Zadig by Voltaire
"Zadig" is a philosophical novella written by the French Enlightenment thinker Voltaire, published in 1748. Set in ancient Babylon during the reign of King Moabdar, the story follows the experiences of a young and wealthy man named Zadig, who is characterized by his modesty and intelligence. Despite his virtues, he encounters a series of misfortunes and challenges that explore themes of jealousy, justice, and the unpredictability of fate. Throughout his journey, Zadig faces betrayals, misunderstandings, and societal injustices, ultimately demonstrating resilience and moral fortitude.
As Zadig navigates a landscape filled with complex characters and shifting allegiances, he evolves from a victim of circumstance to a wise ruler. His trials include losing his betrothed, being wrongfully imprisoned, and becoming a slave, yet he consistently exhibits cleverness and compassion, earning the respect of those around him. The narrative culminates with Zadig's triumph in love and leadership, portraying a vision of governance grounded in justice and empathy. Through its blend of humor, irony, and philosophical inquiry, "Zadig" remains a compelling reflection on human nature and the quest for happiness amidst the chaos of life.
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Zadig by Voltaire
First published:Zadig: Ou, La Destinée, histoire orientale, 1748 (English translation, 1749)
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Social satire
Time of plot: Antiquity
Locale: Babylon
Principal characters
Zadig , a wealthy young manMoabdar , king of BabylonAstarté , his queenSémire , Zadig’s first betrothedAzora , Zadig’s first wifeCador , Zadig’s best friendArimaze “The Envious ,”, Zadig’s enemyMissouf , an Egyptian womanSétoc , an Arab merchantAlmona , Sétoc’s wifeNabussan , king of SerendibArbogad , a happy brigandItobad , a rich lordOgul , another lord and a voluptuary
The Story:
Zadig, a charming young man with a good education and great wealth, lives in the time of King Moabdar in Babylon. Despite the fact that he is a very sensible young man, or perhaps because of it, he never boasts of his own abilities or tries to find fault in others. He expects that with the advantages he modestly enjoys he will have no difficulty in being happy, but he is mistaken in this belief.
In rescuing the beautiful Sémire from kidnappers, Zadig is injured by an arrow in his left eye. The great doctor Hermes predicts that he will lose the eye because wounds in the left eye never heal. When Zadig’s eye does heal, the doctor writes a book proving that it could not have happened. Unfortunately, Sémire, to whom Zadig has been betrothed, decides that she does not like one-eyed men. In her ignorance of Zadig’s recovery, she marries Orcan, the young nobleman who sent the kidnappers to seize her.
Zadig marries Azora, the wisest girl in the city, who takes a frivolous interest in handsome young men. When she scolds a widow for changing the course of a stream in order to escape from her vow to stay by her husband’s tomb as long as the stream flows there, Zadig arranges to have Azora told that he has died. He then has his friend Cador make friendly overtures to Azora and, having done so, complain of a pain in the spleen for which there is but one cure: rubbing the place with the nose of a man who has been dead no more than twenty-four hours. When Azora then goes to the place where Zadig is supposedly buried, he leaps up to keep her from cutting off his nose with a razor. He says that her act proves she is no better than the widow she had criticized. Finally, when living with Azora becomes too difficult, Zadig leaves her.
One day the queen’s dog and the king’s horse are lost. Zadig is able to describe the missing animals and their location, but when he then says that he has never seen them, he is imprisoned. He is released after he explains that he was able to tell from marks on the ground what the animals were like, but he has learned a lesson, and when he sees an escaping prisoner, he keeps quiet. Nevertheless, he is fined for looking out his window.
A rich and jealous neighbor named Arimaze, who is called “The Envious,” finds a tablet on which Zadig has written a poem. The tablet is broken in half, and the part of the poem on one piece of the tablet could be read as criticism of the king. Arimaze shows that part of the tablet to the king, but just as Zadig is about to be condemned for insulting the monarch, a parrot drops the other half of the tablet in the king’s lap. Both the king and the queen—especially the queen—begin to hold Zadig in high esteem. He is awarded a goblet for having been generous enough to speak well of a minister who had incurred the king’s wrath; such an act is new in the king’s experience, and he values Zadig for it.
Zadig becomes prime minister of Babylon and, through his sensible decisions, wins the hearts of the people. He cures a great lord who is too conceited for his own good by having an orchestra and a choir sing his praises all day long, until the lord in desperation calls a halt to the chorus of praise. Zadig also settles a religious dispute that had gone on for fifteen hundred years, concerning the question of whether one should enter the temple of Mithra with the right foot or the left foot; Zadig jumps in with both feet.
Zadig is popular with the ladies of Babylon, but he succumbs to a woman’s advances only once and does so without pleasure, for he is too much in love with Queen Astarté. The wife of Arimaze, enraged because Zadig has rebuffed her, allows her husband to send her garter to the king so that he might be deceived into believing that Zadig and the queen are already lovers. The queen warns Zadig that the king means to kill him, and Zadig escapes to Egypt.
After arriving in Egypt, Zadig comes upon an Egyptian beating a woman. When Zadig intervenes, the jealous Egyptian assumes that Zadig is a rival lover, and a fight ensues that ends in the Egyptian’s death. The woman, Missouf, far from being grateful, screams that she wishes Zadig had been killed instead. When four men seize her, Zadig allows her to be taken, not realizing that the four men are couriers from Babylon who have mistaken Missouf for Queen Astarté, who has also disappeared.
Because Zadig has killed a man, the Egyptians condemn him to be a slave, and he is purchased by an Arab merchant named Sétoc. At first the merchant values Zadig’s service more than he does Zadig himself, but he finally comes to see the value of Zadig’s intelligence and common sense. The incident that reveals Zadig’s abilities is one in which Zadig proves a Hebrew guilty of not returning a loan made to him by Sétoc; Zadig pretends that he will bring into court the stone on which the loan had been transacted, whereby he traps the Hebrew into describing the stone, proving that he really is the man to whom the loan had been made.
Zadig next convinces an Arabian widow that she should not leap upon the burning funeral pyre of her husband; he does this by making her realize that there are still attractive young men in the world. He settles a dispute among an Egyptian, an Indian, a Chaldean, a Celt, and others concerning the nature of the universe and its operation by pointing out that all the parties admit the existence of a superior being. He is saved from execution by the priests when Almona, the young widow, pretends that she will allow the priests to make love to her if they sign a pardon; they sign the pardon, but when they come to her, they are greeted by judges who condemn them. Sétoc is so impressed by Almona’s cleverness that he marries her.
Zadig shows that one can judge an honest man by making candidates for the comptroller’s position engage in a dancing contest. Only one candidate resists the money Zadig has placed in a passageway, and only he dances lightly and with grace, the others being fearful of jostling the money from their pockets. Having performed this service for King Nabussan of Serendib, to whose kingdom Zadig has been sent by Sétoc, Zadig then undertakes to show which of the king’s hundred wives are faithful. Only one resists the temptations of money, youth, and power to which Zadig exposes the women.
After settling a revolt of the priests against Nabussan, Zadig, guided as always by the sayings of Zarathustra, sets forth to find news of Queen Astarté. He meets a happy brigand, Arbogad, who reports that King Moabdar has been killed in an uprising, but the robber has no news of the queen. Zadig also meets an unhappy fisherman who lost his money, his wife, and his house during the revolt in Babylon. Since some of the money owed the fisherman was for cream cheese he had sold to Zadig and Queen Astarté, Zadig, without revealing his identity, gives the fisherman half the money he has.
Next, Zadig meets several women who are hunting for a basilisk that is to be used to cure Ogul, their lord and master. Zadig is overjoyed to find Queen Astarté among the women. She informs him that his friend Cador helped her escape from the king, that the king had married Missouf, and that she had frightened the king out of his wits by speaking to him from within a statue in the temple in which she was hidden. The revolt in Babylon resulted from the king’s madness, and he had been killed. Queen Astarté was then captured by the prince of Hyrcania and escaped from him only to be captured by the brigand Arbogad, who sold her to Ogul. Zadig cures Ogul by presenting him with a bag and telling him that it contains medicine that will go through his pores only if he punches the bag hard enough—the resultant exercise cures the lord. Zadig thus manages to free Queen Astarté and to win more honor for himself.
Returning to Babylon, Zadig enters a jousting tournament and a battle of wits in order to win Queen Astarté as his wife. Despite the trickery of Itobad, who steals Zadig’s armor and pretends to be the victor after Zadig has won the tournament, Zadig manages to win both contests—partly through the encouragement of the angel Jesrad, who is disguised as a hermit—and he marries Queen Astarté. As king, Zadig is a just and compassionate ruler under whom Babylon becomes a prosperous and happy empire.
Bibliography
Aldridge, A. Owen. Voltaire and the Century of Light. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975. Biography includes extended discussion of Voltaire’s writings, including Zadig. Seeks to combine an examination of Voltaire’s literature with the history of ideas and to present Voltaire’s personality along with his philosophy.
Cronk, Nicholas, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Collection of essays examines Voltaire’s life, philosophy, and works, including Zadig. Addresses such topics as Voltaire as a storyteller, Voltaire and authorship, and Voltaire and the myth of England.
Davidson, Ian. Voltaire in Exile: The Last Years. New York: Grove Press, 2004. Chronicles Voltaire’s life during his exile from France, when he actively campaigned against censorship, war, torture, capital punishment, the alliance between church and state, and other perceived injustices. Includes an analysis of much of Voltaire’s personal correspondence.
Knapp, Bettina Liebowitz. Voltaire Revisited. New York: Twayne, 2000. Good introductory study describes Voltaire’s life and devotes separate chapters to all of the genres of his works, including Zadig and other philosophical tales.
Sherman, Carol. Reading Voltaire’s Contes: A Semiotics of Philosophical Narration. Chapel Hill: Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, University of North Carolina, 1985. Scholarly work undertakes line-by-line scrutiny of Zadig, Candide, Le Micromégas (1752; Micromegas, 1753), and L’Ingénu (1767; The Pupil of Nature, 1771). Includes charts and graphs that dissect the stories.
Topazio, Virgil W. Voltaire: A Critical Study of His Major Works. New York: Random House, 1967. Excellent, eminently readable study is an essential resource on Voltaire’s writings, covering his poetry, dramas, and novels. Provides insight into the author’s life and the mood of the century in which he was working.
Vartanian, Aram. “Zadig: Theme and Counter-Theme.” In Dilemmas du roman, edited by Catherine Lafarge. Saratoga, Calif.: Anima Libri, 1990. Discusses the philosophical theme of impersonal fate in Zadig and notes that the story is told in such a way that its overall meaning emerges from a network of tensions among its various elements.