Perde 1
[Textpart 2]
As well as your own self.
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GETA
It so happened to both the old gentlemen, just at the same period, that the one had to take a journey to Lemnos, and our old man to Cilicia, to see an old acquaintance; he tempted over the old man by letters, promising him all but mountains of gold.
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DAVUS
To one who had so much property, that he had more than he could use?
DAVUS
Oh, as for that, I really ought to have been a man of fortune.
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GETA
When departing hence, both the old gentlemen left ne as a sort of tutor to their sons.
DAVUS
Ah, Geta, you undertook a hard task there.
GETA
I came to experience it, I know that. I’m quite sure that I was forsaken by my good Genius, who must have been angry with me.Have been angry with me: he alludes to the common belief that each person had a Genius or Guardian Deity; and that when misfortune overtook him, he had been abandoned by his Genius.
I began to oppose them at first; but what need of talking? As long as I was trusty to the old men, I was paid for it in my shoulder-blades.
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This, then, occurred to my mind: why, this is folly to kick against the spur.Kick against the spur: To kick against the pricks, or in spite of the spur, was a common Greek proverb.—The expression occurs in the New Testament, Acts ix. 5. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. I began to do every thing for them that they wished to be humored in.
DAVUS
You knew how to make your market.To make your market: This is a metaphorical expression taken from traffic, in which merchants suit themselves to the times, and fix a price on their commodities, according to the course of the market.
GETA
Our young fellow did no mischief whatever at first; that Phaedria at once picked up a certain damsel, a Music-girl, and fell in love with her to distraction. She belonged to a most abominable Procurer; and their fathers had taken good care that they should have nothing to give him.
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There remained nothing for him then but to feed his eyes, to follow her about, to escort her to the school,To the school: It was the custom for the lenones, or procurers, to send their female slaves to music-schools, in order to learn accomplishments. So in the Prologue to the Rudens of Plautus: This Procurer brought the maiden to Cyrene hither. A-certain Athenian youth, a citizen of this city, beheld her as she was going home from the music-school. and to escort her back again. We, having nothing to do, lent our aid to Phaedria. Near the school at which she was taught, right opposite the place, there was a certain barber’s shop: here we were generally in the habit
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of waiting for her, until she was coming home again. In the mean time, while one day we were sitting there, there came in a young man in tears;Young man in tears. In the Play of Apollodorus, it was the barber himself that gave the account how he had just returned from cutting off the young woman’s hair, which was one of the usual ceremonies in mourning among the Greeks. Donatus remarks, that Terence altered this circumstance that he might not shock a Roman audience by a reference to manners so different from their own. we were surprised at this. We inquired what was the matter? Never, said he, has poverty appeared to me a burden so grievous and so insupportable as just now.
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I have just seen a certain poor young woman in this neighborhood lamenting her dead mother. She was laid out before her, and not a single friend, acquaintance, or relation was there with her, except one poor old woman, to assist her in the funeral: I pitied her.
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The girl herself was of surpassing beauty. What need of a long story? She moved us all. At once Antipho exclaims, Would you like us to go and visit her? The other said, I think we ought—let us go—show us the way, please. We went, and arrived there; we saw her; the girl was beautiful, and that you might say so the more,
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there was no heightening to her beauty; her hair disheveled, her feet bare, herself neglected, and in tears; her dress: mean, so ’that, had there not been an excess of beauty in her very charms, these circumstances must have extinguished those charms. The one who had lately fallen in love with the Music-girl
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said: She is well enough; but our youth—
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DAVUS
I know it already—fell in love with her.
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