Perde 2
[Textpart 1]
He is well; he’s close at hand; but is every thing quite to your wishes?
DEMIPHO
I wish it was so, indeed.
PHAEDRIA
What’s the matter?
DEMIPHO
Do you ask me, Phaedria? You people have cooked up a fine marriage in my absence.
PHAEDRIA
What now, are you angry with him for that?
GETA
What a clever contriver!
DEMIPHO
Have I not reason to be angry with him? I long for him to come into my sight, that he may know that through his faultiness, from being a mild father, I am become a most severe one.
260
PHAEDRIA
But he has done nothing, uncle, for which you should blame him.
DEMIPHO
Now, do look at that; all alike; all hanging together;
when you know one, you know all.
265
PHAEDRIA
That is not the case.
265
DEMIPHO
When the one is in fault, the other is at hand to defend him; when it is the other, then he is ready; they just help one another by turns.
GETA
The old man, without. knowing it, has exactly described their proceedings.
DEMIPHO
For if it had not been so, you would not, Phaedria, have stood up for him.
PHAEDRIA
If, uncle; it is the fact, that Antipho has been guilty of any fault, in consequence of which he has been too regardless of his interest or his reputation, I would not allege any reason why he should not suffer what he deserves. But if some one by chance, relying upon his own artfulness, has laid a snare for our youthful age,
270
and has succeeded, is it our fault or that of the judges, who often, through envy, take away from the rich, or, through compassion, award to the poor?
275
GETA
Unless I knew the case, I could fancy he was saying the truth.
DEMIPHO
Is there any judge who can possibly know
your rights, when you yourself don’t answer a word—as he has done?
280
PHAEDRIA
He acted the part of an ingenuous young man; after they had come before the judges, he was not able to say what he had intended, so much did his modesty confuse him there through his bashfulness.
