PROLOGUE

Argument.

Clio, the Muse of History^ appears on ihe scène. She relates how

History tuas first introduced as a sttbject for the drama at Athens ;

and bespeaks the impartial attention of the audience for a play

7vhich is written without any party spirit, with the sole aim of

faithfuîly depicting the past.

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1. 1. ye suis la Mtise de l^ Histoire, Owîng to the excited state of public opinion at the time (1850) of the production of the play, it was necessary to avoid the danger of arousing party-feeling in the audience. Hence Clio appears to assure the spectators that the aim of the play is merely historical, and that no * allusion mauvaise^ to contemporary events is meant.

1. 9. Pour moi chanta la Poésie <Sr»r. alluding to the fact that the first attempts at historical records were in the forms of songs, narrative poems, or paintings and sculptures.

U. 15, 17. des chansons folles., .les folles chansons. In the frst phrase the adjective follows the noun, as distinguishing thèse chansons from other members of the same class ; in the second^ the epithet folles is merely an allusion to the context, and hence the adjective cornes before the noun. See Eve and Baudiss, Wellington Collège French Grammar, Syntax § 34 (referred to aflerwards as Eve\,

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L 21. voyageuse opiniâtre^ 'an indefatigable traveller.'

L 23. ye descendis sur le théâtre^

Devant le peuple Athénien âr*c,

The Athenian dramas, or trilogies (séries of three dramas), dealt generally with the progress of some mytholc^cal or heroic l^end. Thèse legends however were popularly regarded as records of fact conceming the ancestors of the présent races of Greece ; and the transition was natural firom the history of Theseus, the heroic and legendary father of Athenian greatness, to the defeat of the Persian invasion as chronicled by Aeschylus in the Persae {'ce qi^ eux-mêmes avaient fait*),

1. 80. eux-mêtnes avaient fait. Hère the disjunctive pronoun is used as the subject to the verb for emphasis, and for contrast with leurs pères,

1. 86. Vinglorieux Satrape, A Satrap was a govemor of one of the great provinces of the Persian monarchy — ^here used for any Oriental ruler.

L 41. Athène — the final s is elided for the rhyme, in accordance with a common licence of French verse.

L 47. Sur un événement... cucompli^ 'if you pile up oblivion above a past event, you will not prevent it from having happetud^

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