THE MISANTHROPE
A monologue from the
play by Molière
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Dramatic Works of Molière, Vol. II. Ed.
Charles Heron Wall. London: George Bell & Sons, 1898. |
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ALCESTE: No, you labour in vain, and in vain try to
argue. Nothing can now deter me from my project; too much perversity
reigns in our age, and I am resolved to avoid in future all intercourse
with men. What! everyone sees that honour, probity, decency,
and the laws are all against my adversary, men publish the justice
of my cause, and my mind trusts to the certainty of my right!
Yet in the end I am defeated! I have justice on my side, and
I lose my cause! A miserable scoundrel, whose shameful history
everyone knows, comes off triumphantly, thanks to the blackest
falsehood! All good faith yields to his perfidy! He cuts my throat
and proves that he is right. The weight of his mean, hypocritical
grimace is thrown into the balance, and justice kicks the beam.
He gets a decree of court to crown his infamy; and not satisfied
with the injury done to me, as there circulates in the world
an abominable book, the mere reading of which would be blamable,
and which deserves the strictest suppression, the paltry scoundrel
has the impudence to proclaim me the author! Upon which Oronte
is seen to mutter, and basely endeavours to support the calumny!
Oronte, who is said at Court to be an honourable man, and to
whom I have done no other wrong than to have told him the honest
truth. Oronte, who comes to me in spite of myself, eagerly to
ask my opinion on verses of his making; and because I speak to
him frankly, and betray neither him nor the truth, he helps to
crush me with an imaginary crime! He becomes my greatest enemy,
and will never forgive me, because, forsooth! I could not find
his sonnet good. 'Sdeath! and men are made thus! It is to such
actions that glory leads them! This is the good faith, virtuous
zeal, justice, and honour we find among them! No, it is too much
to endure all the sorrows their malice can devise against us;
I will escape out of this wood, out of this cut-throat place;
and since men behave like wolves to each other, the traitors
shall never have me among them so long as I am alive.
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