The Complete Plays of Jean Racine: Volume 4: Athaliah

Athaliah: Notes and Commentary

athaliah: notes and commentary act i 1. Since “history does not specify the day on which Joash was proclaimed [king of Judah],” as Racine states in his preface, he chose to set his play on Pentecost (or, more properly, the Hebrew Shavuoth), commemorating the day Moses received the Ten Commandments (the “Law”) on Mount Sinai. (The most reliable biblical scholarship has, however, established the year as 837 b.c.) On this day, too, the people would offer up the first loaves of the new harvest to their God, as described in lines 5–12. The choice of Pentecost signals the significance of the Law in this play and, according to Georges Forestier (1718), “can legitimately serve to frame Jehoiada’s enterprise, which is nothing other than the restoration of the ‘Law’ of Moses, in face of the idolatrous tyranny and anti-Hebrew prejudice of Athaliah.” In addition, Racine felt that the coincidence of these two festal occasions “would enable me to provide some variety for the songs of the chorus.” 2. The “one woman” is Athaliah, the usurper of the throne of Judah. 3. Since the action of the play takes place in one day (as in all of Racine’s plays), that day must represent a crisis, a crossroads, when decisions will be made and action taken. Jehoiada, unaware himself of the imminence of any crisis, puts this question to Abner (thereby serving the audience’s interests as well as his own), who answers it only toward the end of his speech (lines 51– 60). See note 8 below. 4. The explication of this couplet, which recapitulates the point Abner has just made (lines 27–32), is: in addition to the fact that Athaliah hates you for being, as high priest, the powerful leader of a faith she fears 120 S Athaliah and despises, she hates your wife, who, being the (half ) sister of Athaliah’s own son Ahaziah (“our late king”), is herself a child of Jehoram, Ahaziah’s father and king of Judah before him, which not only places her in David’s line, a race Athaliah has marked for extermination, but would seem to give her a plausibly legitimate claim to the throne of Judah — certainly more legitimate than Athaliah’s. See the fourth paragraph of Racine’s preface. (There may also be something of a “stepmother complex” at work here. See note 23 below.) 5. Mathan is, for all intents and purposes, a creation of Racine’s. He is mentioned only once in the Bible in relation to the story of Athaliah, when his death is reported. See note 27 for Act V. Forestier (1723) suggests that he was “probably originally conceived on the pattern of Haman” (in Esther), but we can recognize his forebears in Creon (The Fratricides) and Narcissus (Britannicus) as well. Ruthless, cold-blooded, treacherous villains, all four come to a bad end. 6. Racine is careful to drop this early hint of Athaliah’s avarice, which will play a crucial part in the denouement: it is her “lust for gold” (an expedient invention of Racine’s) that will lure her into the trap Jehoiada cunningly lays for her. 7. The “ruthless child” is Athaliah, daughter of Jezebel and Ahab. 8. The last ten lines of Abner’s speech convince Jehoiada that “it’s time at last” (I.ii.1) to divulge Eliakim’s true identity, which strategy Racine will ingeniously dovetail with Athaliah’s newly awakened interest in this boy (as will appear in Act II); together, these two plot elements will precipitate the crisis that will be spectacularly resolved at the end of the play. (See note 3 above.) Since Abner has no grounds for believing (what will prove to be the case) that “God hid within this vasty fane / An armed avenger who would prove her bane,” he demonstrates an uncanny astuteness in reading Athaliah’s expression. For the audience, though equally in the dark, these lines seem nonetheless pregnant with dramatic possibilities. 9. The passive humility professed in this verse will be belied by Jehoiada’s actions in the rest of the play, in the course of which he will aggressively and single-handedly effect Athaliah’s overthrow and Joash’s enthronement. 10. Here Jehoiada modifies the stance he adopted in line 63 (see prior note). One might, indeed, be justified in inverting his question and asking, Does faith that always acts, that leaves nothing in the hands of God, deserve the name? These questions will be canvassed...