Patagonia makes for a pretty great reading spot.
Despite the East and West destroying the world in a series of bloody crusades, songs of Princess Melissinde's beauty and charity have spread from the Far East across all of Christendom to the ear of a French prince and troubadour, Joffrey Rudel. In turn, Rudel's own feelings, in the form of a love song, have traveled back to her tower in Syria, and the prince, refusing "the lesser dream" of the crusades, sails to find his Princess.
However, on his long journey, storms, pirates, and illness strike. As Act I begins, Rudel is dying from a sickness and too weak to walk, but they've almost arrived. Refusing to lose hope and cheering on his starving sailors with his love song, they continue chasing the sunrise in the distant horizon. It's just enough to bring them to spot Syria's shoreline with "sand like a lion's pelt beneath the sun." Rudel's best friend, Bertrand, rushes into the city to find the princess far-away before it's too late.
However, on his long journey, storms, pirates, and illness strike. As Act I begins, Rudel is dying from a sickness and too weak to walk, but they've almost arrived. Refusing to lose hope and cheering on his starving sailors with his love song, they continue chasing the sunrise in the distant horizon. It's just enough to bring them to spot Syria's shoreline with "sand like a lion's pelt beneath the sun." Rudel's best friend, Bertrand, rushes into the city to find the princess far-away before it's too late.
WHY I LOVE IT
Poet-Hero
Like Rostand's other heroes in Cyrano de Bergerac, Chantecler, and The Eaglet, Joffrey Rudel and Bertrand are poet-heroes. Their verses are not of this earth but of dreams, souls, and guiding stars — a language that musters people who hear them to achieve a goodness that makes life worth living. As Princess Mellisinde expresses in Act II: "How much I need the sublimity of this love, stifled as I am by the mediocrity of living!" It's love she needs, yes, but a specific type of love — not physical attraction (Bertrand), but spiritual love, which is represented by Rudel's love song.
Rostand's view that poetry, or more broadly art, can transform a person's ideas, values, and actions for the better — that it can embolden and instruct oneself to thrive on earth, is a sentiment I strongly support, even if the line he draws between physical and spiritual love isn't.
Clear Presentation of Theme
I take the theme of The Princess Far-Away, the summation of the play's meaning, to be Man's eternal quest for the ideal. Rudel's uncompromising commitment to reaching his ideal woman sets the play in motion — and establishes a challenge for every other character, specifically Bertrand and Princess Mellisinde — for the remaining three acts. Rostand stresses this emphasis on gaining and keeping the ideal, in life and in one's own character, through clear motifs:
Dramatic Plot Twists
For me, this is Rostand's most impressive plot construction. In Act I, the initial conflict is established — Rudel may die before realizing his dream of reaching Mellisinde. But the main conflict really comes in Act II, and is between Bertrand and the Princess, who sway back and forth between their promises to Rudel and their sudden, unexpected, strong physical attraction to one another. Mistaken identities and broken expectations, temptation and revenge from smaller characters enrich the dilemma a great deal, but the story's twists and turns are logical and drive to the resolution of the main conflict: the love triangle between Rudel's spiritual love, and Mellisinde's and Bertrand's physical passion. {JG}
Like Rostand's other heroes in Cyrano de Bergerac, Chantecler, and The Eaglet, Joffrey Rudel and Bertrand are poet-heroes. Their verses are not of this earth but of dreams, souls, and guiding stars — a language that musters people who hear them to achieve a goodness that makes life worth living. As Princess Mellisinde expresses in Act II: "How much I need the sublimity of this love, stifled as I am by the mediocrity of living!" It's love she needs, yes, but a specific type of love — not physical attraction (Bertrand), but spiritual love, which is represented by Rudel's love song.
Rostand's view that poetry, or more broadly art, can transform a person's ideas, values, and actions for the better — that it can embolden and instruct oneself to thrive on earth, is a sentiment I strongly support, even if the line he draws between physical and spiritual love isn't.
Clear Presentation of Theme
I take the theme of The Princess Far-Away, the summation of the play's meaning, to be Man's eternal quest for the ideal. Rudel's uncompromising commitment to reaching his ideal woman sets the play in motion — and establishes a challenge for every other character, specifically Bertrand and Princess Mellisinde — for the remaining three acts. Rostand stresses this emphasis on gaining and keeping the ideal, in life and in one's own character, through clear motifs:
- Sunlight — Act I begins in the weak light of dawn, which strengthens as the ship draws nearer to Princess Mellisinde; in Act V, the sunset matches Rudel's weakening life force.
- Rudel's White Flag — atop Rudel's ship mast, the white flag communicates to Bertrand and Mellisinde that Rudel is still living, and is a call to action for them to return, and not fall into physical temptation with one another. This is stressed in Act III when Melissinde shuts her tower window to hide the sight of it.
- Flowers — Melissinde's white lilies she gives to the children in Act II stress the purity of her soul and matches Rudel's white flag; in Act III they're replaced by red roses in her courtyard, when she and Bertrand are tempted by carnal passion.
Dramatic Plot Twists
For me, this is Rostand's most impressive plot construction. In Act I, the initial conflict is established — Rudel may die before realizing his dream of reaching Mellisinde. But the main conflict really comes in Act II, and is between Bertrand and the Princess, who sway back and forth between their promises to Rudel and their sudden, unexpected, strong physical attraction to one another. Mistaken identities and broken expectations, temptation and revenge from smaller characters enrich the dilemma a great deal, but the story's twists and turns are logical and drive to the resolution of the main conflict: the love triangle between Rudel's spiritual love, and Mellisinde's and Bertrand's physical passion. {JG}
FAVORITE QUOTES
{ * }
"Believing in flowers often brings them forth.
I wish to be the woman he wanted to believe I was."
— Princess Mellisinde
{ * }
"Courage, my lads! Advance and still advance!
I never knew contentment in Provence.
I ate my heart out playing games with words
Chiseled like gems, or made to fly like birds
I tired of life whose gravest task was naught,--
Polish with a thumb nail, juggle a thought.
Some use at last my light life may evince."
— Bertrand
{ * }
"Master, indifference is the soul's one chasm
and the sole virtue...enthusiasm!"
— Friar Trophimus
{ * }
"Aboard each ship, if waves and wreckage strow it,
One needs, before a Pilot's self, a poet."
- Bertrand
{ * }
"For the dream is the soul's one star.
Life is what its visions are.
And I love the Princess far
Away!"
- Joffrey Rudel
{ * }
"You cannot understand. As you regard it all is good or all is bad. Alas, we cannot settle all cases so. There are confusions, and hearts divided between right and wrong. I love this one of whom I dreamed so long, the one who dies for me, love him — and pity; But I adore the other, and my suffering is such my souls seems torn in two between them."
— Princess Mellisinde
{ * }
Don't think hat I shall buy my happiness with common compromise. I've dreamed a love sublime, and I will have it...If it's not so by nature, will a crime lend grandeur to it."
— Princess Mellisinde
{ * }
"That all happy ones have the same open window at their backs. They feel all of them, by the chill that blows upon their souls, the window's silent protest. But they cower down, they will not go to see; for they would see the ship of solemn duty calling them far away from happiness. Then, if it is too late, they see remorse spread out its black and rigid folds before them."
— Princess Mellisinde
{ * }
"Sand like a lion's pelt beneath the sun!"
— Pegofat, one of the shipmates, upon spotting land in the distance
"Believing in flowers often brings them forth.
I wish to be the woman he wanted to believe I was."
— Princess Mellisinde
{ * }
"Courage, my lads! Advance and still advance!
I never knew contentment in Provence.
I ate my heart out playing games with words
Chiseled like gems, or made to fly like birds
I tired of life whose gravest task was naught,--
Polish with a thumb nail, juggle a thought.
Some use at last my light life may evince."
— Bertrand
{ * }
"Master, indifference is the soul's one chasm
and the sole virtue...enthusiasm!"
— Friar Trophimus
{ * }
"Aboard each ship, if waves and wreckage strow it,
One needs, before a Pilot's self, a poet."
- Bertrand
{ * }
"For the dream is the soul's one star.
Life is what its visions are.
And I love the Princess far
Away!"
- Joffrey Rudel
{ * }
"You cannot understand. As you regard it all is good or all is bad. Alas, we cannot settle all cases so. There are confusions, and hearts divided between right and wrong. I love this one of whom I dreamed so long, the one who dies for me, love him — and pity; But I adore the other, and my suffering is such my souls seems torn in two between them."
— Princess Mellisinde
{ * }
Don't think hat I shall buy my happiness with common compromise. I've dreamed a love sublime, and I will have it...If it's not so by nature, will a crime lend grandeur to it."
— Princess Mellisinde
{ * }
"That all happy ones have the same open window at their backs. They feel all of them, by the chill that blows upon their souls, the window's silent protest. But they cower down, they will not go to see; for they would see the ship of solemn duty calling them far away from happiness. Then, if it is too late, they see remorse spread out its black and rigid folds before them."
— Princess Mellisinde
{ * }
"Sand like a lion's pelt beneath the sun!"
— Pegofat, one of the shipmates, upon spotting land in the distance
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Edmond Rostand (1868 - 1918) was a French poet and dramatist, best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac (1897, my rec here). I've now read his four most famous works, and see in both the author's grand view of life and its possibilities, a focus on the importance of sincerity, and how insincerity, even on a small scale leads to ruin. I love this guy — and Rostand loved Victor Hugo, whose novels are some of my favorites.
I'm trying to track down some of Rostand's other works: The Red Glove, The Romancers, and The Samaritan Woman. If you find any copies online, please let me know. Haven't found them on Amazon, Half.com and Ebay.
I'm trying to track down some of Rostand's other works: The Red Glove, The Romancers, and The Samaritan Woman. If you find any copies online, please let me know. Haven't found them on Amazon, Half.com and Ebay.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
{ * } Cyrano de Bergerac & 7 Other Great Plays
{ * } Chantecler by Edmond Rostand
{ * } L'Aiglon by Edmond Rostand
{ * } Polyeuctus by Pierre Cornielle
{ * } The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan
{ * } Chantecler by Edmond Rostand
{ * } L'Aiglon by Edmond Rostand
{ * } Polyeuctus by Pierre Cornielle
{ * } The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan
