Ariane ma soeur, de quel amour
blessee,
Vous mourutes aux bords ou
vous futes laissee.
Here, certainly, are no ‘mots rares’; here is nothing to catch the mind or dazzle the understanding; here is only the most ordinary vocabulary, plainly set forth. But is there not an enchantment? Is there not a vision? Is there not a flow of lovely sound whose beauty grows upon the ear, and dwells exquisitely within the memory? Racine’s triumph is precisely this—that he brings about, by what are apparently the simplest means, effects which other poets must strain every nerve to produce. The narrowness of his vocabulary is in fact nothing but a proof of his amazing art. In the following passage, for instance, what a sense of dignity and melancholy and power is conveyed by the commonest words!
Enfin j’ouvre les yeux,
et je me fais justice:
C’est faire a vos beautes
un triste sacrifice
Que de vous presenter, madame,
avec ma foi,
Tout l’age et le malheur
que je traine avec moi.
Jusqu’ici la fortune
et la victoire memes
Cachaient mes cheveux blancs
sous trente diademes.
Mais ce temps-la n’est
plus: je regnais; et je fuis:
Mes ans se sont accrus; mes
honneurs sont detruits.
Is that wonderful ‘trente’ an ‘epithete rare’? Never, surely, before or since, was a simple numeral put to such a use—to conjure up so triumphantly such mysterious grandeurs! But these are subtleties which pass unnoticed by those who have been accustomed to the violent appeals of the great romantic poets. As Sainte-Beuve says, in a fine comparison between Racine and Shakespeare, to come to the one after the other is like passing to a portrait by Ingres from a decoration by Rubens. At first, ’comme on a l’oeil rempli de l’eclatante verite pittoresque du grand maitre flamand, on ne voit dans l’artiste francais qu’un ton assez uniforme, une teinte diffuse de pale et douce lumiere. Mais qu’on approche de plus pres et qu’on observe avec soin: mille nuances fines vont eclore sous le regard; mille intentions savantes vont sortir de ce tissu profond et serre; on ne peut plus en detacher ses yeux.’