The School for Husbands. Жан-Батист МольерЧитать онлайн книгу.
—
Poets of all men have the hardest game,
Their best Endeavours can no Favours claim.
The Lawyer if o'erthrown, though by the Laws,
He quits himself, and lays it on your Cause.
The Soldier is esteem'd a Man of War,
And Honour gains, if he but bravely dare.
The grave Physician, if his Patient dye,
He shakes his head, and blames Mortality.
Only poor Poets their own faults must bear;
Therefore grave Judges be not too severe.
Flecknoe has also imitated several of the scenes of The School forHusbands in The Damoiselles à la Mode, which is a medley of several of Molière's plays (see Introductory Notice to ThePretentious Young Ladies).
James Miller has likewise followed, in The Man of Taste (Act i., Scene 2). (see Introductory Notice to The Pretentious YoungLadies), one scene of the first act of Molière's The School forHusbands.
Murphy, in The School for Guardians, has borrowed from three plays of Molière. The main plot is taken from The School for Wives; some incidents of the second act are taken from The Blunderer (see Introductory Notice to The Blunderer), but the scenes in which Oldcastle and Lovibond state their intention of marrying their wards, and the way in which one of the wards, Harriet, makes her love known to Belford is taken from The School for Husbands, though Leonor does not betray in the French comedy, as she does in the English, the confidence placed in her. The French Isabella acts like Harriet, but then she has a foolish and jealous guardian.
Wycherley in The Country Wife, probably acted in 1672 or 1673, and which is partly an imitation of Molière's School for Wives, has borrowed from The School for Husbands, the letter which Isabella writes to Valère (Act ii., Scene 8), and also the scene in which Isabella escapes disguised in her sister's clothes: but, of course, to give an additional zest to the English play, the author makes Pinchwife himself bring his wife to her lover, Horner. The scene hardly bears transcribing. He has also partly imitated in The Gentleman Dancing-Master, first performed in 1673, some scenes of The School for Husbands.
Otway, in The Soldier's Fortune (see Introductory Notice to Sganarelle, or The Self-Deceived Husband), has borrowed from Molière's School for Husbands that part of his play in which Lady Dunse makes her husband the agent for conveying a ring and a letter to her lover.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
SGANARELLE, [Footnote: This part was played by Molière himself.
In the inventory taken after Molière's death, and given by M. Soulié, we find: "A dress for The School for Husbands, consisting of breeches, doublet, cloak, collar, purse and girdle, all of a kind of brown coloured (couleur de muse) satin."]
}
} brothers.
ARISTE, )
VALÈRE, lover to Isabella.
ERGASTE, servant to Valère.
[Footnote: The original has un Commissaire, who in Molière's time, appears to have been a kind of inferior magistrate under the authority of the Lieutenant-général de la Police. The Commissaires de Police were not established till 1699; and The School for Husbands was played for the first time in 1661.]
ISABELLA, )
) sisters.
LÉONOR, }
LISETTE, maid to Isabella.
Scene. – A PUBLIC PLACE IN PARIS.
ACT I
SCENE I. – SGANARELLE, ARISTE
SGAN. Pray, brother, let us talk less, and let each of us live as he likes. Though you have the advantage of me in years, and are old enough to be wise, yet I tell you that I mean to receive none of your reproofs; that my fancy is the only counsellor I shall follow, and that I am quite satisfied with my way of living.
AR. But every one condemns it.
SGAN. Yes, fools like yourself, brother.
AR. Thank you very much. It is a pleasant compliment.
SGAN. I should like to know, since one ought to hear everything, what these fine critics blame in me.
AR. That surly and austere temper which shuns all the charms of society, gives a whimsical appearance to all your actions, and makes everything peculiar in you, even your dress.
SGAN. I ought then to make myself a slave in fashion, and not to put on clothes for my own sake? Would you not, my dear elder brother – for, Heaven be thanked, so you are, to tell you plainly, by a matter of twenty years; and that is not worth the trouble of mentioning – would you not, I say, by your precious nonsense, persuade me to adopt the fashions of those young sparks of yours?
[Footnote: The original has vos jeunes muguets, literally "your young lilies of the valley," because in former times, according to some annotators, the courtiers wore natural or artificial lilies of the valley in their buttonholes, and perfumed themselves with the essence of that flower. I think that muguet is connected with the old French word musguet, smelling of musk. In Molière's time muguet had become rather antiquated; hence it was rightly placed in the mouth of Sganarelle, who likes to use such words and phrases. Rabelais employs it in the eighth chapter of Gargantua, un tas de muguets, and it has been translated by Sir Thomas Urquhart as "some fond wooers and wench-courters." The fashion of calling dandies after the name of perfumes is not rare in France. Thus Regnier speaks of them as marjolets, from marjolaine, sweet marjoram; and Agrippa d'Aubigné calls them muscadins (a word also connected with the old French musguet), which name was renewed at the beginning of the first French revolution, and bestowed on elegants, because they always smelled of musk.]
Oblige me to wear those little hats which provide ventilation for their weak brains, and that flaxen hair, the vast curls whereof conceal the form of the human face;
[Footnote: The fashion was in Molière's time to wear the hair, or wigs, very long, and if possible of a fair colour, which gave to the young fashionables, hence called blondins, an effeminate air. Sganarelle addresses Valère (Act ii. Scene 9), likewise as Monsieur aux blonds cheveux. In The School for Wives (Act ii. Scene 6), Arnolphe also tells Agnès not to listen to the nonsense of these beaux blondins. According to Juvenal (Satire VI.) Messalina put a fair wig on to disguise herself. Louis XIV. did not begin to wear a wig until 1673.]
those little doublets but just below the arms, and those big collars falling down to the navel; those sleeves which one sees at table trying all the sauces, and those petticoats called breeches; those tiny shoes, covered with ribbons, which make you look like feather-legged pigeons; and those large rolls wherein the legs are put every morning, as it were into the stocks, and in which we see these gallants straddle about with their legs as wide apart, as if they were the beams of a mill?
[Footnote: The original has marcher écarquillés ainsi que des volants. Early commentators have generally stated that volants means here "the beams of a mill," but MM. Moland and E. Despois, the last annotators of Molière, maintain that it stands for "shuttlecock," because the large rolls (canons), tied at the knee and wide at the bottom, bore a great resemblance to shuttlecocks turned upside down. I cannot see how this can suit the words marcher écarquillés, for the motion of the canons of gallants, walking or straddling about, is very unlike that produced by shuttlecocks beaten by battledores; I still think "beams of a mill" right, because, though the canons did not look like beams of a mill, the legs did, when in motion.]
I should doubtless please you, bedizened in this way; I see that you wear the stupid gewgaws which it is the fashion to wear.
AR. We should always agree with