Next script on my script shelf:
Next play in my little unalphabetized pile of Samuel French plays is Andromache, by Racine
Francois Mauriac wrote, in regards to translating Racine into English: “Of all our authors, Racine is one of the least accessible to people of other countries.” Translating French (especially poetry) into English is really difficult – I’ve read bad translations of Moliere and you think: What the hell is the big deal about this playwright? The rhymes clunk, the rhythm is predictable … I don’t get it. When you read it in French, it’s a whole other ballgame. Moliere is stupendous in his own language.
The translation I have of Racine’s Andromache is done by poet Richard Wilbur and for some reason I really loved it in college – but now, reading it again, I think the same thing I think when I read a bad translation of Moliere … what on earth is the big deal here? The rhymes come off sounding like nursery-school rhymes.
I should probably get another translation – I know Robert Lowell did one. There are many translations. Tackling Racine and trying to make him LIVE in English is one of those rites of passage that many poets go through. Or maybe I should just give it a shot and try reading it in French even though I am so rusty that that might be a terrible idea.
But oh well. I have Richard Wilbur’s and I absolutely loved it in college. I worked on a scene from it – and that’s the scene I’ll excerpt. It’s a scene between Andromache – Hector’s widow, prisoner of Pyrrhus – and her confidante Cephisa. I can’t remember the plot-line exactly, and what just happened before – but it will all become clear within moments of this scene. And Andromache has a terrific monologue in this scene – it’s a stand-alone kind of monologue and would make a fantastic audition piece for an actress. (It’s the monologue that starts with “He may forget those deeds, but I cannot.”)
From Andromache, by Racine
CEPHISA.
I told you that, despite the Greeks, you’d be
Once more the mistress of your destiny.
ANDROMACHE.
Alas! You see where your advice has led!
Now, through my fault, my child’s blood shall be shed.
CEPHISA.
Madam, your faithlessness persists too long:
Excess of any virtue can beb wrong.
Hector himself would urge you to comply.
ANDROMACHE.
And marry Pyrrhus in his place? Not I!
CEPHISA.
Not for your son, whose life’s in jeopardy?
D’you think that Hector’s shade would blush to see
You wed a conquering king who will restore
The sceptered rank which once your family bore,
Who’ll tread your Grecian foes into the mire.
Forget that fierce Achilles was his sire,
Disown his deeds, and bid them be forgot?
ANDROMACHE.
He may forget those deeds, but I cannot.
Hector’s dishonored corpse — how not recall
Who dragged it round and round our city wall?
How not remember Priam fallen dead
Across his altar, staining it with red?
Think, think, Cephisa, of that night which for
A slaughtered nation ended nevermore;
Imagine Pyrrhus, his eyes alight with flame
As though our burning palaces he came,
Over my brothers’ bodies picked his way
And, drenched with blood, still urged his men to slay;
Hear too the victors’ shouts, their victims’ cries
Cut short by flame or sword; and let your eyes
Find in that hell, half-crazed Andromache:
That was how Pyrrhus first appeared to me;
Such were the deeds for which Fame wreathed his brow;
Such is the man you’d have me marry now.
No, I’ll not share his blood-guilt. Let him kill
Us, as his final victims, if that’s his will.
I can’t blot out such horrors and be his wife.
CEPHISA.
Come then, and see your dear son lose his life.
They bide your answer … Madam, what makes you start?
ANDROMACHE.
You’ve waked a memory that stops my heart.
Cephisa! Can I watch them kill my boy,
Dear Hector’s image and my only joy?
His son, the pledge of our fidelity?
Ah, I recall how on the day when he
Strode forth to meet Achilles and to die,
He held his son, and kissed the babe goodbye:
“Dear wife,” he said, wiping my tears away,
“I know not what my fate shall be today;
This son, this pledge of love, I leave behind me:
If I am lost to him, through you he’ll find me.
Tell him how in our days of happiness
You loved his father; and love my son no less.”
How can I see this precious life undone,
And all Troy’s lineage perish with my son?
O barbarous king, why must he bear my guilt?
Because I hate you, must his blood be spilt?
Has he bewailed the kin you would not spare?
Taxed you with crimes of which he’s unaware?
But oh, my son, you die unless the blade
He holds above your head is somehow stayed.
I could avert it; and can I see you slain?
No, you’ll not die; I could not bear that pain.
Let’s go find Pyrrhus. But no: Cephisa, pray
Go find him for me.
CEPHISA.
What would you have me say?
ANDROMACHE.
Tell him I love my son so much that I …
D’you think he means it, that my son must die?
Could passion make a man so barbarous?
CEPHISA.
Madam, he’ll soon come raging back to us.
ANDROMACHE.
Go then, and say —
CEPHISA.
Say what? That you’ll wed the king?
ANDROMACHE.
Alas! Am I free to promise such a thing?
O ashes of my husband! O Father! O Troy!
Ah, but your life would cost me dear, my boy.
Come.
CEPHISA.
Where, my lady? What have you decided?
ANDROMACHE.
I’ll kneel at Hector’s tomb, and there be guided.
