The Learned Women

Learned Women, The

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Title: The Learned Women
Author: Moliere (Poquelin)
Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8772] [Yes, we are more than
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THE LEARNED WOMEN
(LES FEMMES SAVANTES)
BY
MOLIÈRE
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH PROSE.
WITH SHORT INTRODUCTIONS AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
BY
CHARLES HERON WALL

The comedy of 'Les Femmes Savantes' was acted on March 11, 1692
(see vol. i. p. 153).
Molière acted the part of Chrysale.

PERSONS REPRESENTED
CHRYSALE, an honest bourgeois PHILAMINTE, wife to
CHRYSALE

ARMANDE & HENRIETTE, their daughters ARISTE, brother to
CHRYSALE
BÉLISE, his sister CLITANDRE, lover to HENRIETTE
TRISSOTIN, a wit VADIUS, a learned man MARTINE, _a
kitchen-maid_
LÉPINE, servant to CHRYSALE
JULIEN, servant to VADIUS
A NOTARY.

THE LEARNED WOMEN.

ACT I.
SCENE I.--ARMANDE, HENRIETTE.
ARM. What! Sister, you will give up the sweet and enchanting title of
maiden? You can entertain thoughts of marrying! This vulgar wish can
enter your head!
HEN. Yes, sister.
ARM. Ah! Who can bear that "yes"? Can anyone hear it without
feelings of disgust?
HEN. What is there in marriage which can oblige you, sister, to....
ARM. Ah! Fie!
HEN. What?
ARM. Fie! I tell you. Can you not conceive what offence the very

mention of such a word presents to the imagination, and what a
repulsive image it offers to the thoughts? Do you not shudder before it?
And can you bring yourself to accept all the consequences which this
word implies?
HEN. When I consider all the consequences which this word implies, I
only have offered to my thoughts a husband, children, and a home; and
I see nothing in all this to defile the imagination, or to make one
shudder.
ARM. O heavens! Can such ties have charms for you?
HEN. And what at my age can I do better than take a husband who
loves me, and whom I love, and through such a tender union secure the
delights of an innocent life? If there be conformity of tastes, do you see
no attraction in such a bond?
ARM. Ah! heavens! What a grovelling disposition! What a poor part
you act in the world, to confine yourself to family affairs, and to think
of no more soul-stirring pleasures than those offered by an idol of a
husband and by brats of children! Leave these base pleasures to the low
and vulgar. Raise your thoughts to more exalted objects; endeavour to
cultivate a taste for nobler pursuits; and treating sense and matter with
contempt, give yourself, as we do, wholly to the cultivation of your
mind. You have for an example our mother, who is everywhere
honoured with the name of learned. Try, as we do, to prove yourself her
daughter; aspire to the enlightened intellectuality which is found in our
family, and acquire a taste for the rapturous pleasures which the love of
study brings to the heart and mind. Instead of being in bondage to the
will of a man, marry yourself, sister, to philosophy, for it alone raises
you above the rest of mankind, gives sovereign empire to reason, and
submits to its laws the animal part, with those grovelling desires which
lower us to the level of the brute. These are the gentle flames, the sweet
ties, which should fill every moment of life. And the cares to which I
see so many women given up, appear to me pitiable frivolities.
HEN. Heaven, whose will is supreme, forms us at our birth to fill
different spheres; and it is not every mind which is composed of

materials fit to make a philosopher. If your mind is created to soar to
those