The Love-Tiff

The Love-Tiff [with accents]

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Love-Tiff, by Moliere #12 in our series by Moliere
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Title: The Love-Tiff
Author: Moliere
Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6564] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on December 28, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LE D��PIT AMOUREUX.
COM��DIE.
THE LOVE-TIFF.
A COMEDY IN FIVE ACTS.
(THE ORIGINAL IN VERSE.)
1656.

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
_The Love-tiff_ (_Le D��pit-amoureux_) is composed of two pieces joined together. The first and longest is a comparatively modest imitation of a very coarse and indecent Italian comedy, _L'Interesse_, by Signer Nicolo Secchi; its intrigue depends chiefly on the substitution of a female for a male child, a change which forms the groundwork of many plays and novels, and of which Shakespeare has also made use. The second and best part of the _Love-tiff_ belongs to Moli��re alone, and is composed chiefly of the whole of the first act, the first six verses of the third scene, and the whole of the fourth scene of the second act; these, with a few alterations and a few. lines added, form, the comedy which the _Th��atre Fran?aise_ plays at the present time. It was first represented at B��ziers towards the end of 1656, when the States General of Languedoc were assembled in that town, and met with great success; a success which continued when it was played in Paris at the Th��atre du Petit-Bourbon in 1658. Why in some of the former English translations of Moli��re the servant Gros-Ren�� is called "Gros-Renard" we are unable to understand, for both names are thoroughly French. Mr. Ozell, in his translation, gives him the unmistakably English, but not very euphonious name of "punch-gutted Ben, alias Renier," whilst Foote calls him "Hugh." The incidents of the _Love-tiff_ are arranged artistically, though in the Spanish taste; the plot is too complicated, and the ending very unnatural. But the characters are well delineated, and fathers, lovers, mistresses, and servants all move about amidst a complication of errors from which there is no visible disentangling. The conversation between Val��re and Ascanio in man's clothes, the mutual begging pardon of Albert and Polydore, the natural astonishment of Lucile, accused in the presence of her father, and the stratagem of ��raste to get the truth from his servants, are all described in a masterly manner, whilst the tiff between ��raste and Lucile, which gives the title to the piece, as well as their reconciliation, are considered among the best scenes of this play.
Nearly all actors in France who play either the valets or the soubrettes have attempted the parts of Gros-Ren�� and Marinette, and even the great trag��dienne Madlle. Rachel ventured, on the 1st of July, 1844, to act Marinette, but not with much success.
Dryden has imitated, in the fourth act of _An Evening's Love_, a small part of the scene between Marinette and ��raste, the quarrelling scene between Lucile, ��raste, Marinette, and Gros-Ren��, as well as in the third act of the same play, the scene between Albert and Metaphrastus. Vanbrugh has very closely followed Moli��re's play in the _Mistake_, but has laid the scene in Spain. This is the principal difference I can perceive. He has paraphased the French with a spirit and ease which a mere translation can hardly ever acquire. The epilogue to his play, written by M. Motteux, a Frenchman, whom the revocation of the Edict of Nantes brought into England, is filthy in the extreme. Mr. J. King has curtailed Vanbrugh's play into an interlude, in one act, called _Lover's Quarrels_, or Like Master Like Man.
Another imitator of Moli��re was Edward Ravenscroft, of whom Baker says in his _Biographia Dramatica_, that he was "a writer or compiler of plays, who lived in the reigns of Charles II. and his two successors." He was descended from the family of the Ravenscrofts, in Flintshire; a family, as he