Perde 2
[Textpart 4]
A disgraceful one.
PALAESTRIO
Do you then keep it to yourself alone: don’t tell it me; I don’t want to know it.
SCELEDRUS
But I won’t let you not know it. To-day I was following our monkey upon the tiles, next door there.
PALAESTRIO
By my troth, Sceledrus, a worthless fellow, you were following a worthless beast.
285
SCELEDRUS
The Gods confound you!
PALAESTRIO
That befits yourself, since you began the conversation.
SCELEDRUS
By chance, as it happened, I looked down there through the skylight, into the next house; and there I saw Philocomasium toying with some strange young man, I know not whom.
PALAESTRIO
What scandalous thing is this I hear of you, Sceledrus?
SCELEDRUS
I’ faith, I did see her, beyond a doubt.
290
PALAESTRIO
What, yourself?
290
SCELEDRUS
Yes, I myself, with these eyes of mine.
290
PALAESTRIO
Get away, it isn’t likely what you say, nor did you see her.
SCELEDRUS
Do I, then, appear to you as if I were purblind?
PALAESTRIO
’Twere better for you to ask the doctor about that. But, indeed, if the Gods only love you, don’t you rashly father thisRashly father this: Tollas fabulam. This metaphor is borrowed from the custom among the Romans of laying the new-born child upon the ground upon which it was taken up (tollebatur) by the father, or other person who intended to stand in the place of parent to it. idle story. Now are you breeding thence a fatal dilemma for your legs and head;
for, in two ways, the cause is contrived for you to be ruined, unless you put a check upon your foolish chattering.
295
SCELEDRUS
But how, two ways?
PALAESTRIO
I’ll tell you. First then, if you falsely accuse Philocomasium, by that you are undone; in the next place, if it is true, having been appointed her keeper, there you are undone.
SCELEDRUS
What may happen to me, I know not; I know for certain that I did see this.
PALAESTRIO
Do you persist in it, unfortunate wretch?
300
SCELEDRUS
What would you have me say to you, but that I did see her? Moreover, she is in there, next door, at this very moment.
300
