Perde 1
[Textpart 1]
Fare you well.
[Textpart 2]
(to the AUDIENCE.) It’s the same fault with myself as with a great part of us women who are following this calling; who, as soon as ever we have got our load of food, are forthwith full of talk; more than is enough do we say.
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A PROCURESS
Why, myself now, inasmuch as I’m filled to my heart’s content, and because I’ve charged myself quite full of the choicest of wine, it pleases me to use my tongue more at freedom; to my misfortune I can’t keep silent on that which it were necessary to be silent upon.
But once upon a time, that girl, who has gone hence in tears, from a lane I carried off a little child exposed.
There is here a certain youth, of the highest rank;
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his father, of a very high family, is living at Sicyon Living at Sicyon : This was a very ancient city in the north of the Peloponnesus, not far from Corinth. According to Pliny the Elder, it was famous for its shops, stored with all kinds of metals.;
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he is dying desperately in love for this young woman, who has just. now gone hence in tears; on the other hand, she is smitten with love.
I made a present of her to my friend, this Courtesan: who had often made mention of it to me
that somewhere I must find for her a boy or a girl, just born, that she herself might pass it off as her own. As soon as ever the opportunity befell me, I immediately granted her request in that which she had asked of me.
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After she had received this female child from me, at once
she was brought to bed of the same female child which she had received from me, without the aid of a midwife and without pain, just as other women bring forth, who seek a trouble to themselves; but she said that her lover was a foreigner, and that by reason of that circumstance she was palming it off.
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This, we two alone are aware of, I who gave the child to her, and she who received it from me; (to the AUDIENCE) except yourselves, indeed. Thus was this affair managed; if any occasion should arise, I wish you to remember this circumstance. I’m off home.
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[Textpart 3]
(To the AUDIENCE.) This old woman is both a much-talker and a much-tippler.
THE GOD OF HELP
Isn’t it the fact that she has hardly left room to a Divinity for him to speak, so much has she forestalled him in talking about the substitution of this girl? But if she had held her tongue, still I was about to mention it—a God, who could do it better; for my name is Help. Now (to the AUDIENCE) lend your attention,
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that I may clearly explain this plot to you. Some time since, at Sicyon, there was the Festival of Bacchus; a merchant of Lemnos Merchant of Lemnos: Demipho. came hither to the games, and he, an ungovernable young man, ravished a maiden A maiden: Phanostrata. in the dark, in the street, at the dead of night.
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He, as he knew that he was deserving of a heavy punishment, at once found shelter with his heels, and made off for Lemnos, where he then lived. She whom he had ravished, the ninth ensuing month completed, brought forth a daughter here A daughter here: Silenium.. Since she did not know the person guilty of this deed, who he was,
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she made the servant The servant: Lampadiscus. of her father partaker of her counsels, and gave to that servant the child to be exposed to death. He exposed it; this woman took up the child; that servant, who had exposed it, secretly took note whither or to what house she carried away the child.
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As you have heard her own self confess, she gave this child to the Courtesan Melaenis; and she brought her up as being her own daughter, honestly and virtuously. But then, this Lemnian married a neighbour there, his relation, for his wife.
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She departed this life; there she was compliant to her husband. After he had performed the due obsequies to his wife, at once he removed hither; here he married for his wife that same woman That same woman: An exactly similar circumstance forms the groundwork of the plot in the Hecyra of Terence. whom formerly, when a maid, he ravished. When he understood that it was she whom he had ravished,
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she told him that, in consequence of the violation, she had brought forth a daughter, and had at once given her to a servant to be exposed. He forthwith ordered this same servant to make enquiries, if anyhow he could discover who had taken it up. Now to that task
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