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| ==Synopsis== | | ==Synopsis== |
| === English === | | === English === |
| (Source: Italian Libretto, 1733, Vienna)<ref name="LibrettoItalianGoogle"/><ref name="FR"/>To Clisthenes, King of Sicyon, twins were born, Philinthes and Aristea. However, as he was warned by the oracle of Delphi of the danger of being killed by his own son, he had the former marooned and kept the latter. As she grew in age and beauty, Megacles, a noble and valiant young Athenian, several times victor in the Olympic games, fell in love with her. Unable to obtain her from her father, to whom the Athenian name was odious, he went in despair to Crete. There, attacked and almost killed by robbers, he was saved by Lycidas, believed to be the son of the island's king. Because of this, he formed a tender and indissoluble friendship with his liberator. | | (Source: English libretto, 1778, Vienna)<ref name="LibrettoEnglish"/>DEMOFONTES, during his reign in the Thracian Chersonesus, consulted the Oracle of Apollo; in order to know when the cruel rites, already prescribed by that Oracle, of sacrificing every year a virgin before his image, should end; and he obtained this answer: |
| | <poem>:"Heav'ns wrath shall cease, when to himself is known |
| | :The innocent usurper of a throne."</poem> |
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| 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 Elis, 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 Elisand to be present at the solemnity of the Olympic games that, there with the concourse of all Greece, after every fourth year were repeated.
| | The king not being able to comprehend the dark meaning of this reply, and waiting in hope that time might render it more clear, prepared in the mean while<nowiki>*</nowiki> to perform the annual sacrifice, causing the name of the virgin victim to be drawn by lot out of an urn. Matusius, one of the nobles, pretended that Dircea, his supposed daughter, should not undergo the same lot with the rest, alledging the example of the king, who, to avoid exposing his daughters, kept them distant from Thrace. Demofontes, enraged at the rashness of Matusius, cruelly decreed that the innocent Dircea should be sacrificed without the decision of chance. Dircea was the wife of Timantes, supposed to be Demofontes' son and heir. They concealed their dangerous nuptials through fear of an ancient law, which condemned to death any subject who married with the royal heir. Demofontes, ignorant of the secret nuptials, had engaged Creusa, the King of Phrygia's daughter, for Timantes. On this basis the present Drama is founded. |
| | Hygin. ex. Philarch. lib. 2 |
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| 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 Sycion to Elis, proposed his own daughter Aristea as a prize for the victor. Lycidas saw her, admired her, and, oblivious of the misfortunes of his first love, he fell passionately in love with her.
| | The action lies in the palace of Demofontes, in the Thracian Chersonesus. |
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| However, despairing of being able to conquer her, because he was not trained in the athletic activities that he had to demonstrate in these 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' previous love for Aristea) 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 fervent petitions of his friend; but so late was his arrival that already the impatient Lycidas despaired of him.
| | <nowiki>*)</nowiki>Historic English varies in spelling from its modern counterpart. |
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| It is from this point that the representation of the present dramatic composition takes its beginning. The end, or rather the main action of the play is the discovery of Philynthus, who was abandoned as a child by his own father Clisthenes because of the warnings of the oracles; and to this end are unwittingly lead the loving yearnings of Aristea, the heroic friendship of Megacles, the inconstancy and fury of Lycidas and the generous mercy of the most faithful Argene.
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| === Italian === | | === Italian === |