''Mahomet second'' is an unfinished tragedy in one act and five scenes in prose, written by French playwright

Pierre de Marivaux Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (4 February 1688 – 12 February 1763), commonly referred to as Marivaux, was a French playwright and novelist. He is considered one of the most important French playwrights of the 18th century, writing nume ...

circa 1733 and first published in the journal ''

Mercure de France The was originally a French gazette and literary magazine first published in the 17th century, but after several incarnations has evolved as a publisher, and is now part of the Éditions Gallimard publishing group. The gazette was published f ...

'' in 1747.

Origin

Marivaux Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (4 February 1688 – 12 February 1763), commonly referred to as Marivaux, was a French playwright and novelist. He is considered one of the most important French playwrights of the 18th century, writing nume ...

used to attend the Marquise de Lambert's literary salon with

Antoine Houdar de La Motte Antoine Houdar de la Motte (18 January 167226 December 1731) was a French author. De la Motte was born and died in Paris. In 1693 his comedy, ''Les Originaux'' (Les originaux, ou, l'Italien), was a complete failure, and so depressed the author ...

, another supporter of prose in tragedy. After a talk about versification, he decided to answer empirically by writing ''Mahomet second'', despite the failure a decade before of his Annibal. No-one managed to convince him to complete this tragedy whose topic had already been used by Vivien de Châteaubrun in a play which was performed eleven times at the

Comédie-Française The Comédie-Française () or Théâtre-Français () is one of the few state theatres in France. Founded in 1680, it is the oldest active theatre company in the world. Established as a French state-controlled entity in 1995, it is the only state ...

in 1714.

Characters

* Ibrahim * Irène * Mahomet * Roxane * Théodore, Irène's father * Lascaris, her brother

Plot

Ibrahim, a prince from the

Komnenoi dynasty Komnenos ( gr, Κομνηνός; Latinized Comnenus; plural Komnenoi or Comneni (Κομνηνοί, )) was a Byzantine Greek noble family who ruled the Byzantine Empire from 1081 to 1185, and later, as the Grand Komnenoi (Μεγαλοκομνην� ...

allied to the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

imperial family and converted to

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

after being kidnapped by the

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic o ...

, becomes a favourite of Mahomet second. The

sultan Sultan (; ar, سلطان ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it ...

sent him to fellow prisoner Greek princess Irène to tell her that her father and brother are alive, and that he intends on marrying her. She refuses the sultan's offer and despises Ibrahim for submitting himself to the Turks. Mahomet, who wanted to marry his sister to Ibrahim, then decides to wed her to Lascaris, and expects Irène to be grateful and accept to marry him. He frees Théodore and Lascaris in front of Irène, and the act ends with Roxane and Lascaris professing love for each other.

Bibliography

* Frédéric Deloffre, "Ensembles associatifs et critique d’attribution : une application au cas de Marivaux", ''Études de langue et de littérature françaises offertes à André Lanly'', pp. 451–456. Nancy: Université de Nancy, 1980. * Henri Lagrave, "''Mahomet second'' : une tragédie en prose, inachevée, de Marivaux", ''Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de la France'', n. 71, pp. 574–584, 1971.

References

{{Reflist Plays by Pierre de Marivaux 1747 plays Works originally published in Mercure de France Unfinished plays