My God, your mind is on a lowly plane!...

My God, your mind is on a lowly plane!

How small a role you choose to play,

To cloister yourself in household things,

Glimpsing no pleasures more appealing

Than some idol of a husband and some brats!

Leave to the lower sorts, the vulgar masses,

The base amusements of such affairs.

Elevate your yearnings toward the higher goals,

Cultivate a taste for nobler pleasures,

And, disdaining senses and gross matter,

Devote yourself like us entirely to the mind.

Look to our mother as a model,

Honored everywhere for erudition.

Try, as I do, to be her worthy daughter;

Aspire to the enlightenment that’s our heritage,

And learn to savor the sweet delights

That the love of study pours into our hearts.

Don’t subject yourself as slave to the laws of a man;

Become the bride, dear sister, of philosophy

Which sets us up above all humankind

And gives to reason sovereign empire,

Subjecting to its rule our animal side

Whose gross appetites drag us down to the pit with the beasts.

These are the noble fires, the sweet attachments

Which ought to fill up every moment of our lives;

And the cares that worry sentimental women

Strike me as horrible wastes.

Citation: Moliere, Translated by Jonathan Marks, The Learned Women, Public domain.
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