div-class-title-o-strange-transformation-the-monologue-from-act-ii-scene-5-of-lully-and-quinault-s-span-class-italic-armide-span-1686-and-the-retelling-of-tasso-in-france-div

Cambridge Opera Journal, 31, 1, 1–25 © Cambridge University Press, 2019
doi:10.1017/S0954586719000107
‘O Strange Transformation!’
The Monologue from Act II Scene 5 of Lully
and Quinault’s Armide (1686) and the Retelling
of Tasso in France
MICHAEL A. BANE*
Abstract: In the famous monologue from Act II scene 5 of Lully and Quinault’s Armide (1686),
the title character attempts to slay the sleeping hero Renaud but, overcome by his beauty, falls in love
with him instead. As commentators have noted, the monologue departs from the opera’s source
material, Tasso’s epic poem La Gerusalemme liberata (1581). In contrast to the placid scene recounted
by Tasso in canto 14 of the original work, the libretto depicts Armide’s transformation from enemy
to lover as a moment of struggle and psychological doubt. While scholarship has generally credited
Quinault with having recognised the dramatic potential of the encounter, this article argues for a
broader contextualisation of the scene in seventeenth-century French artistic production. A review
of the major translations and adaptations of Tasso’s poem published in France before 1686 reveals
that Quinault’s libretto represents not a decisive break with the past but rather one contribution
to a much broader tradition of literary and musical experimentation.
Set in the Holy Land during the First Crusade, Lully and Quinault’s opera Armide
(1686) relates the story of a beautiful Saracen sorceress, Armide, who loves and is
ultimately abandoned by the Christian hero Renaud. Among the opera’s most striking
moments is Armide’s transformation from enemy to lover in Act II scene 5. Renaud
has provoked Armide, first by ignoring her charms, then by freeing her Christian cap-
tives. He now lies sleeping under the influence of a magic spell. Armide approaches
the helpless knight with dagger in hand, eager to take her revenge. As she prepares to
strike a fatal blow, her resolve suddenly weakens:
Enfin, il est en ma puissance,

Ce fatal Ennemy, ce superbe Vainqueur.
Le charme du sommeil le livre à ma vengeance.
Je vais percer son invincible Cœur.
Par luy, tous mes Captifs sont sortis d’esclavage.
Qu’il esprouve toute ma rage…
Quel trouble me saisit! qui me fait hesiter!
Qu’est-ce qu’en sa faveur la pitié me veut dire?
Frapons… Ciel! qui peut m’arrester!
Achevons… je fremis! Vangeons-nous… je soûpire!1
* Michael A. Bane, Indiana University, USA; [email protected]

1
Philippe Quinault, Armide, tragédie en musique. Représentée par l’Académie royalle de musique (Paris,
1686), 21. All translations are my own unless otherwise stated.
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2 Michael A. Bane
Finally, he is in my power, this fatal enemy, this superb van-

quisher. The sleep spell delivers him to my vengeance. I will
pierce his invincible heart. By him all my captives escaped slavery.
May he feel all my rage… What trouble seizes me? What makes
me hesitate? What in his favor does pity wish to tell me? Let us
strike… Heavens! What can stop me! Let us finish… I tremble!
Let us have vengeance… I sigh!
In the decades following its premiere in 1686, Armide’s monologue ‘Enfin, il est en ma
puissance’ came to be hailed as among the most affecting moments in French opera.
Jean-Laurent Le Cerf de la Viéville prominently cited the scene in his well-known
defence of French music, published 1704–6, where he recounted the almost hypnotic
effect of the récitatif on audiences.2 As Downing Thomas has shown, spectators
responded with particular feeling to Armide’s inner struggle at what should have been
her most commanding moment. The unprecedented emphasis placed on Armide’s
‘lapse into passion’ (in Thomas’s words) practically insisted that audiences empathise
with a woman totally dispossessed – a subversive and potentially terrifying proposition.3
The scene owed its success in part to a radical reimagining of its source material.
The opera’s plot is drawn from Torquato Tasso’s epic La Gerusalemme liberata, com-
pleted in 1575 and published in 1581.4 The poem relates a fictionalised account of
the Christian siege of Jerusalem in 1099. Much of the epic, however, concerns the
romantic intrigue of Armida and Rinaldo (Armide and Renaud in most French trans-
lations and adaptations), who end the narrative reconciled and united in love. In the
original version, Armida’s encounter with the sleeping Rinaldo is related after the fact
by the Wiseman of Ascalon to two Christian knights in search of their lost compat-
riot (canto 14). Here is Tasso’s account:
Ma quando in lui fissò lo sguardo e vide

come placido in vista egli respira,
e ne’ begli occhi un dolce atto che ride,
benché sian chiusi (or che fia s’ei li gira?),
pria s’arresta sospesa, e gli s’asside
poscia vicina, e placar sente ogn’ira
mentre il risguarda; e ’n su la vaga fronte
pende omai sì che par Narciso al fonte.
E quei ch’ivi sorgean vivi sudori

accoglie lievemente in un suo velo,
2
François Raguenet and Jean-Laurent Le Cerf de la Viéville, La première querelle de la musique italienne,
1702–1706, ed. Laura Naudeix (Paris, 2018), 649.
3
Downing Thomas, Aesthetics of Opera in the Ancien Régime, 1647–1785 (Cambridge, 2002), 118. See
100–28 for the full argument.
4
The fourth canto was published in 1579 and several incomplete cantos in 1580. See Chandler
B. Beall, La fortune du Tasse en France (Eugene, OR, 1942), 8.
O Strange Transformation! The Monologue from Act II Scene 5 of Lully 3
e con un dolce ventillar gli ardori

gli va temprando de l’estivo cielo.
Così (chi ’l crederia?) sopiti ardori
d’occhi nascosi distemprâr quel gelo
che s’indurava al cor più che diamante,
e di nemica ella divenne amante.5
But when she fixed her gaze upon him and saw how calm of coun-
tenance he breathes, and how charming a manner laughs about his
lovely eyes, though they be closed (now what will it be if he opens
them?), first she stands still in suspense, and then sits down beside
him, and feels her every wrath becalmed while she gazes upon him;
and now she bends so above his handsome face that she seems
Narcissus at the spring. And those trembling drops of sweat that
welled up there she softly takes off into her veil and with a gentle
fanning tempers for him the heat of the summery sky. So (who
would believe it?) the slumbering warmth of his hidden eyes dis-
solved that frost that had hardened her heart even more than
adamant, and from his enemy she became his lover.6
She then binds Rinaldo in chains of flowers and conceals him in her secluded palace,
from which he is rescued by the two Christian knights in canto 16. Striking is the near
absence of the images or qualities that infuse so much drama into Lully and
Quinault’s version. Tasso’s Armida, for instance, handles no weapon. Nor does
she appear to struggle with conflicting passions. Indeed, the verse contains hardly
any conflict at all. Apart from a brief moment of suspense, Armida moves smoothly
from thoughts of vengeance to thoughts of love. What for Lully and Quinault will be
a wrenching moment of uncontrolled passion is for Tasso an almost calm reflection
on love’s unexpected bloom.
Scholars generally credit Quinault with having first recognised the dramatic poten-
tial of Armida’s encounter with Rinaldo. In one of the earliest modern studies of
Quinault’s life and work, Frido Lindemann claimed that ‘the conflict in Armide,
her love for Renaud against her will, is the property of Quinault’.7 Philippe
Beaussant largely concurs in his study of Lully’s career. Quinault is content to
5
Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, ed. Fredi Chiappelli (Milan, 1982), 595–6.
6
Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered: An English Prose Version, trans. and ed. Ralph Nash (Detroit,
1987), 315.
7
Frido Lindemann, Die Operntexte Philippe Quinaults vom literarischen Standpunkte aus betrachtet (Leipzig,
1904), 92. ‘Der Konflikt in Armide, ihre Liebe zu Renaud gegen ihren Willen, ist Eigentum
Quinaults.’ Surprisingly, Étienne Gros does not recognise the gulf separating Quinault’s treatment
of the material from Tasso’s. All the details of Act II scene 5, he writes, are present in the
original, including Armide’s actions and hesitation. See his Philippe Quinault: Sa vie et son œuvre (Paris,
1926), 574. The other major study of Quinault from the first half of the last century, J.B.A.
Buijtendorp’s Philippe Quinault: Sa vie, ses tragédies et ses tragi-comédies (Amsterdam, 1928), does not
discuss the operas.
4 Michael A. Bane
reproduce Tasso’s narrative in the opening act of the opera, he writes, but begins to
exceed his source material in the final scene of Act II: ‘Quinault’s tragedy is less fine
[than Tasso’s], but it is more dramatic. For – and it is here that everything changes –
it is a tragedy that begins at the very instant of Armide’s reversal.’8 Furthermore,
because Quinault dramatically depicts rather than merely implies Armide’s internal
struggle, he produces a character of greater emotional complexity. As Raymond
Abbrugiati argues in a recent article, ‘For the Armide of Lully [and Quinault], the
passage from hate to love occurs in effect only at the end of a psychological crisis,
which gives the character a new colour and richness.’9 In modern discussions of
the opera, the monologue has become the fulcrum on which pivots the entire
work, the moment when Tasso’s Armida becomes Quinault’s Armide, a new charac-
ter of greater psychological depth and, ultimately, tragedy.
Armide’s monologue is a remarkable moment of drama, but Quinault did not create it
ex nihilo. To view him as the sole force behind the development of a new Armide would
be to overlook close to one hundred years of French engagement with Tasso’s epic
before the premiere of the opera. In musicology especially, the tendency has been to
focus on the monologue’s eventful afterlife, in particular its role in eighteenth-century
debates over French musical aesthetics.10 As a result, the scene’s history in earlier artistic
production has gone largely unexamined. Recent scholarship, however, has begun to
uncover the historical origins of themes, tropes and plots found in French opera and
Quinault’s libretti. Sylvain Cornic, William Brooks and Buford Norman, for example,
have done much in recent years to better contextualise Quinault’s plays and libretti within
French classicism.11 Kathryn Anne Baillargeon and Emmanuelle Soupizet, meanwhile,
have reviewed the reception of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Ariosto and Tasso’s chivalric
heroes, respectively, in French opera and the other fine arts.12 In art history, Jeannine
8
Philippe Beaussant, Lully, ou le musicien du soleil (Paris, 1992), 695. ‘La tragédie de Quinault est
moins fine, mais elle est plus dramatique. Car, et c’est là que tout change, c’est aussitôt une
tragédie qui commence, à l’instant même du retournement d’Armide.’
9
Raymond Abbrugiati, ‘Armide, du Tasse à Lully et à Godard’, Chroniques italiennes 77/78 (2006),
33. ‘Pour l’Armide de Lully, le passage de la haine à l’amour ne s’opère en effet qu’au terme d’une
crise psychologique qui donne au personnage une coloration et une consistance nouvelles.’
10
For example, Blake Stevens’s recent article addressing the status of ‘monologue’ as a term in
French musical lexicography has shown the importance of Armide’s récitatif for French critical
discourse through the eighteenth-century ‘Querelle des Bouffons’, when both Rameau and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau allowed it to serve as a metonym for French opera in general. See his
‘Monologue Conflicts: The Terms of Operatic Criticism in Pierre Estève and Jean-Jacques
Rousseau’, Journal of Musicology 29 (Winter 2012), 1–43. On the scene in the ‘Querelle des
Bouffons’, see Charles Dill, ‘Rameau Reading Lully: Meaning and System in Rameau’s Recitative
Tradition’, Cambridge Opera Journal 6 (1994), 1–17; and Charles Dill, Monstrous Opera: Rameau and the
Tragic Tradition (Princeton, 1998), 60–72. On the opera’s performance history through the
eighteenth century, see Lois Rosow, ‘Lully’s “Armide” at the Paris Opéra: A Performance History,
1686–1766’, PhD diss., 2 vols. (Brandeis University, 1981).
11
Sylvain Cornic, L’enchanteur désenchanté: Quinault et la naissance de l’opéra français (Paris, 2011); William
Brooks, Philippe Quinault, Dramatist (Bern, 2009); Buford Norman, Touched by the Graces: The Libretti
of Philippe Quinault in the Context of French Classicism (Birmingham, AL, 2001); translated as Buford
Norman, Quinault, librettiste de Lully: Le poète des Grâces (Wavre, 2009).
12
Kathryn Anne Baillargeon, ‘“Of Bodies Chang’d to Various Forms, I Sing”: Ovid’s Metamorphoses
in Lully/Quinault Operas’, PhD diss. (University of California, Santa Barbara, 2008); Emmanuelle
footnote continued on next page
Guérin Dalle Mese has surveyed the evolving depiction of Armida and Rinaldo in early-
modern painting.13 These studies reveal the aesthetic and sometimes political preoccu-
pations brought to bear by French adapters when refashioning earlier works for
seventeenth-century audiences.
I adopt a similar approach to Armide’s monologue from Act II scene 5 in this art-
icle. As Table 1 makes clear, Armida and Rinaldo’s story enjoyed a rich reception his-
tory in France in the century between the first publication of La Gerusalemme liberata
in Lyon and the appearance of Quinault and Lully’s opera. While its popularity ebbed
and flowed throughout the century, nearly every decade witnessed at least one new
translation or adaptation of Tasso’s epic. Some of these works are well known
while others are less so, but each contributed to the development of a particular
French understanding of the narrative. In what follows, I would like to survey the
corpus and consider how select works portray Armida’s encounter with the sleeping
Rinaldo and other related moments from the narrative. As we will see, the Armide of
Act II scene 5 represents not a decisive break with the past but rather one contribu-
tion to a much broader tradition of literary and musical experimentation. French
authors continually remade Tasso’s epic in pursuit of new dramatic goals, and the
record of their fascination with this scene can tell us much of Quinault’s own
encounter with Tasso’s poem in 1686 – and of the foundations upon which he
and Lully built, in the words of the eighteenth-century biographer Évrard Titon
du Tillet, ‘the greatest piece in all [French] opera’.14
Before we turn to the sources, a word on my methodology. This article presumes
that it is both possible and useful to trace the development of a narrative within a
culture over time without establishing explicit chains of influence between authors.
In historiography of the seventeenth century, it is often impossible to determine
with any degree of precision the reading and viewing habits of individuals, especially
some of the more obscure authors treated below. This does not mean that these
authors did not influence one another, only that little or no evidence beyond what
we locate in the work can be marshalled in support of such claims. In general,
then, this article concentrates on the texts themselves without speculating about
issues of influence, provenance or biography. A few exceptions are made, however,
when allowed by circumstance and evidence. Finally, it should also be noted that
this article’s primary concern is with the text of Armide’s monologue as opposed
to its musical setting. It is possible that, as Le Cerf de la Viéville recorded,
Soupizet, ‘Adapter l’épopée à la scène: Les héros chevaleresques de l’Arioste et du Tasse en France
(1610–1783)’, PhD diss. (Université de Nantes, 2015).
13
Jeannine Guérin Dalle Mese, ‘Armide découvre Renaud endormi de Poussin à Tiepolo’, in Les belles
infidèles de la Jérusalem délivrée: La fortune du poème du Tasse XVIe–XXe siècle. Actes du colloque
international d’Aix-en-Provence (24–26 octobre 2002) organisé par l’Équipe d’Acceuil 854 et le CIRILLIS,
ed. Raymond Abbrugiati and José Guidi (Aix-en-Provence, 2004), 149–68. In this vein see also
Catherine Rouet, ‘Armide: Le Tasse/Lully–Quinault de la variation à l’invention’, Master’s thesis
(Université Sorbonne-Paris IV, 2003–4).
14
Évrard Titon du Tillet, Le Parnasse françois, dedié au Roi (Paris, 1732), 792. ‘On peut dire que c’est le
plus grand morceau de tous nos Opéra.’
6 Michael A. Bane
Table 1: Armide and Renaud in French Literature, Ballet, Song and Opera, 1581–1686
Date Author or Translator Title and Edition Type
1581* Tasso Gerusalemme liberata. Aggiunti a ciascun canto sono gli argomenti poem (in original Italian
del sig. Oratio Ariosti (Lyon: Pierre Roussin) verse)
1595* Blaise de Vigenère La Hiérusalem du Sr Torquato Tasso (Paris: Abel L’Angelier) translation (prose)
1595* Tasso Di Gerusalemme conquistata (Paris: Abel L’Angelier) poem (in original Italian
verse)
1595* Jean du Vignau La délivrance de Hiérusalem (Paris: Mathieu Guillemot) translation (verse)
1595* Jean du Vignau La délivrance de Hiérusalem (Paris: Nicolas Gilles) translation (verse)
1596 Pierre de Brach Quatre chants de la Hiérusalem de Torquato Tasso (Paris: Abel translation (verse)
L’Angelier)
1596* Pierre Joulet Les amours d’Armide (Paris: Abel L’Angelier) retelling: novel (prose)
1600 Jacques Corbin Jérusalem régnante, contenant, la suite & la fin des amours continuation: novel (prose)
d’Armide & d’Hermine (Paris: Abel L’Angelier)
1604* S. de Bazyre Continuation de la belle Armyde, ou suite du sujet du seigneur continuation: novel (verse)
Torquato Tasso, Italien (Rouen: Claude le Villain)
1617* Étienne Durand et al. Discours au vray du ballet dansé par le Roy, dimanche XXIXe retelling: ballet (music by
jour de janvier (Paris: Pierre Ballard); aka La délivrance P. Guédron et al.)
de Renaud
1617* René Bordier Vers pour le ballet du Roy, représentant les Chevaliers de la Terre retelling: ballet (music by
Saincte, avec les aventures de Renault et d’Armide (Paris: Jean P. Guédron et al.)
Sara); aka La délivrance de Renaud
1617* René Bordier ‘O Dieux! quel est le sort dont je suis poursuivie?’ in Airs air de cour (music by
de différents auteurs mis en tablature de luth par eux mesmes, P. Guédron)
septiesme livre (Paris: Pierre Ballard), fols. 8v–9r; and in
Livre d’airs de cour, et de différents auteurs, II (Paris: Pierre
Ballard), fols. 8v–9r
1626* Jean Baudoin Hiérusalem deslivrée, poème héroïqve de Torquato Tasso (Paris: translation (prose)
Mathieu Guillemot)
1645 Anon. Ballet de l’Oracle de la Sibylle de Pansoust (Paris: Jean Bessin) retelling: ballet
1645* Suzanne de Nervèze La nouvelle Armide (Paris: Jean Paslé) retelling: novel (prose)
1646* Georges de Scudéry ‘Armide, qui veut tuer Renaud endormy, De la main du retelling: poem
Parmesan’, in Le cabinet de Mr de Scudéry, Gouverneur de
Nostre Dame de La Garde, première partie (Paris: Augustin
Courbé), 5–7
1656 Isaac de Benserade and Ballet de Psyché, ou de la puissance de l’Amour, dansé par sa ballet (music by J.-B. Lully)
Francesco Buti Majesté le 16. jour de janvier 1656 (Paris: Robert Ballard)
1657* Philippe Quinault La comédie sans comédie (Paris: Guillaume de Luyne) retelling: verse (for the
stage)
1657 Anon. Godefroy de Bouillon ou triomphe de la croix, tragédie qui sera retelling: ballet (music does
représentée dans la cour du Collège de la Marche (Paris: Louys not survive)
de la Fosse)
1659 Vincent Sablon Le Godefroy, ou la Hiérusalem deslivrée, du Tasse, poème héroïque translation of cantos 1–4
en vers françois, par Mr. Sablon (Paris: la Veuve & Denis (verse)
Thierry)
1664 Président de Périgny and Les amours déguisez, ballet du Roy, dansé par sa Majesté, au mois ballet (music by J.-B. Lully)
Isaac de Benserade de février 1664 (Paris: Robert Ballard)
(Continued )
Date Author or Translator Title and Edition Type

1667 Michel Le Clerc La Hiérusalem délivrée, poëme héroïque de Torquato Tasso (Paris: translation of cantos 1–5
Claude Barbin) (verse)
1671* Vincent Sablon La Hiérusalem délivrée du Tasse, 2 vols. (Paris: s.p.) translation (verse; different
from Sablon 1659)
1678* Chevalier de Méré Les avantures de Renaud et d’Armide (Paris: Claude Barbin) retelling: novel (prose)
1686* Philippe Quinault Armide, tragédie en musique (Paris: Christophe Ballard) retelling: opera (music by
J.-B. Lully)
Asterisk signifies that the work recounts or depicts Armide’s encounter with the sleeping Renaud.
Note: table lists earliest known edition; it does not account for subsequent reprintings or editions.
Lully would have revised the verse sent to him by Quinault before composing music
for it.15 However, this article follows the lead of previous scholarship and assumes
that the libretto reflects the intention of its librettist.
The scene in early French translations

Tasso’s poem was published in its entirety in 1581 in both Casalmaggiore and Parma.
Later that year, the Parma edition was reprinted in Lyon by Pierre Roussin, whose
edition is the poem’s first appearance in France.16 It was likely intended for the
Italian-speaking population then residing in Lyon.17 Compared to Tasso’s pastoral
play Aminta, which enjoyed broad popularity and influence in France almost imme-
diately following its own publication in 1581, La Gerusalemme liberata was slower to
make a mark on French literature during the author’s lifetime.18 Montaigne, Pierre
de Brach, Jérôme d’Avost and Alphonse Delbene had read and cited the poem by
the mid-1580s, but it was not until the middle of the next decade, when the
Parisian publisher Abel L’Angelier oversaw an ambitious series of Tasso’s work,
that new editions of La Gerusalemme liberata appeared in France.19 In 1595
L’Angelier published Blaise de Vigenère’s prose translation La Hiérusalem du Sr
Torquato Tasso, rendue françoise, both the first edition of the poem published in Paris
and the first French translation. That year L’Angelier also published an edition of
15
Raguenet and Le Cerf de la Viéville, La première querelle, 573.
16
Beall, La fortune du Tasse, 8. Jean Balsamo writes that the work published in Lyon is actually a copy
of the Casalmaggiore edition. See his ‘L’Arioste et le Tasse: Des poètes italiens, leurs libraires et
leurs lecteurs français’, in L’Arioste et le Tasse en France au XVIe siècle (Paris, 2003), 15. Since there is
little difference between the two Italian editions, the distinction is of no importance to the current
investigation.
17
As Françoise Graziani notes, many late sixteenth-century French readers knew Italian and studied
Italian texts, including La Gerusalemme liberata. See her ‘Sur le chemin du Tasse: La fidélité du
traducteur selon Vigenère, Baudoin et Vion Dalibray’, in L’Arioste et le Tasse au XVIe siècle, 206.
18
Beall, La fortune du Tasse, 25.
19
On early French readers of Tasso’s poem, see Balsamo, ‘L’Arioste et le Tasse’, 15.
8 Michael A. Bane
Tasso’s late revision of the poem entitled La Gerusalemme conquistata, the manuscript
of which, L’Angelier informs the reader, Tasso had recently sent him from Italy.20
Finally, in 1596, L’Angelier brought out a partial translation of the poem by Pierre
de Brach as well as Pierre Joulet’s novel Les amours d’Armide.21 In addition to
L’Angelier’s publications, the printers Mathieu Guillemot and Nicolas Gilles together
published a verse translation of La Gerusalemme liberata by Jean du Vignau in 1595. In
total, then, three Parisian publishers printed five editions or adaptations of Tasso’s
poem in two years.
In these early translations of La Gerusalemme liberata, Armide broadly resembles
Tasso’s original vision for the character, with neither Blaise de Vigenère nor Jean
du Vignau straying far from their source material. Each recounts Armida’s encounter
with the sleeping Rinaldo more or less as it transpires in Tasso’s poem, that is, with-
out the added action and dramatic indecision of Quinault’s libretto.22 De Brach’s ver-
sion, completed c.1593 and published in 1596, is less predictable. He translates only
four of the poem’s twenty cantos: 16, 4, 12 and 2, in that order. Canto 16 relates the
rescue of Renaud from Armide’s pleasure-palace by two Christian knights, while
canto 4 describes Armide’s initial infiltration into the Christian camp outside
Jerusalem. Cantos 12 and 2, meanwhile, narrate parts of the story of Tancredi and
Clorinda. His decision to begin with Renaud’s rescue betrays an early preference in
France for this episode: in 1617 it would provide the plot to the ballet La
délivrance de Renaud. Because De Brach omits canto 14, his publication does not
include a rendering of Armide’s encounter with Renaud. In the preface, De Brach
offers the following explanation for his unusual ordering of the poem: ‘The cantos
are out of order, but that is the way they hatched under my quill feather [plume]; and
this does not matter so much since they are complete in what they treat and do not
depend one upon the other.’23 This remark articulates an important development in
the reception of the poem in France. For him, it is possible to detach episodes from
Tasso’s narrative and experience them as self-contained dramatic units since, as he
writes, they do not depend one upon the other. Indeed, so great is their independ-
ence that there is no need to adhere to Tasso’s chronology of events: Renaud’s deliv-
erance from Armide’s palace (canto 16) can precede the two characters’ initial
20
See L’Angelier’s preface to the reader in his Di Gerusalemme conquistata del sig. Torquato Tasso (Paris,
1595). Jean Balsamo and Michel Simonin reproduce L’Angelier’s preface in their Abel L’Angelier et
Françoise de Louvain (1574–1620): Suivi du catalogue des ouvrages publiés par Abel L’Angelier (1574–1610)
et la veuve L’Angelier (1610–1620) (Geneva, 2002), 271. This is the only edition of La Gerusalemme
conquistata published in France before 1686 that I have been able to find. It appears to have been as
unpopular there as it was elsewhere. Although Tasso does alter some aspects of Armida and
Rinaldo’s story in La Gerusalemme conquistata, he retains the scene of her encounter with the
sleeping knight (now related in canto 12).
21
See entries 263, 264, 271, 278 in Balsamo and Simonin’s catalogue of publications by L’Angelier in
their Abel L’Angelier et Françoise de Louvain.
22
See Blaise de Vigenère, La Hiérusalem du Sr Torquato Tasso (Paris, 1595), fols. 200r–200v; Jean du
Vignau, La délivrance de Hiérusalem (Paris, 1595), fols. 174r–174v.
23
Pierre de Brach, Quatre chants de la Hiérusalem de Torquato Tasso (Paris, 1596), letter to the reader.
‘Les chants sont préposterez en leur ordre, mais c’est en la forme qu’ils ont esclos sous ma plume,
& cela n’inporte [sic] d’autant qu’ils sont entiers en ce qu’ils traitent & l’un ne despend de l’autre.’
encounter (canto 4). While no other author in France manipulated the chronology of
Tasso’s poem like De Brach, they did follow his lead by adapting discrete episodes
and individual characters from La Gerusalemme liberata for the novels, ballets and
plays that proliferated in the poem’s wake.
The scene in the roman sentimental

La Gerusalemme liberata arrived in France at the same time as a new literary medium,
the novel. The re-establishment of civil peace in the late 1590s and the growth of
salon culture under Henri IV provided the necessary conditions for the genre’s flour-
ishing: while only two or three original novels were published in France between 1560
and 1590, thirty-two were published in the final decade of the century and 118
between 1600 and 1610.24 An essential characteristic of these early novels is their
emphasis on les sentiments and especially feelings of amorous love, which are often
described in grave, dolorous and melancholic terms: ‘never do we see lovers quicker
to shed tears’, writes Maurice Lever, than in these early seventeenth-century French
novels.25 The plots tend to revolve around two lovers, an obstacle separating them
and, if the end is happy, a marriage.26 In some novels, episodes of travel and combat
punctuate the otherwise standard love story.27 The roman sentimental seems to have
been most popular among highborn women, courtiers and students.28
La Gerusalemme liberata proved to be a tempting source of material for novelists.
Beginning with Pierre Joulet’s sentimental novel Les amours d’Armide, French authors
shifted their attention away from strict verse or prose translations of Tasso’s epic and
towards more flexible adaptations based on its characters and scenarios. Indeed, fol-
lowing De Brach’s partial translation in 1596, thirty years would pass before the next
attempt to translate Tasso’s entire poem into French: Jean Baudoin’s 1626 Hiérusalem
deslivrée. That novelists found inspiration in La Gerusalemme liberata is unsurprising, for
it teems with the kind of sentimental love story eagerly consumed by readers of the
French novel. Armida and Rinaldo in particular captured the French imagination.
Jacques Corbin’s Jérusalem régnante (1600) and Bazire d’Amblainville’s Continuation de
la belle Armyde (1604) are both so-called continuations of Armide’s story, that is,
they imagine events that transpire after the conclusion of Tasso’s narrative, suggesting
a growing sentimental interest in Armide’s fate among a broad French readership.29
Joulet’s novel, first published in 1596, is more firmly rooted in Tasso’s original poem.
Joulet transplants Armide’s narrative from La Gerusalemme liberata and adheres more
24
Maurice Lever, Le roman français au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1981), 11.
25
Lever, Le roman français, 47.
26
Gustave Reynier, Le roman sentimental avant l’Astrée (1908; rpt. Paris, 1971), 302.
27
Reynier, Le roman sentimental avant l’Astrée, 181–2.
28
See Lever, Le roman français, 14–18. Its reputation as a literary genre suffered accordingly;
Montaigne, for example, boasted of having never read a novel (see p. 36).
29
Jacques Corbin, Jérusalem régnante, contenant, la suite & la fin des amours d’Armide & d’Hermine (Paris,
1600); Bazire d’Amblainville, Continuation de la belle Armyde, ou suite du sujet du seigneur Torquato Tasso,
italien (Rouen, 1604). The latter does relate Armide’s encounter with Renaud (pp. 7–8), but the
scene does not significantly depart from Tasso’s version.
10 Michael A. Bane
or less to the story’s outline. The narrative, however, is transformed by the florid lan-
guage characteristic of the early novel in France. Here, for example, is Joulet’s render-
ing of Armide’s encounter with the sleeping Renaud:
[Renaud] having been immediately recognised by the beautiful Armide, who was on
lookout nearby, she got up with the intention of running him through and taking
his life … Having arrived five or six steps from Renaud she stopped firm before
him, and despite all the impatience that her anger gave her to quickly tear out his
heart and give it as prey to the vengeance that consumed her, she could not stop herself
from regarding him beforehand, and in truth with a little more curiosity and leisure
than would have seemed possible for an outraged woman. And after having stood
in this way a while, she wanted to look at him closer still, and with a moderate step
and filled with a fearful fury and audacious respect, she set herself next to him to con-
template him more exactly, and having cast her eyes over his face, whose beauty she
grew enamoured of, and over his lips, which called more for kisses from her mouth
than for the workings of her hands and sword, and after having admired his chestnut
hair, curled by the hand of beautiful Venus, and after considering his body so well-
proportioned in a way that had a je ne sçay quoy so agreeable that at first sight it forced
the wills of those who saw to love it forever, she felt little by little extinguish in her
breast the fires of importunate anger and alight the flames of a precious and dear
love; erasing from her heart the pains of old, past injuries, with hope of the joys she
promised herself from the possession of a beauty so lovable, in order to engrave
more easily there in letters of fire and ember the image of this new Adonis, like a
god to whom she already sacrificed not only her inner self and her hatreds, but also
her freest passions, so much so that to this man who before this viewing was her mortal
enemy she became in an instant his mistress so hopelessly in love and so lovingly hope-
less that she proved, contrary to the maxims of philosophy, that it is possible to move
from one extreme passion to the opposite extreme without descending by degrees from
the summit of one to climb by other steps until the top of the other, since from a very
strong hatred she went in one jump to the most violent love imaginable, pulling out
with one yank her soul, which was numb and fastened to the ice of her old passion,
to throw it into the sweet flames of her new affection.30
30
I quote from a later edition: Pierre Joulet, Les amours d’Armide (Lyon, 1606), 123–7. ‘Ce qu’ayant
esté aussi tost recogneu par la belle Armide qui estoit au guet asses pres de la, elle se leva en
intention de luy courir sus, & de luy oster la vie apres luy avoir faict ressentir autant de sortes de
tourme[n]s & de martyres, que ses mescontentemens luy en pouvoyent apporter de desir, & que
ceste rencontre luy en donnoit de commodité: Estant arrivée à cinq ou six pas de Renault elle
s’arresta ferme devant luy, & mal-gré toutes les impatiences que sa cholere luy donnoit de luy aller
visteme[n]t arracher le cœur, pour le donner en proye à la vengeance qui luy devoroit le courage, ne
se peut empescher de la regarder auparavant, & ce à la verité avecques un peu plus de curiosité &
de loisir, qu’il ne sembloit pouvoir estre possible d’obtenir d’une Dame outragée: Et apres avoir
demeuré quelque temps de ceste façon, elle eut envie de le voir encore de pl[us] pres, & pour cest
effect elle vint avecques un pas un peu plus moderé, & plein d’une fureur craintifve & d’un
audacieux respect, se sied pres de luy pour le contempler plus exacteme[n]t, & apres avoir rejetté
ses yeux ta[n]tost sur son visage, dont la beauté elle mesme eust esté esperduëment esprise, tantost
sur les levres qui appelloyent bien plustost des baisers de sa bouche, que des ouvrages de ses
mains & de son espée, apres avoir admiré ses cheveux chasteins, frisez de la main de la belle
Venus, & consideré son corps si bien proportionné avecques toutes ses parties, & une façon qui
avoit je ne sçay quoy de si aggreable, qu’à la premiere veuë il forçoit les volontez de ceux qui le
footnote continued on next page
The basic outline of the encounter remains as it is in the original poem. Indeed,
Joulet emphasises even more than Tasso the suddenness of Armide’s change: in an
instant she becomes Renaud’s lover, moving directly from one passionate extreme to
the other without hesitation. But there are also important differences. First, Armide
is armed with a sword. Joulet’s version is the first in France, and perhaps the first any-
where, to place a weapon in her hand, and most subsequent depictions of this scene in
France, barring the strict translations, will follow suit. Second, Joulet’s long and fanciful
elaboration lends the scene a weight otherwise missing in the original version. On the
one hand, it is an opportunity to indulge in the flowery description typical of late
sixteenth-century prose; on the other, it is an early attempt to reimagine the thoughts
and feelings of Armide at a critical moment in her story. Joulet writes of her anger, the
pains of past injuries, her frankly erotic attraction to Renaud, and the violence of sud-
den, hopeless love, a procession of feelings implied, perhaps, but never stated in Tasso’s
poem. Through Joulet’s prose, in other words, Armide becomes the emotive, love-
struck, sympathetic heroine typical of the roman sentimental. Still far removed from the
drama of Quinault’s Act II scene 5, Joulet’s passage is nevertheless the first time in
France an author substantially rewrites Tasso’s scene in pursuit of new dramatic goals.
The scene in ballet

In addition to the roman sentimental, the arrival of La Gerusalemme liberata in France also
coincided with the first ballets de cour.31 These early ballets often borrowed their scen-
arios from sixteenth-century Italian literature, in particular the work of Ariosto and
Tasso.32 On 29 January 1617, the court of Louis XIII danced La délivrance de Renaud,
among the most elaborate ballets of the seventeenth century and the only one pro-
duced before the second half of the century to feature Armide and Renaud in prom-
inent roles. As the title suggests, the ballet’s plot centres on a single episode from La
Gerusalemme liberata: two knights infiltrate Armide’s palace, battle monsters, remind
regardoyent à l’aymer eternellement, elle sentit petit à petit esteindre en son sein les feux d’une
cholere importune, pour y allumer les flammes d’un amour bien cher & bien precieux: Effaçant de
son cœur les douleurs des vieilles injures passées, avecques l’esperance des contentements qu’elle
se promettoit de la possession d’une beauté si aymable, afin d’y graver plus aisément avecques des
lettres de feu & de braise l’image de ce nouvel Adonis, comme Deité à laquelle elle sacrifioit desja
non seulement ses inimitiez & ses haines, mais aussi ses volontez les plus libres, tellement que
d’ennemie mortelle qu’elle estoit auparavant ceste veuë, elle devint en un instant sa maistresse si
esperduément amoureuse & si amoureuseme[n]t esperduë, qu’elle fit bien cognoistre contre les
maximes de la Philosophie, que l’on va bien d’une extremité d’une passion en l’extremité d’une
autre toute contraire, sans descendre par les degrez du sommet de l’une pour monter par d’autres
marches jusques à la cime de l’autre, puis que d’une haine fort grande, elle est allée de plein sault
en un amour le plus viole[n]t qui se puisse imaginer, tirant tout d’un coup son ame qui estoit
attachée & engourdie dans toutes les glaces de ses vieilles inimitiez, pour la jetter au milieu de
toutes les douces flammes de sa jeune affection.’
31
The first ballet de cour, the Ballet comique de la Reine, was performed in 1581.
32
For example, the Ballet de Monseigneur le duc de Vendôme (1610), La furie de Roland (1618) and Les
aventures de Tancrède en la forest enchantée (1619). See Charles T. Downey, ‘Musical-Dramatic
Productions Derived from Ariosto and Tasso in the City of Paris, 1600–1800’, PhD diss. (Catholic
University of America, 1998).
12 Michael A. Bane
Renaud of his Christian duty and spirit him away before Armide can stop them.
Nobles of the court, including the king and his favourite gentleman, Charles de
Luynes, danced in the ballet.33 Its plot is usually read as allegorising the struggle
of Luynes (who danced the role of Renaud) to wrest power away from the king’s
mother, Marie de’ Medici (represented by Armide), so that he can better serve
Louis XIII (Godfrey of Bouillon, leader of the Christian forces) as he assumes per-
sonal rule of the kingdom.34 Two sources, both published in 1617, preserve the bal-
let: Étienne Durand’s Discours au vray du ballet dansé par le Roy, an elaborate volume
containing the scenario, verse, set design, costumes and vocal music, and the smaller
Vers pour le ballet du Roy, a booklet of the ballet’s verse compiled by René Bordier, who
composed much of the poetry.35 Pierre Guédron, Gabriel Bataille, Antoine Boësset
and Jacques Mauduit provided the ballet’s music. The choreography, by Jacques de
Belleville, does not survive.
Since the ballet’s action takes place after Armide has imprisoned Renaud, it does
not depict the moment of her transformation from enemy to lover. However, both
sources of the ballet do contain a spoken monologue for Armide in which she
describes her sudden ravishment before the sleeping Renaud. They differ on
when in the narrative Armide delivers the verse: the Discours au vray concludes
with the poem while the Vers pour le ballet opens with it.36 Despite the long-enjoyed
authority of Durand’s publication, it is unlikely that the ballet concluded with the
monologue. There is little sense in Armide relating her encounter with Renaud
at this particular moment, and the livret itself suggests that the preceding piece, a
grand ballet danced in celebration of Renaud’s liberation, is the work’s true finale.
If the monologue was in fact performed at the ballet’s premiere, it probably
occurred early in the narrative, as it does in the Vers pour le ballet.37 Here is the text:
O Dieux! quel est le Sort dont je suis poursuivie?

Qui permét que Renault, ce redouté vainqueur,
A qui mes passions vouloyent oster la vie,
Endormi qu’il estoit m’ayt desrobbé le cœur?
33
On the ballet’s dancers, see Charles T. Downey, ‘The Noble Participants in the Ballet of La
Délivrance de Renaud’, in La délivrance de Renaud: Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617, ed. Greer Garden
(Turnhout, 2010), 7–14.
34
See Henry Prunières, Le ballet de cour en France avant Benserade et Lully (Paris, 1914), 115–19;
Margaret McGowan, L’art du ballet de cour en France, 1581–1643 (Paris, 1963), 101–16; Downey,
‘The Noble Participants’, 8.
35
Étienne Durand, Discours au vray du ballet dansé par le Roy, dimanche XXIXe jour de janvier, M. VIc.
XVII (Paris, 1617); René Bordier, Vers pour le ballet du Roy, représentant les Chevaliers de la Terre Saincte,
avec les aventures de Renault et d’Armide (Paris, 1617).
36
For a comparison of the Discours au vray and Vers pour le ballet, see Greer Garden, ‘The vers and livret
for La Délivrance de Renaud Compared and a terminus ante quam for the Publication of Durand’s
Discours au vray’, in La délivrance de Renaud: Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617, 15–25.
37
Although he was unaware of Bordier’s Vers pour le ballet, André Verchaly argued that the
monologue probably occurred earlier in the ballet rather than later. See his ‘A propos du récit
français au début du XVIIe siècle’, Recherches sur la musique française classique 15 (1975), 39–46.
Mes deux mains conspiroyent de luy meurtrir la face,

Quand mes yeux le voyant & si jeune & si beau,
Les firent consentir à luy destiner place
Plustost dedans mon cœur que dedans un tombeau.
L’impatiente soif de ma juste colere

Du plus pur de son sang se devoit appaiser.
Estrange changement! voyant mon adversaire
De peur de l’éveiller je n’osay le baiser.
Soleil, vis-tu jamais de pareilles lumieres

A celles que cét Ange alluma dans les Cieux,
Alors que son réveil deferma deux paupieres
Qui servoyent de nuage aux rayons de ses yeux?
Ces beaux yeux tout divins, dont la douce influence

Un printemps eternel dans les ames produit,
Firent naistre en mon cœur mile fleurs d’esperance,
Qui par mile baisers se changerent en fruit.38
O Gods! what is this destiny that pursues me? Which has enabled
the feared conqueror Renaud, whose life I so ardently wanted to
take, to steal away my heart as he lay asleep? My hands conspired
to bruise his face, but my eyes, seeing him so young and so hand-
some, made them consent to assign him a place in my heart,
rather than in a tomb. The impatient thirst of my righteous
anger was meant to be appeased with his purest blood. O strange
transformation! On seeing my adversary I dared not even kiss
him, lest he awaken. Sun, did you ever see such brightness as
this angel kindled in the heavens, when at his awakening, like
clouds drawing back, his eyelids opened, unveiling the light of
his glance? These beautiful eyes, entirely divine, whose sweet
influence creates an eternal spring in the soul, gave life in my
heart to a thousand flowers of hope, which through a thousand
kisses were changed into fruit.39
The use of the first-person voice lends immediacy to the lyric. For the first time in
France, Armide herself relates her conflicted feelings. This is an important development
in the scene’s theatric potential, although some might argue that it still lacks dramatic
urgency. Armide only remembers her encounter with Renaud – she does not yet
38
Durand, Discours au vray, fol. 34r.
39
Translation (with slight modification) by Charles T. Downey and Greer Garden, in La délivrance de
Renaud: Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617, 264–5.
14 Michael A. Bane
experience it before an audience. Nevertheless, by giving voice to Armide’s joy and des-
pair, the monologue helps to establish a more sympathetic, less one-sided character than
she otherwise would be in the ballet.40 Indeed, the confusion over the monologue’s
placement in the narrative may reflect an uneasiness on the part of the ballet’s creators
over whether Armide should be represented as sympathetic or purely antagonistic. If
the ballet is meant to allegorise the end of Marie de’ Medici’s regency and the beginning
of Louis XIII’s personal rule under the guidance of Luynes, too much sympathy for
Armide might be read as undermining the young king’s claim to power.41
In the Discours au vray, Durand published the music for the ballet’s sung verse but not
for Armide’s monologue. It could have been meant to be sung in performance, though,
because Pierre Guédron published a musical setting of the monologue in 1617 along-
side other songs from the ballet.42 It is unclear why Durand failed to publish the music.
Whatever the case, Guédron’s song is the first musical setting related to Armide’s
encounter with Renaud produced in France. With it, a large community of amateur sing-
ers and lutenists had their first opportunity to inhabit Armide’s character and
re-experience through musical performance her love for Renaud. The music is typical
of the early strophic air de cour, in particular its unbarred, free-flowing metre, a remnant
of Jean-Antoine de Baïf ’s poetical experiments of the 1570s.43 Alongside Lully’s cantata
Ah Rinaldo, e dove sei?, sung by Armida after her abandonment in the eighth entrée of the
Ballet des amours déguisez (1664), it is the only song published in France before 1686 to
refer to Armide or adopt her voice that I have been able to find, a surprising fact con-
sidering the popularity of Tasso’s poem throughout the seventeenth century.44
La délivrance de Renaud is also the century’s only ballet to reference the events of canto
14. Armide appears in four other ballets produced before 1686: as a minor character in
the second entrée of the obscure Ballet de l’Oracle de la Sibylle de Pansoust (1645), in which
she briefly appears alongside two other female magicians; as a minor character in Ballet
de Psyché, ou de la puissance de l’Amour (1665), a collaboration between Jean-Baptiste Lully,
Isaac de Benserade and Francesco Buti, where in the eleventh entrée she is again viewed
among a group of magicians, including Medée, Circé and Alcine; as a minor character
in Godefroy de Bouillon ou triomphe de la croix (1657), a five-act ballet performed at the
Jesuit Collège de La Marche, in which she tempts Renaud from his Christian duties;
and as a character in the aforementioned Ballet des amours déguisez (1664), another
40
Garden makes this point in her ‘The vers and livret’, 21. ‘With this air removed, Armide’s character
comes across as completely one-sided, for she is deprived of her own “voice” as a lover. Portrayed
thereby only as a wicked sorceress from whom Renaud must be delivered, she could more readily
be represented in burlesque.’
41
As Garden points out, the two sources’ differences may reflect changes in political fortunes at
court in the time between the publication of Bordier’s Vers and Durand’s Discours au vray. See her
‘The vers and livret’, 19–25.
42
Airs de différents auteurs mis en tablature de luth par eux mesmes, septiesme livre (Paris, 1617), fols. 8v–9r
(voice and lute), and Livre d’airs de cour, et de différents auteurs, II (Paris, 1617), fols. 8v–9r (voice alone).
43
For more on the influence of Baïf and musique mesurée on Guédron’s music, see Don Lee Royster,
‘Pierre Guédron and the Air de cour 1600–1620’, PhD diss. (Yale University, 1972).
44
I make this assertion on the basis of a personal review of printed song publications and
consultation of the relevant databases. It is possible songs in Armide’s voice exist in manuscript
sources.
collaboration between Lully and Benserade with additional text by Octave de Périgny.
This long ballet’s plot is drawn from several disparate sources; entrées seven, eight and
nine feature Renaud and Armide. These entrées focus on Renaud’s rescue from
Armide’s palace, after which Armide sings her lament Ah Rinaldo, e dove sei?45 In
sum, the character Armide serves one of two roles in these ballets: a figuration of sor-
cery and temptation (as in La délivrance de Renaud, Ballet de l’Oracle de la Sibylle de Pansoust,
Ballet de Psyché, ou de la puissance de l’Amour and Godefroy de Bouillon ou triomphe de la croix)
or an example of the abandoned woman (Ballet des amours déguisez). The inclusion of Ah
Rinaldo, e dove sei? in the Ballet des amours déguisez anticipates the final act of Armide by
concluding Armide’s narrative with a sorrowful complaint rather than a celebration
of Renaud’s rescue and return to battle, as in the earlier La délivrance de Renaud, though
the Italianate cantata is textually and musically quite unlike the later opera.46
The scene in French literature: 1645–1655

The middle decade of the century was a period of experimentation for French
authors working with Tasso’s poem in a variety of genres. It is in their works that
many of the narrative events later integrated into Armide’s monologue of Lully
and Quinault’s opera first appear. In 1645 Suzanne de Nervèze published La nouvelle
Armide, the fourth novel in France dedicated to the character. Like Pierre Joulet,
Nervèze hews more or less to Tasso’s plot, although her novel is roughly a sixth
the length of the earlier work. It is also a more lighthearted treatment of the narrative.
Nervèze de-emphasises the siege of Jerusalem and all other martial events. She also
introduces a new character, the shepherdess Ismenie, whose troubled romantic life is
the focus of the novel’s middle section. Finally, although Renaud is again rescued
from Armide’s palace by two compatriots bearing a magic shield, the lovers’ parting
is not the bitter, wrathful scene depicted by Tasso in canto 16 of the original poem.
Instead, Renaud promises to marry Armide as soon as he can convince Godfrey of
her worthiness. Godfrey quickly consents to the marriage, and the novel concludes
with Armide’s baptism and wedding.
Despite the general breeziness of her novel, Nervèze’s depiction of Armide’s
encounter is more complex than earlier French adaptations. At first, it departs little
from the original: Armide is quickly overcome by Renaud’s beauty and renounces her
plans for revenge. However, Nervèze elongates the scene by introducing an element
of doubt. Her Armide trembles with confusion and begins to question her own feel-
ings of love: ‘What, she says to herself, Armide, are you so cowardly as to be unable
to resist the first danger [of love] you encounter, and without the excuse of a long
courtship you give yourself over to the mercy of a man who perhaps has no intention
of loving you? … Would it not have been better to choose one of those whom you
45
For plot summaries and bibliographic data, see Downey, ‘Musical-Dramatic Productions’,
Chapter 3.
46
For musical analysis of Ah Rinaldo, e dove sei?, see Georgia Cowart, The Triumph of Pleasure: Louis
XIV and the Politics of Spectacle (Chicago, 2008), 63–5.
16 Michael A. Bane
have treated poorly [i.e., the other Christian knights] than to make yourself a slave to
an enemy who has shown for you only contempt[?]’47 In the end her love for Renaud
proves too strong. Weeping, she admits what the reader already knows to be true:
‘Alas! … useless thoughts, what makes me think them, since it is not in me to follow
any other counsel save that of my passion?’48 Although Armide gives in to lust and
makes Renaud her lover, her episode of doubt is an original contribution to the
scene. Where Joulet had emphasised the rapidity of Armide’s transformation,
Nervèze instead lingers over her confusion and indecision. The result is a moment
of pathos quite beyond that of earlier versions.
We encounter a very different Armide ten years later in the nineteen-year-old Quinault’s
La comédie sans comédie, the first spoken play produced in France to feature the scene. It was
his fourth stage production, and the first to premiere in 1655 at a theatre other than the
Théâtre de l’Hôtel de Bourgogne, the institution that had nurtured his early talent. The
play’s structure is unusual: Act I introduces Hauteroche and La Roque, two actors who
wish to marry Silvanire and Aminte, the two daughters of La Fleur, a merchant. La Fleur
takes a dim view of the young men’s profession and refuses to consent to the marriages.
To convince him of their worthiness, Hauteroche and La Roque propose to act out four
brief scenarios, each of a different dramatic genre: a pastoral, burlesque, tragedy and tragi-
comedy. The final four acts of La comédie sans comédie correspond to the four mini-plays
performed for La Fleur, who watches the action from the side of the stage.
The final act, ‘Armide et Renaud, Tragicomédie en Machines’, centres on Armide’s
encounter with Renaud. In scene 5, two mythological creatures lull Renaud to sleep
with singing. As Armide prepares to strike him dead with her dagger, Cupid appears
suspended in air and commands her to stop (‘Arreste, arreste Armide!’). For the
crime of despising love, he will punish her by transforming Renaud into her lover.
Armide scoffs at the god’s pretentions to power:
Moy! de l’amour pour luy! perds cette vanité,
Tout ton pouvoir depend de nostre volonté.
Pour te vaincre il ne faut que se vouloir deffendre,
L’on n’a jamais d’amour qu’autant qu’on en veut prendre.49
Me? love him! Lose this vanity, all your power depends on our
desire. To vanquish you, it is only necessary to defend oneself,
one never has more love than one wants of it.
47
Suzanne de Nervèze, La nouvelle Armide (Paris, 1645), 14–15. ‘Quoy, dit-elle, Armide est-tu [sic]
assez lasche de ne pouvoir resister au premier danger que tu trouve [sic], & que sans l’excuse d’une
longue poursuite, tu te rends à la mercy d’un homme qui n’a, peut-estre, nulle volonté de t’aymer?
… Valoit-il pas mieux choisir quelqu’un de ceux que tu as mal traittez, que te rendre esclave d’un
ennemy qui ne te cognoit que pour te detester[?]’
48
Nervèze, La nouvelle Armide, 15. ‘Helas! dit-elle, inutiles pensées, que me venez vous representer,
puis qu’il n’est pas en moy de suivre tout autre conseil que celuy de ma passion?’
49
Philippe Quinault, La comédie sans comédie (Paris, 1657), 92.
Cupid replies that she will soon learn the full extent of his ability. He fires an arrow
into her breast and flies away. Armide is at first unconcerned (‘this blow is too light to
protect Renaud from my anger’), but something holds her back as she moves to strike
Renaud:
Recoy le coup… Mais Dieux; quel tremblement soudain

Me saisit à la fois & le cœur & la main!
Quel mouvement s’oppose en mon ame allarmée
Au cours de la fureur dont je suis animée,
Et quel charme plus fort que mes enchantemens
Souleve contre moy mes propres mouvemens!
…
L’Objet qui l’augmentoit, ne sert qu’a l’amoindrir,
Et ce qui m’irritoit commence à m’attendrir:
D’où vient que de mes sens la revolte inhumaine
En faveur de Renaud ose trahir ma haine,
Et que mes yeux malgré mon furieux desir,
L’observent avec soin & mesme avec plaisir?
…
Je ne sens que foiblesse & ne sens plus d’ardeur!
Plus d’ardeur! ah que dis-je en vain je dissimule,
D’une ardeur forte encor je sens bien que je brule;
Mais helas cette ardeur qui me brule à son tour
Ne vient plus de la haine, elle vient de l’Amour.50
Receive this blow… But Gods, what sudden trembling seizes my

heart and my hand at the same time! What movement in my
startled soul opposes the course of the fury animating me, and
what charm stronger than my enchantments raises against me
my own actions! … The object that augmented [my hate] serves
only to lessen it, and what irritated me before begins to move me:
how does it happen that from my feelings the barbaric revolt in
favour of Renaud dares to betray my hate, and that my eyes, des-
pite my furious desire, observe him with care and even with pleas-
ure? … I no longer feel ardour, only weakness! More ardour! Ah,
what I say I say in vain, with a strong ardour I yet feel that I burn,
but, alas, the ardour burning me now no longer comes from hate,
but from love.
Armide concedes that Cupid has bested her; she now loves Renaud as much as she
once hated him. But Cupid’s vengeance is imperfect, for ‘He punishes me with a
50
Quinault, La comédie sans comédie, 93–4.
18 Michael A. Bane
stroke that does not displease me at all.’51 Cupid concludes the act by promising to
serve as her guide through the world of love. The message of this final scenario is
clear: a woman without a man to love is a dangerous thing. La Fleur is convinced,
and the play ends with him congratulating Hauteroche and La Roque on the
power of their craft and consenting to the marriages.
Because it employs stage machines and introduces sung verse, some scholars have
viewed Act V of La comédie sans comédie as an early draft of the opera Armide.52
Certainly Quinault’s treatment of Armide in the play prefigures some of the events
in Act II scene 5. He portrays Armide’s transformation from avenger to lover as a
contested, physically strenuous ordeal. She doubts, struggles, furiously yearns both
to love and to slay Renaud. She also handles a dagger; and while Joulet was the
first to introduce a weapon into the scene, Quinault’s Armide seems eager to use
it. The monologue from Act II scene 5 of the opera will retain and build upon
these novel qualities, but there are also important differences. In La comédie sans
comédie, only the timely appearance of Cupid prevents Armide from plunging her dag-
ger into Renaud. What Quinault will later depict as an inner struggle fought by
Armide against herself is here an outward struggle between Armide and a mischiev-
ous god.53 Ultimately, then, her love for Renaud is not a feeling borne of admiration
or physical attraction but rather the product of Cupid’s arrow. The scene lacks the
psychological realism of the later opera, for realism is not the point. Rather,
Quinault’s play is a kind of comedic morality tale, the story of a loveless virago’s
comeuppance at the hands of Cupid. Although he is the first playwright or librettist
in France to recognise the dramatic potential of this encounter and to structure an
entire dramatic act around it, his La comédie sans comédie pursues ends that are very
different from those of Act II scene 5.
Nicolas Poussin’s painting Rinaldo and Armida (c.1630) may have informed
Quinault’s handling of Armide and Renaud in La comédie sans comédie, for it also
depicts Armide with dagger in hand held back by Cupid. We know that Quinault’s
friend and mentor Tristan l’Hermite hung a painting of Armida and Rinaldo in
his room, where Quinault would have had opportunity to view it.54 It is unknown
whether or not Tristan’s painting was by Poussin, although some have argued it
was.55 It is also possible, however, that Quinault drew inspiration from a heretofore
51
Quinault, La comédie sans comédie, 94. ‘Sa Vengeance est pourtant imparfaite en ce point / Qu’il me
punit d’un trait, qui ne me déplaist point.’
52
Henry Prunières, L’opéra italien en France avant Lulli (Paris, 1913), 329; Beall, La fortune du Tasse, 119;
Joyce Simpson, Le Tasse et la littérature et l’art baroques en France (Paris, 1962), 99; Brooks, Philippe
Quinault, 72.
53
I am not the first to note Quinault’s evolving depiction of this scene. See, for example, Bruce
McIntyre, ‘Armide ou le monologue féminin’, Australian Journal of French Studies 36 (1999), 165;
Thomas, Aesthetics of Opera, 112.
54
Beall, La fortune du Tasse, 79.
55
Napoléon-Maurice Bernardin, Un précurseur de Racine, Tristan l’Hermite, sieur du Solier (1601–1655),
sa famille, sa vie, ses œuvres (Paris, 1895), 255–6n2. Bernardin believes it likely that Tristan possessed a
painting by Poussin depicting Armide abducting the sleeping Renaud.
overlooked publication. In 1646, Georges de Scudéry published Le cabinet de M de

Scudéry, a collection of short pieces inspired by visual art. The second poem,
‘Armide, qui veut tuer Renaud endormy’, describes the encounter from the perspec-
tive of one attempting to dissuade Armide from killing Renaud.56 In one possible
reading, a Cupid (‘l’amour’) holds back her arm. The poem begins:
Arreste, arreste belle Armide;

Vois l’amour qui retient ta main;
Elle qui d’un coup inhumain,
S’apreste à faire un homicide.57
Stop, stop, beautiful Armide; see the Cupid who [or: see the love
that] holds back your hand, the hand that with a barbaric blow
prepares to commit homicide.
Note that Scudéry’s first line, ‘Arreste, arreste belle Armide’, is nearly identical to
Cupid’s first line in Quinault’s La comédie sans comédie, ‘Arreste, arreste Armide’.
Furthermore, Scudéry introduces a moment of suspense in the eleventh stanza simi-
lar to Quinault’s depiction of Armide’s hand trembling with indecision:
Une cruelle incertitude,

Anime, & puis retient son bras:
Elle aime ses charmans appas;
Elle hait son ingratitude.58
A cruel incertitude animates and then holds back her arm. She
loves his sweet charms; she hates his ingratitude.
Quinault was ten when Scudéry published the poem, but he might have encoun-
tered it later in the 1640s or 1650s. He must have known of Scudéry by 1655.
Scudéry was one of the more prominent playwrights in Paris at the start of
Quinault’s career, and La comédie sans comédie is probably indebted to Scudéry’s La
comédie des comédiens, which premiered at the Théâtre de l’Hôtel de Bourgogne in
1634 and was published the following year.59 Like Quinault’s play, it too features a
troupe of actors who perform a play (‘L’amour caché par l’amour’) within the
56
Scudéry claims to have based the poem on a painting ‘de la main du Parmesan’, that is, Girolamo
Francesco Maria Mazzola. This cannot be, however, since Mazzola died in 1540, well before
Tasso’s birth. For more information on Mazzola and his doubtful connection to Scudéry’s poem,
see Georges de Scudéry, Le cabinet de Monsieur de Scudéry, ed. Christian Biet and Dominique
Moncond’huy (Paris, 1991), 306–7.
57
Georges de Scudéry, Le cabinet de Mr de Scudéry, Gouverneur de Nostre Dame de La Garde, première partie
(Paris, 1646), 5.
58
Scudéry, Le cabinet de Mr de Scudéry, 7.
59
Gros, Philippe Quinault, 249.
20 Michael A. Bane
framing narrative.60 Whatever the nature of influence running through Poussin,

Scudéry and Quinault, each of their works displays the same tendency to externalise
Armide’s struggle through the introduction of Cupid. The exception is Nervèze,
whose Armide alone struggles with true self-doubt, but her novel appears to have
been little read and quickly forgotten.61
The Chevalier de Méré

The final work to consider as a precedent for the most famous scene in Quinault’s
Armide is by an author better known for non-fiction.62 The Chevalier de Méré, whose
given name was Antoine Gombaud, found a receptive audience for his essays on
l’honnêteté, an expansive philosophy of morality, etiquette and social behaviour popular
at court and the Parisian salons. In 1678 he published his lone work of fiction, the
brief novel Les avantures de Renaud et d’Armide. The work is more faithful to Tasso’s
poem than Nervèze’s novel, but Méré provides new dialogue for the title characters
and, in general, de-emphasises the magical or supernatural elements present in the
original narrative. He also alters two important scenes. The most obvious change
occurs in Renaud’s rescue from Amide’s palace by the Christian knights. In the ori-
ginal, Armide faints from sorrow and Renaud, harried by his companions, leaves her
half alive on the shore. Méré, apparently shocked by Renaud’s conduct, felt com-
pelled to invent an excuse to help explain his rapid desertion of the helpless
Armide. In his novel, Renaud faints as well and is dragged away by the others before
he can choose to desert his erstwhile lover.63 In this change and the other discussed
below, Méré’s intention appears to have been to render both title characters as sym-
pathetic as possible and thus make their ultimate union at the end of the novel more
pleasing to the reader.
Most importantly for our purposes, the other scene altered by Méré is that of
Armide’s encounter with the sleeping Renaud. Although the changes are subtler,
they are nevertheless far-reaching:
Armide … walks toward the young, sleeping man with scimitar in hand. Her face and
words showed that she was no less sensible to glory than to vengeance. ‘Finally … I
hold [in my power] this valiant terror of Saracens, this Renaud who before
60
See Georges de Scudéry, La comédie des comédiens (Paris, 1635). In addition, Quinault, like many
Parisians, avidly read the work of Scudéry’s younger sister, Madeleine. As Nathalie Pierson has
shown, her novel Artamène ou le grand Cyrus (1649–53) directly influenced at least two of Quinault’s
plays, La mort de Cyrus (1658) and Astrate, roi de Tyr (1665). See Nathalie Pierson, ‘Madeleine de
Scudéry et Philippe Quinault: Du romanesque au spectaculaire tragique’, in Madeleine de Scudéry:
Une femme de lettres au XVIIe siècle, ed. Delphine Denis and Anne-Elisabeth Spica (Arras, 2002),
255–68.
61
Little is known of Suzanne de Nervèze, although it is possible that she was the sister of the novelist
Antoine de Nervèze. Her novel appears to have had one printing; a single copy survives.
62
I pass over Vincent Sablon’s 1671 translation because its rendition of canto 14 does not differ
significantly from Tasso’s original.
63
Chevalier de Méré, ‘Les avantures de Renaud et d’Armide’, in Œuvres complètes du Chevalier de Méré,
ed. Charles-H. Boudhors (Paris, 1930), III: 46.
Jerusalem neglected me with an intolerable indifference, and who since would not have
been happy to have freed my prisoners if he had not also killed my guards.’ Having
come to him, she stops, and considering him at leisure to prolong the sweetness of ven-
geance, she feels on his closed eyes, and on his face covered with powder, a secret
power that holds back her arm and sets her in suspense: should she use violent
blows to lessen his suffering, or lighter wounds to treat him with more gentleness?
But by watching him she loses all her anger, her hate turns to tenderness, and she
has pity for him for the danger he ran, inflicted by her; and accusing herself of cruelty,
she excuses all that he has done against her.64
Viewed in relation to both previous and subsequent attempts to reimagine this
scene in France, Méré’s interpretation must be considered a breakthrough. In it,
the disparate innovations of earlier versions coalesce into one unified moment of dra-
matic action. As in several earlier renderings, Armide is armed, here with a scimitar.
Furthermore, her transformation from avenger to lover is again non-linear: with
sword held precariously aloft, she responds to her new feelings with sincere confu-
sion, and her vacillation between love, vengeance, violence and tenderness generates
the scene’s dramatic interest. Finally, and most importantly, her love for Renaud is not
the result of external machinations, as it was in La comédie sans comédie. It is an imma-
nent component of her psychology rather than the effect of Cupid’s arrow. Where
Quinault celebrated the subjugation of a woman under love’s dominion, Méré, like
Nervèze before him, portrays a woman compelled to act by her own conflicted feel-
ings of love.
It is clear from his other published work that Méré made alterations to the scene
with certain dramaturgical objectives in mind. In his essay on social grace, written
around the same time as his novel, he argues that the greatest mark of social aptitude
is the ability to move and win over a sensitive individual. The key to evoking true
emotional response in such a person is to reject overwrought and artificial expression
in favour of the natural and sincere. To demonstrate his point, Méré compares the
effect of two moments in La Gerusalemme liberata. The first is Tancredi’s long and bril-
liant monologue upon the death of his beloved Clorinda in canto 12. His speech can
only disappoint, Méré claims, for its brilliance cheapens what should be a scene of
emotional devastation. In contrast, the encounter between Armida and Rinaldo suc-
ceeds as drama because of its sincerity. As Méré writes:
64
Méré, ‘Les avantures de Renaud et d’Armide’, III: 32–3. ‘Armide … marche la cimeterre à la main
vers ce jeune homme endormy. Sa mine et ses paroles témoignoient assez qu’elle n’estoit pas
moins sensible à la gloire qu’à la vengeance. “Enfin, disoit-elle … je tiens ce Brave la terreur des
Sarrazins, ce Renaud qui devant Jerusalem me negligeoit avec une indifference insupportable, et
qui depuis n’eust pas esté content d’avoir delivré mes prisonniers, s’il n’eust encore massacré mes
Gardes.” Estant venuë à luy elle s’arreste; et le considerant à loisir pour gouster plus long-temps la
douceur de la vengeance, elle sent sur ses yeux fermez, et sur son visage couvert de poudre, une
secrette puissance qui luy retient le bras, et la met en suspens si elle doit employer de grands coups
pour le faire moins languir, ou de legeres blesseures pour le traiter plus doucement. Mais à force
de le regarder elle perd toute sa colere, sa haine se change en tendresse, elle a pitié du danger qu’il a
couru par elle-mesme; et s’accusant de cruauté, elle excuse tout ce qu’il a fait contre elle.’
22 Michael A. Bane
But for the subtleties of the heart, [we must study] that beautiful princess … who seeks
the bravest of her enemies in order to kill him; finds him sleeping alone, and as she
approaches with the intention of doing away with him, she finds in him so much
grace that she falls in love, and love holds back her arm; but not so soon being able
to change her resolution she deliberates on whether she ought to use violent blows
to lessen his suffering or lighter strikes to treat him less roughly. It is tenderness that
gives rise to these various considerations, and they are pleasurable to think upon
because they are natural.65
Unlike Tancredi, Armide acts in a natural, recognisably human way. Her resolve
weakened by Renaud’s grace, she wavers between violence and tenderness. In
other words, she responds to an extraordinary situation with believable feeling.
Notice, however, that Méré does not describe the scene as it unfolds in the original
poem – as we know, Tasso passes over Armide’s internal struggle with little com-
ment. Instead, Méré describes his own interpretation of the scene as published in
his novel. He provides, in essence, a justification for rewriting Tasso: the scene is
more credible, and thus more pleasurable to consider, as he renders it.
Although Lully and Quinault’s opera premiered only eight years after the publica-
tion of Méré’s novel, it has rarely been examined in relation to the earlier work.66
Whatever the reason for the novel’s neglect, it nevertheless anticipates a number
of qualities associated with the more famous opera’s Act II scene 5. First, the
novel and opera share common language. Both scenes begin with the word ‘enfin’
(finally). This may seem a superficial likeness, yet the word performs an important
dramatic function: it establishes Armide’s impatience for revenge and renders her
subsequent struggle all the more fraught. Next, each version follows the word
‘enfin’ by describing Renaud’s current relation to Armide. In Méré’s novel, Armide
states that, ‘Finally, I hold [in my power] this brave terror of Saracens, this
Renaud’, while Quinault’s Armide recites something similar: ‘Finally, he is in my
power, this fatal enemy, this superb vanquisher.’ The versions also share additional
language immediately following Armide’s transformation. Méré’s Armide accuses
herself of cruelty for having wanted to kill Renaud, while Quinault’s Armide levels
a similar accusation: ‘Ah! What cruelty to take his life!’67 In each version, the reproach
indicates a new frame of mind and suggests the profundity of change. The most
important quality shared by the novel and the opera, however, is their dramatic effect.
65
Chevalier de Méré, ‘Des agrémens’, in Œuvres complètes du Chevalier de Méré, ed. Charles-H.
Boudhors (Paris, 1930), II: 50–1. ‘Mais pour les delicatesses du cœur, cette belle Princesse que
vous sçavez qui cherche le plus brave des ennemis pour le tuër, le rencontre seul endormy, et
comme elle s’en approche à dessein de s’en défaire, elle trouve en luy tant de grace qu’elle en
devient amoureuse, et l’amour luy retient le bras; mais ne pouvant si-tost changer de resolution elle
delibere si elle doit employer de grands coups pour ne le pas faire languir, ou de legeres blesseures
pour le traiter moins rudement. C’est la tendresse qui donne ces divers égards qu’on se plaist à
considerer parce qu’ils sont naturels.’
66
Jérôme Pesqué briefly discusses both works in his essay ‘Renaud et Armide: Opéra des princes,
opéra des peuples’, in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes, actes du Ve colloque du Centre International de
Rencontres sur le XVIIe Siècle (28–30 janvier, 1999), ed. Charles Mazouer (Tübingen, 2000), 89–97.
67
Quinault, Armide, 22. ‘Ah! quelle cruauté de luy ravir le jour!’
They both present Armide’s encounter with Renaud as a scene of pathos. She strug-
gles with her emotions, and Méré and Quinault each structure the scene so as to
emphasise the difficulty of her choice.
Did Quinault know Méré or his work? On the one hand, mid-century salon litera-
ture is known to have influenced Quinault. Patricia Howard has shown that themes
and character types drawn directly from salon literature suffuse his plays and libretti,
and contemporary critics were quick to note his affinity with the so-called Précieuses,
the hyper-refined coterie of poets and novelists active in the 1650s and 1660s.68 If
Quinault did read Méré, a salon author par excéllence, it would have been in keeping
with what is already known of his working practices. The accusations of plagiarism
levelled against him by colleagues in Paris throughout his career would also suggest
that Quinault drew from a largely French constellation of texts in his own work.69 If
he had wished to read a French adaptation of Tasso’s poem before composing the
libretto, Méré’s novel would have been an obvious choice. On the other hand, the
similarity of their texts is far from conclusive proof of influence. It is not difficult
to find combinations of similar words and phrases in other publications, including
earlier works by Quinault himself.70 Both Méré and Quinault drew upon a limited
vocabulary in their work, which complicates the task of assigning influence in either
direction. It must also be admitted that, aside from their depiction of Armide’s love
for Renaud, a number of narrative decisions distinguish the two works, such as
Méré’s choice to relate Armide and Renaud’s full story, including the events of
canto 20 and its scene of reunion, and Quinault’s choice to model his version of
Renaud’s desertion of Armide after Tasso’s original rather than Méré’s revised
account discussed above. Moreover, although they had mutual acquaintances, includ-
ing the publisher Claude Barbin, who printed work for both men, there is no evi-
dence that they ever met, corresponded, or referred to one another in writing.71
Whether or not Quinault read Méré’s work, the fact remains that these two
authors, working around the same time within the same social milieu, transformed
a particular moment from Tasso’s poem in similar ways. As the historical contextual-
isation undertaken in this article suggests, both authors’ versions of the monologue
belong to an evolving tradition of translation and adaptation, one that can be sum-
marised as follows: immediately following the appearance of the first translations of
La Gerusalemme liberata in the 1590s, the French took a special interest in Armide. The
sentimental novels from the turn of the century attest to the reading public’s desire to
know more of the character and her fate. Gradually, adapters began to focus
68
Patricia Howard, ‘The Influences of the Précieuses on Content and Structure in Quinault’s and
Lully’s Tragédies Lyriques’, Acta Musicologica 63 (1991), 57–72.
69
See Gros, Philippe Quinault, 29–31. He quotes Antoine Baudeau de Somaize, who wrote in 1660
that Quinault ‘plunders so skillfully the verse and incidents of those who came before him that
one often believed him to be the author of what he had adopted’. (‘Il pille si adroitement les vers
et les incidents de ceux qui l’ont devancé, qu’on l’a souvent cru auteur de ce qu’il s’était adopté’.)
70
In his libretto for Amadis (1684), for instance, Quinault has Arcalaus state to Amadis: ‘Si tu
cherches ton Frere, il est en ma puissance’ (Act II scene 6; see Quinault, Amadis, tragédie représentée
par l’Académie royalle de musique (Paris, 1701), 28).
71
Barbin published Quinault’s early play Le fantôme amoureux and Méré’s novel.
24 Michael A. Bane
specifically on the drama of her conversion from enemy to lover. Perhaps unsurpris-
ingly, novelists instigated the change in emphasis, for their medium invited extended
commentary on the inner workings of a character’s mind. In his 1596 sentimental
novel, Pierre Joulet lingered over the scene to a greater extent than those before
him. He also raised the stakes of the encounter by arming Armide. Later in the
next century, at a time when several adapters were inserting Cupid into their creations
to dramatise Armide’s struggle, Suzanne de Nervèze introduced true self-doubt into
the narrative for the first time. Standing over Renaud’s sleeping body, her Armide
questions her new feelings of love and briefly despairs over the choice she must
make. Finally, in the Chevalier de Méré’s rendition, the elements of earlier adaptations
combine into a single dramatic scene for the sake of heightened emotional realism.
Her struggle between love and hate becomes ‘natural’, according to Méré, and all the
more affecting because of it. When viewed in relation to the scene’s long history,
Quinault’s achievement in 1686 comes into clearer focus. Aside from the quality
of the verse, there is nothing, strictly speaking, novel about the monologue from
Act II scene 5. The passionate internal struggle often identified as its most powerful
contribution to the narrative has, in fact, clear precedent.
But if the events of Act II scene 5 were nothing new by the 1680s, why did they
affect contemporary audiences so deeply? Part of the answer surely lies with Lully’s
score, which heightens the scene’s impact in ways available only to music. Indeed, Le
Cerf de la Viéville wrote that audiences witnessed the encounter breathless, seized
with fright until the final strains of the violin gave ‘permission to breathe again’, sug-
gesting the primary role of music in guiding the listener’s experience of the
moment.72 Another, less obvious characteristic of the opera, however, might also
help to explain the monologue’s power. While elements of the monologue resemble
earlier depictions, Quinualt’s decision to treat the scene as one piece of a tragic whole
is nonetheless unique. It is easy to forget that, in Tasso’s original poem, Armida’s
ultimate fate is a ‘happy’ one when, at the end of canto 20, she agrees to become
Rinaldo’s handmaiden. Since most adaptations of Armida’s narrative include this
ending or, in the case of La comédie sans comédie, a thematically similar one, none
can be said to treat the character as a truly tragic figure. The only other adaptation
to end with Armide’s abandonment is the ballet La délivrance de Renaud, but, as its
title suggests, Renaud’s deliverance from the sorceress is presented as cause for cele-
bration, not mourning. In the Ballet des amours déguisez, the eighth entrée does conclude
with Renaud leaving Armide, but their story constitutes only a small portion of a
much larger, heterogenous plot drawn from multiple sources. Quinault’s opera
marks the first time in France a complete narrative relates the story of Renaud
and Armide and concludes in a tragic vein with her abandonment. And unlike the
novels of Méré and Nervèze, both of which lessen the intensity of Armide’s deser-
tion, the final scenes of the opera starkly portray a woman devastated by her loss.
Cast in this harsh new light, Armide’s monologue must have taken on added urgency
72
‘[J]usqu’à ce que l’air de Violon, qui finit la Scène, donnât permission de respirer’. Raguenet and
Le Cerf de la Viéville, La première querelle, 649.
for the opera’s original spectators. Although she wavers between love and hate in
ways reminiscent of earlier adaptations, her ultimate choice means far more within
the context of the story; it is her undoing.
MICHAEL A. BANE received his PhD in historical musicology from Case Western
Reserve University and is now a Visiting Assistant Professor of Musicology at the
Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. His articles on the music and culture of
France have appeared in the Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, Journal of the Viola da
Gamba Society of America and Oxford Bibliographies in Music. Research for the present article
was supported in part by a Fulbright fellowship for study in Paris. The 2019 recipient of
the Renaissance Society of America’s Claude V. Palisca Fellowship in Musicology, he is
currently preparing an edition of François Martin’s Pièces de guitairre, à battre et à pinser
(Paris, 1663).

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Cambridge Opera Journal, 31, 1, 1–25 © Cambridge University Press, 2019

Enﬁn, il est en ma puissance,

* Michael A. Bane, Indiana University, USA; [email protected]

Finally, he is in my power, this fatal enemy, this superb van-

Ma quando in lui ﬁssò lo sguardo e vide

E quei ch’ivi sorgean vivi sudori

e con un dolce ventillar gli ardori

Date Author or Translator Title and Edition Type

The scene in early French translations

The scene in the roman sentimental

The scene in ballet

O Dieux! quel est le Sort dont je suis poursuivie?

Mes deux mains conspiroyent de luy meurtrir la face,

L’impatiente soif de ma juste colere

Soleil, vis-tu jamais de pareilles lumieres

Ces beaux yeux tout divins, dont la douce inﬂuence

The scene in French literature: 1645–1655

Recoy le coup… Mais Dieux; quel tremblement soudain

Receive this blow… But Gods, what sudden trembling seizes my

overlooked publication. In 1646, Georges de Scudéry published Le cabinet de M de

Arreste, arreste belle Armide;

Une cruelle incertitude,

framing narrative.60 Whatever the nature of inﬂuence running through Poussin,

The Chevalier de Méré

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