Scapin

“ GER. What the deuce did he want to go in that galley for? Ah! cursed galley! Scoundrel of a Turk! May the devil take you!
SCAPIN (alone) . He can't get over the five hundred crowns I wrench from him; but he has not yet done with me, and I will make him pay in a different money his imposture about me to his son.
SCENE XII.--OCTAVE, LÉANDRE, SCAPIN.
OCT. Well, Scapin, have your plans been successful?
LEA. Have you done anything towards alleviating my sorrow?
SCA. (to OCTAVE) . Here are two hundred pistoles I have got from your father.
OCT. Ah! how happy you make me. ”

“ Closely followed by his valet, Scapin, who is in imminent danger of having an eye put out by the end of his master’s big sword, he marches several times around the stage, taking preternaturally long strides, rolling his eyes about fiercely, twisting the long ends of his huge mustache, and indulging in a variety of ridiculous gestures indicative of exaggerated rage and fury, which are irresistibly funny—all the more so because there is nothing whatever to provoke this display of ferocity. ”

“ Scapin, if you could find some scheme, invent some plot, to get me out of the trouble I am in, I should think myself indebted to you for more than life.
SCA. To tell you the truth, there are few things impossible to me when I once set about them. Heaven has bestowed on me a fair enough share of genius for the making up of all those neat strokes of mother wit, for all those ingenious gallantries to which the ignorant and vulgar give the name of impostures ”

“ No. Gé...Géronte. Yes, Géronte, that's my miser's name. I have it now; it is the old churl I mean. Well, to come back to our story. Our people wished to leave this town to-day, and my lover would have lost me through his lack of money if, in order to wrench some out of his father, he had not made use of a clever servant he has. As for that servant's name, I remember it very well. His name is Scapin. He is a most wonderful man, and deserves the highest praise. ”

“ SCA. Trust me; he hasn't to do with an idiot.
ARG. I will go home and wait for you.
SCA. I shall be sure to go. (Alone.) That one's all right; now for the other. Ah! here he is. They are sent one after the other to fall into my net.
SCENE XI.—GÉRONTE, SCAPIN.
SCA. (affecting not to see GÉRONTE) . O Heaven! O unforeseen misfortune! O unfortunate father! Poor Géronte, what will you do?
GER. (aside) . What is he saying there with that doleful face?
SCA. Can no one tell me whereto find Mr. Géronte?
GER. What is the matter, Scapin? ”

“ ARG. Your servant Scapin, in his vexation, only told me the thing roughly, and you can learn all the particulars from him or from some one else. For my part, I will at once go to my solicitor, and see what steps I can take in the matter. Good-bye.
SCENE II.—GÉRONTE (alone) .
GER. What can it be? Worse than what his son has done! I am sure I don't know what anyone can do more wrong than that; and to marry without the consent of one's father is the worst thing that I can possibly imagine. ”

“ Vanish both of you; (to OCTAVE) and you, please, tell Silvestre to come quickly, and take his part in the affair.
SCENE VIII.--ARGANTE, SCAPIN.
SCA. (aside) . Here he is, turning it over in his mind.
ARG. (thinking himself alone) . Such behaviour and such lack of consideration! To entangle himself in an engagement like that! Ah! rash youth.
SCA. Your servant, Sir.
ARG. Good morning, Scapin.
SCA. You are thinking of your son's conduct.
ARG. Yes, I acknowledge that it grieves me deeply.
SCA. Ah! Sir, life is full of troubles; and we should always be prepared for them. ”

“ I'll give you your fill. Come on, you rabble! come on. That's what you want, you there. You shall have your fill of it, I say. Stick to it, you brutes; stick to it. Now, then, parry; now, then, you. (Turning towards ARGANTE and SCAPIN.) Parry this; parry. You draw back? Stand firm, man! S'death! What! Never flinch, I say.
SCA. Sir, we have nothing to do with it.
SIL. That will teach you to trifle with me.
SCENE X.—ARGANTE, SCAPIN.
SCA. Well, Sir, you see how many people are killed for two hundred pistoles. Now I wish you a good morning.
ARG. (all trembling) . Scapin. ”

“ CAR. Alas! Sir, you will not have that trouble. As he was passing near a building, a bricklayer's hammer fell on his head and broke his skull, leaving his brain exposed. He is dying, and he has asked to be brought in here to speak to you before he dies.
SCENE XIV.—ARGANTE, GÉRONTE, LÉANDRE, OCTAVE, HYACINTHA, ZERBINETTE,
NÉRINE. SILVESTRE, CARLE, SCAPIN.
SCA. (brought in by some men, his head wrapped up, as if he were wounded) . Oh, oh! gentlemen, you see me.... Oh! You see me in a sad state. Oh! I would not die without coming to ask forgiveness of all those I may have offended. Oh! ”

“ I feel for you a tenderness which renders it impossible for me to leave you without help.
GER. Be sure that I will reward you for it, Scapin, and I promise you this coat of mine when it is a little more worn.
SCA. Wait a minute. I have just thought, at the proper moment, of the very thing to save you. You must get into this sack, and I....
GER. (thinking he sees somebody) . Ah!
SCA. No, no, no, no; 'tis nobody. As I was saying, you must get in here, and must be very careful not to stir. I will put you on my shoulders, and carry you like a bundle of something or other. ”

“ So I tried putting one into our own Kiltartan dialect, The Doctor in Spite of Himself, and it went very well. I went on, therefore, and translated Scapin and The Miser. Our players give them with great spirit; the chief parts—Scapin, Harpagon, and Frosine—could hardly be bettered in any theatre. I confess their genius does not suit so well the sentimental and artificial young lovers.
Mr. Yeats wrote from Paris: “Dec. 19, ’08, I saw two days ago a performance of Scapin at the Odeon. I really like our own better. ”

“ SIL. I pray you, Scapin, don't go and embroil me with justice.
SCA. Never mind, we will share our perils like brothers, and three years more or less on the galleys are not sufficient to check a noble heart.
ACT II.
SCENE I.—GÉRONTE, ARGANTE.
GER. Yes, there is no doubt but that with this weather we shall have our people with us to-day; and a sailor who has arrived from Tarentum told me just now that he had seen our man about to start with the ship. ”

“ OCT. Two hundred pistoles.
SCA. I must extract this money from your respective fathers' pockets. (To OCTAVE) As far as yours is concerned, my plan is all ready. (To LÉANDRE) And as for yours, although he is the greatest miser imaginable, we shall find it easier still; for you know that he is not blessed with too much intellect, and I look upon him as a man who will believe anything. This cannot offend you; there is not a suspicion of a resemblance between him and you; and you know what the world thinks, that he is your father only in name.
LEA. Gently, Scapin. ”

“ We must spare no trouble, scour the town, and not forget one single spot Let us search on all sides. Which way shall we go? Let us go that way. No, this. On the left. On the right. No; yes." (To GÉRONTE in his ordinary voice) Hide yourself well. "Ah! here is his servant. I say, you rascal, you must tell us where your master is. Speak. Be quick. At once. Make haste. Now." Ah! gentlemen, one moment. (GÉRONTE looks quietly out of the bag, and sees SCAPIN'S trick.) "If you do not tell us at once where your master is, we will shower a rain of blows on your back." ”

“ That was fairly successful indeed; yet a man of his superiority, and with a less obtrusive policy, might, who knows? have got the length of half a crown. A man who prides himself upon persuasion should learn the persuasive faculty of silence, above all as to his own misdeeds. It is only in the farce and for dramatic purposes that Scapin enlarges on his peculiar talents to the world at large.
Scapin is perhaps a good name for this clever, unfortunate Alick; for at the bottom of all his misconduct there was a guiding sense of humour that moved you to forgive him. ”

“ SCA. I don't know if such is his intention, but he won't consent to give the two hundred pistoles you asked; he says it's too much.
SIL. S'death! s'blood! If I can but find him, I'll make mince-meat of him, were I to be broken alive on the wheel afterwards.
(ARGANTE hides, trembling, behind SCAPIN.)
SCA. Sir, the father of Octave is a brave man, and perhaps he will not be afraid of you.
SIL. Ah! will he not? S'blood! s'death! If he were here, I would in a moment run my sword through his body. (Seeing ARGANTE.) Who is that man?
SCA. He's not the man, Sir; he's not the man. ”

“ The transition is easily made, from the dancing-jack which a child works with a string, to Geronte and Argante manipulated by Scapin. Listen to Scapin himself: "The MACHINE is all there"; and again: "Providence has brought them into my net," etc. Instinctively, and because one would rather be a cheat than be cheated, in imagination at all events, the spectator sides with the knaves; and for the rest of the time, like a child who has persuaded his playmate to lend him his doll, he takes hold of the strings himself and makes the marionette come and go on the stage as he pleases. ”

“ The plot, indeed, is but a frame to introduce the various tricks of Scapin, who, after all, is a much less agreeable cheat than Phormio: His deceptions are too palpable, and the old men are incredible fools. As in Terence, there are two fathers, Argante and Geronte, and during the absence of the former, his son Octave falls in love with and marries a girl, whom he had accidentally seen bewailing the death of her mother. ”

“ Do as you please. "You want to be beaten, then?" I will never betray my master. "Ah! you will have it—there." Oh!
(As he is going to strike, GÉRONTE gets out of the bag, and SCAPIN runs away.)
GER. (alone) . Ah! infamous wretch! ah I rascal! ah! scoundrel! It is thus that you murder me?
SCENE III.—ZERBINETTE, GÉRONTE.
ZER. (laughing, without seeing GÉRONTE) . Ah, ah! I must really come and breathe a little.
GER. (aside, not seeing ZERBINETTE) . Ah! I will make you pay for it.
ZER. (not seeing GÉRONTE) . Ah, ah, ah, ah! What an amusing story! What a good dupe that old man is! ”

“ SCA. Hide yourself; here comes one of the bullies! He is looking for you. (Altering his voice.) {Footnote: All the parts within inverted commas are supposed to be spoken by the man Scapin is personating; the rest by himself.} "Vat! I shall not hab de pleasure to kill dis Géronte, and one vill not in sharity show me vere is he?" (To GÉRONTE, in his ordinary tone) Do not stir. "Pardi! I vill find him if he lied in de mittle ob de eart" (To GÉRONTE, in his natural tone) Do not show yourself. "Ho! you man vid a sack!" Sir! "I will give thee a pound if thou vilt tell me where dis Géronte is." ”

“ Géronte and tell him of my misfortune.
SCA. Sir, if I can be useful to you in any way, you have but to order me.
ARG. I thank you. (Aside) Ah! Why is he my only son? Oh! that I had with me the daughter that Heaven has taken away from me, so that I might make her my heir.
SCENE VII.—SCAPIN, SYLVESTRE.
SIL. You are a great man, I must confess; and things are in a fair way to succeed. But, on the other hand, we are greatly pressed for money, and we have people dunning us. ”

“ He thinks that you are trying to break off that match, because you intend to give to your daughter the place she occupies in the heart of Octave; and he has resolved to wreak his vengeance upon you. All his friends, men of the sword like himself, are looking out for you, and are seeking you everywhere. I have met with scores here and there, soldiers of his company, who question every one they meet, and occupy in companies all the thoroughfares leading to your house, so that you cannot go home either to the right or the left without falling into their hands.
GER. What can I do, my dear Scapin? ”

“ Argante.
SIL. (alone) . Well, this is a strange affair.
SCENE IX.--SCAPIN, SILVESTRE.
SCA. Well, Silvestre, what are our people doing?
SIL. I have two things to tell you. One is that Octave is all right; our Hyacintha is, it seems, the daughter of Géronte, and chance has brought to pass what the wisdom of the fathers had decided. The other, that the old men threaten you with the greatest punishments-- particularly Mr. Géronte.
SCA. Oh, that's nothing. Threats have never done me any harm as yet; they are but clouds which pass away far above our heads. ”

“ Her brother Octave (2 syl.) falls in love with Hyacinthe, whom he supposes to be Hyacinthe Pandolphe of Tarentum, but who turns out to be Hyacinthe Gèronte, the sister of Lèandre. Now, the gypsies demand £1500 as the ransom of Zerbinette, and Octave requires £80 for his marriage with Hyacinthe. Scapin obtains both these sums from the fathers under false pretences, and at the end of the comedy is brought in on a litter, with his head bound as if on the point of death. He begs forgiveness, which he readily obtains ”

“ I am defending, as I ought, an honourable man who is maligned. "Are you one friend of dis Géronte?" Yes, Sir, I am. "Ah, ah! You are one friend of him, dat is goot luck!" (Beating the sack several times with the stick.) "Here is vat I give you for him." (Calling out as if he received the beating) Ah! ah! ah! ah! Sir. Ah! ah! Sir, gently! Ah! pray. Ah! ah! ah! "Dere, bear him dat from me. Goot-pye." Ah! the wretch. Ah!... ah!
GER. (looking out) . Ah! Scapin, I can bear it no longer.
SCA. Ah! Sir, I am bruised all over, and my shoulders are as sore as can be. ”

“ OCT. After a few words, with which I tried to soothe her grief, we left her; and when I asked Léandre what he thought of her, he answered coldly that she was rather pretty! I was wounded to find how unfeelingly he spoke to me of her, and I would not tell him the effect her beauty had had on my heart.
SIL. (to OCTAVE) . If you do not abridge your story, we shall have to stop here till to-morrow. Leave it to me to finish it in a few words. (To SCAPIN) His heart takes fire from that moment. He cannot live without going to comfort the amiable and sorrowful girl. ”