MITHRIDATE Essay Summary Example For Students

MITHRIDATE Essay Summary A monologue from the play by Jean Racine NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from The Dramatic Works of Jean Racine. Trans. Robert Bruce Boswell. London: George Bell and Sons, 1911. MITHRIDATE: It well becomes a traitress to talk thus,Who, nursing in her heart illicit loves,When I was raising her to glorys height,The blackest treason had prepared for me!Have you forgotten, false, ungrateful woman,Worse than the Romans, my sworn enemies,From what exalted rank I dared to stoop,To offer you a throne, little expected?See me not as I am, defeated, huntedBut as I was, victorious and renownd.Think how in Ephesus I you preferrdTo all the daughters of a hundred kings,And, for your sake neglecting their alliance,Laid at your feet innumerable realms.Ah, if the vision of another loveMade you insensible to gifts so splendid,Why did you leave your home to find a husbandYou hated, keeping silence till to-day?Did you postpone confession so unwelcomeTill Fate had robbd me of all other treasure,Till, whelmd beneath a flood of countless evils,I had no hope of happiness but you?And now, when I am willing to forgiveThe grievous wrong and bury its remembrance,Dare you to bring the pa st before my eyesAgain, accusing him whom you have injured?I see infatuation for a traitorFlatters your hopes. Gods! How ye try my patience!What was the secret charm that checkd a wrathSo prompt to punish with severity?Seize the brief moment that my love affords you:Come, this shall be my last appeal, nor drawSuperfluous perils on your head for oneWhom you shall never see again, a sonWho scorns me. Boast not of your faith to him;Tis due to me. Let him be lost to mindAs well as sight. And henceforth by your senseOf gratitude deserve this profferd pardon.