章节正文
marriage, I don't know what I say: but she's the best woman in the
world.
FAIN. 'Tis well you don't know what you say, or else your
commendation would go near to make me either vain or jealous.
WIT. No man in town lives well with a wife but Fainall. Your
judgment, Mirabell?
MIRA. You had better step and ask his wife, if you would be
credibly informed.
WIT. Mirabell!
MIRA. Ay.
WIT. My dear, I ask ten thousand pardons. Gad, I have forgot what
I was going to say to you.
MIRA. I thank you heartily, heartily.
WIT. No, but prithee excuse me:- my memory is such a memory.
MIRA. Have a care of such apologies, Witwoud; for I never knew a
fool but he affected to complain either of the spleen or his memory.
FAIN. What have you done with Petulant?
WIT. He's reckoning his money; my money it was: I have no luck to-
day.
FAIN. You may allow him to win of you at play, for you are sure to
be too hard for him at repartee: since you monopolise the wit that
is between you, the fortune must be his of course.
MIRA. I don't find that Petulant confesses the superiority of wit
to be your talent, Witwoud.
WIT. Come, come, you are malicious now, and would breed debates.
Petulant's my friend, and a very honest fellow, and a very pretty
fellow, and has a smattering--faith and troth, a pretty deal of an
odd sort of a small wit: nay, I'll do him justice. I'm his friend,
I won't wrong him. And if he had any judgment in the world, he
would not be altogethercontemptible. Come, come, don't detract
from the merits of my friend.
FAIN. You don't take your friend to be over-nicely bred?
WIT. No, no, hang him, the rogue has no manners at all, that I must
own; no more breeding than a bum-baily, that I grant you:- 'tis
pity; the fellow has fire and life.
MIRA. What, courage?
WIT. Hum, faith, I don't know as to that, I can't say as to that.
Yes, faith, in a controversy he'll contradict anybody.
MIRA. Though 'twere a man whom he feared or a woman whom he loved.
WIT. Well, well, he does not always think before he speaks. We
have all our failings; you are too hard upon him, you are, faith.
Let me excuse him,--I can defend most of his faults, except one or
two; one he has, that's the truth on't,--if he were my brother I
could not acquit him--that indeed I could wish were otherwise.
MIRA. Ay, marry, what's that, Witwoud?
WIT. Oh, pardon me. Expose the infirmities of my friend? No, my
dear, excuse me there.
FAIN. What, I warrant he's unsincere, or 'tis some such trifle.
WIT. No, no; what if he be? 'Tis no matter for that, his wit will
excuse that. A wit should no more be sincere than a woman constant:
one argues a decay of parts, as t'other of beauty.
MIRA. Maybe you think him too positive?
WIT. No, no; his being positive is an incentive to argument, and
keeps up conversation.
FAIN. Too illiterate?
WIT. That? That's his happiness. His want of learning gives him
the more opportunities to show his natural parts.
MIRA. He wants words?
WIT. Ay; but I like him for that now: for his want of words gives
me the pleasure very often to explain his meaning.
FAIN. He's impudent?
WIT. No that's not it.
MIRA. Vain?
WIT. No.
MIRA. What, he speaks unseasonable truths sometimes, because he has
not wit enough to invent an evasion?
WIT. Truths? Ha, ha, ha! No, no, since you will have it, I mean
he never speaks truth at all, that's all. He will lie like a
chambermaid, or a woman of quality's porter. Now that is a fault.
SCENE VII.
[To them] COACHMAN.
COACH. Is Master Petulant here, mistress?
BET. Yes.
COACH. Three gentlewomen in a coach would speak with him.
FAIN. O brave Petulant! Three!
BET. I'll tell him.
COACH. You must bring two dishes of chocolate and a glass of
cinnamon water.
SCENE VIII.
MIRABELL, FAINALL, WITWOUD.
WIT. That should be for two fasting strumpets, and a bawd troubled
with wind. Now you may know what the three are.
MIRA. You are very free with your friend's acquaintance.
WIT. Ay, ay; friendship without freedom is as dull as love without
enjoyment or wine without toasting: but to tell you a secret, these
are trulls whom he allows coach-hire, and something more by the
week, to call on him once a day at public places.
MIRA. How!
WIT. You shall see he won't go to 'em because there's no more
company here to take notice of him. Why, this is nothing to what he
used to do:- before he found out this way, I have known him call for
himself -
FAIN. Call for himself? What dost thou mean?
WIT. Mean? Why he would slip you out of this chocolate-house, just
when you had been talking to him. As soon as your back was turned--
whip he was gone; then trip to his lodging, clap on a hood and scarf
and a mask, slap into a hackney-coach, and drive hither to the door
again in a trice; where he would send in for himself; that I mean,
call for himself, wait for himself, nay, and what's more, not
finding himself, sometimes leave a letter for himself.
MIRA. I confess this is something extraordinary. I believe he
waits for himself now, he is so long a coming; oh, I ask his pardon.
SCENE IX.
PETULANT, MIRABELL, FAINALL, WITWOUD, BETTY.
BET. Sir, the coach stays.
PET. Well, well, I come. 'Sbud, a man had as good be a professed
midwife as a professed whoremaster, at this rate; to be knocked up
and raised at all hours, and in all places. Pox on 'em, I won't
come. D'ye hear, tell 'em I won't come. Let 'em snivel and cry
their hearts out.
FAIN. You are very cruel, Petulant.
PET. All's one, let it pass. I have a humour to be cruel.
MIRA. I hope they are not persons of condition that you use at this
rate.
PET. Condition? Condition's a dried fig, if I am not in humour.
By this hand, if they were your--a--a--your what-d'ee-call-'ems
themselves, they must wait or rub off, if I want appetite.
MIRA. What-d'ee-call-'ems! What are they, Witwoud?
WIT. Empresses, my dear. By your what-d'ee-call-'ems he means
Sultana Queens.
PET. Ay, Roxolanas.
MIRA. Cry you mercy.
FAIN. Witwoud says they are -
PET. What does he say th'are?
WIT. I? Fine ladies, I say.
PET. Pass on, Witwoud. Harkee, by this light, his relations--two
co-heiresses his cousins, and an old aunt, who loves cater-wauling
better than a conventicle.
WIT. Ha, ha, ha! I had a mind to see how the rogue would come off.
Ha, ha, ha! Gad, I can't be angry with him, if he had said they
were my mother and my sisters.
MIRA. No?
WIT. No; the rogue's wit and readiness of invention charm me, dear
Petulant.
BET. They are gone, sir, in great anger.
PET. Enough, let 'em trundle. Anger helps complexion, saves paint.
FAIN. This continence is all dissembled; this is in order to have
something to brag of the next time he makes court to Millamant, and
swear he has abandoned the whole sex for her sake.
MIRA. Have you not left off your impudent pretensions there yet? I
shall cut your throat, sometime or other, Petulant, about that
business.
PET. Ay, ay, let that pass. There are other throats to be cut.
MIRA. Meaning mine, sir?
PET. Not I--I mean nobody--I know nothing. But there are uncles
and nephews in the world--and they may be rivals. What then? All's
one for that.
MIRA. How? Harkee, Petulant, come hither. Explain, or I shall
call your interpreter.
PET. Explain? I know nothing. Why, you have an uncle, have you
not, lately come to town, and lodges by my Lady Wishfort's?
MIRA. True.
PET. Why, that's enough. You and he are not friends; and if he
should marry and have a child, yon may be disinherited, ha!
MIRA. Where hast thou stumbled upon all this truth?
PET. All's one for that; why, then, say I know something.
MIRA. Come, thou art an honest fellow, Petulant, and shalt make
love to my mistress, thou shalt, faith. What hast thou heard of my
uncle?
PET. I? Nothing, I. If throats are to be cut, let swords clash.
Snug's the word; I shrug and am silent.
MIRA. Oh, raillery, raillery! Come, I know thou art in the women's
secrets. What, you're a cabalist; I know you stayed at Millamant's
last night after I went. Was there any mention made of my uncle or
me? Tell me; if thou hadst but good nature equal to thy wit,
Petulant, Tony Witwoud, who is now thy competitor in fame, would
show as dim by thee as a dead whiting's eye by a pearl of orient; he
would no more be seen by thee than Mercury is by the sun: come, I'm
sure thou wo't tell me.
PET. If I do, will you grant me common sense, then, for the future?
MIRA. Faith, I'll do what I can for thee, and I'll pray that heav'n
may grant it thee in the meantime.
PET. Well, harkee.
FAIN. Petulant and you both will find Mirabell as warm a rival as a
lover.
WIT. Pshaw, pshaw, that she laughs at Petulant is plain. And for
my part, but that it is almost a fashion to admire her, I should--
harkee--to tell you a secret, but let it go no further between
friends, I shall never break my heart for her.
FAIN. How?
WIT. She's handsome; but she's a sort of an uncertain woman.
FAIN. I thought you had died for her.
WIT. Umh--no -
FAIN. She has wit.
WIT. 'Tis what she will hardly allow anybody else. Now, demme, I
should hate that, if she were as handsome as Cleopatra. Mirabell is
not so sure of her as he thinks for.
FAIN. Why do you think so?
WIT. We stayed pretty late there last night, and heard something of
an uncle to Mirabell, who is lately come to town, and is between him
and the best part of his estate. Mirabell and he are at some
distance, as my Lady Wishfort has been told; and you know she hates
Mirabell worse than a quaker hates a parrot, or than a fishmonger
hates a hard frost. Whether this uncle has seen Mrs. Millamant or
not, I cannot say; but there were items of such a treaty being in
embryo; and if it should come to life, poor Mirabell would be in
some sort unfortunately fobbed, i'faith.
FAIN. 'Tis impossible Millamant should hearken to it.
WIT. Faith, my dear, I can't tell; she's a woman and a kind of a
humorist.
MIRA. And this is the sum of what you could collect last night?
world.
FAIN. 'Tis well you don't know what you say, or else your
commendation would go near to make me either vain or jealous.
WIT. No man in town lives well with a wife but Fainall. Your
judgment, Mirabell?
MIRA. You had better step and ask his wife, if you would be
credibly informed.
WIT. Mirabell!
MIRA. Ay.
WIT. My dear, I ask ten thousand pardons. Gad, I have forgot what
I was going to say to you.
MIRA. I thank you heartily, heartily.
WIT. No, but prithee excuse me:- my memory is such a memory.
MIRA. Have a care of such apologies, Witwoud; for I never knew a
fool but he affected to complain either of the spleen or his memory.
FAIN. What have you done with Petulant?
WIT. He's reckoning his money; my money it was: I have no luck to-
day.
FAIN. You may allow him to win of you at play, for you are sure to
be too hard for him at repartee: since you monopolise the wit that
is between you, the fortune must be his of course.
MIRA. I don't find that Petulant confesses the superiority of wit
to be your talent, Witwoud.
WIT. Come, come, you are malicious now, and would breed debates.
Petulant's my friend, and a very honest fellow, and a very pretty
fellow, and has a smattering--faith and troth, a pretty deal of an
odd sort of a small wit: nay, I'll do him justice. I'm his friend,
I won't wrong him. And if he had any judgment in the world, he
would not be altogethercontemptible. Come, come, don't detract
from the merits of my friend.
FAIN. You don't take your friend to be over-nicely bred?
WIT. No, no, hang him, the rogue has no manners at all, that I must
own; no more breeding than a bum-baily, that I grant you:- 'tis
pity; the fellow has fire and life.
MIRA. What, courage?
WIT. Hum, faith, I don't know as to that, I can't say as to that.
Yes, faith, in a controversy he'll contradict anybody.
MIRA. Though 'twere a man whom he feared or a woman whom he loved.
WIT. Well, well, he does not always think before he speaks. We
have all our failings; you are too hard upon him, you are, faith.
Let me excuse him,--I can defend most of his faults, except one or
two; one he has, that's the truth on't,--if he were my brother I
could not acquit him--that indeed I could wish were otherwise.
MIRA. Ay, marry, what's that, Witwoud?
WIT. Oh, pardon me. Expose the infirmities of my friend? No, my
dear, excuse me there.
FAIN. What, I warrant he's unsincere, or 'tis some such trifle.
WIT. No, no; what if he be? 'Tis no matter for that, his wit will
excuse that. A wit should no more be sincere than a woman constant:
one argues a decay of parts, as t'other of beauty.
MIRA. Maybe you think him too positive?
WIT. No, no; his being positive is an incentive to argument, and
keeps up conversation.
FAIN. Too illiterate?
WIT. That? That's his happiness. His want of learning gives him
the more opportunities to show his natural parts.
MIRA. He wants words?
WIT. Ay; but I like him for that now: for his want of words gives
me the pleasure very often to explain his meaning.
FAIN. He's impudent?
WIT. No that's not it.
MIRA. Vain?
WIT. No.
MIRA. What, he speaks unseasonable truths sometimes, because he has
not wit enough to invent an evasion?
WIT. Truths? Ha, ha, ha! No, no, since you will have it, I mean
he never speaks truth at all, that's all. He will lie like a
chambermaid, or a woman of quality's porter. Now that is a fault.
SCENE VII.
[To them] COACHMAN.
COACH. Is Master Petulant here, mistress?
BET. Yes.
COACH. Three gentlewomen in a coach would speak with him.
FAIN. O brave Petulant! Three!
BET. I'll tell him.
COACH. You must bring two dishes of chocolate and a glass of
cinnamon water.
SCENE VIII.
MIRABELL, FAINALL, WITWOUD.
WIT. That should be for two fasting strumpets, and a bawd troubled
with wind. Now you may know what the three are.
MIRA. You are very free with your friend's acquaintance.
WIT. Ay, ay; friendship without freedom is as dull as love without
enjoyment or wine without toasting: but to tell you a secret, these
are trulls whom he allows coach-hire, and something more by the
week, to call on him once a day at public places.
MIRA. How!
WIT. You shall see he won't go to 'em because there's no more
company here to take notice of him. Why, this is nothing to what he
used to do:- before he found out this way, I have known him call for
himself -
FAIN. Call for himself? What dost thou mean?
WIT. Mean? Why he would slip you out of this chocolate-house, just
when you had been talking to him. As soon as your back was turned--
whip he was gone; then trip to his lodging, clap on a hood and scarf
and a mask, slap into a hackney-coach, and drive hither to the door
again in a trice; where he would send in for himself; that I mean,
call for himself, wait for himself, nay, and what's more, not
finding himself, sometimes leave a letter for himself.
MIRA. I confess this is something extraordinary. I believe he
waits for himself now, he is so long a coming; oh, I ask his pardon.
SCENE IX.
PETULANT, MIRABELL, FAINALL, WITWOUD, BETTY.
BET. Sir, the coach stays.
PET. Well, well, I come. 'Sbud, a man had as good be a professed
midwife as a professed whoremaster, at this rate; to be knocked up
and raised at all hours, and in all places. Pox on 'em, I won't
come. D'ye hear, tell 'em I won't come. Let 'em snivel and cry
their hearts out.
FAIN. You are very cruel, Petulant.
PET. All's one, let it pass. I have a humour to be cruel.
MIRA. I hope they are not persons of condition that you use at this
rate.
PET. Condition? Condition's a dried fig, if I am not in humour.
By this hand, if they were your--a--a--your what-d'ee-call-'ems
themselves, they must wait or rub off, if I want appetite.
MIRA. What-d'ee-call-'ems! What are they, Witwoud?
WIT. Empresses, my dear. By your what-d'ee-call-'ems he means
Sultana Queens.
PET. Ay, Roxolanas.
MIRA. Cry you mercy.
FAIN. Witwoud says they are -
PET. What does he say th'are?
WIT. I? Fine ladies, I say.
PET. Pass on, Witwoud. Harkee, by this light, his relations--two
co-heiresses his cousins, and an old aunt, who loves cater-wauling
better than a conventicle.
WIT. Ha, ha, ha! I had a mind to see how the rogue would come off.
Ha, ha, ha! Gad, I can't be angry with him, if he had said they
were my mother and my sisters.
MIRA. No?
WIT. No; the rogue's wit and readiness of invention charm me, dear
Petulant.
BET. They are gone, sir, in great anger.
PET. Enough, let 'em trundle. Anger helps complexion, saves paint.
FAIN. This continence is all dissembled; this is in order to have
something to brag of the next time he makes court to Millamant, and
swear he has abandoned the whole sex for her sake.
MIRA. Have you not left off your impudent pretensions there yet? I
shall cut your throat, sometime or other, Petulant, about that
business.
PET. Ay, ay, let that pass. There are other throats to be cut.
MIRA. Meaning mine, sir?
PET. Not I--I mean nobody--I know nothing. But there are uncles
and nephews in the world--and they may be rivals. What then? All's
one for that.
MIRA. How? Harkee, Petulant, come hither. Explain, or I shall
call your interpreter.
PET. Explain? I know nothing. Why, you have an uncle, have you
not, lately come to town, and lodges by my Lady Wishfort's?
MIRA. True.
PET. Why, that's enough. You and he are not friends; and if he
should marry and have a child, yon may be disinherited, ha!
MIRA. Where hast thou stumbled upon all this truth?
PET. All's one for that; why, then, say I know something.
MIRA. Come, thou art an honest fellow, Petulant, and shalt make
love to my mistress, thou shalt, faith. What hast thou heard of my
uncle?
PET. I? Nothing, I. If throats are to be cut, let swords clash.
Snug's the word; I shrug and am silent.
MIRA. Oh, raillery, raillery! Come, I know thou art in the women's
secrets. What, you're a cabalist; I know you stayed at Millamant's
last night after I went. Was there any mention made of my uncle or
me? Tell me; if thou hadst but good nature equal to thy wit,
Petulant, Tony Witwoud, who is now thy competitor in fame, would
show as dim by thee as a dead whiting's eye by a pearl of orient; he
would no more be seen by thee than Mercury is by the sun: come, I'm
sure thou wo't tell me.
PET. If I do, will you grant me common sense, then, for the future?
MIRA. Faith, I'll do what I can for thee, and I'll pray that heav'n
may grant it thee in the meantime.
PET. Well, harkee.
FAIN. Petulant and you both will find Mirabell as warm a rival as a
lover.
WIT. Pshaw, pshaw, that she laughs at Petulant is plain. And for
my part, but that it is almost a fashion to admire her, I should--
harkee--to tell you a secret, but let it go no further between
friends, I shall never break my heart for her.
FAIN. How?
WIT. She's handsome; but she's a sort of an uncertain woman.
FAIN. I thought you had died for her.
WIT. Umh--no -
FAIN. She has wit.
WIT. 'Tis what she will hardly allow anybody else. Now, demme, I
should hate that, if she were as handsome as Cleopatra. Mirabell is
not so sure of her as he thinks for.
FAIN. Why do you think so?
WIT. We stayed pretty late there last night, and heard something of
an uncle to Mirabell, who is lately come to town, and is between him
and the best part of his estate. Mirabell and he are at some
distance, as my Lady Wishfort has been told; and you know she hates
Mirabell worse than a quaker hates a parrot, or than a fishmonger
hates a hard frost. Whether this uncle has seen Mrs. Millamant or
not, I cannot say; but there were items of such a treaty being in
embryo; and if it should come to life, poor Mirabell would be in
some sort unfortunately fobbed, i'faith.
FAIN. 'Tis impossible Millamant should hearken to it.
WIT. Faith, my dear, I can't tell; she's a woman and a kind of a
humorist.
MIRA. And this is the sum of what you could collect last night?
- complain [kəm´plein]
vi.抱怨，叫屈；控诉 (初中英语单词) - talent [´tælənt] n.天才；才干；天资 (初中英语单词)
- altogether [,ɔ:ltə´geðə] ad.完全；总而言之 (初中英语单词)
- pardon [´pɑ:dən] n.&vt.原谅；饶恕；赦免 (初中英语单词)
- expose [ik´spəuz] vt.揭露，暴露；陈列 (初中英语单词)
- sincere [sin´siə] a.真挚的；直率的 (初中英语单词)
- argument [´ɑ:gjumənt] n.辩论；争论；论证 (初中英语单词)
- learning [´lə:niŋ] n.学习；学问；知识 (初中英语单词)
- invent [in´vent] vt.发明；捏造 (初中英语单词)
- hither [´hiðə] ad.到此处 (初中英语单词)
- confess [kən´fes] vt.供认；坦白；承认 (初中英语单词)
- extraordinary [ik´strɔ:dinəri] a.非常的；额外的 (初中英语单词)
- humour [´hju:mə] n.幽默，诙谐 (初中英语单词)
- invention [in´venʃən] n.创造；发明；虚构 (初中英语单词)
- throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
- sometime [´sʌmtaim] ad.曾经 a.从前的 (初中英语单词)
- lately [´leitli] ad.近来，不久前 (初中英语单词)
- mistress [´mistris] n.女主人；情妇；女能手 (初中英语单词)
- mercury [´mə:kjuri] n.汞；水银柱 (初中英语单词)
- uncertain [ʌn´sə:tn] a.不定的；不可靠的 (初中英语单词)
- estate [i´steit] n.财产；庄园；等级 (初中英语单词)
- heartily [´hɑ:tili] ad.衷心地；亲切地 (高中英语单词)
- controversy [´kɔntrəvə:si] n.争论；争吵 (高中英语单词)
- positive [´pɔzətiv] a.确定的 (高中英语单词)
- porter [´pɔ:tə] n.守门人；勤杂工人 (高中英语单词)
- lodging [´lɔdʒiŋ] n.寄宿，住宿 (高中英语单词)
- complexion [kəm´plekʃən] n.肤色；情况；局面 (高中英语单词)
- competitor [kəm´petitə] n.竞争者；比赛者 (高中英语单词)
- orient [´ɔ:riənt] n.东方 a.东方的 (高中英语单词)
- unfortunately [ʌn´fɔ:tʃunitli] ad.不幸；不朽；可惜 (高中英语单词)
- superiority [su:piəri´ɔriti, sju:-] n.优越，卓越 (英语四级单词)
- breeding [´bri:diŋ] n.饲养，教养 (英语四级单词)
- contradict [,kɔntrə´dikt] v.反驳；否认 (英语四级单词)
- acquit [ə´kwit] vt.无罪开释 (英语四级单词)
- warrant [´wɔrənt] n.根据；委任书；权利 (英语四级单词)
- readiness [´redinis] n.准备就绪；愿意 (英语四级单词)
- parrot [´pærət] n.鹦鹉；应声虫 (英语四级单词)
- hearken [´hɑ:kən] vi.听 (英语四级单词)
- affected [ə´fektid] a.做作的；假装的 (英语六级单词)
- reckoning [´rekəniŋ] n.计算；算帐；估计 (英语六级单词)
- malicious [mə´liʃəs] a.恶意的；预谋的 (英语六级单词)
- contemptible [kən´temptəbəl] a.可鄙的；可轻视的 (英语六级单词)
- incentive [in´sentiv] n.刺激；鼓励；动机 (英语六级单词)
- abandoned [ə´bændənd] a.被抛弃的；无约束的 (英语六级单词)
- quaker [´kweikə] n.教友会教徒 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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