The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman. Жан-Батист Мольер

JOUR. Softly.

      FEN. MAS. I will beat you after such a fashion…

      MR. JOUR. (to the FENCING MASTER). For goodness sake!

      DAN. MAS. I'll thrash you in such a style…

      MR. JOUR. (to the DANCING MASTER). I beg of you…

      MUS. MAS. Let us teach him a little how to behave himself.

      MR. JOUR. (to the MUSIC MASTER). Gracious heavens! Do stop.

      SCENE IV.

      – PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, MR. JOURDAIN, MUSIC MASTER, DANCING MASTER, FENCING MASTER, A SERVANT.

      MR. JOUR. Oh! you are in the very nick of time with your philosophy.

      Pray come here and restore peace among these people.

      PROF. PHIL. What is going on? What is the matter, gentlemen?

      MR. JOUR. They have got themselves into such a rage about the importance that ought to be attached to their different professions that they have almost come to blows over it.

      PROF. PHIL. For shame, gentlemen; how can you thus forget yourselves? Have you not read the learned treatise which Seneca composed on anger? Is there anything more base and more shameful than the passion which changes a man into a savage beast, and ought not reason to govern all our actions?

      DAN. MAS. How, Sir! He comes and insults us both in our professions; he despises dancing, which I teach, and music, which is his occupation.

      PROF. PHIL. A wise man is above all the insults that can be offered him; and the best and noblest answer one can make to all kinds of provocation is moderation and patience.

      FEN. MAS. They have both the impertinence to compare their professions to mine!

      PROF. PHIL. Why should this offend you? It is not for vain glory and rank that men should strive among themselves. What distinguishes one man from another is wisdom and virtue.

      DAN. MAS. I maintain that dancing is a science which we cannot honour too much. [Footnote: In fact, dancing was much more honoured in Molière's time than it is now.]

      MUS. MAS. And I that music is a science which all ages have revered.

      FEN. MAS. And I, I maintain against them both that the science of attack and defence is the best and most necessary of all sciences.

      PROF. PHIL. And for what, then, do you count philosophy? I think you are all three very bold fellows to dare to speak before me with this arrogance, and impudently to give the name of science to things which are not even to be honoured with the name of art, but which can only be classed with the trades of prize-fighter, street-singer, and mountebank.

      FEN. MAS. Get out, you dog of a philosopher.

      MUS. MAS. Get along with you, you beggarly pedant.

      DAN. MAS. Begone, you empty-headed college scout.

      PROF. PHIL. How, scoundrels that you are!

      (The PHILOSOPHER rushes upon them, and they all three belabour him.)

      MR. JOUR. Mr. Philosopher.

      PROF. PHIL. Infamous villains!

      MR. JOUR. Mr. Philosopher!

      FEN. MAS. Plague take the animal!

      MR. JOUR. Gentlemen!

      PROF. PHIL. Impudent cads!

      MR. JOUR. Mr. Philosopher!

      DAN. MAS. Deuce take the saddled ass!

      MR. JOUR. Gentlemen!

      PROF. PHIL. Scoundrels!

      MR. JOUR. Mr. Philosopher!

      MUS. MAS. Devil take the insolent fellow!

      MR. JOUR. Gentlemen!

      PROF. PHIL. Knaves, beggars, wretches, impostors!

      MR. JOUR. Mr. Philosopher! Gentlemen! Mr. Philosopher! Gentlemen! Mr. Philosopher!

      SCENE V.

      – MR. JOURDAIN, A SERVANT.

      MR. JOUR. Well! fight as much as you like, I can't help it; but don't expect me to go and spoil my dressing-gown to separate you. I should be a fool indeed to thrust myself among them, and receive some blow or other that might hurt me.

      SCENE VI.

      – PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, MR. JOURDAIN, A SERVANT.

      PROF. PHIL. (setting his collar in order). Now for our lesson.

      MR. JOUR. Ah! Sir, how sorry I am for the blows they have given you.

      PROF. PHIL. It is of no consequence. A philosopher knows how to receive things calmly, and I shall compose against them a satire, in the style of Juvenal, which will cut them up in proper fashion. Let us drop this subject. What do you wish to learn?

      MR. JOUR. Everything I can, for I have the greatest desire in the world to be learned; and it vexes me more than I can tell that my father and mother did not make me learn thoroughly all the sciences when I was young.

      PROF. PHIL. This is a praiseworthy feeling. Nam sine doctrina vita est quasi mortis imago. You understand this, and you have no doubt a knowledge of Latin?

      MR. JOUR. Yes; but act as if I had none. Explain to me the meaning of it.

      PROF. PHIL. The meaning of it is, that, without science, life is an image of death.

      MR. JOUR. That Latin is quite right.

      PROF. PHIL. Have you any principles, any rudiments of science?

      MR. JOUR. Oh yes; I can read and write.

      PROF. PHIL. With what would you like to begin? Shall I teach you logic?

      MR. JOUR. And what may this logic be?

      PROF. PHIL. It is that which teaches us the three operations of the mind.

      MR. JOUR. What are they, these three operations of the mind?

      PROF. PHIL. The first, the second, and the third. The first is to conceive well by means of universals; the second, to judge well by means of categories; and the third, to draw a conclusion aright by means of the figures Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton, &c.

      MR. JOUR. Pooh! what repulsive words. This logic does not by any means suit me. Teach me something more enlivening.

      PROF. PHIL. Will you learn moral philosophy?

      MR. JOUR. Moral philosophy?

      PROF. PHIL. Yes.

      MR. JOUR. What does it say, this moral philosophy?

      PROF. PHIL. It treats of happiness, teaches men to moderate their passions, and…

      MR. JOUR. No, none of that. I am devilishly hot-tempered, and, morality or no morality, I like to give full vent to my anger whenever I have a mind to it.

      PROF. PHIL. Would you like to learn physics?

      MR. JOUR. And what have physics to say for themselves?

      PROF. PHIL. Physics are that science which explains the principles of natural things and the properties of bodies, which discourses of the nature of the elements, of metals, minerals, stones, plants, and animals; which teaches us the cause of all the meteors, the rainbow, the ignis fatuus, comets, lightning, thunder, thunderbolts, rain, snow, hail, wind, and whirlwinds.

      MR. JOUR. There is too much hullaballoo in all that; too much riot and rumpus.

      PROF. PHIL. What would you have me teach you then?

      MR. JOUR. Teach me spelling.

      PROF. PHIL. Very good.

      MR. JOUR. Afterwards you will teach me the almanac, so that I may know when there is a moon, and when there isn't one.

      PROF. PHIL. Be it so. In order to give a right interpretation to your thought, and to treat this matter philosophically,