The School for Husbands | Page 4

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 the majority, and never cause
ourselves to be stared at. Extremes shock, and a wise man should do
with his clothes as with his speech; avoid too much affectation, and
without being in too great a hurry, follow whatever change custom
introduces. I do not think that we should act like those people who
always exaggerate the fashion, and who are annoyed