The Learned Women

ARM. We must yield to prudence fast in sleep's repose is plunged.

BEL. A lodging for the most cruel of your foes is full of charms for me.

PHI. I like superbly and gorgeously; these two adverbs joined together sound admirably.

BEL. Let us hear the rest.

TRI.

Your prudence fast in sleep's repose
Is plunged; if thus superbly kind,
A lodging gorgeously you can find
For the most cruel of your foes

ARM. Prudence asleep!

BEL. Lodge one's enemy!

PHI. Superbly and gorgeously!

TRI.

Will she, nill she, quick, out she goes!
From your apartment richly lined,
Where that ingrate's outrageous mind
At your fair life her javelin throws.

BEL. Ah! gently. Allow me to breathe, I beseech you.

ARM. Give us time to admire, I beg.

PHI. One feels, at hearing these verses, an indescribable something which goes through one's inmost soul, and makes one feel quite faint.

ARM. Will she, nill she, quick, out she goes From your apartment richly lined. How prettily rich apartment is said here, and with what wit the metaphor is introduced!

PHI. Will she, nill she, quick, out she goes! Ah! in what admirable taste that will she, nill she, is! To my mind the passage is invaluable.

ARM. My heart is also in love with will she, nill she.

BEL. I am of your opinion; will she, nill she, is a happy expression.

ARM. I wish I had written it.

BEL. It is worth a whole poem!

PHI. But do you, like me, understand thoroughly the wit of it?

ARM. and BEL. Oh! oh

PHIL. Will she, nill she, quick, out she goes! Although another should take the fever's part, pay no attention; laugh at the gossips; will she, nill she, quick, out she goes. Will she, nill she, will she, nill she. This will she, nill she, 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.

PHI. (to TRISSOTIN). But when you wrote this charming Will she, nill she, did you yourself understand all its energy? Did you realise all that it tells us, and did you then think that you were writing something so witty?

TRI. Ah! ah!

ARM. I have likewise the ingrate in my head; this ungrateful, unjust, uncivil fever that ill-treats people who entertain her.

PHI. In short, both the stanzas are admirable. Let us come quickly to the triplets, I pray.

ARM. Ah! once more, will she, nill she, I beg.

TRI. Will she, nill she, quick, out she goes!

PHI., ARM. and BEL. Will she, nill she!

TRI. From your apartment richly lined.

PHI., ARM. and BEL. Rich apartment!

TRI. Where that ingrate's outrageous mind.

PHI., ARM. and BEL. That ungrateful fever!

TRI. At your fair life her javelin throws.

PHI. Fair life!

ARM. and BEL. Ah!

TRI.

What! without heed for your high line,
She saps your blood with care malign…

PHI., ARM. and BEL. Ah!

TRI.

Redoubling outrage night and day!
If to the bath you take her down,
Without a moment's haggling, pray,
With your own hands the miscreant drown.

PHI. Ah! it is quite overpowering.

BEL. I faint.