ORGON, CLEANTE
CLEANTE
Brother, she ridicules you to your face;
And I, though I don't want to make you angry, Must tell you candidly that she's quite right.
Was such infatuation ever heard of?
And can a man to-day have charms to make you Forget all else, relieve his poverty, Give him a home, and then...?
ORGON
Stop there, good brother, You do not know the man you're speaking of.
CLEANTE
Since you will have it so, I do not know him;But after all, to tell what sort of man He is...
ORGON
Dear brother, you'd be charmed to know him;
Your raptures over him would have no end.
He is a man...who...ah!...in fact...a man Whoever does his will, knows perfect peace, And counts the whole world else, as so much dung.
His converse has transformed me quite; he weans My heart from every friendship, teaches me To have no love for anything on earth;And I could see my brother, children, mother, And wife, all die, and never care--a snap.
CLEANTE
Your feelings are humane, I must say, brother!
ORGON
Ah! If you'd seen him, as I saw him first, You would have loved him just as much as I.
He came to church each day, with contrite mien, Kneeled, on both knees, right opposite my place, And drew the eyes of all the congregation, To watch the fervour of his prayers to heaven;With deep-drawn sighs and great ejaculations, He humbly kissed the earth at every moment;And when I left the church, he ran before me To give me holy water at the door.
I learned his poverty, and who he was, By questioning his servant, who is like him, And gave him gifts; but in his modesty He always wanted to return a part.
"It is too much," he'd say, "too much by half;I am not worthy of your pity." Then, When I refused to take it back, he'd go, Before my eyes, and give it to the poor.
At length heaven bade me take him to my home, And since that day, all seems to prosper here.
He censures everything, and for my sake He even takes great interest in my wife;He lets me know who ogles her, and seems Six times as jealous as I am myself.
You'd not believe how far his zeal can go:
He calls himself a sinner just for trifles;
The merest nothing is enough to shock him;
So much so, that the other day I heard him Accuse himself for having, while at prayer, In too much anger caught and killed a flea.
CLEANTE
Zounds, brother, you are mad, I think! Or else You're making sport of me, with such a speech.
What are you driving at with all this nonsense...?
ORGON
Brother, your language smacks of atheism;
And I suspect your soul's a little tainted Therewith.I've preached to you a score of times That you'll draw down some judgment on your head.
CLEANTE
That is the usual strain of all your kind;
They must have every one as blind as they.
They call you atheist if you have good eyes;
And if you don't adore their vain grimaces, You've neither faith nor care for sacred things.
No, no; such talk can't frighten me; I know What I am saying; heaven sees my heart.
We're not the dupes of all your canting mummers;There are false heroes--and false devotees;
And as true heroes never are the ones Who make much noise about their deeds of honour, Just so true devotees, whom we should follow, Are not the ones who make so much vain show.
What! Will you find no difference between Hypocrisy and genuine devoutness?
And will you treat them both alike, and pay The self-same honour both to masks and faces Set artifice beside sincerity, Confuse the semblance with reality, Esteem a phantom like a living person, And counterfeit as good as honest coin?
Men, for the most part, are strange creatures, truly!
You never find them keep the golden mean;
The limits of good sense, too narrow for them, Must always be passed by, in each direction;They often spoil the noblest things, because They go too far, and push them to extremes.
