Socrates by Voltaire (best ereader for epub TXT) 📖

that’s not the way you must speak.

You must speak of gods and goddesses. Take care: I perceive in you

dangerous sentiments and I know very well who inspired them. Know that

Ceres, whose high priest I am, can punish you for having scorned her

cult and her minister.

 

AGLAEA:

I scorn neither the one nor the other. They tell me that Ceres

presides over wheat: I intend to believe it. But she doesn’t meddle

with my marriage.

 

ANITUS:

She meddles with everything. You know that very well; but still I hope

to convert you. Are you really determined not to marry Sophronine?

 

AGLAEA:

Yes, I am very determined, and I’m very annoyed about it.

 

ANITUS:

I don’t understand these contradictions at all. Listen: I love you. I

wanted to make you happy and place you in a high rank. Believe me,

don’t offend me. Don’t reject your fortune. Think that it is necessary

to sacrifice everything to an advantageous establishment; that youth

passes and that fortune remains. That riches and honors must be your

only goal and that I speak to you on behalf of the Gods and Goddesses.

I beg you to reflect on it. Goodbye, my dear girl. I am going to pray

to Ceres that she may inspire you. And I hope that she will touch your

heart. Goodbye, one more time. Remember you promised me not to marry

Sophronine.

 

AGLAEA:

I promised that to myself not to you.

 

(Anitus leaves)

 

How that man increases my chagrin. I don’t know why I never see that

priest without trembling. But here’s Sophronine. Alas, while his rival

fills me with terror, this one increases my sorrows and my tenderness.

 

SOPHRONINE: (entering)

Darling Aglaea, I see Anitus, that priest of Ceres, that evil man,

that sworn enemy of Socrates, is leaving you, and your eyes seem damp

with tears.

 

AGLAEA:

Him! He’s the enemy of our benefactor, Socrates? I am no longer

astonished by the aversion that he inspired me with even before he

spoke to me.

 

SOPHRONINE:

Alas, is it to him that I must impute the tears that darken your eyes?

 

AGLAEA:

He can only inspire me with disgust. No, Sophronine, only you can make

my tears flow.

 

SOPHRONINE:

Me, great gods! I who would pay for them with my blood! I, who adore

you, who flatter myself to be loved by you! I, who must reproach

myself for having cast a moment of bitterness into your life? You are

weeping and I am the cause of it? Then what have I done? What crime

have I committed?

 

AGLAEA:

You didn’t commit any. I am crying because you deserve all my

tenderness; because you have it; and because I must renounce you.

 

SOPHRONINE:

What funereal words have you uttered? No, I cannot believe it; you

love me, you cannot change. You promised me to be mine; you don’t wish

my death.

 

AGLAEA:

I want you to live happy, Sophronine, and I cannot make you happy. I

hoped, but my fate misled me. I swear that, not being able to be

yours, I will belong to no one. I declared it to that Anitus who is

pursuing me, and whom I scorn. I declare to you my heart is full of

the most acute sorrow and the most tender love.

 

SOPHRONINE:

Since you love me, I ought to live; but if you refuse me your hand, I

must die. Dearest Aglaea, in the name of so much love, in the name of

your charms and your virtues, explain this funereal mystery to me.

 

(Socrates enters)

 

O Socrates! my master! my father! I see myself here the most unlucky

of men: between two beings through whom I breathe; it’s you who taught

me wisdom; it’s Aglaea who taught me how to feel love. You’ve given

your consent to our marriage; the beautiful Aglaea who seems to desire

it refuses me and, as she tells me she loves me, plunges the dagger in

my heart. She breaks off our marriage without explaining to me the

reason for such a cruel caprice. Either prevent my pain, or teach me,

if it is possible, to bear it.

 

SOCRATES:

Aglaea is the mistress of her will; her father made me her tutor and

not her tyrant. I based my happiness on seeing you united together; if

she has changed her mind, I am surprised by it, but we must hear her

reasons. If they are just, we must submit to them.

 

SOPHRONINE:

They cannot be just.

 

AGLAEA:

They are, at least in my eyes. Condescend to listen to me, person to

person. When you had accepted the secret testament of my father, wise

and generous Socrates, you told me that it would leave me an honest

fortune with which I could establish myself. From that time, I formed

the plan of giving this fortune to your dear disciple, Sophronine, who

has only your support and for his entire wealth possessed only his

virtue. You entirely approved my resolution. You conceived that it was

my good fortune to make the fortune of an Athenian that I regard as

your son. Full of my happiness, carried away by a sweet joy, that my

heart could not contain, I confided this delirious state my soul was

in to your wife, Xantippe, and just as soon that condition

disappeared. She treated me as a dreamer. She showed me the will of my

father who died in poverty, who left me nothing, and who confided me

to the friendship which united you. At that moment, awakened from my

dream, I felt only sadness at being unable to make the fortune of

Sophronine; I don’t wish to overwhelm him with the weight of my

misery.

 

SOPHRONINE:

Indeed, I told you Socrates that her reasons were valueless; if she

loves me am I not rich enough? I’ve subsisted, it’s true through your

charity, but it’s not a guilty employment that I embrace only to

support my dear Aglaea. I must, it’s true, make her the sacrifice of

my love, to find for her, an advantageous role for myself. But I

confess, I don’t have the strength, and in that respect I am unworthy

of her. But if she could be content with my conditions, if she could

lower herself to me! No, I don’t dare ask it; I don’t dare wish it and

I won’t succumb to a misfortune that she suffers.

 

SOCRATES:

My children, Xantippe was really indiscreet to have shown you that

will. But believe me, beautiful Aglaea, that she deceived you.

 

AGLAEA:

She didn’t deceive me. I saw my misery with my own eyes. My father’s

handwriting is well known to me. Be sure, Socrates, that I know how to

bear poverty; I know how to work with my hands. It’s enough to live.

That’s all I need. But it’s not enough for Sophronine.

 

SOPHRONINE:

It’s a thousand times too much for me, tender, sublime soul, worthy of

having been raised by Socrates. A noble and laborious poverty is the

natural state of man. I would have wanted to offer you a throne. But

if you deign to live with me, our respectable poverty is higher than

the throne of Croesus,

 

SOCRATES:

Your feelings please me more than they soften me. With ecstacy, I see

blooming in your hearts the virtue that I sowed there. Never have my

cares been better rewarded; never have my hopes been better fulfilled.

But, yet once more, Aglaea, believe me, my wife has ill informed you.

You are richer than you can imagine. It was not in her but in me that

your father confided. Can you not have wealth that Xantippe is

ignorant of?

 

AGLAEA:

No, Socrates. It says exactly in his will that he is leaving me poor.

 

SOCRATES:

And as for me, I tell you that you are mistaken; that he left you

wherewithal to live happily with the virtuous Sophronine, and that it

is necessary that you both come to sign the contract now.

 

XANTIPPE (entering)

Come on, come on, my daughter. Don’t amuse yourself with the dreams of

my husband. Philosophy is all very fine when one is in easy

circumstances, but you have nothing. One has to live. You will

philosophize later. I have concluded your marriage with Anitus, a

worthy priest, a man of credit, a powerful man. Come follow me. There

must be neither delay nor contradiction; I like to be obeyed. And

quickly, it’s for your good. Don’t argue and follow me.

 

SOPHRONINE:

Ah, heaven, ha! dearest Aglaea!

 

SOCRATES:

Let her talk and trust in me for your happiness.

 

XANTIPPE:

What do you mean, let me talk? Really, I mean to do so, and they’d

better let me do it. It’s really for you, with your wisdom, and your

familiar demon, and your irony, and all your nonsense which is good

for nothing, for you to meddle in the marriage of young girls! You are

a good sort, but you don’t understand anything about worldly affairs.

And you are very lucky that I govern you. Come on, Aglaea, come so I

can establish you. And you, who remain bewildered, I’ve got just the

thing for you, too. Drixa is your thing. You will thank me, both of

you. Everything will be concluded in no time; I am expeditious. Let’s

not waste time. All this should have been concluded already.

 

SOCRATES:

Don’t offend her, my children. Show her all sorts of deference. It’s

necessary to humor her since one cannot correct her, It’s the triumph

of superior reason to live with folks who don’t have any.

 

CURTAIN

 

ACT II

 

SOPHRONINE:

Divine Socrates, I cannot believe my luck: how can it be that Aglaea

whose father died in extreme poverty has such a considerable dowry?

 

SOCRATES:

I already told you; she had more than she knew. I knew her father’s

resources better than she. May it suffice you both to enjoy a fortune

you deserve; as for myself, I owe the dead a secret as well as the

living.

 

SOPHRONINE:

I have only one fear; it’s that that priest of Ceres, over whom you’ve

preferred me will avenge Aglaea’s refusals on you. He’s a man really

to be feared.

 

SOCRATES:

Eh! What can be feared when one is doing one’s duty? I know the rage

of my enemies. I know all their slanders; but when one only tries to

do good to men and when one does not offend heaven, one can fear

nothing, neither during life, nor after death.

 

SOPHRONINE:

Nothing is more true; but I would die of sorrow if the happiness I owe

you allowed your enemies to force you to put your heroic constancy to

use.

 

AGLAEA: (entering)

My benefactor, my father, man above all men, I embrace your knees.

Second me, Sophronine, it’s he, it’s Socrates who is marrying us at

the expense of his fortune, who is paying my dowry, who is depriving

himself of the greatest share of his wealth for us. No. We won’t

suffer it; we won’t be rich at this price. The more grateful our

heart, the more we must imitate the nobility of his.

 

SOPHRONINE:

Like Aglaea, I am throwing myself at your feet. I am seized as she is.

We feel your benefactions equally. We love you too much, Socrates, to

abuse it. Look at us as your children. But don’t let your children be

an expense to such a degree. Your friendship is the greatest of

treasures; it’s the only one that we want. What! You are not rich and

you are doing what the powerful on earth don’t do! If we were to

accept your benefits we would be unworthy of them.

 

SOCRATES:

Rise, children.