THE IMPOSTURES OF SCAPIN
A monologue from the
play by Molière
|
NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Dramatic Works of Molière, Vol. III. Ed.
Charles Heron Wall. London: George Bell & Sons, 1891. |
|
|
SCAPIN: Ah! Sir, what are you talking about, and what
a resolution you are going to take. Just cast a glance on the
ins and outs of justice, look at the number of appeals, of stages
of jurisdiction; how many embarrassing procedures; how many ravenous
wolves through whose claws you will have to pass; sergeants,
solicitors, counsel, registrars, substitutes, recorders, judges
and their clerks. There is not one of these who, for the merest
trifle, couldn't knock over the best case in the world. A sergeant
will issue false writs without your knowing anything of it. Your
solicitor will act in concert with your adversary, and sell you
for ready money. Your counsel, bribed in the same way, will be
nowhere to be found when your case comes on, or else will bring
forward arguments which are the merest shooting in the air, and
will never come to the point. The registrar will issue writs
and decrees against you for contumacy. The recorder's clerk will
make away with some of your papers, or the instructing officer
himself will not say what he has seen; and when, by dint of the
wariest possible precautions, you have escaped all these traps,
you will be amazed that your judges have been set against you
either by bigots or by the women they love. Ah! Sir, save yourself
from such a hell, if you can. 'Tis damnation in this world to
have to go to law; and the mere thought of a lawsuit is quite
enough to drive me to the other end of the world.
MORE
MONOLOGUES BY MOLIÈRE |
