PHI. (_to_ HENRIETTE, _who is going away_). Stop! why do you
run away?
HEN. I fear to disturb such sweet intercourse.
PHI. Come nearer, and with both ears share in the delight of hearing
wonders.
HEN. I have little understanding for the beauties of authorship, and
witty things are not in my line.
PHI. No matter. Besides, I wish afterwards to tell you of a secret
which you must learn.
TRI. (_to_ HENRIETTE). Knowledge has nothing that can touch you,
and your only care is to charm everybody.
HEN. One as little as the other, and I have no wish....
BEL. Ah! let us think of the new-born babe, I beg of you.
PHI. (_to_ LÉPINE). Now, little page, bring some seats for us to
sit down. (LÉPINE _slips down_.) You senseless boy, how can you
fall down after having learnt the laws of equilibrium?
BEL. Do you not perceive, ignorant fellow, the causes of your fall,
and that it proceeds from your having deviated from the fixed point
which we call the centre of gravity?
LEP. I perceived it, Madam, when I was on the ground.
PHI. (_to_ LÉPINE, _who goes out_). The awkward clown!
TRI. It is fortunate for him that he is not made of glass.
ARM. Ah! wit is everything!
BEL. It never ceases. (_They sit down._)
PHI. Serve us quickly your admirable feast.
TRI. To satisfy, the great hunger which is here shown to me, a dish of
eight verses seems but little; and I think that I should do well to
join to the epigram, or rather to the madrigal, the ragout of a sonnet
which, in the eyes of a princess, was thought to have a certain
delicacy in it. It is throughout seasoned with Attic salt, and I think
you will find the taste of it tolerably good.
ARM. Ah! I have no doubt of it.
PHI. Let us quickly give audience.
BEL. (_interrupting_ TRISSOTIN _each time he is about to
read_). I feel, beforehand, my heart beating for joy. I love poetry
to distraction, particularly when the verses are gallantly turned.
PHI. If we go on speaking he will never be able to read.
TRI. SONN....
BEL. (_to_ HENRIETTE). Be silent, my niece.
ARM. Ah! let him read, I beg.
TRI. SONNET TO THE PRINCESS URANIA ON HER FEVER.[1]
_Your prudence fast in sleep's repose
Is plunged; if thus superbly kind,
A lodging gorgeously you can find
For the most cruel of your foes--_
[1]
[The sonnet is not of Molière's invention, but is to be found in
_Les Oeuvres galantes en prose et en vers de M. Cotin_, Paris,
1663. It is called, _Sonnet à Mademoiselle de Longueville, à présent
Duchesse de Nemours, sur sa fièvre quarte_. As, of necessity, the
translation given above is not very literal, I append the original.
"Votre prudence est endormie,
De traiter magnifiquement,
Et de loger superbement,
Votre plus cruelle ennemie;
Faites-la sortir quoi qu'on die,
De votre riche appartement,
Où cette ingrate insolemment
Attaque votre belle vie!
Quoi! sans respecter votre rang,
Elle se prend à votre sang,
Et nuit et jour vous fait outrage!
Si vous la conduisez aux bains,
Sans la marchander davantage,
Noyez-la de vos propres mains."
The _die_ of _quoi qu'on die_ was the regular form in
Molière's time, and had nothing archaic about it. This is sufficiently
true of "Will she, nill she" (compare Shakespeare's "And, will you,
nill you, I will marry you") to excuse its use here.]
BEL. Ah! what a pretty beginning!
ARM. What a charming turn it has!
PHI. He alone possesses the talent of making easy verses.
ARM. We must yield to _prudence fast in sleep's repose is
plunged_.
BEL. A _lodging for the most cruel of your foes_ is full of
charms for me.
PHI. I like _superbly_ and _gorgeously_; these two adverbs
joined together sound admirably.
BEL. Let us hear the rest.
TRI.
_Your prudence fast in sleep's repose
Is plunged; if thus superbly kind,
A lodging gorgeously you can find
For the most cruel of your foes_
ARM. _Prudence asleep_!
BEL. _Lodge one's enemy_!
PHI. _Superbly and gorgeously_!
TRI.
_Will she, nill she, quick, out she goes!
From your apartment richly lined,
Where that ingrate's outrageous mind
At your fair life her javelin throws_.
BEL. Ah! gently. Allow me to breathe, I beseech you.
ARM. Give us time to admire, I beg.
PHI. One feels, at hearing these verses, an indescribable something
which goes through one's inmost soul, and makes one feel quite faint.
ARM.
_Will she, nill she, quick, out she goes
From your apartment richly lined_.
How prettily _rich apartment_ is said here, and with what wit the
metaphor is introduced!
PHI. _Will she, nill she, quick, out she goes!_ Ah! in what
admirable taste that _will she, nill she_, is! To my mind the
passage is invaluable.
ARM. My heart is also in love with _will she, nill she_.
BEL. I am of your opinion; _will she, nill she_, is a happy
expression.
ARM. I wish I had written it.
BEL. It is worth a whole poem!
PHI. But do you, like me, understand thoroughly the wit of it?
ARM. _and_ BEL. Oh! oh
PHIL. _Will she, nill she, quick, out she goes_! Although another
should take the fever's part, pay no attention; laugh at the gossips;
_will she, nill she, quick, out she goes. Will she, nill she, will
she, nill she_. This _will she, nill she_, says a great deal
more than it seems. I do not know if every one is like me, but I
discover in it a hundred meanings.
BEL. It is true that it says more than its size seems to imply.
PHI. (_to_ TRISSOTIN). But when you wrote this charming _Will
she, nill she_, did you yourself understand all its energy? Did you
realise all that it tells us, and did you then think that you were
writing something so witty?
TRI. Ah! ah!
ARM. I have likewise the _ingrate_ in my head; this ungrateful,
unjust, uncivil fever that ill-treats people who entertain her.
PHI. In short, both the stanzas are admirable. Let us come quickly to
the triplets, I pray.
ARM. Ah! once more, _will she, nill she_, I beg.
TRI. _Will she, nill she, quick, out she goes!_
PHI., ARM. _and_ BEL. _Will she, nill she!_
TRI. _From your apartment richly lined._
PHI., ARM. _and_ BEL. _Rich apartment!_
TRI. _Where that ingrate's outrageous mind._
PHI., ARM. _and_ BEL. That ungrateful fever!
TRI. _At your fair life her javelin throws._
PHI. _Fair life!_
ARM. _and_ BEL. Ah!
TRI.
_What! without heed for your high line,
She saps your blood with care malign..._
PHI., ARM. _and_ BEL. Ah!
TRI.
_Redoubling outrage night and day!
If to the bath you take her down,
Without a moment's haggling, pray,
With your own hands the miscreant drown._
PHI. Ah! it is quite overpowering.
BEL. I faint.
ARM. I die from pleasure.
PHI. A thousand sweet thrills seize one.
ARM. _If to the bath you take her down,_
BEL. _Without a moment's haggling, pray,_
PHI. _With your own hands the miscreant drown_. With your own
hands, there, drown her there in the bath.
ARM. In your verses we meet at each step with charming beauty.
BEL. One promenades through them with rapture.
PHI. One treads on fine things only.
ARM. They are little lanes all strewn with roses.
TRI. Then the sonnet seems to you....
PHI. Admirable, new; and never did any one make anything more
beautiful.
BEL. (_to_ HENRIETTE). What! my niece, you listen to what has
been read without emotion! You play there but a sorry part!
HEN. We each of us play the best part we can, my aunt, and to be a wit
does not depend on our will.
TRI. My verses, perhaps, are tedious to you.
HEN. No. I do not listen.
PHI. Ah! let us hear the epigram.
TRI. ON A CARRIAGE OF THE COLOUR OF AMARANTH GIVEN TO ONE OF HIS LADY
FRIENDS. [2]
PHI. His titles have always something rare in them.
ARM. They prepare one for a hundred flashes of wit.
TRI.
_Love for his bonds so dear a price demands,
E'en now it costs me more than half my lands,
And when this chariot meets your eyes,
Where so much gold emboss'd doth rise
That people all astonished stand,
And Laïs rides in triumph through the land..._
[2]
[This epigram is also by Cotin. It is called, _'Madrigal sur un
carosse de couleur amarante, acheté pour une dame.'_
"L'amour si chèrement m'a vendu son lien
Qu'il me coûte déjà la moitié de mon bien,
Et quand tu vois ce beau carrosse,
Où tant d'or se relève en bosse,
Qu'il étonne tout le pays,
Et fait pompeusement triompher ma Laïs,
Ne dis plus qu'il est amarante,
Dis plutôt qu'il est de ma rente."]
PHI. Ah! Laïs! what erudition!
BEL. The cover is pretty, and worth a million.
TRI.
_And when this chariot meets your eyes,
Where so much gold emboss'd doth rise
That people all astonished stand,
And Laïs rides in triumph through the land,
Say no more it is amaranth,
Say rather it is o' my rent._
ARM. Oh, oh, oh! this is beyond everything; who would have expected
that?
PHI. He is the only one to write in such taste.
BEL. Say no more it is _amaranth, say rather it is o' my rent_!
It can be declined; _my rent; of my rent; to my rent; from my
rent_.
PHI. I do not know whether I was prepossessed from the first moment I
saw you, but I admire all your prose and verse whenever I see it.
TRI. (_to_ PHILAMINTE). If you would only show us something of
your composition, we could admire in our turn.
PHI. I have done nothing in verse; but I have reason to hope that I
shall, shortly, be able, as a friend, to show you eight chapters of
the plan of our Academy. Plato only touched on the subject when he
wrote the treatise of his Republic; but I will complete the idea as I
have arranged it on paper in prose. For, in short, I am truly angry at
the wrong which is done us in regard to intelligence; and I will
avenge the whole sex for the unworthy place which men assign us by
confining our talents to trifles, and by shutting the door of sublime
knowledge against us.
ARM. It is insulting our sex too grossly to limit our intelligence to
the power of judging of a skirt, of the make of a garment, of the
beauties of lace, or of a new brocade.
BEL. We must rise above this shameful condition, and bravely proclaim
our emancipation.
TRI. Every one knows my respect for the fairer sex, and that if I
render homage to the brightness of their eyes, I also honour the
splendour of their intellect. PHI. And our sex does you justice in
this respect: but we will show to certain minds who treat us with
proud contempt that women also have knowledge; that, like men, they
can hold learned meetings--regulated, too, by better rules; that they
wish to unite what elsewhere is kept apart, join noble language to
deep learning, reveal nature's laws by a thousand experiments; and on
all questions proposed, admit every party, and ally themselves to
none.
TRI. For order, I prefer peripateticism.
PHI. For abstractions I love Platonism.
ARM. Epicurus pleases me, for his tenets are solid.
BEL. I agree with the doctrine of atoms: but I find it difficult to
understand a vacuum, and I much prefer subtile matter.
TRI. I quite agree with Descartes about magnetism.
ARM. I like his vortices.
PHI. And I his falling worlds. [Footnote: Notes do not seem necessary
here; a good English dictionary will give better explanations than
could be given except by very long notes.]
ARM. I long to see our assembly opened, and to distinguish ourselves
by some great discovery.
TRI. Much is expected from your enlightened knowledge, for nature has
hidden few things from you.
PHI. For my part, I have, without boasting, already made one
discovery; I have plainly seen men in the moon.
BEL. I have not, I believe, as yet quite distinguished men, but I have
seen steeples as plainly as I see you. [Footnote: An astronomer of the
day had boasted of having done this.]
ARM. In addition to natural philosophy, we will dive into grammar,
history, verse, ethics, and politics.
PHI. I find in ethics charms which delight my heart; it was formerly
the admiration of great geniuses; but I give the preference to the
Stoics, and I think nothing so grand as their founder.
ARM. Our regulations in respect to language will soon be known, and
we mean to create a revolution. Through a just or natural antipathy,
we have each of us taken a mortal hatred to certain words, both verbs
and nouns, and these we mutually abandon to each other. We are
preparing sentences of death against them, we shall open our learned
meetings by the proscription of the diverse words of which we mean to
purge both prose and verse.
PHI. But the greatest project of our assembly--a noble enterprise
which transports me with joy, a glorious design which will be approved
by all the lofty geniuses of posterity--is the cutting out of all
those filthy syllables which, in the finest words, are a source of
scandal: those eternal jests of the fools of all times; those nauseous
commonplaces of wretched buffoons; those sources of infamous
ambiguity, with which the purity of women is insulted.
TRI. These are indeed admirable projects.
BEL. You shall see our regulations when they are quite ready.
TRI. They cannot fail to be wise and beautiful.
ARM. We shall by our laws be the judges of all works; by our laws,
prose and verse will both alike be submitted to us. No one will have
wit except us or our friends. We shall try to find fault with
everything, and esteem no one capable of writing but ourselves.