Perde 1
[Textpart 1]
It behoves me, mother, to be just as you wish I should be.
A PROCURESS
I’ troth, I don’t regret it, if you will prove such as you say you’ll be; for if, indeed, you shall be such as I intend, you’ll never be a Hecale A Hecale: Hecala seems a preferable reading here to Hecata. Hecale was a very poor old woman, whom Plutarch mentions as having entertained Theseus on one of his expeditions. As poor as Hecale, became a proverb. Her poverty is mentioned by Ovid, in the Remedy of Love, in conjunction with that of the beggar Irus. in your old age, and you’ll ever keep that same tender age which you now have,
and you’ll prove a loss to many and a profit to myself full oft, without any outlay of my own.
50
GYMNASIUM
May the Gods grant it.
A PROCURESS
Without your own energiesWithout your own energies: This is very similar to our provert, that Providence helps those who help themselves., the Gods cannot possibly do anything in this.
GYMNASIUM
I’ faith, for my own part, I’ll zealously devote my energies to it. But what mean you amid this conversation, apple of my eye, my own Silenium? (never did I see you more sad); prithee, do tell me, why does mirth so shun you?
And you are not so neat as you usually are. (SILENIUM sighs.) Do look at that, please, how deep a sigh she heaved. You are pale too. Tell us both what’s the matter with you, and in what you want our aid; so that we may know. Prithee, don’t by your tears be causing me anxiety.
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SILENIUM
My dear Gymnasium, I’m sadly affected; I feel ill, I am shockingly distrest;
I am pained in spirits, I feel pain in my eyes, I am in pain from faintness. What shall I say, but that my own folly drives me to sadness?
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GYMNASIUM
Take you care, then, that you have your folly entombed in that very same place from which it takes its rise.
SILENIUM
What shall I do?
GYMNASIUM
Hide it in darkness, in the very deepest recesses of your breast. Take you care and have it so, that you yourself are alone sensible of your own folly, without any other witnesses.
SILENIUM
But I’ve got the heart-ache.
65
GYMNASIUM
Why so? For what reason have you the heartache, prithee, tell me, a thing that I neither have, nor any other woman whatever, according as the men say?
65
SILENIUM
If there’s any heart to feel pain, it does feel pain; but if there isn’t, still this pains me here.
A PROCURESS
This woman’s in love.
GYMNASIUM
Come now, to begin to be in love, is it bitter, prithee?
A PROCURESS
Why, troth, love is most fruitful both in honey and in gall;
inasmuch as it produces sweetness in a mere taste, but causes bitterness even to repletion.
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SILENIUM
Of that character is the malady that afflicts me, my dear Gymnasium.
