Note 54 — CHAPTER 17

With my mind engrossed with the scenes in which I had passed the better part of my life, I went two months after my return from Rajputana, in 1823, to York Cathedral, to attend the memorable festival of that year. The sublime recitations of Handel in ‘Jephtha’s Vow,’ the sonorous woe of Sapio’s ‘Deeper and deeper still,’ powerfully recalled the sad exit of the Rajputni; and the representation shortly after of Racine’s tragedy of ‘Iphigénie,’ with Talma as Achille, Duchesnois as Clytemnestre, and a very interesting personation of the victim daughter of Agamemnon, again served to waken the remembrance of this sacrifice. The following passage, embodying not only the sentiments, but couched in the precise language in which the ‘Virgin Krishna’ addressed her father—proving that human nature was but one mode of expression for the same feelings—I am tempted to transcribe:

... “Mon père,

Cessez de vous troubler, vous n’êtes point trahi.

Quand vous commanderez, vous serez obéi:

Ma vie est votre bien. Vous voulez le reprendre,

Vos ordres, sans détour, pouvaient se faire entendre;

D’un œil aussi content, d’un cœur aussi soumis,

Que j’acceptais l’époux que vous m’aviez promis,

Je saurai, s’il le faut, victime obéissante

Tendre au fer de Calchas une tête innocente;

Et respectant le coup par vous-même ordonné,

Vous rendre tout le sang que vous m’avez donné.”