The Learned Women

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.

SCENE III – PHILAMINTE, BÉLISE, ARMANDE, HENRIETTE, TRISSOTIN, LÉPINE

LEP. (to TRISSOTIN). Sir, there is a gentleman who wants to speak to you; he is dressed all in black, and speaks in a soft tone. (They all rise.)

TRI. It is that learned friend who entreated me so much to procure him the honour of your acquaintance.

PHI. You have our full leave to present him to us. (TRISSOTIN goes out to meet VADIUS.)

SCENE IV. – PHILAMINTE, BÉLISE, ARMANDE, HENRIETTE

PHI. (to ARMANDE and BÉLISE). At least, let us do him all the honours of our knowledge. (To HENRIETTE, who is going) Stop! I told you very plainly that I wanted to speak to you.

HEN. But what about?

PHI. You will soon be enlightened on the subject.

SCENE V. – TRISSOTIN, VADIUS, PHILAMINTE, BÉLISE, ARMANDE, HENRIETTE

TRI. (introducing VADIUS). [Footnote: It is probably Ménage who is here laughed at.] Here is the gentleman who is dying to see you. In presenting him I am not afraid, Madam, of being accused of introducing a profane person to you; he can hold his place among the wits.

PHI. The hand which introduces him sufficiently proves his value.

TRI. He has a perfect knowledge of the ancient authors, and knows

Greek, Madam, as well as any man in France.

PHI. (to BÉLISE). Greek! O heaven! Greek! He understands Greek, sister!

BEL. (to ARMANDE). Ah, niece! Greek!

ARM. Greek! ah! how delightful!

PHI. What, Sir, you understand Greek? Allow me, I beg, for the love of

Greek, to embrace you. (VADIUS embraces also BÉLISE and

ARMANDE.)

HEN. (to VADIUS, who comes forward to embrace her)

Excuse me, Sir, I do not understand Greek. (They sit down.)

PHI. I have a wonderful respect for Greek books.

VAD. I fear that the anxiety which calls me to render my homage to you to-day, Madam, may render me importunate. I may have disturbed some learned discourse.

PHI. Sir, with Greek in possession, you can spoil nothing.

TRI. Moreover, he does wonders in prose as well as in verse, and he could, if he chose, show you something.

VAD. The fault of authors is to burden conversation with their productions; to be at the Palais, in the walks, in the drawing-rooms, or at table, the indefatigable readers of their tedious verses. As for me, I think nothing more ridiculous than an author who goes about begging for praise, who, preying on the ears of the first comers, often makes them the martyrs of his night watches. I have never been guilty of such foolish conceit, and I am in that respect of the opinion of a Greek, who by an express law forbade all his wise men any unbecoming anxiety to read their works. – Here are some little verses for young lovers upon which I should like to have your opinion.

TRI. Your verses have beauties unequalled by any others.

VAD. Venus and the Graces reign in all yours.

TRI. You have an easy style, and a fine choice of words.

VAD. In all your writings one finds ithos and pathos.

TRI. We have seen some eclogues of your composition which surpass in sweetness those of Theocritus and Virgil.

VAD. Your odes have a noble, gallant, and tender manner, which leaves

Horace far behind.

TRI. Is there anything more lovely than your canzonets?

VAD. Is there anything equal to the sonnets you write?

TRI. Is there anything more charming than your little rondeaus?

VAD. Anything so full of wit as your madrigals?

TRI. You are particularly admirable in the ballad.

VAD. And in bouts-rimés I think you adorable.

TRI. If France could appreciate your value —

VAD. If the age could render justice to a lofty genius —

TRI. You would ride in the streets in a gilt coach.

VAD. We should see the public erect statues to you. Hem…(to

TRISSOTIN). It is a ballad; and I wish you frankly to…

TRI. (to VADIUS). Have you heard a certain little sonnet upon the Princess Urania's fever?

VAD. Yes; I heard it read yesterday.

TRI. Do you know the author of it?

VAD. No, I do not; but I know very well that, to tell him the truth, his sonnet is good for nothing.

TRI. Yet a great many people think it admirable.

VAD. It does not prevent it from being wretched; and if you had read it, you would think like me.

TRI. I know that I should differ from you altogether, and that few people are able to write such a sonnet.

VAD. Heaven forbid that I should ever write one so bad!

TRI. I maintain that a better one cannot be made, and my reason is that I am the author of it.

VAD. You?

TRI. Myself.

VAD. I cannot understand how the thing can have happened.

TRI. It is unfortunate that I had not the power of pleasing you.

VAD. My mind must have wandered during the reading, or else the reader spoilt the sonnet; but let us leave that subject, and come to my ballad.

TRI. The ballad is, to my mind, but an insipid thing; it is no longer the fashion, and savours of ancient times.

VAD. Yet a ballad has charms for many people.

TRI. It does not prevent me from thinking it unpleasant.

VAD. That does not make it worse.

TRI. It has wonderful attractions for pedants.

VAD. Yet we see that it does not please you.

TRI. You stupidly give your qualities to others.

(They all rise.)

VAD. You very impertinently cast yours upon me.

TRI. Go, you little dunce! you pitiful quill-driver!

VAD. Go, you penny-a-liner! you disgrace to the profession!

TRI. Go, you book-maker, you impudent plagiarist!

VAD. Go, you pedantic snob!

PHI. Ah! gentlemen, what are you about?

TRI. (to VADIUS). Go, go, and make restitution to the Greeks and Romans for all your shameful thefts.

VAD. Go and do penance on Parnassus for having murdered Horace in your verses.

TRI. Remember your book, and the little noise it made.

VAD. And you, remember your bookseller, reduced to the workhouse.

TRI. My glory is established; in vain would you endeavour to shake it.

VAD. Yes, yes; I send you to the author of the 'Satires.' [Footnote:

Boileau.]

TRI. I, too, send you to him.

VAD. I have the satisfaction of having been honourably treated by him; he gives me a passing thrust, and includes me among several authors well known at the Palais; but he never leaves you in peace, and in all his verses you are exposed to his attacks.

TRI: By that we see the honourable rank I hold. He leaves you in the crowd, and esteems one blow enough to crush you. He has never done you the honour of repeating his attacks, whereas he assails me separately, as a noble adversary against whom all his efforts are necessary; and his blows, repeated against me on all occasions, show that he never thinks himself victorious.

VAD. My pen will teach you what sort of man I am.

TRI. And mine will make you know your master.

VAD. I defy you in verse, prose, Greek and Latin.

TRI. Very well, we shall meet each other alone at Barbin's. [Footnote: Barbin, a famous bookseller. The arms chosen for the duel would no doubt be books. See "The Lutrin," by Boileau.]

SCENE VI. – TRISSOTIN, PHILAMINTE, ARMANDE, BÉLISE, HENRIETTE

TRI. Do not blame my anger. It is your judgment I defend, Madam, in the sonnet he dares to attack.

PHI. I will do all I can to reconcile you. But let us speak of something else. Come here, Henriette. I have for some time now been tormented at finding in you a want of intellectuality, but I have thought of a means of remedying this defect.

HEN. You take unnecessary trouble for my sake. I have no love for learned discourses. I like to take life easy, and it is too much trouble to be intellectual. Such ambition does not trouble my head, and I am perfectly satisfied, mother, with being stupid. I prefer to have only a common way of talking, and not to torment myself to produce fine words.

PHI. That may be; but this stupidity wounds me, and it is not my intention to suffer such a stain on my family. The beauty of the face is a fragile ornament, a passing flower, a moment's brightness which only belongs to the epidermis; whereas that of the mind is lasting and solid. I have therefore been feeling about for the means of giving you the beauty which time cannot remove – of creating in you the love of knowledge, of insinuating solid learning into you; and the way I have at last determined upon is to unite you to a man full of genius; (showing TRISSOTIN) to this gentleman, in fact. It is he whom I intend you to marry.

HEN. Me, mother!

PHI. Yes, you! just play the fool a little.

BEL. (to TRISSOTIN). I understand you; your eyes ask me for leave to engage elsewhere a heart I possess. Be at peace, I consent. I yield you up to this union; it is a marriage which will establish you in society.

TRI. (to HENRIETTE). In my delight, I hardly know what to tell you, Madam, and this marriage with which I am honoured puts me…

HEN. Gently, Sir; it is not concluded yet; do not be in such a hurry.

PHI. What a way of answering! Do you know that if … but enough. You understand me. (To TRISSOTIN) She will obey. Let us leave her alone for the present.

SCENE VII. – HENRIETTE, ARMANDE

ARM. You see how our mother's anxiety for your welfare shines forth; she could not have chosen a more illustrious husband…

HEN. If the choice is so good, why do you not take him for yourself?

ARM. It is upon you, and not upon me, that his hand is bestowed.

HEN. I yield him up entirely to you as my elder Sister.

ARM. If marriage seemed so pleasant to me as it seems to be to you, I would accept your offer with delight.

HEN. If I loved pedants as you do, I should think the match an excellent one.

ARM. Although our tastes differ so in this case, you will still have to obey our parents, sister. A mother has full power over us, and in vain do you think by resistance to…

SCENE VIII. – CHRYSALE, ARISTE, CLITANDRE, HENRIETTE, ARMANDE

CHRY. (to HENRIETTE, as he presents CLITANDRE). Now, my daughter, you must show your approval of what I do. Take off your glove, shake hands with this gentleman, and from henceforth in your heart consider him as the man I want you to marry.

ARM. Your inclinations on this side are strong enough, sister.

HEN. We must obey our parents, sister; a father has full power over us.

ARM. A mother should have a share of obedience.

CHRY. What is the meaning of this?

ARM. I say that I greatly fear you and my mother are not likely to agree on this point, and this other husband…

CHRY. Be silent, you saucy baggage: philosophise as much as you please with her, and do not meddle with what I do. Tell her what I have done, and warn her that she is not to come and make me angry. Go at once!

SCENE IX. – CHRYSALE, ARISTE, HENRIETTE, CLITANDRE

ARI. That's right; you are doing wonders!

CLI. What transport! what joy! Ah! how kind fortune is to me!

CHRY. (to CLITANDRE). Come, take her hand and pass before us; take her to her room. Ah! what sweet caresses. (to ARISTE) How moved my heart is before this tenderness; it cheers up one's old age, and I can still remember my youthful loving days.

ACT IV

SCENE I. – PHILAMINTE, ARMANDE

ARM. Yes, there was no hesitation in her; she made a display of her obedience, and her heart scarcely took time to hear the order. She seemed less to obey the will of her father than affect to set at defiance the will of her mother.

PHI. I will soon show her to which of us two the laws of reason subject her wishes, and who ought to govern, mother or father, mind or body, form or matter.

ARM. At least, they owed you the compliment of consulting you; and that little gentleman who resolves to become your son-in-law, in spite of yourself, behaves himself strangely.

PHI. He has not yet reached the goal of his desires. I thought him well made, and approved of your love; but his manners were always unpleasant to me. He knows that I write a little, thank heaven, and yet he has never desired me to read anything to him.

SCENE II – ARMANDE, PHILAMINTE, CLITANDRE (entering softly and listening unseen)

ARM. If I were you, I would not allow him to become Henriette's husband. It would be wrong to impute to me the least thought of speaking like an interested person in this matter, and false to think that the base trick he is playing me secretly vexes me. By the help of philosophy, my soul is fortified against such trials; by it we can rise above everything. But to see him treat you so, provokes me beyond all endurance. Honour requires you to resist his wishes, and he is not a man in whom you could find pleasure. In our talks together I never could see that he had in his heart any respect for you.

PHI. Poor idiot!

ARM. In spite of all the reports of your glory, he was always cold in praising you.

PHI. The churl!

ARM. And twenty times have I read to him some of your new productions, without his ever thinking them fine.

PHI. The impertinent fellow!

ARM. We were often at variance about it, and you could hardly believe what foolish things…

CLI (to ARMANDE). Ah! gently, pray. A little charity, or at least a little truthfulness. What harm have I done to you? and of what am I guilty that you should thus arm all your eloquence against me to destroy me, and that you should take so much trouble to render me odious to those whose assistance I need? Tell me why this great indignation? (To PHILAMINTE) I am willing to make you, Madam, an impartial judge between us.

ARM. If I felt this great wrath with which you accuse me, I could find enough to authorise it. You deserve it but too well. A first love has such sacred claims over our hearts, that it would be better to lose fortune and renounce life than to love a second time. Nothing can be compared to the crime of changing one's vows, and every faithless heart is a monster of immorality.

CLI. Do you call that infidelity, Madam, which the haughtiness of your mind has forced upon me? I have done nothing but obey the commands it imposed upon me; and if I offend you, you are the primary cause of the offence. At first your charms took entire possession of my heart. For two years I loved you with devoted love; there was no assiduous care, duty, respect, service, which I did not offer you. But all my attentions, all my cares, had no power over you. I found you opposed to my dearest wishes; and what you refused I offered to another. Consider then, if the fault is mine or yours. Does my heart run after change, or do you force me to it? Do I leave you, or do you not rather turn me away?

ARM. Do you call it being opposed to your love, Sir, if I deprive it of what there is vulgar in it, and if I wish to reduce it to the purity in which the beauty of perfect love consists? You cannot for me keep your thoughts clear and disentangled from the commerce of sense; and you do not enter into the charms of that union of two hearts in which the body is ignored. You can only love with a gross and material passion; and in order to maintain in you the love I have created, you must have marriage, and all that follows. Ah! what strange love! How far great souls are from burning with these terrestrial flames! The senses have no share in all their ardour; their noble passion unites the hearts only, and treats all else as unworthy. Theirs is a flame pure and clear like a celestial fire. With this they breathe only sinless sighs, and never yield to base desires. Nothing impure is mixed in what they propose to themselves. They love for the sake of loving, and for nothing else. It is only to the soul that all their transports are directed, and the body they altogether forget.

CLI. Unfortunately, Madam, I feel, if you will forgive my saying so, that I have a body as well as a soul; and that I am too much attached to that body for me totally to forget it. I do not understand this separation. Heaven has denied me such philosophy, and my body and soul go together. There is nothing so beautiful, as you well say, as that purified love which is directed only to the heart, those unions of the soul and those tender thoughts so free from the commerce of sense. But such love is too refined for me. I am, as you observe, a little gross and material. I love with all my being; and, in the love that is given to me, I wish to include the whole person. This is not a subject for lofty self-denial; and, without wishing to wrong your noble sentiments, I see that in the world my method has a certain vogue; that marriage is somewhat the fashion, and passes for a tie honourable and tender enough to have made me wish to become your husband, without giving you cause to be offended at such a thought.

ARM. Well, well! Sir, since without being convinced by what I say, your grosser feelings will be satisfied; since to reduce you to a faithful love, you must have carnal ties and material chains, I will, if I have my mother's permission, bring my mind to consent to all you wish.

CLI. It is too late; another has accepted before you and if I were to return to you, I should basely abuse the place of rest in which I sought refuge, and should wound the goodness of her to whom I fled when you disdained me.

PHI. But, Sir, when you thus look forward, do you believe in my consent to this other marriage? In the midst of your dreams, let it enter your mind that I have another husband ready for her.

CLI. Ah! Madam, reconsider your choice, I beseech you; and do not expose me to such a disgrace. Do not doom me to the unworthy destiny of seeing myself the rival of Mr. Trissotin. The love of beaux esprits [Footnote: No single word has given me so much trouble to translate as this word esprit. This time I acknowledge myself beaten.], which goes against me in your mind, could not have opposed to me a less noble adversary. There are people whom the bad taste of the age has reckoned among men of genius; but Mr. Trissotin deceives nobody, and everyone does justice to the writings he gives us. Everywhere but here he is esteemed at his just value; and what has made me wonder above all things is to see you exalt to the sky, stupid verses which you would have disowned had you yourself written them.

PHI. If you judge of him differently from us, it is that we see him with other eyes than you do.

SCENE III. – TRISSOTIN, PHILAMINTE, ARMANDE, CLITANDRE

TRI. (to PHILAMINTE). I come to announce you great news. We have had a narrow escape while we slept. A world passed all along us, and fell right across our vortex. [Footnote: Tourbillon. Compare act iii scene ii. Another reference to Cotin.] If in its way it had met with our earth, it would have dashed us to pieces like so much glass.

PHI. Let us put off this subject till another season. This gentleman would understand nothing of it; he professes to cherish ignorance, and above all to hate intellect and knowledge.

CLI. This is not altogether the fact; allow me, Madam, to explain myself. I only hate that kind of intellect and learning which spoils people. These are good and beautiful in themselves; but I had rather be numbered among the ignorant than to see myself learned like certain people.

TRI. For my part I do not believe, whatever opinion may be held to the contrary, that knowledge can ever spoil anything.

CLI. And I hold that knowledge can make great fools both in words and in deeds.

TRI. The paradox is rather strong.

CLI. It would be easy to find proofs; and I believe without being very clever, that if reasons should fail, notable examples would not be wanting.

TRI. You might cite some without proving your point.

CLI. I should not have far to go to find what I want.

TRI. As far as I am concerned, I fail to see those notable examples.

CLI. I see them so well that they almost blind me.

TRI. I believed hitherto that it was ignorance which made fools, and not knowledge.

CLI. You made a great mistake; and I assure you that a learned fool is more of a fool than an ignorant one.

TRI. Common sense is against your maxims, since an ignorant man and a fool are synonymous.

CLI. If you cling to the strict uses of words, there is a greater connection between pedant and fool.

TRI. Folly in the one shows itself openly.

CLI. And study adds to nature in the other.

TRI. Knowledge has always its intrinsic value.

CLI. Knowledge in a pedant becomes impertinence.

TRI. Ignorance must have great charms for you, since you so eagerly take up arms in its defence.

CLI. If ignorance has such charms for me, it is since I have met with learned people of a certain kind.

TRI. These learned people of a certain kind may, when we know them well, be as good as other people of a certain other kind.

CLI. Yes, if we believe certain learned men; but that remains a question with certain people.

PHI. (to CLITANDRE.) It seems to me, Sir…

CLI. Ah! Madam, I beg of you; this gentleman is surely strong enough without assistance. I have enough to do already with so strong an adversary, and as I fight I retreat.

ARM. But the offensive eagerness with which your answers…

CLI. Another ally! I quit the field.

PHI. Such combats are allowed in conversation, provided you attack no one in particular.

CLI. Ah! Madam, there is nothing in all this to offend him. He can bear raillery as well as any man in France; and he has supported many other blows without finding his glory tarnished by it.