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TO THE READER.

Little need be said about this piece. One believes one has legitimate rights to the indulgence of the public in favor of the superb music that one has allowed them to hear. Nothing has ever been presented with less pretension than this poem; no one has said or thought more ill of it than the author; but if it is permissible to publish a work despite the weakness known to be in it, it is in this case, where the music was meant to compensate for everything and impose silence upon every critic.

The author does not wish to take upon himself alone, nor charge the original author with, all the defects of this piece. Obliged to preserve all the pieces of music, he had to stick to the same subject matter and almost follow the same path, adopting the same situations, since those situations were expressed in music. Hence the flaws in construction, the entrances, the poorly motivated exits, and the languor of some scenes that do not move toward the action quickly enough. These defects belong to the original. The piece has been rewritten in its entirety; all the defects of the dialogue consequently belong to the translator.

Let it not be believed, moreover, that one wishes to cast upon the unknown author of the Italian interlude faults of which one is oneself guilty. On the contrary, one dares to say that so many motifs were added that were not there, and so many connections that lacked verisimilitude, propriety, etc., that one might hope for the pardon of the rest.