The Literati by Justin Fleming

Author:Justin Fleming
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Currency Press

SCENE THREE

TRISTAN, PHILOMENA, AMANDA, JULIET, CLINTON, VADIUS.

DOCTOR VADIUS enters. She has heard the last exchange.

VADIUS:

I’m afraid you are mistaken; from Plato we have much to learn,

But he was not bothered about women’s rights, only with their usefulness.

Yes, women could do what men do, but in all truthfulness,

This was a community benefit, a purely practical concern.

He was hardly a trumpeting herald for women’s liberation

Just because he thought domesticity a waste of woman-power;

Working in an office or factory would hardly rupture her flower;

If she were strong enough, why should there be any differentiation?

And as for the nuclear family, he saw it a waste of talents

To have a good teacher stuck at home acting as a nursery maid;

If she has administrative skills or a leaning towards a trade

Then spending all day on children was unproductive, on balance.

And having female nannies to take care of someone else’s offspring

Relegated these females to a kind of inferior status.

You could just as well have au pair boys to fill that hiatus;

So the grand communal nursery, to Plato, was just a practical thing.

TRISTAN:

Doctor Athénaïs Vadius, what a pleasure to hear erudition!

Of the Greek and Latin authors, you have such eloquent command;

If I partook of the error, then I accept your reprimand.

And I assure you, of this mistake, there will be no repetition.

PHILOMENA:

Learnèd Doctor Vadius, your reputation is beyond doubt.

And, God, can one restrain oneself on anything Latin or Greek?

AMANDA:

I have just become moist! Did someone Greek speak?

JULIET:

You’ll excuse me, I don’t know Greek, so I had better bow out.

VADIUS:

Must you go?

PHILOMENA:

[Stopping her] Juliet!

VADIUS:

[To JULIET] I was rather eager to see you;

[To them] Those welcoming words bid me to stay, if I’m not disturbing,

And provided my presence in this hallowed circle is not perturbing—

PHILOMENA:

Au contraire! Every woman secretly wants to be you!

And one learnèd in Greek at any gathering, is an improvement.

TRISTAN:

As Doctor Vadius is a leading light on both verse and prose,

She might herself have something to read us, if we may so propose?

VADIUS:

You’re too kind, but I must be honest: In the literary movement,

I see it as a fault in authors, with the works that they write,

To dominate the company and every conversation,

And whether it be at cafés, dinner tables or some celebration,

To bore the guests to death with a book from which they recite.

To me, there’s nothing more pathetic, no practice I more abhor,

Than writers going about, almost begging for praise,

And earbashing the first people who happen to meet their gaze,

Who very often are the martyrs whom they bored the night before.

I am opposed to this self-promotion; on this I remain avowed,

And I remember a certain Greek—

AMANDA & PHILOMENA:

Ah!

VADIUS:

—Under whose influence I fell,

Who proposed a specific law, whereby he would expel

Any writers who felt the urge to read their own works aloud.

It is for others, not myself, to read any works of mine.

[Giving them:] If you wish, take this ballad; it’s dedicated to young lovers;

TRISTAN:

[Perusing it] These verses have a lyrical beauty quite unavailable to others.

Venus and all the Graces reign, and in your poems they shine.

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