Perde 2
[Textpart 3]
What ill fortune this is!
325
CHAEREA
I’m utterly undone!
325
PARMENO
What’s the matter?
325
CHAEREA
Do you ask me? Do you know Archidemides, my father’s kinsman and years’-mate?
325
CHAEREA
He, while I was in full pursuit of her, met me.
PARMENO
Unseasonably, upon my faith.
CHAEREA
Aye, unhappily, rather; for other ordinary matters are to be called unseasonable, Parmeno.
It would be safe for me to make oath that I have not seen him for fully these six or seven months, until just now, when I least wanted, and there was the least occasion. Come now! isn’t this like a fatality? What do you say?
330
CHAEREA
At once he came running up to me, from a considerable distance,
stooping, palsied, hanging his lip, and wheezing. Halloo, Chaerea! halloo! said he; I’ve something to say to you. I stopped. Do you know what it is I want with you? said he. Say on, said I. To-morrow my cause comes on, said he. What then? Be sure and tell your father to remember and be my advocateBe my advocate. Advocatus. It must be remembered that this word did not among the Romans bear the same sense as the-word advocate does with us. The advocati were the friends of a man who accompanied him when his cause was pleaded, and often performed the part of witnesses; those who assisted a person in a dispute or difficulty were also his advocati, and in this respect distantly resembled the second or friend of a party in the modern duel. In the Phormio, Hegio, Cratinus, and Crito are introduced as the advocati of Demipho. See also the Paenulus of Plautus, and the Notes to that Play in Bohn’s Translation. in the morning.
335
In talking of this, an hour elapsed.An hour elapsed. Hora is here used to signify the long time, that, in his impatience, it appeared to him to be. I inquired if he wanted any thing else. That’s all, said he. I left him. When I looked in this direction for the damsel, she had that very instant turned this way down this street of ours.
340
PARMENO
It’s a wonder if he doesn’t mean her who has just now been made a present of to Thais here.
CHAEREA
When I got here, she was nowhere to be seen.
PARMENO
Some attendants, I suppose, were accompanying the girl?
345
CHAEREA
Yes; a Parasite, and a female servant.
PARMENO
It’s the very same. (To CHAEREA.) It’s all over with you; make an end of it; you’ve said your last.It’s all over with you,—you’ve said your last. Ilicet and conclamatum est, are words of mournful import, which were used with regard to the funeral rites of the Romans. Ilicet, you may begone, was said aloud when the funeral was concluded. Conclamare, implied the ceremony of calling upon the dead person by name, before light was set to the funeral pile; on no answer being given, he was concluded to be really dead, and the pile was set fire to amid the cries of those present: conclamatum est would consequently signify that all hope has gone.
CHAEREA
You are thinking about something else.
PARMENO
Indeed I’m thinking of this same matter.
