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    Olympia
    Olympia
    Olympia
    Ebook79 pages48 minutes

    Olympia

    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. "Yet it is too soon. When I possess the crown, your faithful eyes Shall be the witnesses of all my deeds. Stay in this porch, the priestesses to-day Present Olympia to the powers divine: This day in secret she must expiate, Sins which are even to herself unknown. This day a better life I shall begin. O! dear Olympia, may you never know The heinous crime that's hardly yet effaced, To whom your birth you owe, what blood I've shed."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilder Publications, Inc.
    Release dateJun 10, 2015
    ISBN9781627557580
    Olympia
    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

      Olympia - . Voltaire

      Olympia

      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 978-1-62755-758-0

      CONTENTS

      Act I

      Act II

      Act III

      Act IV

      Act V

      Olympia

      Contents

      Act I

      Act II

      Act III

      Act IV

      Act V

      ACT I.

      SCENE I.

      Cassander, Sosthenes.

      Cassander: —Yet it is too soon. When I possess the crown, your faithful eyes Shall be the witnesses of all my deeds. Stay in this porch, the priestesses to-day Present Olympia to the powers divine: This day in secret she must expiate, Sins which are even to herself unknown. This day a better life I shall begin. O! dear Olympia, may you never know The heinous crime that’s hardly yet effaced, To whom your birth you owe, what blood I’ve shed.

      Sosthenes: Can then my lord, a girl in infancy. Stolen on Euphrates’ banks, and by your sire Condemned to slavery, in your royal breast Raise such a conflict?—

      Cassander: —Sosthenes, respect A slave to whom the world should homage pay: The wrongs of fate I labor to repair. My father had his reasons to conceal The noble blood to which she owed her birth. What do I say? O cruel memory! He set her down amongst the victims doomed To bleed, that he might unmolested reign. . . . . Although in cruelty and carnage bred I pitied her, and turned my father’s heart; I who the mother stabbed, the daughter saved, My frenzy and my crime she never knew. Olympia, may thy error ever last, Though as a benefactor thou dost love Cassander, quickly he would have thy hate Wert thou to know what blood his hands have shed.

      Sosthenes: I don’t into those secrets strive to pry. Of your true interest I speak alone. Of all the several monarchs who pretend To Alexander’s throne, Antigones, And he alone, is to your cause a friend.

      Cassander: His friendship I have always held most dear. I will to him be faithful—

      Sosthenes: —He to you Equal fidelity and friendship owes, But since we’ve seen him enter first these walls, His heart by secret jealousy seems filled, And from your love he seems to be estranged.

      Cassander: What matters it? Oh, ever honored shades Of Alexander and Statira—Dust Of a famed hero, of a demi-god, By my remorse you are enough avenged. Olympia from their shades appeased obtain The peace for which my heart so long has sighed; Let your bright virtues all my fears dispel, Be my defence and heaven propitiate; But to this porch, just opened ere the day, I see Antigones the king advance.

      SCENE II.

      Cassander, Sosthenes, Antigones, Hermas.

      Antigones: [To Hermas behind.] I must this secret know, it importunes me. Even in his heart I’ll read what he conceals. Depart, but be at hand—

      Cassander: When scarce the sun Darts his first rays, what cause can bring you here?

      Antigones: Your interests, Cassander, since the gods By penitence you have propitious made, The earth between us we must strive to share. No more war’s horrors Ephesus dismay; Your secret mysteries which awe inspire Have banished discord and calamities. Monarchs’ contentions are awhile composed, But this repose is short, and soon our climes By flames and by the sword will be laid waste; The sword’s not sheathed nor flames extinguished yet. Antipater’s no more, your courage, cares, His undertaking doubtless will complete, The brave Antipater had never borne To see Seleucus and the Lagides, And treacherous Antiochus, insult The tomb of Alexander, boldly seize His conquests and his great successors brave.

      Cassander: Would to the gods that Alexander could From heaven’s height this daring man behold; Would he were still alive—

      Antigones: Your words surprise; Can you then Alexander’s loss regret? What can to

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