ARMANDE: What?! “Single woman,” sister...

ARMANDE: What?! “Single woman,” sister, is a noble title,
And you want to abandon it, to fling it gaily away
And get married?
Can such a vulgar plan have seized your brain?

HENRIETTE: Yes, sister.

ARMANDE: Ugh! That little “yes” is intolerable! Impossible to hear
Without a fit of heartburn.

HENRIETTE: What is it sister, about marriage in itself that makes you…

ARMANDE: Oh, my God, fie!

HENRIETTE: What?

ARMANDE: Yes, fie, I tell you!
Can’t you even begin to see how distasteful
Such a word is to the mind? How it wounds
The brain with images unbidden?
To what filthy sights it drags one’s thoughts?
Do you not shudder at it, sister? And can you set your heart
Upon the consequences of that word?

HENRIETTE: The consequences of that word, to my mind,
Would be a husband, some children, a household;
And I see nothing there, when I set my mind upon it
That wounds my brain or makes me shudder.

ARMANDE: And bonds like that (good God!) would give you pleasure?

HENRIETTE: And what better could I do, at my age,
Than forge a bond with a spouse,
A man who would love me and be loved,
And from the tenderness that follows,
Create the sweetness of a blameless life?
If the chemistry is right, can’t you see its appeal?

ARMANDE: 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.

HENRIETTE: Heaven, whose order of course is all-powerful,
Creates us at birth for different functions;
And every mind is not composed of the stuff
That’s right for fashioning philosophers.
If yours was born fit for the heights
Scaled by the theories of scholars,
Mine was made, sister, to stick to the earth,
Prone to be caught up in those little cares.
Let’s not trouble the just rules of heaven;
We should follow the promptings of our instincts.
Go, through the flight of your great, fine genius,
Dwell in the highest regions of philosophy
While my mind keeps me here below
To taste the earthly pleasures of marriage.
So, in our quite contrary courses
We will both emulate our mother;
You, on the side of the soul and noble wishes,
I, on the side of the senses and gross pleasures;
You, on the enlightened projects of the mind,
I, sister, on the projects of mere matter.

ARMANDE: When you try to emulate a person,
You should imitate the beautiful side,
And it’s hardly modeling yourself on her,
Sister, if you look like her when you cough and spit.

HENRIETTE: But you wouldn’t be your vaunted self, my sister,
If my mother’d had only that beautiful side,
And think where you’d be if her noble genius
Hadn’t taken a break from philosophy.
Please be so kind as to allow me some of the baseness
To which you owe your high intellect,
And do not stifle, by enlisting me to follow you,
Some little scholar who wants to be born.

ARMANDE: I see that your stubborn mind cannot be cured
Of the lunatic notion of taking a husband;
But pray tell me who you dream of landing.
Surely you don’t set your sights on Clitandre?

HENRIETTE: And why not? Does he lack merit?
Would the choice be way too low?

ARMANDE: No, but it’s a plan that would be dishonorable,
Trying to snag another’s conquest;
And it’s no secret to the world that Clitandre
Has openly sighed for me.

HENRIETTE: Yes, but for you all sighs are useless things,
And you’d never stoop to human baseness.
Your spirit has renounced mere marriage
And all your love is for philosophy.
So, since your heart is not set on Clitandre,
What can it matter if another might want him?

ARMANDE: The sovereign rule of reason over the senses
Permits us to enjoy the sweet smell of incense;
I can deny a gallant my hand
But like him to be a worshiper.

HENRIETTE: I haven’t kept him from continuing
To adore all your perfections.
All I’ve done is accept, upon your spirit’s rejection,
The offer that came to me: the homage of his heart.

ARMANDE: But please, do you feel totally secure
With the pledges of a jilted lover?
Do you honestly think his passion for you is real,
And the flame burning for me is really dead?

HENRIETTE: He tells me so, dear sister, and I believe him.

ARMANDE: Sister, don’t be so naïve. Believe me,
When he says he’s through with me and loves you,
He’s not really thinking; he’s fooling himself.

HENRIETTE: I don’t know; but really, if you wish,
It would be easy for us to clear this up.
I see him coming, so on this question
He can fully enlighten us.

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