Tartuffe

“ Dorine. A woman in love needs a heart of steel.
Mariane. But haven't I kept it free for my lover
Whose task it is to win me from my father?
Dorine. What! If your father is a mad fanatic
Whose love for Tartuffe is completely lunatic
And who has blocked the match you are now bewailing,
Is your lover to be damned for failing?
Mariane. But am I to display how deeply I'm bitten
By rejecting Tartuffe like one who's love-smitten?
Am I, because of Valere's strength and beauty,
To renounce my modesty and duty?
And would you have me show my heart to all . . . ?
Dorine. No, no, not at all. ”

“ Consider the basis of Tartuffe; an obscene pedant, a red-faced hypocritical wretch, who, palming himself off on a decent and refined family, tries to drive the son away, marry the daughter, corrupt the wife, ruin and imprison the father, and almost succeeds in it, not by clever plots, but by vulgar mummery, and by the coarse audacity of his caddish disposition. ”

“ Mr. Tartuffe, your friend, is mighty lucky . . .
MADAME PERNELLE
He is a holy man, and must be heeded;
I can't endure, with any show of patience,
To hear a scatterbrains like you attack him.
DAMIS
What! Shall I let a bigot criticaster
Come and usurp a tyrant's power here?
And shall we never dare amuse ourselves
Till this fine gentleman deigns to consent?
DORINE
If we must hark to him, and heed his maxims,
There's not a thing we do but what's a crime ”

“ Tartuffe has been always a disgusting play to me to see, in spite of its sense and its wit; and so, instead of printing, here or elsewhere, a few stories of the Tartuffe kind which I have heard in Ireland, the best way will be to try and forget them. It is an awful thing to say of any man walking under God’s sun by the side of us, ‘You are a hypocrite, lying as you use the Most Sacred Name, knowing that you lie while you use it.’ Let it be the privilege of any sect that is so minded, to imagine that there is perdition in store for all the rest of God’s creatures who do not think with them ”

“ Attempt to stop something so advantageous?
Tartuffe! Oh! Isn't he something to behold?
Surely Tartuffe is not made from such a mold,
If rightly viewed, as to make a person laugh;
'Twould be an honor to be his better half.
The whole world already crowns him with glory;--
Both in physique and character he's laudatory;
He has red ears and a florid, flushing face
With him for a mate you'd live in joyful grace.
Mariane. Dear God!
Dorine. What delight you will feel within
To know that you're wed to a man like him.
Mariane. Oh! ”

“ MARIANE
What can I do? My father is the master.
DORINE
Do? Everything, to ward off such disaster.
MARIANE
But what?
DORINE
Tell him one doesn't love by proxy;
Tell him you'll marry for yourself, not him;
Since you're the one for whom the thing is done,
You are the one, not he, the man must please;
If his Tartuffe has charmed him so, why let him
Just marry him himself—no one will hinder.
MARIANE
A father's rights are such, it seems to me,
That I could never dare to say a word.
DORINE
Came, talk it out. Valere has asked your hand:
Now do you love him, pray, or do you not? ”

“ In a drama every action ought to be important in itself, and to lead to an action greater still. In this respect Tartuffe is a model. What a piece of exposition the first scene is! From the beginning everything has an important meaning, and causes something much more important to be foreseen. The exposition in a certain play of Lessing that might be mentioned is very fine, but the world only sees that of Tartuffe once. It is the finest of the kind we possess. Every year I read a play of Moliere, just as from time to time I contemplate some engraving after the great Italian masters. ”

“ Elmire. Yes, it's a torment.
Tartuffe [offering Elmire a piece of candy] .
Would it help to have a licorice or mint?
Elmire. It's an obstinate illness, and I see
That all the mints in the world won't help me
Tartuffe. It's certainly troublesome.
Elmire. That's for sure!
Tartuffe. Your scruples at least are easy to cure:
You can be sure that I will keep things quiet--
A deed is evil only if men spy it.
The noise of scandal is the source of offense;
There is no sin if one sins in silence.
Elmire [after having coughed and knocked on the table] . ”

“ Yes, I believe a wife should never trouble
Her husband's peace of mind with such vain gossip;
A woman's honour does not hang on telling;
It is enough if she defend herself;
Or so I think; Damis, you'd not have spoken,
If you would but have heeded my advice.
SCENE VI
ORGON, DAMIS, TARTUFFE
ORGON
Just Heaven! Can what I hear be credited?
TARTUFFE
Yes, brother, I am wicked, I am guilty,
A miserable sinner, steeped in evil,
The greatest criminal that ever lived.
Each moment of my life is stained with soilures;
And all is but a mass of crime and filth ”

“ Things needn't go farther than you wish, my love.
And you must stop them from becoming bizarre
When you think his mad love has gone too far.
Spare your wife and don't leave me in his hands
Longer than reaching your conviction demands.
This is your concern and you are in command.
Here he comes. Keep still! Keep down! Understand?
SCENE V
Tartuffe, Elmire, Orgon (under the table)
Tartuffe. ”

“ DORINE
So ho! Go slow now. Just you leave the fellow—
Your father too—in your step-mother's hands.
She has some influence with this Tartuffe,
He makes a point of heeding all she says,
And I suspect that he is fond of her.
Would God 'twere true!—'Twould be the height of humour
Now, she has sent for him, in your behalf,
To sound him on this marriage, to find out
What his ideas are, and to show him plainly
What troubles he may cause, if he persists
In giving countenance to this design. ”

“ MARIANE
Who'd have dared to hope it?
ORGON (to Tartuffe, who is being led by the officer)
There traitor! Now you're ...
SCENE VIII MADAME PERNELLE, ORGON, ELMIRE, MARIANE, CLEANTE, VALERE, DAMIS, DORINE CLEANTE
Brother, hold!—and don't
Descend to such indignities, I beg you.
Leave the poor wretch to his unhappy fate,
And let remorse oppress him, but not you.
Hope rather that his heart may now return
To virtue, hate his vice, reform his ways,
And win the pardon of our glorious prince ”

“ Tartuffe, or The Impostor, has occasionally, and even recently, sometimes to the disturbance of the public peace in France, given great offence not only to those who felt the justice, and winced under the severity of the satire; but to others, who suspected that a blow was aimed at religion, under the mask of an attack upon hypocrisy. But its intrinsic merit, the truth of the drawing, and the justness of the colouring, have secured patrons for it among persons of unquestionable sense, virtue, learning, and taste; and it has always triumphed over the violence of opposition. ”

“ Orgon. No man more evil has been spawned in Hell.
Elmire. Dear Lord! Don't believe the lies people tell.
Be wholly convinced before you concede:
Cautious men shun the slips that come with speed.
[She pushes her husband behind her.]
SCENE VII
Tartuffe, Elmire, Orgon
Tartuffe [without seeing Orgon] . All things conspire, madame, for my contentment:
I've closely examined the whole apartment;
No one is around, and my heart's delight. . .
[Just as Tartuffe comes forward with open arms to embrace Elmire, she steps back and Tartuffe sees Orgon.]
Orgon [stopping him] . Hold on! ”

“ DORINE (to Orgon)
It is a man who comes, with civil manners,
Sent by Tartuffe, he says, upon an errand
That you'll be pleased with.
CLEANTE (to Orgon)
Surely you must see him,
And find out who he is, and what he wants.
ORGON (to Cleante)
Perhaps he's come to make it up between us:
How shall I treat him?
CLEANTE
You must not get angry;
And if he talks of reconciliation
Accept it.
MR. LOYAL (to Orgon)
Sir, good-day. And Heaven send
Harm to your enemies, favour to you. ”

“ His credulity and faith in Tartuffe, like that of his mother, can scarcely be shaken even by the evidence of his senses. He hopes against hope, and fights every inch of ground in defence of the religious hypocrite.—Molière, Tartuffe (1664) .
[129] Oria ́na, daughter of Lisuarte, king of England, and spouse of Am ́adis of Gaul (bk. ii. 6) . The general plot of this series of romances bears on this marriage, and tells of the thousand and one obstacles from rivals, giants, sorcerers and so on, which had to be overcome before the consummation could be effected. ”

“ At length, in August, 1667, "Le Tartuffe," so long suppressed, appeared on the stage, and in the depth and power of its composition left all authors of comedy far behind. The art with which the "Impostor" is made to develop his real character, without any of the usual soliloquies or addresses to a confidant, for the benefit of the audience, has been always admired as inimitable. The heart of a man who had least desired, and could worst bear close investigation, is discovered and ascertained, as navigators trace the lines and bearings of an unknown coast. ”

“ That such should be the Italian author’s chosen title for his work incidentally shows how cosmopolitan is our French dramatist’s fame. The book is a kindly-caustic satire on the times in which we live, found by the satirist to be abundant in the quality of Tartuffe, that leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy. ”

“ Alceste the impatient but not cynical hero, Célimène the coquette, Oronte the fop, Éliante the reasonable woman, Arsinoé the mischief-maker, are all immortal types. The admirable farce-comedy of the Médecin malgré Lui (same date) , founded upon an old fabliau, followed, and this was succeeded almost immediately by the graceful pastoral of Mélicerte, the amusing Pastorale Comique, and the slight sketch of Le Sicilien, ou L'Amour Peintre. At last, in 1667, Tartuffe got itself represented. ”

“ Dorine. Must he be there the same moment you pass
Like those who attend only to be seen?
Orgon. Your advice isn't wanted. Don't intervene.
Tartuffe is on the path to salvation,
And that is a treasure past calculation.
This wedding will bring blessings beyond measure,
And be crowned with great sweetness and pleasure.
Together you will live, thriving on love
Like new-born babes, or a pair of turtledoves.
You will never be found in angry debate
For you will find all that you wish in this mate.
Dorine. She'll only make him a cuckold, I'm sure.
Orgon. What?
Dorine. ”

“ This took place between 1653 and 1658, consequently only a few years before the representation of Molière's Tartuffe, who wrote the three first acts in 1664. Everything leads us to believe that such adventures were not rare at that period. Tartuffe, Orgon, and all the other personages of this truly historical piece, are not abstract beings, pure creations of art, like the heroes of Corneille or Racine; they are real men, caught in the act, and taken from nature. ”

“ Tartuffe is well enough . . .
DORINE
A pretty phiz!
ORGON
So that, although you may not care at all
For his best qualities . . .
DORINE
A handsome dowry!
(Orgon turns and stands in front of her, with arms folded, eyeing her.)
Were I in her place, any man should rue it
Who married me by force, that's mighty certain;
I'd let him know, and that within a week,
A woman's vengeance isn't far to seek.
ORGON (to Dorine)
So—nothing that I say has any weight?
DORINE
Eh? What's wrong now? I didn't speak to you. ”

“ There is beauty in this broadly comic acting, the beauty of subtle detail. Words can do little to define a performance which is a constant series of little movements of the face, little intonations of the voice, a way of lolling in the chair, a way of speaking, of singing, of preserving the gravity of burlesque. In "Tartuffe" we get a form of comedy which is almost tragic, the horribly serious comedy of the hypocrite. ”

“ Dorine. For heaven's sake, control your displeasure.
Your father has merely mentioned this measure.
No one does everything he proposes.
How something opens may not be how it closes.
Damis. I need to stop this vulgar coxcomb's plot
And in two little words tell him what's what.
Dorine. Whoa now! Why don't you let your stepmother
Manage him just as she does your father.
Over Tartuffe she has her own little ways
Of making him welcome all that she says,
And perhaps she makes his heart go pitter-patter. ”

“ Of a pig, and if he should happen to hiccup or fart,
Says, "God be with you!" He's mad about him--
His honey, his hero. He always quotes him
And admires his deeds. His smallest acts are miracles
And even his stupidest words are oracles.
Tartuffe, who uses his dupe to make a buck,
Knows a hundred wily ways to pluck this duck ”

“ And so, let addle-pated pedants (one does not exclude the other) claim that the deformed, the ugly, the grotesque should never be imitated in art; one replies that the grotesque is comedy, and that comedy apparently makes a part of art. Tartuffe is not handsome, Pourceaugnac is not noble, but Pourceaugnac and Tartuffe are admirable flashes of art. ”

“ But the Scandinavian playwright has not a little of the great Frenchman's feeling for reality, and even more of his detestation of affectation and his hatred of sham. The creator of Tartuffe would have appreciated Pastor Manders, an incomparable prig, with self-esteem seven times heated, engrossed with appearances only and ingrained with parochial hypocrisy. ”

“ A man besotted, since he's been so taken
With this Tartuffe. He calls him brother, loves him
A hundred times as much as mother, son,
Daughter, and wife. He tells him all his secrets
And lets him guide his acts, and rule his conscience.
He fondles and embraces him; a sweetheart
Could not, I think, be loved more tenderly;
At table he must have the seat of honour,
While with delight our master sees him eat
As much as six men could; we must give up
The choicest tidbits to him; if he belches,
('tis a servant speaking) [2]
Master exclaims: "God bless you!"—Oh, he dotes
Upon him! ”