CLE.You brute, do you deserve the good fortune of having a virtuous woman for your wife?
MERC.Good Heavens! You are but too virtuous; this fine virtue is not worth anything to me.Do not be quite so honest a woman, and don't bother me so much.
CLE.What? Do you blame me for being too honest?
MERC.A woman's gentleness is what charms me most: your virtue makes a clatter that never ceases to deafen me.
CLE.You care for hearts full of false tenderness, for those women with the laudable and fine talent of knowing how to smother their husbands with caresses in order to make them oblivious of the existence of lovers.
MERC.Well! Shall I tell you what I think? An imaginary evil concerns fools only; my device should be: 'Less honour and more peace.'
CLE.Would you, without any repugnance, suffer me openly to love a gallant?
MERC.Yes, if I were no longer worried by your tongue, and if it changed your temper and your goings-on.I prefer a convenient vice, to a fatiguing virtue.Adieu, Cleanthis, my dear soul; I must follow Amphitryon.(He goes away.)CLE Why has not my heart sufficient resolution to punish this infamous scoundrel? Ah, how it maddens me, now, that I am an honest woman!