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    Mahomet
    Mahomet
    Mahomet
    Ebook90 pages2 hours

    Mahomet

    By . Voltaire

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    About this ebook

    François-Marie Arouet wrote under the nom de plume of Voltaire, and produced works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. This powerful work was read by Voltaire to Frederick of Prussia in 1740, to the king's great delight. The play was withdrawn after the fourth representation, under pressure of Church authorities who professed to see in it a bloody satire against the Christian religion. Almost three hundred years later critics are still unclear if this play is a rebuke of Islam or of Christianity or, perhaps, both.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilder Publications, Inc.
    Release dateJun 10, 2015
    ISBN9781627557603
    Mahomet
    Author

    . Voltaire

    Imprisoned in the Bastille at the age of twenty-three for a criminal libel against the Regent of France, François-Marie Arouet was freed in 1718 with a new name, Voltaire, and the completed manuscript of his first play, Oedipe, which became a huge hit on the Paris stage in the same year. For the rest of his long and dangerously eventful life, this cadaverous genius shone with uninterrupted brilliance as one of the most famous men in the world. Revered, and occasionally reviled, in the royal courts of Europe, his literary outpourings and fearless campaigning against the medieval injustices of church and state in the midst of the ‘Enlightenment’ did much to trigger the French Revolution and to formulate the present notions of democracy. But above all, Voltaire was an observer of the human condition, and his masterpiece Candide stands out as an astonishing testament to his unequalled insight into the way we were and probably always will be.

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      Book preview

      Mahomet - . Voltaire

      Mahomet

      Voltaire

      Translation by William F. Fleming

      Wilder Publications, Inc.

      Copyright © 2014

      All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

      ISBN 978-1-62755-760-3

      CONTENTS

      Dramatis Personæ

      A Letter to His Majesty the King of Prussia

      A Letter From M. De Voltaire to Pope Benedict XIV

      The Answer of Pope Benedict

      A Letter of Thanks From M. De Voltaire to the Pope

      Act I

      Act II

      Act III

      Act IV

      Act V

      Mahomet

      Contents

      Dramatis Personæ

      A Letter to His Majesty the King of Prussia

      A Letter From M. De Voltaire to Pope Benedict XIV

      The Answer of Pope Benedict

      A Letter of Thanks From M. De Voltaire to the Pope

      Act I

      Act II

      Act III

      Act IV

      Act V

      Dramatis Personæ

      Mahomet.

      Zopir, Sheik of Mecca.

      Omar, General and second in command to Mahomet.

      Seid, Slave to Mahomet.

      Palmira, Slave to Mahomet.

      Phanor, Senator of Mecca.

      Company of Meccans.

      Company of Mussulmans.

      This powerful work was read by Voltaire to Frederick of Prussia in 1740, to the king’s great delight. The following correspondence has peculiar interest. In his Life of Voltaire James Parton says: The great lesson of the play is that the founders of false religions at once despise and practise upon the docile credulity of men. When I remember that this powerful exhibition of executive force triumphing over credulity and weakness was vividly stamped upon the susceptible brain of Frederick by Voltaire’s impassioned declamation, at the very time he was revolving his Silesian project, I am inclined to the conjecture that it may have been the deciding influence upon the king’s mind. The play was withdrawn after the fourth representation, under pressure of Church authorities who professed to see in it a bloody satire against the Christian religion. This letter preserves the original characteristics.

      To His Majesty the King of Prussia

      Rotterdam, January 20, 1742.

      Sir:

      I am at present, like the pilgrims of Mecca, turning their eyes perpetually towards that city after leaving it, as I do mine towards the court of Prussia. My heart, deeply penetrated with the sense of your majesty’s goodness, knows no grief but that which arises from my incapacity of being always with you. I have taken the liberty to send your majesty a fresh copy of Mahomet, the sketch of which you have seen some time ago. This is a tribute which I pay to the lover of arts, the sensible critic, and above all, to the philosopher much more than to the sovereign. Your majesty knows by what motive I was inspired in the composition of that work. The love of mankind, and the hatred of fanaticism, two virtues that adorn your throne, guided my pen: I have ever been of opinion, that tragedy should correct, as well as move the heart. Of what consequence or importance to mankind are the passions or misfortunes of any of the heroes of antiquity, if they do not convey some instruction to us? It is universally acknowledged, that the comedy of Tartuffe, a piece hitherto unequalled, did a great deal of good in the world, by showing hypocrisy in its proper light; and why therefore should we not endeavor in a tragedy to expose that species of imposture which sets to work the hypocrisy of some, and the madness of others? Why may we not go back to the histories of those ancient ruffians, the illustrious founders of superstition and fanaticism, who first carried the sword to the altar to sacrifice all those who refused to embrace their doctrines?

      They who tell us that these days of wickedness are past, that we shall never see any more Barcochebas, Mahomets, Johns of Leyden, etc., and that the flames of religious war are totally extinguished, in my opinion, pay too high a compliment to human nature. The same poison still subsists, though it does not appear so openly—some symptoms of this plague break out from time to time—enough to infect the earth: have not we in our own age seen the prophets of Cévennes killing in the name of God those of their sect, who were not sufficiently pliant to their purposes?

      The action I have described is terrible; I do not know whether horror was ever carried farther on any stage.

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