITRIDATE - University of Liverpool

Introduction
enters, apparently in command, the curtain is drawn back to reveal Mitridate and
Hypsicratée on their thrones, daughters and daughter-in-law at their feet. There is
a built-in theatricality to kings and queens. There is a theatricality in Mitridate’s
wish to be put on his throne and a theatricality in La Calprenède’s imagining of
the scene, since nowhere in the sources are such details of this final episode in
Mithradates’ life recorded. 147 With the chamber centre stage, 148 hidden by the
curtain, one imagines Menandre helping Mitridate and Hypsicratée put on robes
and crowns, flickering candles in the chamber enhancing the spectacle of their
dreadful majesty. As Forestier has written, the baroque aesthetic is ‘une esthétique
de l’éblouissement’ 149 and, as the curtain was drawn back, La Calprenède’s set
piece could well have drawn gasps from the audience, especially if the royal robes
are of gold and silver to reflect candlelight. 150 Pharnace is initially taken in by the
illusion that his family are brazenly flaunting their status but then gasps in horror
as he realizes that the family only appear to be alive but are in fact dead. 151
147 In Mairet’s Marc-Antoine the dead Cleopâtre is not seen, since she and her ladies-inwaiting
pass ‘dans la chambre voisine’. Nevertheless, Philip Tomlinson imagines the
possibility of a tantalising glimpse of ‘les ornements royaux, le lit d’or et les riches
joyaux’ and of the dead queen on her couch, splendidly arrayed, Iris at her feet and
Charmion putting a crown on her head: ‘Sur ce tableau vivant, image d’un prestige
doré retrouvé, juste avant le moment même de la mort, la tapisserie se refermerait.’
(Le Marc-Antoine ou La Cléopâtre, tragédie (Durham: University of Durham, 1997),
p. 192, n. 24). In Benserade’s play one reads: ‘On tire un rideau & Cléopâtre parée, est
sur un beau lit, Eras à ses pieds’ (V.7).
148 Pasquier comments on the importance of the central chamber at the Hôtel de
Bourgogne: ‘Il semble, en particulier, d’usage de terminer la pièce et de dénouer
l’intrigue devant la chambre centrale et en présence de la plupart des personnages,
selon une tradition instituée par la dramaturgie du siècle précédent […]. Une telle
prééminence fonctionnelle peut s’expliquer par des raisons optiques. […] la chambre
centrale est en effet la seule à offrir à l’ensemble des spectateurs des conditions
optimales de visibilité’ (p. 109).
149 Introduction à l’analyse des textes classiques (Paris: Nathan, 1993), p. 13.
150 Anne Verdier comments that actors did wear gold and silver costumes in order to
catch the light, in her Histoire et poétique de l’habit de théâtre en France au XVII e
siècle: 1606-1680 (Vijon: Lampsaque, 2006), p. 213. It is thus disappointing that this
scene would appear to take place in daylight, unless the references to the sun are
meant to be taken metaphorically. Ideally one imagines it chiaroscuro. Pasquier
mentions how at the Hôtel de Bourgogne such ‘chambres ouvrantes’ could be lit by
‘chandeliers, flambeaux d’argent et autres pyramides ardentes’, as detailed by
Mahelot. He also discusses the techniques possibly used to create ‘une lumière
nocturne’ (pp. 78-79).
151 Safty sees the discovery of dead bodies as typically baroque: ‘L’aspect spectaculaire
ou théâtral de la découverte de l’objet macabre est d’ailleurs d’autant plus accentué
que nous trouvons des indications du genre: “on tire un rideau”, “on soulève une
tapisserie”: c’est là une variante des plus dramatiques du procédé du théâtre dans le
théâtre’ (p. 130).
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