The Locksmith: A Comic Opera (1770) - Page 12

SCENE V.

ELOY, NICOLE.

ELOY, arriving.

Aha! This time, I saw him. Well now, my sweet better half, tell me again that it was not him, that I am dreaming, and that suitors do not come here for you.

NICOLE.

Go on, you are a fool.

ELOY.

Yes, yes, I am one, for not scolding you as I should. Ah! How right they were to tell me at school: what a woman in her fury is capable of. original: "Furens quid fœmina possit"; a line from Virgil's Aeneid referring to the unpredictable and dangerous nature of a woman's passion.

NICOLE.

Ah! Mercy! My husband has become a Latin scholar.

ELOY.

And you have become devilishly Greek, you have. In this period, "Greek" was a colloquialism for someone who is cunning, deceitful, or a cheat.

ARIETTE.

While, from morning until evening,

Bent over an anvil,

I beat the iron, I wear myself out,

What despair!

A she-devil

Comes without end

To defy my wrath,

To call me jealous,

Eccentric, and a drunkard:

And all day long,

While making love,

She carves out quite another task for me.

The locksmith uses a metaphor of his trade; while he works the iron, his wife's infidelity creates a different, more painful kind of "work" or trouble for him to manage. To Nicole.

Do not think

I will always be so easy to manage;

Eloy
Nicole
The Locksmith
ariette A short, light aria or song typical of French comic opera.
Latin
Greek
anvil
What a woman in her fury is capable of