Corneille - Yavanika

228 Seyenteenth-and.Eightecnth-Century Frcncevices and virtues, which never fails to make its effcct rvhen it is rvellachieved and when the traits are so rccognizablc that one cannot confusethem u,ith each other, nor take rice foi rirtuc. \,irtue is alwavs to belovcd, though unhappy; and vice is alu'a1,.s to be hated, though triumphant.The ancients arc often quiie happy rvith this depiction u,ithout taking thetrouble to have good deeds rcconpensed and bad ones punished. Clt,tentrrcslrarnd lrcr lorcr krll Agarrrcrrinon with irnprrnitr. \ledea does arra\'rvith her children and Atreus with thosc of his brothcr, Thlcstcs, anjrnakes 1'hyestes eat thern. It is truc that closc consideration of the actionswhich thev chose for the catastrophes of their tragedies shorvs that thoscthey had punishcd uere crininals, but the,, ucre punished by crines grcatcrthan their owrr. Thvcstcs had abusecl his brother's u,ife but the vengeanccthat Atrcus takes for it is sotnervhat nore horrible than the first crimc. Jasonwas perfidious to abandon NJetlea, to tvhon he owed all: but to rnurderhis chilclren under his ven eles is solncthing clse again. Clvtemnestra coruplainedof the concubires that Agamenuon brought hon.rc from Trov; buthe had not made a criminal attempt on her life as she did on his. and thesemasters of the art found the crinre of his son, C)rcstes, sho killed to avcDgehis father, still greater than hers since thcr, gave Orcstes the avengrngFuries to tornent him and did not give thcn to his mother, who is allorvcdto cnjov pcaceably, rlith hcr Aegisthu, thc kingdom of a husband shchas murdered.Our thcatre tolcrates such subjccts u,ith difficultv: thc Thyestes of Senecawas not very successful; bis Medea found ntore favor; but also, to be perfcctlvclear, ihe perfidv of Jason and the violence of the king of Corinthmake hcr seem so unjustlv opprcsscd that the spcttator easiiv sides rvithher and regards her vengeance as justice, l{rich she performs herself onllrosc rr lro opprerr her.It is this interest that llc love to take in the virtuous that has constrainedus to ardve at this other manner of finishing the dranatic poem-bv thepttntsltnrcnt of rril ects and tlte rtuardirrg ot eood un"r-,,ui,ial, i, ,,ot "rule of the art, but a usagc u,hich r,. hai. err,-rbrac.d, frour rrhich evcrvmrrr car devirle a t lrir ou n pc ril. . ..It is in this that the third use in thc thcatle consists, as the fourth liesin the purging of cnotions bv means of pitv and terror. But as tlris use ispeculiar to tragedv I will expound on this subject in the second volume. . . .lAristotle says] that the difference bctween these tu,o kinds of plavs [comedyand tragcdy] consists onlv in thc nobilit\,of the characters and of the actionsthat thev imitate and not in thc narlrer of irritating them. nor in thcmelns rrhiclr