The Theatre of Illusion

Pierre Corneille

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780547563923
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Drama
• Index: Literature

A magician conjures a dramatic adventure of romance and intrigue in this seventeenth-century French tragicomedy by the author of Le Cid. In Pierre Corneille's sparkling play The Theatre of Illusion, magicians, lovers, and heroes prove that all the world truly is a stage. First performed in 1636, it was pioneering in its use of metatheatrical storytelling. It then vanished from the stage for the next three hundred years—to be revived in 1937 at the Comédie Française. Since then it has been widely considered, in Virginia Scott's words, "Corneille's baroque masterpiece." Today this classic work is available in a translation from one of America's finest poets and translators of French, Richard Wilbur. Widely praised for his translations of plays by Molière and Racine, Wilbur now turns his poetic grace to this celebration of the comedy of humanity and the magic of life.

Scene II

ISABELLE, LYSE

LYSE

Well! Everyone’s asleep, but you’re awake.
The master’s very worried for your sake.

ISABELLE

Lyse, when hope is gone, one has no fear.
It comforts me to vent my sorrows here.
’Twas here that I first saw Clindor’s dear face;
His voice still seems to echo in this place,
And here my shattered soul can best recover
The dear remembered presence of my lover.

LYSE

How busily you work at being grieved.

ISABELLE

What else should I be doing, thus bereaved?

LYSE

There were two sterling men you might have wed;
One dies tomorrow, and one’s already dead.
Go find a living one, and we’ll see whether
He isn’t worth the first two put together.

ISABELLE

How dare you say to me so crass a thing?

LYSE

What good is all your useless whimpering?
D’you think that tears, which spoil your looks, will save
Your lover from the gallows and the grave?
Think rather of how to make a brilliant match;
I know a man who’d be a splendid catch,
And he admires you, too.

ISABELLE

Get out of my sight.

LYSE

Truly, no other choice could be so right.

ISABELLE

Must you torment me? How can you do this to me?

LYSE

Must I conceal my joy because you’re gloomy?

ISABELLE

What joy is this, that comes so out of season?

LYSE

Once
I’ve explained, you’ll say that I’ve good reason.

ISABELLE

No. Spare me.

LYSE

This concerns you, or it will.

ISABELLE

Speak only of Clindor, or else be still.

LYSE

My cheerful nature, which laughs when life is trying,
Does more in minutes than an age of crying.
It’s saved Clindor.

ISABELLE

It’s saved Clindor?

LYSE

Yes, he.
May that convince you of my loyalty.

ISABELLE

Oh, please, please tell me where to go. Where is he?

LYSE

I’ve but begun things. You must now get busy.

ISABELLE

Oh, Lyse!

LYSE

You’d fly with him? You feel no doubt?

ISABELLE

Not follow one I cannot live without?
Lyse, if you can’t free him from his cell,
I’ll join him even in the depths of hell.
Don’t ask again if I shall cleave to him.

LYSE

Since love has given you a resolve so grim,
Hear what I’ve done, then do what you must do.
If he doesn’t escape, the fault will lie with you.
The prison’s near at hand.

ISABELLE

Yes?

LYSE

And that is why
The jailer’s brother has seen me walking by:
And, since to see me is to love me, he—
Poor devil—has quite lost his heart to me.

ISABELLE

You never told me!

LYSE

I could not admit
What would have shamed me had you heard of it;
But since Clindor’s arrest four days ago
I have been kinder to my simple beau,
Letting him think, by many a word or glance,
That he and I are having a romance.
When a man believes that we reciprocate
His love, it puts him in a docile state;
That’s how I got a purchase on his soul,
And moved him to submit to my control.
Once he believed I might be his for life,
I said I couldn’t be a jailer’s wife.
He said it was a dismal trade, but it
Would be extremely hard, he said, to quit,
Since, save for locks and cells, there was no other
Good livelihood for him and for his brother.
At once I told him that he couldn’t be
More blest with luck and opportunity;
That if he’d only do as I had planned,
He’d soon grow rich and so could ask my hand;
That a Breton noble was detained by him
Who used Sir Delamont as a pseudonym;
That we must free him, see him home, and thus
Secure a patron who’d be good to us.
My beau was staggered; I pressed him; he declined;
He spoke of love; I’d other things in mind;
I left in anger; distressed, he followed then
And made excuses; I refused again.

ISABELLE

And?

LYSE

The next day he seemed shaken; I insisted
Once more upon my plan, but he resisted.
I said this morning, “This is the crucial day;
You’re free to act; your brother is away.”
He said, “But we need money to equip
Ourselves for such a long and costly trip.
The gentleman hasn’t any.”

ISABELLE

Lyse, you ought
To have given him, without a moment’s thought,
My pearls, my rings, my all.

LYSE

I told him, too,
That his noble prisoner was in love with you,
And you with him, and that you’d flee with us.
At these words he grew sweet and ceased to fuss,
Which ma...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• INTRODUCTION
• CHARACTERS
• ACT I
• Scene I
• Scene II
• Scene III
• ACT II
• Scene I
• Scene II
• Scene III
• Scene IV
• Scene V
• Scene VI
• Scene VII
• Scene VIII
• Scene IX
• Scene X
• ACT III
• Scene I
• Scene II
• Scene III
• Scene IV
• Scene V
• Scene VI
• Scene VII
• Scene VIII
• Scene IX
• Scene X
• Scene XI
• Scene XII
• ACT IV
• Scene I
• Scene II
• Scene III
• Scene IV
• Scene V
• Scene VI
• Scene VII
• Scene VIII
• Scene IX
• Scene X
• ACT V
• Scene I
• Scene II
• Scene III
• Scene IV
• Scene V
• About the Translator