Olympia
By Voltaire
()
About this ebook
Voltaire
Born in Paris in 1694, François-Marie Arouet, who would later go by the nom-de-plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment philosopher, poet, historian, and author. Voltaire’s writing was often controversial, and in 1715 he was sent into his first exile in Tulle after a writing a satirical piece about the Duke of Orleans, the Regent of France. It was during this time that he produced his first major work, the play Oedipus. Although allowed to return to Paris a year later, Voltaire’s writing continued to land him in trouble. He was jailed in the Bastille two more times and was exiled from Paris for a good portion of his life. Throughout these troubles, Voltaire continued to write, producing works of poetry, a number of plays, and some historical and political texts. His most famous work is the satirical novel Candide, and many of his plays, including Oedipus and Socrates, are still performed today. Voltaire died in 1778.
Read more from Voltaire
50 Great Love Letters You Have To Read (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Philosophy of History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCandide: Bilingual Edition (English – French) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCandide: The Original Unabridged And Complete Edition (Voltaire Classics) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Philosophical Dictionary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Works of Voltaire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Voltaire Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Candide: Illustrated Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Harvard Classics: All 71 Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTratado sobre la tolerancia Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Candide (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZadig and Other Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Philosophical Letters: (Letters Concerning the English Nation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Voltaire: Treatise on Tolerance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHE AGE OF LOUIS XIV Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Age Of Louis XIV (Complete Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Olympia
Related ebooks
Olympia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCatiline Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAristonenes: or, The Royal Shepherd Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Revenge: A Tragedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Oedipus Cycle: Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus, and Oedipus Rex Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlzire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAntigone Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLike: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Antigone: A Play Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shakespeare's Love Sonnets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry of William Blake Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Collected Works of Aphra Behn (Volume 6 of 6) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ajax of Sophocles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOrestes Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mordred and Hildebrand: A Book of Tragedies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSophocles: The Seven Plays in English Verse: The Seven Plays in English Verse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Thebaid Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSemiramis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVolpone and Seven Other Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Alchemist: "To speak and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAjax Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPericles, Prince of Tyre Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Spanish Curate: A Comedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElectra Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works of John Donne Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmelia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElectra: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAias: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Love Poems of John Donne Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPetrarch’s Triumphs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Performing Arts For You
The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Importance of Being Earnest: A Play Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Robin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sisters Brothers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Macbeth (new classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coreyography: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book: The Script Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Diamond Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hamlet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hollywood's Dark History: Silver Screen Scandals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romeo and Juliet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey Into Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Town: A Play in Three Acts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unsheltered: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count Of Monte Cristo (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best Women's Monologues from New Plays, 2020 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fifth Mountain: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Strange Loop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lucky Dog Lessons: From Renowned Expert Dog Trainer and Host of Lucky Dog: Reunions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Life in Parts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Olympia
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Olympia - Voltaire
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 such a strange remorse give rise! Of Alexander’s death you’re innocent.
Cassander: Alas! I caused his death—
Antigones: —He justly fell. That victim loudly all the Grecians claimed. Long was the world of his ambition tired. The poison that he drank from Athens came, Perdiccas cast it in the sparkling bowl; The bowl your father put into your hand, But never intimated the design. You then were young, you at the banquet served, The banquet where the haughty tyrant died.
Cassander: The impious parricide excuse no more.
Antigones: Can you then abjectly thus deify The