Difference between revisions of "L'olimpiade (Pietro Metastasio)"

Clisthenes, King of Syracuse, was born with two twin sons, Philinthes and Aristeas, but warned by the oracle of Delphus of the danger of being killed by his own son, he had the former exposed and kept the latter. As she grew in age and beauty she was loved by Megacles, a noble and valiant young Athenian, several times victor in the Olympic games. Unable to obtain her from her father, to whom the Athenian name was odious, he went in despair to Crete. There, attacked and almost oppressed by masnadiers, he was kept alive by Lycidas, believed to be the son of the island's king, from whom he formed a tender and indissoluble friendship with his liberator. Lycidas had long been in love with Argene, a Cretan noblewoman, and had secretly promised her marriage. But when his love was discovered, the king, determined not to allow this unequal marriage, persecuted the unfortunate Argene to such an extent that she was forced to abandon her homeland and flee, unknown, to the countryside of Ilia, where she lived under the name of Licori and in the dress of a shepherdess, hidden from the resentment of her relatives and the violence of her sovereign. Lycidas was inconsolable because of the flight of his Argene; and after some time, to distract himself from his sadness, he decided to go to Ilia and to be present at the solemnity of the Olympic games that, there with the concourse of all Greece, after every fourth year were repeated. He went there, leaving Megacles in Crete, and found that King Clisthenes, who had been elected to preside over the aforesaid games, and therefore had been taken from Sychion to Ilia, proposed his own daughter Aristea as a prize for the victor. He saw Lycidas, admired her, and, oblivious of the misfortunes of his first loves, he fell passionately in love with her: but despairing of being able to conquer her, because he was not trained in the athletic exercises which he had to demonstrate in the said games, he imagined how to make up for the lack of experience with artifice. He remembered that his friend had many times been the victor in such contests, and (knowing nothing of Megacles' ancient love for Aristeas) he resolved to make use of him by having him fight under the pretended name of Lycidas. So Megacles also came to Ilia at the violent petitions of the Friend; but so late was his arrival that already the impatient Lycidas despaired of him. It is from this point that the representation of the present Drama cComposition takes its beginning. The end, or rather the main action of the play is the finding of that Philinthus, who was exposed as a child by his own father Clisthenes because of the threats of the Oracles; and to this end are insensibly led by the loving yearnings of Aristeas: the heroic friendship of Megacles: the inconstancy and fury of Lycidas: and the generous piety of the most faithful Argene Herod. Paus. Nat. Com. &c. [Herodotus, Pausanias, Natalis Comes, &c.][9].