TRI. (to PHILAMINTE). I come to announce you great news. We have had a narrow escape while we slept. A world passed all along us, and fell right across our vortex. [Footnote: Tourbillon. Compare act iii scene ii. Another reference to Cotin.] If in its way it had met with our earth, it would have dashed us to pieces like so much glass.

PHI. Let us put off this subject till another season. This gentleman would understand nothing of it; he professes to cherish ignorance, and above all to hate intellect and knowledge.

CLI. This is not altogether the fact; allow me, Madam, to explain myself. I only hate that kind of intellect and learning which spoils people. These are good and beautiful in themselves; but I had rather be numbered among the ignorant than to see myself learned like certain people.

TRI. For my part I do not believe, whatever opinion may be held to the contrary, that knowledge can ever spoil anything.

CLI. And I hold that knowledge can make great fools both in words and in deeds.

TRI. The paradox is rather strong.

CLI. It would be easy to find proofs; and I believe without being very clever, that if reasons should fail, notable examples would not be wanting.

TRI. You might cite some without proving your point.

CLI. I should not have far to go to find what I want.

TRI. As far as I am concerned, I fail to see those notable examples.

CLI. I see them so well that they almost blind me.

TRI. I believed hitherto that it was ignorance which made fools, and not knowledge.

CLI. You made a great mistake; and I assure you that a learned fool is more of a fool than an ignorant one.

TRI. Common sense is against your maxims, since an ignorant man and a fool are synonymous.

CLI. If you cling to the strict uses of words, there is a greater connection between pedant and fool.

TRI. Folly in the one shows itself openly.

CLI. And study adds to nature in the other.

TRI. Knowledge has always its intrinsic value.

CLI. Knowledge in a pedant becomes impertinence.

TRI. Ignorance must have great charms for you, since you so eagerly take up arms in its defence.

CLI. If ignorance has such charms for me, it is since I have met with learned people of a certain kind.

TRI. These learned people of a certain kind may, when we know them well, be as good as other people of a certain other kind.

CLI. Yes, if we believe certain learned men; but that remains a question with certain people.

PHI. (to CLITANDRE.) It seems to me, Sir….

CLI. Ah! Madam, I beg of you; this gentleman is surely strong enough without assistance. I have enough to do already with so strong an adversary, and as I fight I retreat.

ARM. But the offensive eagerness with which your answers….

CLI. Another ally! I quit the field.

PHI. Such combats are allowed in conversation, provided you attack no one in particular.

CLI. Ah! Madam, there is nothing in all this to offend him. He can bear raillery as well as any man in France; and he has supported many other blows without finding his glory tarnished by it.

TRI. I am not surprised to see this gentleman take such a part in this contest. He belongs to the court; that is saying everything. The court, as every one well knows, does not care for learning; it has a certain interest in supporting ignorance. And it is as a courtier he takes up its defence.

CLI. Your are very angry with this poor court. The misfortune is great indeed to see you men of learning day after day declaiming against it; making it responsible for all your troubles; calling it to account for its bad taste, and seeing in it the scapegoat of your ill-success. Allow me, Mr. Trissotin, to tell you, with all the respect with which your name inspires me, that you would do well, your brethren and you, to speak of the court in a more moderate tone; that, after all, it is not so very stupid as all you gentlemen make it out to be; that it has good sense enough to appreciate everything; that some good taste can be acquired there; and that the common sense found there is, without flattery, well worth all the learning of pedantry.

TRI. We See some effects of its good taste, Sir.

CLI. Where do you see, Sir, that its taste is so bad?

TRI. Where, Sir! Do not Rasius and Balbus by their learning do honour to France? and yet their merit, so very patent to all, attracts no notice from the court.

CLI. I see whence your sorrow comes, and that, through modesty, you forbear, Sir, to rank yourself with these. Not to drag you in, tell me what your able heroes do for their country? What service do their writings render it that they should accuse the court of horrible injustice, and complain everywhere that it fails to pour down favours on their learned names? Their knowledge is of great moment to France! and the court stands in great need of the books they write! These wretched scribblers get it into their little heads that to be printed and bound in calf makes them at once important personages in the state; that with their pens they regulate the destiny of crowns; that at the least mention of their productions, pensions ought to be poured down upon them; that the eyes of the whole universe are fixed upon them, and the glory of their name spread everywhere! They think themselves prodigies of learning because they know what others have said before them; because for thirty years they have had eyes and ears, and have employed nine or ten thousand nights or so in cramming themselves with Greek and Latin, and in filling their heads with the indiscriminate plunder of all the old rubbish which lies scattered in books. They always seem intoxicated with their own knowledge, and for all merit are rich in importunate babble. Unskilful in everything, void of common sense, and full of absurdity and impertinence, they decry everywhere true learning and knowledge.

PHI. You speak very warmly on the subject, and this transport shows the working of ill-nature in you. It is the name of rival which excites in your breast….