Perde 4
[Textpart 6]
Indeed, I do see her. Let’s listen; she’s muttering something in a passion, I know not what, to herself.
[Textpart 7]
Syra hasn’t come back, whom, poor wretch, it’s now a long time since I sent to fetch my father; in her very slowness, she has either hardened into a stone, or she has stopped from swelling with the sting of a serpent.
SYRA
I’m undone; here’s my mistress, she’s looking after me.
DORIPPA
I cannot remain at home; my eyes cannot abide that pretty young harlot; I would have shut her out of doors, but my son Eutychus prevented me. Still, I shan’t altogether believe the news he brings.
LYCISSA
Do you hear, mistress?
PERISTRATA
I hear; let her go on.
DORIPPA
He says that she has come hither to our house for the sake of an old gentleman, a friend; that he has her for sale, so that he may withdraw her from his son, who’s in love with her. This really is a falsehood, either in my husband or my son; the accounts differ. The husband says that she was given him as a deposit; but the son says that she’s on sale.
SYRA
I’ll go meet her on a sudden, that she mayn’t find out that I’ve been loitering.
DORIPPA
In this matter I shan’t believe my son, who’s acting in compliance with his father; for, for him, like a regular cuckoo A regular cuckoo: Plautus, on more than one occasion, calls an adulterer by this epithet., has he determined to tell abundance of lies: for my own part I shall believe the Cook, in preference. But see, here’s Syra. How the old witch does run. Syra!
DORIPPA
The Gods send a plague upon you!
SYRA
Mistress, if you are wise, bestow this upon your rival and your husband in preference.
DORIPPA
For saying that, I’m no longer angry with you. But where’s your father? Why does he delay? Does gout hinder the man?
SYRA
He’s lame with neither gout nor chalk-stones Nor chalk- stones: Articularius Literally, having a disease in the joints., whom his feet carry into the country.
SYRA
They say he’s in the country, and that it’s uncertain whether he’ll return to-day, he has such a large account with his bailiff.
DORIPPA
Everything is befalling me this day contrary to my wishes. I shan’t live till the evening, unless I drive that hussy away from the house. (She turns to the door.) I’m going home.
