Perde 1
[Textpart 2]
Who is it that’s speaking?
ERGASILUS
’Tis I, who am, pining at your affliction, growing thin, waxing old, and shockingly wasting away. Wretched man that I am,
I’m but skin and bone through leanness; nor does anything ever do me good that I eat at home; even that ever so little which I taste out of doors, the same refreshes me.
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HEGIO
Ergasilus, save you!
ERGASILUS
May the Gods kindly bless you, Hegio!
ERGASILUS
Must I not weep for him? Must I not weep for such a young man?
HEGIO
I’ve always known you to be a friend to my son, and I have understood him to be so to you.
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ERGASILUS
Then at last do we men know our blessings, when we have lost those things which we once had in our power. I, since your son fell into the power of the enemy,
knowing by experience of what value he was, now feel his loss.
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HEGIO
Since you, who are no relation, bear his misfortune so much amiss, what is it likely that I, a father, should do, whose only son he is?
ERGASILUS
I, no relation to him? He, no relation to me? Oh, Hegio! never do say that, nor come to such a belief.
To you he is an only child, but to me he is even more only than an only one.
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HEGIO
I commend you, in that you consider the affliction of your friend your own affliction. Now be of good heart.
HEGIO
’Tis this afflicts him,Part of line 152b in the Latin. that the army for guttling is now disbanded.
Meanwhile, have you found no one to command for you the army that you mentioned as disbanded?
ERGASILUS
What do you think? All to whom it used to fall are in the habit of declining that province since your son Philopolemus was taken prisoner.
HEGIO
I’ faith, ‘tisn’t to be wondered at, that they are in the habit of declining that province. You have necessity for numerous troops, and those of numerous kinds.
Well, first you have need of the BakeriansThe Bakerians: This and the following appellations are expressive both of the several trades that contributed to furnishing entertainments, and, in the Latin, also denoted the names of inhabitants of several places in Italy or elsewhere. As this meaning could not be expressed in a literal translation of them, the original words are here subjoined. In the word Pistorienses, he alludes to the bakers, and the natives of Pistorium, a town of Etruria; in the Panicei, to the bread or roll bakers, and the natives of Pana, a little town of the Samnites, mentioned by Strabo; in the Placentini, to the confectioners or cake-makers, and the people of Placentia, a city in the North of Italy; in the Turdetani, to the poulterers or sellers of thrushes, and the people of Turdetania, a district of Spain; and in the Ficedulae, to the sellers of beccaficos, a delicate bird, and the inhabitants of Ficeaulae, a town near Rome. Of course, these appellations, as relating to the trades, are only comical words coined for the occasion.. Of these Bakerians there are several kinds, You have need of Roll-makerians, you have need too of Confectionerians, you have need of Poultererians, you have need of Beccaficorians; besides, all the maritime forces are necessary for you.
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