Ibrahim ou l'Illustre Bassa
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"The whole romance is loaded with tedious descriptions of the interior of Turkish and Italian palaces, which has given rise to the remark of Boileau, that when one of Mad. Scudery's characters enters a house, she will not permit him to leave it till she has given an inventory of the furniture."--History of Fiction (1814) by John Colin Dunlop |
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Ibrahim ou l'Illustre Bassa is a novel sequence by Madeleine de Scudéry.
Text by Dunlop
Ibrahim, ou L'Illustre Bassa, first published in 1635. The hero of this romance was grand vizier to Solyman the Magnificent. In his youth he had been enamoured of the princess of Monaco, but. overwhelmed with grief by a false report of her infidelity,
by side with St. Augustine and St. Bernard, in the sermons which I am preparing for the Court." In Cl^lie the author has treated of all that per- tains to the condition of women in the world, and we find there under a more dispassionate form all the stormy discussions which have arisen in our day respecting the freedom of the fair sex (see Fournel, La Littérature Indépendante, etc., p. 166, quoted by Koerting, p. 400).
Strong passion is not found in her works, which seem to offer a fair reflex of her experience and feelings, and it is improbable that she was erer deeply under the influence of love. A portrait of Mile, de Scudéry has been drawn by her brother in the character Sapho, in Le Grand Cyrus.
Mile, de Scud^ry wrote numerous poems. Her verses, says Segrais (p. 51), are "assez coulans, et 11 y a toujours quelque pens^ : elle ne m'^crit guere tju'elle n'en mele quelques-uns dans ses lettres.^ Victor Cousin endorses this opinion. Some of her poems are contained in Mile, de Scudery, sa vie, sa Correspondance, avec un choix de ses po&ie:$, 1873. See Koerting.
- 1635 is the date given by Segrais (p. 117) ; but the earliest edition
known to bibliographers seems to be tiiat of 1641. The work was re- published in 1652, 1665,' 1723. Englished by Henry Cogan, London, 1652, fol. ; German, by Philipp Zesen, Der Fartige, 1645 ; Ital., Venice, 1684.
he had abandoned Q«noa, his native country, and having
travelled through Grermany, embarked on the Baltic Sea
to seek an honourable death in the wars of Sweden. This
design met with an interruption which no one could have
anticipated — he was captured by the Dey of Algiers, who
happened to be cruizing in the Baltic in person ! In re-
compense, however, of this disaster, his subsequent good
fortune was equally improbable ; for having been sold as
a slave at Constantinople, and condemned to death on
account of an attempt to recover his freedom, the daughter
of Solyman happened to be at her window to witness the
execution, and being struck with the appearance of the
l>risoner, not only procured his pardon, but introduced him
to her father, who, after conversing a long while on painting,
mathematics, and music, appointed him Grand Vizier. In
this capacity he vanquished the Sophy or Shah of Persia,
and made prodigious havoc among the rebellious Calenders
of Natolia. At length, however, having learned that the
rumour concerning the inconstancy of the princess was
without foundation, he returned to Italy, and offered the
proper apologies to his mistress; but, as he had only a
short leave of absence, he again repaired to Constantinople.
Thither he is shortly afterwards followed by the princess,
of whom Solyman at first sight becomes so deeply ena-
moured, that soon after her arrival, the alternative is pro-
posed to her of witnessing the execution of Ibrahim, or
complying with the desires of the sultan. In this di-
lemma, the lovers secretly hire a vessel and sail from
Constantinople. Their flight, however, is speedily dis-
covered ; they are pursued, overtaken, and brought back.
The sultan now resolves to inflict both the punishments of
which he had formerly left an option : the princess is con-
demned to the seraglio, and Ibrahim receives a visit from
the mutes. Suddenly, however, Solyman recollects having
on some occasion sworn that, during his life and reign,
Ibrahim should not suffer a violent death. On this point
of conscience the Grand Seignior consults the mufti, who
being a man plein d^ esprit et de finesse, as it is said in the
romance, suggests, that as sleep is a species of death, the
grand vizier might be strangled without scruple duidng
the slumbers of the sultan.
At an early period of the evening, Solyman went to bed with a fixed design of falling asleep, but spite of all his efforts he continued 'Wakeful during the whole night, and, having thus time for reflection, he began to suspect that the mufti's interpretation of his oath was less sound than ingenious. The lovers were accordingly pardoned, and a few days after were shipped off for Genoa, loaded with presents from the emperor.
Nothing can be more ridiculous than the conclusion of this romance, particularly the decision of the mufti, and the somniferous attempts of his master. The sudden revolution, too, in the mind of the latter, by which alone the lovers are saved, is produced by no adequate cause, and is neither natural nor ingenious. The whole romance is loaded with tedious descriptions of the interior of Turkish and Italian palaces, which has given rise to the remark of Boileau, that when one of Mad. Scudery's characters enters a house, she will not permit him to leave it till she has given an inventory of the furniture. An English tragedy, entitled Ibrahim, or the Illustrious Bassa, is founded on this romance. It was written by Elkanah Settle, and printed in 1677.^
