Bajazet (play)

Bajazet (French: [baʒazɛ]) is a five-act tragedy by Jean Racine written in alexandrine verse and first performed at the Hôtel de Bourgogne theatre in January 1672, after Berenice, and before Mithridate.

Like Aeschylus in The Persians, Racine took his subject from contemporary history, taking care to choose a far off location, the Ottoman Empire.

In 1635, the sultan Murad IV (Amurat, in the work of Racine) had his brothers and potential rivals Bajazet (Bayezid) and Orcan (Orhan) executed.

In 2011 Pennsylvania State University Press published an English translation of the play by Geoffrey Alan Argent in iambic pentameter couplets.

A translation in Alexandrines was made, as for all the other Racine plays, by Samuel Solomon and published by Random House (1967).

Finally, Acomat believes Bajazet and Roxane, the sultan's favorite, are in love, and he wishes to rely on them while marrying Atalide.