Esther

Racine, Jean Baptiste, 1639-1699

English

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This is approximatly the first 1,000 words of Esther












Heath's Modern Language Series.



ESTHER

TRAGÉDIE EN TROIS ACTES


PAR


RACINE.






EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND APPENDICES,

BY

I. H. B. SPIERS,



SENIOR ASSISTANT MASTER WILLIAM PENN CHARTER SCHOOL,

PHILADELPHIA.







D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO




COPYRIGHT, 1891,

By I. H. B. SPIERS.




PREFACE.

The tragedy of _Esther_ commends itself to moderately advanced students
of the French language by the fact that it is both the easiest and the
shortest masterpiece of French tragic literature. For such students
the present edition has been prepared. The text has been modified in
all minor points of spelling and grammar so as to conform with present
usage. The notes are intended either to make clear such matters of
history or grammar as offer any difficulty, or to emphasize that which
may be especially instructive from a literary, historical, or
grammatical point of view.

The appendix contains, in addition to a brief statement of the rules of
French verse, a systematic presentation of quotations from the play
illustrating a few of the grammatical points on which experience
teaches that the student's knowledge, in spite of grammars, is likely
to be vague.

The editor desires to acknowledge gratefully his indebtedness to M.
Paul Mesnard's exhaustive work in the _Collection des Grands Écrivains
de la France_, published under the direction of M. Ad. Régnier (Paris,
1865), and also to the excellent editions of Mr. G. Saintsbury (Oxford,
1886), and of Prof. E. S. Joynes (New York, 1882).

I. H. B. SPIERS.


WILLIAM PENN CHARTER SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA. INTRODUCTION.

1. LIFE OF RACINE.

Jean Racine, unquestionably the most perfect of the French tragic
poets, was born in 1639, at La Ferté-Milon, near Paris. He received a
sound classical education at Port-Royal des Champs, then a famous
centre of religious thought and scholastic learning. At the early age
of twenty he was so fortunate as to attract, by an ode in honor of the
marriage of King Louis XIV., the favor of that exacting monarch,--a
favor which he was to enjoy during forty years. Yet more fortunate in