Pygmalion Monologues

A phonetics and diction expert makes a bet that he can teach a cockney flower girl to speak proper English and pass as a lady in high society.

You might marry you know? Youre not bad-looking; it's quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes-not now, of course, because youre crying and looking as ugly as the very devil; but when youre all right and quite yourself, youre what I should call attractive. That is, to the people in the marrying line, you understand. You go to bed and have a good nice rest; and then get up and look at yourself in the glass; and you wont feel so cheap.

Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf, you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnate insult to the English language, I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba!

Now listen to me, Eliza. You're going to live here for six months and learn to speak beautifully like a lady in a florist shop. If you're good and do whatever you're told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, have lots to eat and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. If you're naughty and idle, you shall sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months you shall go to Buckingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the King finds out you're not a lady, you will be taken by the guards to the Tower of London where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls. But, if you are not found out, you will receive a present of seven and sixpence to start life with as a lady in a shop. If you refuse this offer you will be a most ungrateful and wicked girl and the angels will weep for you.

Heaven help the master who is judged by his disciples.