Читать книгу Armida & Amadis & Roland - Philippe Quinault - Страница 8

ACT I

The stage represents a great public place ornamented with a triumphal arch.

PHENICIA:

In a day of triumph, in the midst of pleasures,

Who can inspire you with a somber sorrow?

Glory, grandeur, beauty, youth,

All these blessings fulfill your wishes.

SIDONIA:

You are lighting a fatal flame

That you will never feel the results of.

Love dares not trouble the peace

Which reigns in your soul.

PHENICIA AND SIDONIA:

Who has more appeal?

And who can be happy if you cannot?

PHENICIA:

If today, war makes its ravages feared,

It’s at the shores of Jordan they must halt.

Our tranquil shores

Have nothing to fear.

SIDONIA:

Hell, if need be, will take up arms for us,

And you know how to impose your rule on it.

PHENICIA:

Your eyes have need of only their own charms

To weaken Godfrey’s camp.

SIDONIA:

His most gallant warriors are defenseless against you,

Have fallen into your power.

ARMIDA:

I am not triumphing over the most valiant of them all.

Renaud, whom I hate so violently,

The indomitable Renaud escapes my wrath.

The whole enemy camp has become sensitive for me,

And he alone, still invincible.

Glory made him see me with an indifferent eye.

He’s in the loving years wherein,

Without effort one falls in love.

No, I cannot fail without extreme bitterness

To conquer a heart so proud and grand.

SIDONIA:

What does it matter

That a captive is lacking to your victory?

There are enough other witnesses to be seen in your chains.

And for one slave the less,

Such a beautiful triumph will lose little of its glory.

PHENICIA:

Why do you want to think about

That which can displease you?

It’s more certain to avenge oneself

By forgetting him than by rage.

ARMIDA:

Hell predicted a hundred times

That against this warrior our arms would be vain,

And that he would vanquish our greatest kings.

Ah! How sweet it would be to me to overwhelm him with chains,

And halt the course of his exploits.

How I hate him! How his scorn outrages me!

How proud he will be to avoid slavery

In which I hold so many other heroes.

Despite me, his importunate image

Ceaselessly troubles my repose.

A terrible dream inspires me with a new fury

Against this funereal enemy.

I thought I saw him; I trembled about it;

I thought he struck me with a mortal blow.

I fell at the feet of the cruel conqueror.

Nothing softened his severity

And, with an inconceivable charm,

I felt myself constrained to find him lovable,

In the fatal moment he was piercing my heart.

SIDONIA:

You trouble yourself with an ephemeral image

That sleep produced?

The nice day which shines on you

Ought to dissipate this vain chimera,

Just as it has destroyed

The shadows of the night.

(Hidraot and his suite enter.)

HIDRAOT:

Armida, that blood which joins me with you

Makes me sensitive to the cares

That are being taken to please you.

How sweet your triumph is to me!

How I love to see the fine day shine that illuminates it!

I will have no more wishes to make

If you choose a spouse.

I see nearby the death that threatens me,

And soon age, which will freeze me,

Is going to overwhelm me with its heavy burden.

It’s the last blessing to which I aspire,

To see your marriage promise to this empire

Kings formed from a blood so fine.

Without complaining of my fate, I will cease to live

If this sweet hope can follow me

Into the terrible night of the tomb.

ARMIDA:

The chain of marriage astonishes me.

I fear the most pleasant of bonds.

Ah! how unfortunate a heart becomes

When liberty abandons it!

HIDRAOT:

When you like it, all Hell is armed for you.

You are more cunning in my art than myself.

Great kings lay their diadems at your feet.

Whoever sees you for one moment is forever charmed.

Could you savor your extreme happiness better

Than with a spouse who loves you

And who is worthy of being loved?

ARMIDA:

At my pleasure, I unchain against my enemies

The black empire of Hell.

Love puts kings in my fetters.

I am the sovereign mistress of a thousand lovers.

But I do myself the greater grandeur

Of being mistress of my heart.

HIDRAOT:

Are you restricting your desires to the cruel glory

Of the ills your beauty causes?

Won’t you ever make your happiness

The joy of a faithful lover?

ARMIDA:

If I must tie myself down one day,

At least you must believe

That it will needs be glory

That delivers my heart to love.

It’s not sufficient to be king

To become my master.

It will be valor that will make me know

The one who deserves my word.

The conqueror of Renaud, if someone can do it,

Will be worthy of me.

(The people of the kingdom express through their dances and their songs, the joy that they have in the advantage that the beauty of this princess has given them over the knights of Godfrey’s camp.)

HIDRAOT:

Armida is even more loveable

Than she is formidable.

How glorious is her triumph!

Her charms are greater than those of her beautiful eyes.

She has no need to borrow it from the terrible art

That she knows, when it pleases her, to cause Hell to arm.

Her beauty finds everything possible.

Our proudest enemies quake in her fetters.

HIDRAOT AND THE CHORUS:

Armida is even more loveable

Than she is formidable.

How glorious is her triumph.

Her charms are greater than those of her beautiful eyes.

PHENICIA AND THE CHORUS:

Let’s follow Armida and sing of her victory.

The whole universe echoes her glory.

PHENICIA:

Our enemies, weakened and troubled,

Will no longer hear the progress of their arms.

Ah! what joy! Our desires are fulfilled.

Without costing us either blood or tears.

CHORUS:

Let’s follow Armida and sing of her victory.

The whole universe echoes her glory.

PHENICIA:

Passionate love, which follows her everywhere,

Clings to hearts she wants to inflame.

It is content to reign in her eyes

And still doesn’t dare to pass into her soul.

CHORUS:

Let’s follow Armida and sing of her victory.

The whole universe echoes her glory.

SIDONIA AND THE CHORUS:

How sweet is an extreme triumph

When one owes the entire honor only to oneself.

SIDONIA:

We haven’t made our soldiers arm.

Armida is triumphant without their aid.

All her power is in her soft allures.

Nothing is so mighty as her charming beauty.

CHORUS:

How sweet is an extreme triumph

When one owes the honor only to oneself.

SIDONIA:

Beautiful Armida has known how to easily vanquish

Proud warriors more feared than thunder.

And in less than a moment, her glances

Have ruled the conquerors of the earth.

CHORUS:

How sweet is an extreme triumph

When one owes the honor only to oneself.

(Armida’s triumph is interrupted by the arrival of Aronte, who was charged with escorting the captive knights and who returns wounded and holding in his hand the stump of a sword.)

ARONTE:

O Heaven! O cruel disgrace!

I was leading your captives with care.

I attempted everything to demonstrate my zeal to you.

My flowing blood is witness of it.

ARMIDA:

But where are my captives?

ARONTE:

An indomitable warrior

Has delivered all of them

ARMIDA AND HIDRAOT:

A single warrior! what are you saying?

Heaven!

ARONTE:

Of our enemies, he’s the most formidable.

Our most valiant soldiers fell beneath his blows.

Nothing can resist his extreme valor.

ARMIDA:

O Heaven! It’s Renaud.

ARONTE:

Himself.

ARMIDA AND HIDRAOT:

Let’s pursue to the death

The enemy who offends us.

Let him not escape

Our vengeance.

CHORUS:

Let’s pursue to the death

The enemy who offends us.

Let him not escape

Our vengeance.

CURTAIN