Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon
French poet (1674-1762)
Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (13 January 1674 – 17 June 1762) was a French poet and tragedian. He is sometimes known as Crébillon père or Crébillon le Tragique to distinguish him from his son Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (Crébillon the Gay).
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Prosper_Jolyot_de_Cr%C3%A9billon_-_Versailles_MV_2978.png/220px-Prosper_Jolyot_de_Cr%C3%A9billon_-_Versailles_MV_2978.png)
Quotes
edit- Le cœur des malheureux n'est qu'un trop sûr oracle.
- The suffering heart is surest oracle.
- Atrèe et Thyeste, Act V, Sc. I (Plisthène), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 124
- II faut un terms au crime, et non à la vengeance.
- 'Tis crime that must be ended, and not vengeance.
- Atrée et Thyeste, Act V, Sc. IV (Atrée), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 63
- Ainsi que le heros brille par ses exploits,
La grandeur des bienfaits doit signaler les rois.- As all the world the hero's exploits sings,
So should good deeds the glory be of kings. - Electre, Act II, Sc. IV (Egisthe), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 6
- As all the world the hero's exploits sings,
- Le crime est toujours crime, et jamais la beauté
N'a pu servir de voile à sa difformité.- Crime is aye crime, and beauty ne'er can be
A veil to cover its deformity. - Pyrrhus, Act IV, Sc. IV (Pyrrhus), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 125
- Crime is aye crime, and beauty ne'er can be
- Je connais la fureur de tes soupçons jaloux,
Mais j'ai trop de vertu pour craindre mon époux.- I know the fury of your jealous suspicions,
But I have too much virtue to fear my husband. - Rhadamiste et Zénobie, Act IV, Sc. V (Zénobie), via Google Translate (July 2024)
- I know the fury of your jealous suspicions,
- A la cour d’un tyran, injuste ou légitime,
Le plus léger soupçon tint toujours lieu de crime;
Et cest être proscrit que d’être soupçonné.- At the court of a tyrant, whether usurped or legitimate, the least suspicion always amounts to crime, and to be suspected is to be proscribed.
- Rhadamiste et Zénobie, Act V, Sc. II (Arsame), as reported by King (1904), no. 71
- On n'est point criminel pour être ambitieux.
- One is not criminal because ambitious.
- Sémiramus, Act III, Sc. II (Bélus), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 169
- La crainte fit les dieux, l'audace a fait les rois.
- Fear made our gods, boldness has made our kings.
- Xerxès, Act I, Sc. I (Artaban), reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 103; also reported by King (1904), no. 2149: "Fear made the gods, audacity made kings."
- Cp. Petronius, Fragment 27, from whom it was borrowed verbatim by Statius, Thebaid, III, 661: Primus in orbe deos fecit timor.—"It was fear first made the gods."
- La parole des rois n'est plus qu'une ombre vaine.
- The word of kings is but an empty shadow.
- Xerxès, Act I, Sc. VIII (Amestris), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 112
- L'innocence a toujours confondu l'imposture.
- By innocence imposture's aye confounded.
- Xerxès, Act IV, Sc. VII (Amestris), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 98
- Aucun fiel n’a jamais empoisonné ma plume.
- My pen was never dipped in gall.
- Discours de réception à l’Académie Française (1731), as reported by King (1904), no. 1745; also reported by Hoyt (1922), p. 48: "No gall has ever poisoned my pen."
- Cp. Ovid, Tristia, II, 563:
- Non ego mordaci destrinxi carmine quenquam,
Nec meus ullius crimina versus habet.
Candidus a salibus suffusis felle refugi:
Nulla venenato littera mixta joco est. - I never wounded soul with verse of mine,
Nor do my works a single charge contain:
My pen is free of gall, and not a line
Breathes poison, tho’ conveyed in joking strain.
- Non ego mordaci destrinxi carmine quenquam,
External links
edit- T. B. Harbottle; P. H. Dalbiac, Dictionary of Quotations: French and Italian (1904)
- W. F. H. King, Classical and Foreign Quotations, 3rd ed. (1904)
- Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922)