Part 1 (1/2)
Tartuffe.
by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Jean Baptiste Poquelin, better known by his stage name of Moliere, stands without a rival at the head of French comedy. Born at Paris in January, 1622, where his father held a position in the royal household, he was educated at the Jesuit College de Clermont, and for some time studied law, which he soon abandoned for the stage. His life was spent in Paris and in the provinces, acting, directing performances, managing theaters, and writing plays. He had his share of applause from the king and from the public; but the satire in his comedies made him many enemies, and he was the object of the most venomous attacks and the most impossible slanders. Nor did he find much solace at home; for he married unfortunately, and the unhappiness that followed increased the bitterness that public hostility had brought into his life. On February 17, 1673, while acting in ”La Malade Imaginaire,” the last of his masterpieces, he was seized with illness and died a few hours later.
The first of the greater works of Moliere was ”Les Precieuses Ridicules,” produced in 1659. In this brilliant piece Moliere lifted French comedy to a new level and gave it a new purpose--the satirizing of contemporary manners and affectations by frank portrayal and criticism. In the great plays that followed, ”The School for Husbands”
and ”The School for Wives,” ”The Misanthrope” and ”The Hypocrite”
(Tartuffe), ”The Miser” and ”The Hypochondriac,” ”The Learned Ladies,”
”The Doctor in Spite of Himself,” ”The Citizen Turned Gentleman,” and many others, he exposed mercilessly one after another the vices and foibles of the day.
His characteristic qualities are nowhere better exhibited than in ”Tartuffe.” Compared with such characterization as Shakespeare's, Moliere's method of portraying life may seem to be lacking in complexity; but it is precisely the simplicity with which creations like Tartuffe embody the weakness or vice they represent that has given them their place as universally recognized types of human nature.
ACT I
SCENE I
MADAME PERNELLE and FLIPOTTE, her servant; ELMIRE, MARIANE, CLEANTE, DAMIS, DORINE
MADAME PERNELLE Come, come, Flipotte, and let me get away.
ELMIRE You hurry so, I hardly can attend you.
MADAME PERNELLE Then don't, my daughter-in law. Stay where you are.
I can dispense with your polite attentions.
ELMIRE We're only paying what is due you, mother.
Why must you go away in such a hurry?
MADAME PERNELLE Because I can't endure your carryings-on, And no one takes the slightest pains to please me.
I leave your house, I tell you, quite disgusted; You do the opposite of my instructions; You've no respect for anything; each one Must have his say; it's perfect pandemonium.
DORINE If ...
MADAME PERNELLE You're a servant wench, my girl, and much Too full of gab, and too impertinent And free with your advice on all occasions.
DAMIS But ...
MADAME PERNELLE You're a fool, my boy--f, o, o, l Just spells your name. Let grandma tell you that I've said a hundred times to my poor son, Your father, that you'd never come to good Or give him anything but plague and torment.
MARIANE I think ...
MADAME PERNELLE O dearie me, his little sister!
You're all demureness, b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt In your mouth, one would think to look at you.
Still waters, though, they say ... you know the proverb; And I don't like your doings on the sly.
ELMIRE But, mother ...