id="id00091">(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. You are making me too weak. Listen, mustn't we respect the will of the dead? Aglaea, your father whom I regarded as the better part of myself, didn't he order me to treat you as my own daughter? I am obeying