This _whate'er men say_, says a great deal more than it seems. I do not know if every one is like me, but I discover in it a hundred meanings. _Bel._ It is true that it says more than its size seems to imply. _Phil._ (_to Trissotin._) But when you wrote this charming _whate'er men say_, did you yourself understand all its energy? Did you realize all it tells us? And did you then think that you were writing something so witty? _Triss._ Ah! ah! _Arm._ I have likewise the _ingrate_ in my head--this ungrateful, unjust, uncivil fever that ill-treats people who entertain her. _Phil._ In short, both the stanzas are admirable. Let us come quickly to the triplets, I pray. _Arm._ Ah! once more, _what'er men say_, I beg. _Triss._ Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say-- _Phil., Arm., and Bel._ _Whate'er men say!_ _Triss._ From out your chamber, decked so gay-- _Phil., Arm. and Bel._ _Chamber decked so gay!_ _Triss._ Where, ingrate vile, with murderous knife-- _Phil., Arm., and Bel._ That _ingrate_ fever! _Triss._ Bold she assails your lovely life. _Triss._ _Your lovely life!_ _Arm. and Bel._ Ah! _Triss._ What! reckless of your ladyhood, Still fiercely seeks to shed your blood-- _Phil., Arm. and Bel._ Ah! _Triss._ And day and night to work you harm. When to the baths sometime you've brought her, No more ado, with your own arm Whelm her and drown her in the water. _Phil._ Ah! It is quite overpowering. _Bel._ I faint. _Arm._ I die from pleasure. _Phil._ A thousand sweet thrills seize one. _Arm._ _When to the baths sometime you've brought her._ _Bel._ _No more ado, with your own arm._ _Phil._ _Whelm her and drown her in the water._ With your own arm, drown her there in the baths. _Arm._ In your verses we meet at each step with charming beauty. _Bel._ One promenades through them with rapture. _Phil._ One treads on fine things only. _Arm._ They are little lanes all strewn with roses. _Triss._ Then, the sonnet seems to you-- _Phil._ Admirable, new; and never did any one make any thing more beautiful. _Bel._ (_to Henriette_). What! my niece, you listen to what has been read without emotion! You play there but a sorry part! _Hen._ We each of us play the best part we can, my aunt; and to be a wit does not depend on our will. _Triss._ My verses, perhaps, are tedious to you. _Hen._ No. I do not listen. _Phil._ Ah! Let us hear the epigram. But our readers, we think, will consent to spare the epigram. They will relish, however, a fragment taken from a subsequent part of the same protracted scene. The conversation has made the transition from literary criticism to philosophy, in Moliere's time a fashionable study, rendered such by the contemporary genius and fame of Descartes. Armande resents the limitations imposed upon her sex: