Racine: Andromache

Andromache
Jean Racine
Translated from the French by Richard Wilbur
(Dramatists Play Service, 1982) [1667]
71 p.

Set in the aftermath of the Trojan War, Andromache concerns the troubled relations between conquerors and conquered.

On the Trojan side is Andromache, the wife of the slain hero Hector, now taken captive by the Greek king Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, who intends to marry her. This comes as unwelcome news to Pyrrhus’ previously-intended, Hermione, who is enraged at the prospect of losing the man she loves to a prisoner. Meanwhile, Pyrrhus’ friend Orestes is himself in love with Hermione. And Andromache, for her part, refuses to consent to marry Pyrrhus. Nobody is happy. It might be a typical set up for a romantic comedy, but for the sober wartime setting and the uncomfortably coercive captor/captive dynamics at play.

In fact, it’s nothing like a comedy in the playing; this is tragic elixir taken neat. People will die.

I’ve loved Richard Wilbur’s translations of French comedies of this period, but I wasn’t sure whether the rhyming-couplet model would work well in a tragedy. The rhymes have a tendency to support and augment comedy, but would they jar in this more serious material?

Let’s look at a couple of examples to find out. Here is a short excerpt from Act II in which Hermione is in conversation with her maidservant Cleone; they are discussing Orestes, who has approached Hermione as a suitor, and she is deliberating about whether to accept him or to remain faithful to Pyrrhus, who has rejected her in favour of Andromache:

CLEONE: Then, Madam, hear Orestes, who’s your friend.
What Pyrrhus started, you at least can end.
A breach is certain; therefore anticipate him.
Have you not told me that you’ve grown to hate him?

HERMIONE: Hate him, Cleone? In honor, how could I not?
After so many favors, all forgot,
He whom I’ve held so dear breaks every vow!
I’ve loved him too much not to hate him now.

That’s nicely phrased, but I would wager that the last line, especially, is going to get a laugh in the theatre, and the rhyme is part of the reason, giving the line the quality of a punchline. A laugh at this point is really not appropriate.

As a point of comparison, let’s look at how these same lines are rendered in George Dillon’s unrhymed translation of the play:

CLEONE: Why, then, my lady, listen to Orestes.
Pyrrhus began it; now, at least, finish it.
To do it well, act before he decides.
Have you not told me you hated him?

HERMIONE: Do I hate him,
Cleone! The honor of my name is at stake,
After the host of favors he has forgotten.
He whom I held so dear, who could still betray me!
Ah, I have loved too deeply, not to hate.

Overall, this feels comparatively clunky, but I do think Hermione’s last line would be less likely to evoke laughter here than in Wilbur’s version.

Another example: in Act IV Andromache gives a speech in which she confesses to her serving-maid, Cephisa, that she intends to marry Pyrrhus in order to secure a guardian for her son, and then to kill herself. This excerpt is a little long, but it’s a moment of high tragic pathos, and needs some room to breathe. It goes like this:

ANDROMACHE: I keep no secret from your loyal ear.
You’ve been a faithful friend in all my woes,
But I thought you knew me better. Did you suppose
That the dear husband who thought to live in me
Could be betrayed by his Andromache;
That I could cause the dead of Troy to weep
And could, to ease my lot, disturb their sleep?
Was it such love I vowed to Hector’s shade?
But, doomed to die, his son required my aid,
And I, by marrying Pyrrhus, shall secure
A sworn protector for him; of that I’m sure.
I know the king, Cephisa. Fierce, but sincere,
He’ll more than keep his bargain, never fear.
I count too on the Greeks: their hate and ire
Ensure to Hector’s child a second sire.
Since, then, I must be sacrificed, I’ll give
To Pyrrhus, for so long as I shall live,
My troth; and he, in pledging his, shall make
My son his own, by bonds that cannot break.
And then this hand shall, harming none but me,
Cut short my life, my infidelity;
I’ll save my virtue, and to husband, son,
Pyrrhus, myself, my duty shall be done.
There is the innocent stratagem I’ve planned:
There’s what I heard my husband’s shade command.
I shall rejoin him and our kinds of old.
Cephisa, close my eyes when I am cold.
(Act IV)

This is highly serious material, and needs to avoid any trace of jocularity or breeziness. I think Wilbur succeeds quite well. A high proportion of the lines are enjambed, which moderates the effect of the rhyming, and even when the rhymes to land with emphases, they don’t sound inappropriate to my ear. The last couplet is an excellent example.

*

I was reading the play at the same time as I was, for other reasons, re-reading the Aeneid, and it was nice for me to see the same story from two angles — although Virgil does not present the story in anything like this detail, and he has Andromache survive her involvement with Pyrrhus to eventually found a disappointing “Little Troy” with the priest Helenus. Variety is the spice of classical mythology, as of life.