A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 01

Voltaire · en
_Athenes me montra mon superbe ennemie;_
     _Je le vis, je rougis, je plaîs, à sa vue;_
     _Un trouble s'éleva dans mon âme éperdue;_
     _Mes yeux ne voyaient plus, je ne pouvais parler,_
     _Je sentis tout mon corps et transir et brûler;_
     _Je reconnus Venus et ses traits redoubtables,_
     _D'un sang qu'elle poursuit tormens inévitables._

     _Yes;--Athens showed me my proud enemy;_
     _I saw him--blushed--turned pale;--_
     _A sudden trouble came upon my soul,--_
     _My eyes grew dim--my tongue refused its office,--_
     _I burned--and shivered;--through my trembling frame_
     _Venus in all her dreadful power I felt,_
     _Shooting through every vein a separate pang._

It is quite clear that since Athens showed her her proud enemy
Hippolytus, she _saw_ Hippolytus; if she blushed and turned pale, she
was doubtless _troubled_. It would have been a pleonasm, a redundancy,
if a stranger had been made to relate the loves of Phædra; but it is
Phædra, enamored and ashamed of her passion--her heart is
full--everything escapes her:

     _Ut vidi, lit perii, ut me malus abstulit error._
     _Je le vis, je rougis, je pâlis, à sa vue._

     I saw him--blushed--turned pale.--

What can be a better imitation of Virgil?

     _Mes yeux ne voyaient plus, je ne pouvais parler;_
     _Je sentis tout mon corps et transir et brûler;_

     My eyes grew dim--my tongue refused its office;
     I burned--and shivered;

What can be a finer imitation of Sappho?

These lines, though imitated, flow as from their first source; each word
moves and penetrates the feeling heart; this is not amplification; it is
the perfection of nature and of art.

The following is, in my opinion, an instance of amplification, in a
modern tragedy, which nevertheless has great beauties. Tydeus is at the
court of Argos; he is in love with a sister of Electra; he laments the
fall of his friend Orestes and of his father; he is divided betwixt his
passion for Electra and his desire of vengeance; while in this state of
care and perplexity he gives one of his followers a long description of
a tempest, in which he had been shipwrecked some time before.