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DOI Artikel:Sokół, Lech: Watteau, Marivaux, fêtes galantes, czyli co może się wydarzyć w ogrodzie?
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49351#0147
WaTTEAU, MaRIVAUX, ‘FETES GALANTES’; IN OTHER WORDS WHAT CAN HAPPEN IN THE GARDEN?
141
couple, about whom no earlier reference had been
madę. Their names are Meslis and Dina, and they
fulfill to perfection all the conditions of virtuousness
which the previous two couples had failed to meet.
In acknowledgement of their virtue, the Prince and
Hermiane agree to cover the costs of their upkeep.
Thus, in the most literał of meanings, it pays to be
virtuous; for virtue there is, as may be assumed, an
ample prize. Virtue is taken on for a wagę. I do not
believe, contrary to what some commentators would
like to do so, that, such a conclusion was intended to
have anything in common with a happy ending.
What, in that case, may happen in the garden,
particularly if we take the Garden of Paradise into
consideration? The answer is almost everything: from
a presentation of the primaeval State of mankind to
an image of profound decline; from an innocent to
the most perverse form offetes galantes, from hap-
piness through happiness seasoned with melancholy
and even tragedy to a miserable picture of human
naturę that is perfidiously referred to as a comedy:
perhaps la comedie humaine'1
Translated by Peter Martyn
141
couple, about whom no earlier reference had been
madę. Their names are Meslis and Dina, and they
fulfill to perfection all the conditions of virtuousness
which the previous two couples had failed to meet.
In acknowledgement of their virtue, the Prince and
Hermiane agree to cover the costs of their upkeep.
Thus, in the most literał of meanings, it pays to be
virtuous; for virtue there is, as may be assumed, an
ample prize. Virtue is taken on for a wagę. I do not
believe, contrary to what some commentators would
like to do so, that, such a conclusion was intended to
have anything in common with a happy ending.
What, in that case, may happen in the garden,
particularly if we take the Garden of Paradise into
consideration? The answer is almost everything: from
a presentation of the primaeval State of mankind to
an image of profound decline; from an innocent to
the most perverse form offetes galantes, from hap-
piness through happiness seasoned with melancholy
and even tragedy to a miserable picture of human
naturę that is perfidiously referred to as a comedy:
perhaps la comedie humaine'1
Translated by Peter Martyn