Perde 4
[Textpart 3]
How fare you, my preserver?
OLYMPIO
I’m very hungry, faith; and, in fact, I’m not thirsty a little.
OLYMPIO
Still, upon my faith, love, I shan’t be making any trial of you. For some time past my inside has been grumbling with emptiness.
STALINO
But why is she now delaying so long in-doors, just as though on purpose?
The greater the haste I’m in, in so much the less is she.
805
OLYMPIO
What if I were even to trill an hymeneal lay?
STALINO
I agree to that; and I’ll help you at these our common nuptials.
OLYMPIO
Hymen hymenaee! Io Hymen!
STALINO
Upon my faith, I’m dreadfully done up; one may burst one’s self with singing this hymeneal lay; if I do burst this wayIf I do burst this way: The meaning of this passage is obscure, but there is no doubt that it is of an indecent nature. The translation is consequently somewhat modified., I can’t burst any other, that I may make sure of.
OLYMPIO
Upon my faith, for sure, if you were a horse, you’d never be broken in.
OLYMPIO
You are too hard-mouthed.
STALINO
Have you ever found me so?
OLYMPIO
The Gods forbid! But the door makes a noise; they are coming out.
STALINO
I’ troth, the Gods do will me to be preserved at last. I already smell CasinaAlready smell Casina: Some Commentators explain this passage as one of indecent allusion, but there is really no occasion for such a construction; no doubt, the bride was usually perfumed to the highest pitch, and Stalino may very naturally say that he smells her at a distance. at a distance. (They move to a distance.)
[Textpart 4]
Move on, and raise your feet a little over the thresholdA little over the threshold: When the bridal procession left the house of the bride, and when it reached that of the husband, the bride was lifted over the threshold by pronubi, men who had been married to only one wife, that she might not touch it with her foot, which was deemed an evil omen., newly-married bride; prosperously commence this journey, that you may always be alive for your husband, that you may be his superior in power, and the conqueror, and that your rule may gain the upper hand. Let your husband find you in clothes; you plunder your husband;
815
TWO MAID-SERVANTS
by night and day to be tricking your husband, prithee, do remember.
820
OLYMPIO
Upon my faith, at her downright peril, the instant she offends me ever so little!
STALINO
Hold your tongue.
