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TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

This translation of Britannicus, Racine’s fifth play, is one of a series that, when complete, will offer in English translation all twelve of Racine’s plays (eleven tragedies and one comedy), only the third such traversal since Racine’s death in 1699. This traversal, in addition, is the first to be composed in rhymed iambic pentameter couplets. My strategy has been to reconceive Racine in that pedigreed indigenous English verse form in order to produce a poetic translation of concentrated power and dramatic impact. After all, as Proust observes, “the tyranny of rhyme forces good poets into the discovery of their best lines”; and while subjected to that tyranny, I took great pains to render Racine’s French into English that is incisive, lucid, elegant, ingenious, and memorable. For I believe that the proper goal of a translation of a work of literature must be, first and foremost, to produce a work of literature in the language of the target audience. For a considerably more expansive discussion of my approach to translation, as well as a vigorously, rigorously argued rationale for my decision to employ rhymed couplets, I direct the interested reader to the Translator’s Introduction that appears in Volume I of this series, devoted to my translation of Racine’s first play, The Fratricides.

This translation is based on the definitive 1697 edition of Racine’s theater as it appears in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade edition of 1980, edited by Raymond Picard. The 1697 text represents Racine’s final thoughts on this play. The divergences between the first edition (1670) and the last are, with three exceptions, relatively inconsequential. Most of them involve minor textual emendations that Racine made for his later editions, all of which represent clear, if subtle, improvements over the earlier versions. All three of the noteworthy changes occur in Act V (and indeed I devote a note to each). The first involves Racine’s deletion of eight lines for Britannicus that originally preceded line V.i.56. I have consigned these lines, translated into rhymed couplets, to note 12 for Act V, where, in addition, I expatiate on several cogent reasons for deleting verses that do no service either to Britannicus or to Britannicus. The second significant change, a more consequential one, in that it restructures the second half of Act V, involves Racine’s removal of an entire, albeit brief, scene, signaled by the reappearance of Junia, who has, to say the least, an awkward moment when she encounters Nero after Britannicus’s murder. Again, I offer this scene, comprising all of twelve lines, as well as the original version of the last few lines of the prior scene and the first few lines of the following scene (all for Agrippina) — which Racine had to modify when he jettisoned the intervening scene — translated into rhymed couplets, in note 31 for Act V. That this intrusive scene was an undoubted miscalculation on Racine’s part was soon recognized by Racine himself, notwithstanding his having at first, in the face of criticism from friend and foe alike, defended its dramatic necessity with much vehemence but little cogency in his first preface, for, soon after the first edition was published, he discreetly removed the scene, ensuring that, in the subsequent editions of 1676, 1687, and 1697, it would never again rear its ugly head. (See the seventh paragraph of Racine’s first preface for his specious defense of this scene and note 11 for my refutation thereof.) The third change of any significance occurs in V.vi, in Agrippina’s final denunciation of Nero, where Racine replaces a single, entire line (a rare occurrence among Racine’s emendations); the original line can be found in note 38 for Act V, where I comment on the greater gain and the lesser loss involved in the line substitution.

Of far greater significance, however, than this single-line rewrite and those two deletions of Racine’s, which I have implemented in conformance to the 1697 edition, is the momentous and unprecedented reinstatement I have presumed to make of an eighty-two-line scene between Burrhus and Narcissus that, although of unquestionable authenticity, has never appeared in any English-language edition of Britannicus (I can only speak to the high unlikelihood of its having appeared in any non-English translation), but which Racine originally intended should open Act III, where, in my translation, it is to be at long last found. Commensurate with the momentousness of this reinstatement, I have provided both a brief discussion of the provenance of this scene and an (I hope) irresistibly persuasive rationale for its inclusion in this fifth volume of what I trust will become a reference edition in English of Racine’s theatrical oeuvre. That expansive discussion/rationale, being both too unwieldy and too important to be relegated to a mere footnote, may be found as Appendix B.

The translations of Racine’s dedication and his first and second prefaces are my own, as are the translations of passages from the critical commentaries in the Picard and Forestier editions that appear in the Discussion and the Notes and Commentary. In my own critical commentaries, when I refer to a play or a character, I use the title or name as it appears in my translations. It should be noted, however, that where any other commentators (writing in English) retain the French spellings, I have respected that preference and beg the reader to pardon the discrepancies.

Speaking of discrepancies, I should note, now that this traversal is nearly halfway toward completion, that the extremely alert reader may begin to notice occasional (and inevitable) discrepancies between lines of verse from any particular play, as cited in earlier volumes, and the revised and (one hopes) improved versions of those verses as they appear in the volume devoted to the complete translation of the play in question. I like to think that so astute a reader would find such discrepancies more interesting than irritating, so I shall not beg her or him to pardon them.

I have preserved the scene divisions as they are given in the Pléiade edition (each new scene marking the arrival or departure of one or more characters) and have, likewise, listed the characters participating in each scene just below the scene number. I have, in addition, furnished these translations with line numbers (every fifth line being numbered, and the numbering beginning anew for each scene), for ease of reference for readers and actors and to enable me to cite passages precisely in the Discussion and the Notes and Commentary. Be it noted that these line numbers do not conform to those of any French edition, the Picard, for example, providing no line numbers at all and the Forestier using unbroken numbering from beginning to end; besides, I have found it necessary once or twice to expand one of Racine’s couplets into a tercet, or even two of his couplets into three, a procedure that would vitiate any line-for-line correspondence.

I thought it might also be helpful, having myself struggled to disentangle the complex familial relationships among the characters in Britannicus, to provide the reader with a genealogical chart (to be found as Appendix A), beginning with Augustus and his wives and tracing their descendents down to Nero and Britannicus; and in order to better clarify those interrelationships, I have judiciously pruned the family tree to show only those boughs, branches, and twigs that have any bearing on the play, that is, to include only those family members who appear in the play or are referred to therein (thirteen in all), and only such additional relatives (seven of them) whose inclusion on the tree is necessary in order to “connect the dots,” so to speak (for example, Drusus the Elder and Antonia, Claudius’s parents).

The Discussion is intended as much to promote discussion as to provide it. The Notes and Commentary, in addition to clarifying obscure references and explicating the occasional gnarled conceit, offer, I hope, some fresh and thought-provoking insights, such as are occasionally vouchsafed the sedulous translator. But whatever the merit of the ancillary critical material, I believe that the enduring value of these volumes will reside in the excellence of the translations. New approaches to studying Racine will undoubtedly be discovered and developed, opponent schools of thought will continue to clash, arguments may be challenged or overturned, but I am hopeful that the value of these translations will prove indisputable.

I would like to express my warmest thanks to my great friend Adrian Ciuperca, my go-to person (along with his wife, Mioara Canciu) for all things cybernetic, who has done such a beautiful job producing the elegant family tree (now flourishing as Appendix A) that I should really have labeled it Appendix A+.

All that remains (and it is much) is to acknowledge the unflagging support and assistance of Leslie Eric Comens, who has, for the purposes of the present volume, done the unthinkable: succeeded in inculcating in me a genuine interest in history — and Roman history no less (stopping short, however, of cajoling me into reading Tacitus and Suetonius in the original Latin), which has had the gratifying effect of rendering the Discussion and the Notes and Commentary at once so erudite and so entertaining. And, once again, Leslie has acted as the Sixtus Beckmesser (a benign one, of course) to my Hans Sachs: as Merker, “immer bei Sachs,” enthusiastically noting all my many Fehler (fortunately he permits me more than sieben), but just as eager to acknowledge that “ein Lied von Sachs, das will was bedeuten” (a song by Sachs, that counts for something!).