Perde 3
[Textpart 2]
Come now, did you of your own accord perceive that this was counterfeited?
500
SIMO
I am being trifled with.
500
DAVUS
Word has been brought you; for otherwise how could this suspicion have occurred to you?
SIMO
How? Because I knew you.
DAVUS
As though you meant to say that this has been done by my contrivance.
SIMO
Why, I’m sure of it, to a certainty.
DAVUS
Not yet even do you know me sufficiently, Simo, what sort of person I am.
DAVUS
But if I begin to tell you any thing, at once
you think that deceit is being practiced upon you in guile; therefore, upon my faith, I don’t dare now even to whisper.
505
SIMO
This one thing I am sure of, that no person has been delivered here.
DAVUS
You have discovered that? Still, not a bit the less will they presently be laying the childBe laying the child: Colman has the following remark on this line:—The art of this passage is equal to the pleasantry, for though Davus runs into this detail merely with a view to dupe the old man still further by flattering him on his fancied sagacity, yet it very naturally prepares us for an incident which, by another turn of circumstances, afterward becomes necessary. here before the door. Of this, then, I now warn you, master, that it will happen, that you may be aware of it. Don’t you hereafter be saying that this was done through the advice or artifices of Davus.
I wish this suspicion of yours to be entirely removed from myself.
510
SIMO
How do you know that?
DAVUS
I’ve heard so, and I believe it: many things combine for me to form this conjecture. In the first place then, she declared that she was pregnant by Pamphilus; that has been proved to be false. Proved to be false: That is, according to Simo’s own notion, which Davus now thinks proper to humor. Now, when she sees that preparations are being made for the wedding at our house, the maid-servant is directly sent
to fetch the midwife to her, and to bring a child at the same time. To bring a child at the same time: This is a piece of roguery which has probably been practiced in all ages, and was some-what commonly perpetrated in Greece. The reader of English history will remember how the unfortunate son of James II. was said, in the face of the strongest evidence to the contrary, to have been a supposititious child brought into the queen’s chamber in a silver warming-pan. Unless it is managed for you to see the child, the marriage will not be at all impeded.
515
SIMO
What do you say to this? When you perceived that they were adopting this plan, why didn’t you tell Pamphilus immediately?
DAVUS
Why, who has induced him to leave her, but myself? For, indeed, we all
know how desperately he loved her. Now he wishes for a wife. In fine, do you intrust me with that affair; proceed however, as before, to celebrate these nuptials, just as you are doing, and I trust that the Gods will prosper this matter.
520
SIMO
Very well; be off in-doors; wait for me there, and get ready what’s necessary to be prepared. (DAVUS goes into the house.) He hasn’t prevailed upon me even now altogether to believe these things,
