The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

Table of Contents

Portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley .... Frontispiece

Moliere {Continued) PAGE

Misanthrope *

School for Wives I4

Tartuffe 28

NlBELUNGENLIED

38

Otway, Thomas

Venice preserved 4°

Ovro

Metamorphoses "4

Pindar

Odes 75

Pope, Alexander

Essay on Man °4

Racine, Jean

BeVemce Io6

Romance of the Rose IX7

Schiller, Frtedrich von

William Tell I29

Scott, Sir Walter

Marmion *47

Lady of the Lake l6°

v

Tabic of Contents

Shakespeare

Hamlet 170

Macbeth 180

Merchant of Venice 186

Midsummer Night's Dream 196

Romeo and Juliet 203

Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Revolt of Islam 214

Sheridan, R. B.

School for Scandal 226

Sophocles

Antigone 237

Tasso, Torquato

Jerusalem Delivered 250

Tennyson

Idylls of the King 261

In Memoriam 277

Thomson, James

City of Dreadful Night 293

Wagner, Richard Nibelungen Ring:

Rheingold 305

Valkyrie 316

Siegfried 327

Gotterdammerung 336

A Complete Index of The World's Greatest Books will be found at the end of Volume XX.

VI

Poetry and Drama

MOLIERE (continued)

The Misanthrope

Persons in the Play

Alceste, Celimene's lover Philinte, Alceste's friend Ononte, Celimene's lover Celimene, Alceste's lover Eliante, Celimene's cousin Arsinoe, Celimene's friend Acaste and Clitandre, Marquises The Scene is laid in Paris.

Act I

[Enter Alceste and Philinte. Philinte: What is it? What is the matter? Alceste : Leave me, I pray you. Philinte : But, once more, tell me what strange

mood

Alceste : Leave me, I say. Run away and hide yourself.

It was not until the production on June 4, 1666, of the " Misanthrope" that the full genius of Moliere asserted itself. Regarded purely as a play, the piece may be inferior to " Tartuffe "; but as an acute philosophical study of the eternal passions and sentiments of human nature it stands supreme, not only among the literature of the French stage, but even among Moliere's own comedies. Nowhere else are his astonishing

I

Philinte: I cannot make you out when you are in these uncomfortable tempers. Although we are friends, I am one of the first

Alceste: I your friend? Don't depend on that. I have hitherto professed to be so; but after what I have just seen in you, I tell you clearly I am no longer your friend. There is no excuse for such behaviour. You lavish caresses on a man, and show him the greatest affection; and when I ask you who the man is, you can scarcely tell me his name. If I had done such a thing) I should go and hang myself at once from sheer shame.

Philinte : For my part, I don't see that it is a hanging matter. If you have no objection, I don't propose to hang myself for this particular offence. When a man comes and greets you warmly, you must pay him back in the same coin, respond in as pleasant a way as possible to his protestations, and return offer for offer and vow for vow.