Dear brother, your words reek of that free thought With which I find you more than a bit impeached, And, as ten times or more I have clearly preached, You will soon find yourself in a wicked bind. Cleante. Now this is the normal jargon of your kind. They want everyone to be as blind as they are. To be clear-sighted, is to be in error, And one who rejects their vain hypocrisy Has no respect for faith or sanctity. Go on, all your tart sermons scarcely smart; I know what I'm saying, and God sees my heart. I'm not a slave to your silly ceremony. There is false piety like false bravery; Just as one often sees, when honor calls us, That the bravest men never make the most fuss, So, too, the good Christians, whom one should follow, Are not those who find life so hard to swallow. What now? Will you not make any distinction Between hypocrisy and true devotion? Would you wish to use the same commonplace To describe both a mere mask and a true face? To equate artifice with sincerity Is to confound appearance and reality. To admire a shadow as much as you do Is to prefer counterfeit money to true. The majority of men are strangely made! And their true natures are rarely displayed. For them the bounds of reason are too small; In their shabby souls they love to lounge and sprawl. And very often they spoil a noble deed By their urge for excess and reckless speed. But all this, brother, is idle chatter. Orgon. Without doubt you are a renowned teacher; With all the world's knowledge in your coffer. You're the only oracle, the wisest sage, The enlightened one, the Cato of our age; And next to you, all other men are dumb. Cleante. Brother, I know I'm not the wisest one Nor the most learned man in Christendom But in moral matters my greatest coup Is to differentiate false from true. And since I know of no heroes about More to be praised than the truly devout And nothing at all with greater appeal Than the holy fervor of saintly zeal, So too nothing could be more odious Than the white-washed face of a zeal that's specious, Or these frank charlatans, seeking places, Whose false and sacrilegious double faces Exploit our love of God and make a game Of our reverence for Christ's holy name. These people who, with a shop-keeper's soul, Make cheap trinkets to trade on the Credo, And hope to purchase credit and favor Bought with sly winks and affected fervor; These people, I say, whose uncommon hurry On the path to Heaven leads through their treasury, Who, writhing and praying, demand a profit each day