Perde 3
[Textpart 1]
And am I unable to render you obedient to my injunctions?
CLEAERETA
Or are you so disposed as to be free from the control of your mother?
505
PHILENIUM
How could I propitiate PietyCould I propitiate Piety: She thinks that the Goddess Pietas will be shocked at her want of kind and grateful feeling, if she consents to turn Argyrippus out of doors., if I could desire to please you, being endowed with these manners, after the fashion, mother, that you enjoin upon me?
CLEAERETA
Is it consistent with propriety for you to oppose my precepts?
CLEAERETA
Is this worshipping Piety, to lessen the authority of a mother?
PHILENIUM
Those who act right I blame not, nor do I love those who do wrong.
510
CLEAERETA
You are a very prating, lovesick girl.
PHILENIUM
Mother, that is my livingThat is my living: It is hard to say which she means as the source of her profit—whether her loving propensities, or her fund of talkativeness, for which her mother is censuring her. The next line is spoken with reference to her passion for Argyrippus.. His tongue woos me, his person seeks me, his passion pleads, opportunity prompts.
CLEAERETA
I was purposing to convince you. Are you come as my accuser?
PHILENIUM
By my troth, I neither do accuse you, nor do I think it right I should do so;
but I do complain of my lot, when I am separated from him whom I love.
515
CLEAERETA
Will then one bit of the whole day’s talk be left for myself?
PHILENIUM
Both my share of the speaking and your own do I give up to you. Do you yourself keep the signalKeep the signal: Portisculum. According to some writers portisculus was a name of the pausaurius or hortator, called by the Greeks κελευστὴς,, an officer whose duty it was to order the rowers to keep time. In the present passage, it seems rather to signify the hammer, or other instrument, which that officer held in his hand, for the purpose of beating time, to regulate the motion of the rowers; not unlike the baton of the conductor of a band. both for speaking and for being silent.
But, i’ faith, if I only put up my oars in the boat-houseIn the boat-house: In casteriâ. Nonius Marcellus informs us that casteria was a house, in which the oars, rudders, sails, and tackle, were sept, when the ship was laid up in dock. while I’m resting, all the welfare of the household is at a standstill for you.
520
CLEAERETA
How say you, the out and out most insolent woman that ever I saw? How often have I forbidden you to speak to Argyrippus, the son of Demaenetus, or to touch him, or to hold discourse with him, or to look at him? What has he ever given? What has he ordered to be brought to our house? Or do you fancy to yourself
that smooth words are gold?—that clever speeches are as good as presents? Of your own accord you fell in love with him; of your own accord you go after him; of your own accord you request him to be sent for to you. Those who are givers, those same you laugh at; those who are cheating us, you are dying for. If any one promises you that he’ll make you rich when his mother dies, ought you to be waiting for that?
525
I’ faith, a great risk impends over ourselves and the household, that we may die of hunger while we are awaiting her death. Now therefore, unless he brings me here twenty minae of silver, upon my word, though profuse of his tears, he shall certainly be turned from here out of doors. This day’s the end ofThe end of: Summa seems a preferable reading to summae. excuses for poverty at my house.
530
PHILENIUM
If, my mother, you were to order me to go without victuals, I would submit.
535
CLEAERETA
I don’t forbid you to love those who give that for the sake of which they ought to be loved.
