Perde 3
[Textpart 4]
I never heard of that person before to-day, nor, indeed, was any one able to purchase me for any money; I’ve been free now for more than five years.
PERIPHIANES
What business have you, then, at my house?
MUSIC-GIRL
You shall hear;
I came, being hired to perform for an old gentleman while he was sacrificing.
500
PERIPHIANES
I do confess that I am the most worthless of all men in Athens of Attica. But do you know Acropolistis the Music-girl?
MUSIC-GIRL
As well as my own self.
PERIPHIANES
Where does she live?
MUSIC-GIRL
Since she has been made free,
I don’t know for certain.
505
PERIPHIANES
Well now, I should like to know who has made her free, if you know?
MUSIC-GIRL
That which I have heard, you shall hear; I heard that StratippoclesI heard that Stratippocles: She discloses to him what she has heard as the fact, and which is the real state of the case. Although Acropolistis is in his house, in the character of his daughter, he, not knowing who she really is, is alarmed at hearing that his son has procured her liberation, which he has just taken so much pains to prevent., the son of Periphanes, had provided in his absence that she should be made free.
PERIPHIANES
By heavens, I’m undone I’m undone: Having now detected this piece of roguery of which Epidicus has been guilty., most clearly, if these things are true. Epidicus has disembowelled my purse!
510
MUSIC-GIRL
I’ve heard to that effect. Do you want me for anything else?
PERIPHIANES
Away to perdition in the veriest torments, and off this instant!
MUSIC-GIRL
Won’t you give me back my harp?
PERIPHANES
Neither harp nor pipes.
Make haste, then, and escape from here, if the Gods love you!
515
MUSIC-GIRL
I’ll be off. At a future time, however, you’ll restore it, with the greater disgrace With the greater disgrace: Probably by being sued, and obliged to give it up, whether he will or no. to yourself.
515
PERIPHIANES
What now? Shall I, who have been placed before so many edicts Before so many edicts: Qui in tantis positus sum sententiis. This passage has been explained various ways; but Madame Dacier seems justified in thinking that Gronovius has found the right meaning, and that the allusion is to the custom of placing the name of the proposer at the head of the ψηφίσματα, or public edicts of the Greeks; this of course implied that the proposer was a man of standing, and of some fair pretensions to a reputation for wisdom., allow him to get with impunity? No; even though as much again should be required to be lost, I’ll lose it rather than
allow myself to be held in derision with impunity and plundered by them. That I should have been thus cheated openly to my face, and that I should have been set at nought before this Apaecides, who is famed as being the framer and founder of all the laws and ordinances! He too declares that he is a wise man! that the hammer,
520
