ORPHÉE is like a coat of chain-mail. Each link is dependent and interdependent. But Orphée is vulnerable, if, for want of skill in the actor or want of attention in the audience, a link is missed. The English suit has been carefully modeled on the French, but the native metals have been shaped by different processes; the original was forged round an untranslatable French word.The most celebrated heroes have a weak spot somewhere in their armor: Siegfried in the shoulder, Achilles in the heel.

Here is a play essentially of the theatre. This translation was made with only the actor in view, in the hope that to an audience the least possible might be lost, and that to the

reader, ORPHÉE might be seen on a stage in the mind’s eye. Finally, with all its air of happy inconsequence, ORPHÉE is a cerebral creation, “une meditation sur la mort” (M. Bidou).