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[Textpart 1]
Do you carry those things away in-doors; begone. (Beckoning to SOSIA.) Sosia, just step here; I want a few words with you.
SOSIA
Consider it as said;
that these things are to be taken care of, I suppose.Are to be taken care of, I suppose: Nempe ut curentur recte haec. Colman here remarks; Madame Dacier will have it that Simo here makes use of a kitchen term in the word curentur. I believe it rather means to take care of any thing generally; and at the conclusion of this very scene, Sosia uses the word again, speaking of things very foreign to cookery, Sat est, curabo.
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SIMO
No, it’s another matter.
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SOSIA
What is there that my ability can effect for you more than this?
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SIMO
There’s no need of that ability in the matter which I have in hand; but of those qualities which I have ever known as existing in you, fidelity and secrecy.
SIMO
Since I purchased you, you know that, from a little child, your servitude with me has always been easy and light. From a slave I made you my freedman ;To be my freedman: Libertu. was the name given to a slave set at liberty by his master. A libertinu. was the son of a libertus. for this reason, because you served me with readiness. The greatest recompense that I possessed, I bestowed upon you.
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SOSIA
I bear it in mind.
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SIMO
I am not changed.
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SOSIA
If I have done or am doing aught that is pleasing to you, Simo, I am glad that it has been done; and that the same has been gratifying to you, I consider sufficient thanks. But this is a cause of uneasiness to me; for the recital is, as it were, a censureAs it were a censure: Among the Greeks (whose manners and sentiments are supposed to be depicted in this Play) it was a maxim that he who did a kindness should forget it, while he who received it should keep it in memory. Sosia consequently feels uneasy, and considers the remark of his master in the light of a reproach. to one forgetful of a kindness.
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But tell me, in one word, what it is that you want with me.
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SIMO
I’ll do so. In the first place, in this affair I give you notice: this, which you suppose to be such, is not a real marriage.
SOSIA
Why do you pretend it then?
SIMO
You shall hear all the matter from the beginning; by that means you’ll be acquainted with both my son’s mode of life and my own design,
and what I want you to do in this affair. For after he had passed youthfulness,After he had passed from youthfulness: Ephebus was the name given to a youth when between the ages of sixteen and twenty. Sosia, and had obtained free scope of living, (for before, how could you know or understand his disposition, while youthful age, fear, and a masterAnd a master: See the Notes to the Translation of the Bacchides of Plautus, l. 109, where Lydus, a slave, appears as the paedagogus, or "magister, of Pistoclerus. were checking him?)—
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SIMO
What all young men, for the most part, do,—devote their attention to some particular pursuit, either to training horses or dogs for hunting, or to the philosophers;Or to the philosophers: It was the custom in Greece with all young men of free birth to apply themselves to the study of philosophy, of course with zeal proportioned to the love of learning in each. They each adopted some particular sect, to which they attached themselves. There is something sarcastic here, and indeed not very respectful to the philosophers, in coupling them as objects of attraction with horses and hounds. in not one of these did he engage in particular beyond the rest, and yet in all of them in a moderate degree.
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SOSIA
Not without reason; for this I deem in life to be especially advantageous; that one do nothing to excess.Nothing to excess: Ne quid nimis. This was one of the three sentences which were inscribed in golden letters in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The two others were Know thyself, and Misery is the consequence of debt and discord. Sosia seems from the short glimpse we have of him to have been a retailer of old saws and proverbs. He is unfortunately only a Protatic or introductory character, as we lose sight of him after this Act.
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