Racine’s play Andromaque, which was first performed in Paris in 1667, still has a rich afterlife in numerous translations, screen adaptations and stage performances. In this article, the author focuses on four modern English translations or theatrical adaptations of Racine’s text, looking at ways in which different translators, working with different aims, bring out different virtualities of a classic text. Through a comparative analysis, the author demonstrates how the “préciosité” of Racine’s original text is lost or becomes invisible in 20th century versions of the play, due to the demands and constraints of theatrical performance in our time that influence the translators’ stylistic choices.