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The Death(s) of Mithridate(s): Racine and the Double Play of History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Richard E. Goodkin
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Abstract

In writing Mithridate, Racine manipulates his historical sources to put into play two names—Pharnace and Xipharès, Mithridate's sons—and two forms of death—pharmakon ‘poison’ and xiphos ‘sword’—and to explore the relation between the heroic individual (Mithridate) and the two forms of death that come to be associated with these two sons. The pharmakon takes on a double valence: as a vaccination against the world seen purely as the domain of betrayal and as a potential cure for the living death that constitutes heroism. It is emblematic of the hero's duplicity, which the heroic name attempts to cover up and which only the revelation of the hero's inner feelings—his love for Xipharès, the “sword” ‘xiphos’ that penetrates the protective layers of heroism and touches the mutable being hidden within—brings to light.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 101 , Issue 2 , March 1986 , pp. 203 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1986

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