1 6 Prosser Hall Frye 



conspiracy of passions, but to the strangulation of this one pas- 

 sion by circumstances. The play consists wholly of the fluctua- 

 tions of this same passion between hope and disappointment and 

 its final settlement upon resignation. In Phedre, on the other 

 hand, this single passion, while it is still agitated by its fluctua- 

 tions and before it has settled down either to resignation or to 

 despair, is exasperated by the goadings of jealousy- — a motive vir-. 

 tually absent from Berenice, if we except a brief impersonal re- 

 sentment at the meddling of circumstances, for jealousy as such 

 is not in Berenice's character or in Titus' situation — 'there is too 

 much of the prude in the former, too much of the grand seigneur 

 in the latter ; while Antiochus is too tame to be subject to it. But 

 in Phedre, if love is the emotional protagonist of the drama, 

 jealousy is the deuteragonist. Nor is this all; there is a tritago- 

 nist also. In Phedre's situation love is not merely an infirmity, 

 it is a crime and an impiety. And in the devastation of her in- 

 effectual spirit the outrages of love and jealousy are fatally 

 abetted by remorse. Such is the complicity of passions which 

 instigates the emotional transport of the tragedy — one of the 

 finest I believe in dramatic literature, as Phedre is baited alter- 

 nately by the taunts of one and another. 



Phedre 



lis s'aiment ! Par quel charme ont-ils trompe mes yeux? 



Comment se sont-ils veus? depuis quand? dans quels lieux? 



Tu le sgavois ; pourquoj' me lassois-tu seduire? 



De leur furtive ardeur ne pouvois-tu m'instuire? 



Les a-t-on veu souvent se parler, se chercher? 



Dans le fond des forests alloient-ils se caclier? 



Helas ! ils se voyoient avec pleine license : 



Le Ciel de leurs soiipirs approuvoit I'innocence ; 



Ils suivoient sans remords leur penchant amoureux ; 



Tous les jours se levoient clairs et sereins pour eux ! 



Et moy, triste rebut de la nature entiere, 



Je me cachois au jour, je fuyois la lumiere. . . . 



CEnone 



Quel fruit recevront-ils de leurs vaines amours? 

 Ils ne se verront plus. 



1 88 



