Perde 4
[Textpart 1]
That’s very good; so, in fact, she must do: but expunge that about the chamber; for my part, I prefer that she should move. I don’t wish her to have an excuse, and to say that it is forbidden her by her vow.
A PARASITE
I understand, you fear some quibble.
790
A PARASITE
Then as you bid me, I’ll strike it out.
790
A PARASITE
Hear the rest.
DIABOLUS
Say on, I’m listening.
A PARASITE
And she is not to use any shuffling words, nor is she to know how to speak in any tongue but the Attic. If perchance she should begin to cough,
she is not to cough so as to expose her tongue to any one in coughing. But if she should pretend as though she had a running at the noseA running at the nose: The meaning seems to be, that if her nose runs by reason of a catarrh, she is not to open her mouth to put her tongue out, but that Diabolus is, in common parlance, to wipe her nose for her., even then she is not to do so; you yourself must wipe her lips rather than that she should open her mouth before another person. And her mother, the procuress, is not to come in in the middle of the wine,
795
nor is she to utter a word of abuse to any one; if she does so speak, let this be her fine, to go for twenty days without wine.
800
DIABOLUS
You have written it nicely; a clever agreement.
A PARASITE
Then, if she bids her maid-servant carry chaplets, garlands, or unguents, to Venus or to Cupid,
your servant is to watch whether she gives them to Venus or to a man. If perchance she should say she wishes to keep herself in purityKeep herself in purity: He probably alludes to the festival of Isis or Ceres, on which occasion it was usual for the female votaries rigidly to separate themselves from the society of men. The translation of the next line is somewhat modified., let her account for as many nights as she has kept herself in purity. These are no trifles; for they are no funeral dirgeNo funeral dirge: Mortualia were the songs which hired female mourners sang at funerals; and which, as being especially worthless, were pre-eminently called nugae, or trifles..
805
DIABOLUS
The conditions please me entirely; follow me indoors.
[Textpart 2]
Follow this way. Am I to put up with this, or shall I hold my tongue? I would rather die than not discover this to his wife. And say you so, old man? With a mistress would you be acting the part of a youngster? Would you be excusing yourself to your wife, and calling yourself an aged man? Would you be taking the mistress from her lover? And would you be presenting the money
810
DIABOLUS
to the procuress, and be secretly pilfering it from your wife at home? You should hang me, rather than you should carry off these matters undiscovered. On my honor, I’ll really go this instant hence to her whom I’m sure that you’ll very soon be destroying, in order that you may be able to supply your extravagance, unless, indeed, she shall first prevent you.
815
A PARASITE
I’m of opinion that thus you must act. ’Tis more becoming that I should disclose this matter, rather than yourself, lest she may think that you, excited by reason of love, rather than for her own sake, have acted thus.
820
DIABOLUS
Why, faith, you say what’s right. Do you then contrive to raise a storm and strife against him,
that he, together with his own son, is carousing with one mistress the livelong day, and that he’s secretly pilfering from her.
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