No More Learning

He was the apothecary, and this is the doctor who has
performed the operation.

GERONTE: Quick, fetch the police, and prevent him
from going off! Oh, traitor, I will have you punished
by law.

LUCAS: You shall hang for this, doctor! Don't stir a
step from here!

[_Re-enter_ LEANDRE _and_ LUCINDE.

LEANDRE: Monsieur, I appear before you as Leandre,
and to restore Lucinde to your authority. We intended
to go off and to get married, but this undertaking has
given place to a more honourable proceeding. It is only
from your hands that I will receive Lucinde. I have
to tell you, monsieur, that I have just received letters
from which I learn that my uncle is dead, and that I am
the heir to all his property.

GERONTE: Monsieur, your virtue merits every consideration,
and I give you my daughter with the greatest
pleasure in the world.

SGANARELLE: Physic has had a narrow escape.

MARTINE: Since you are not going to be hanged, you
may thank me for making you a doctor. It was I who
gained you that honour.

SGANARELLE: I forgive you the beating because of the
dignity to which you have raised me, but be prepared
henceforth to show great respect towards a man of my
consequence; and remember that a doctor's anger is
more to be feared than folk imagine.
(MOLIERE: _Continued in Vol. XVIII_)




_Printed in the United States of America_


FOOTNOTES:

[AD] Moliere, whose real name was Jean Baptiste Poquelin, the
name Moliere not having been assumed until he had commenced authorship,
was born at Paris, January 15, 1622. Almost nothing is known of his
early life, except that in his fourteenth year he was sent to the
Jesuit College de Clermont, in Paris, and that later he studied law. In
1645 he suddenly appeared upon the stage as a member of a company of
strolling players, and later, through the recommendation of influential
friends, his company gained permission to act before the King. His
comedies soon placed him in the front rank of French dramatists, and he
is now regarded as perhaps the greatest of all comic dramatists. Of all
the learned classes that fell under Moliere's merciless lash, none came
so completely as the profession of medicine. This is especially the
case in "The Doctor in Spite of Himself" ("Lie Medecin Malgre Lui"),
which appeared in June, 1666, and in which Moliere himself played the
role of Sganarelle.

The piece was originally acted with the "Misanthrope," but its
immediate and pronounced success justified its being put on the bill
alone. Both in conception and in motive the "Doctor" is frankly
farcical, yet the lines abound in delicious satire, and on occasions
melt from sheer buffoonery into graceful comedy. Moliere died on
February 17, 1673.






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