Perde 1
[Textpart 2]
Wherefore, my delight, pray do let me prevail upon you.
380
AGORASTOCLES
I’m not a man worth threepence Woth threepence: Trioboli. Literally, of three obols, if I don’t tear out the eyes and teeth of that whip-scoundrel. (He beats MILPHIO.) There’s your delight for you! There’s your honey! There’s your heart! There are your biestings Your biestings: Colostra. This is the first milk after a cow has calved. It is much esteemed for its richness.! There’s your health! There’s your sweet kiss!
MILPHIO
Master, you are rendering yourself guilty of impiety! You are beating an ambassador.
AGORASTOCLES
More than that even still.
(Beating him again.) I shall now add the apple of the eye, the little lip too, and the tongue.
385
MILPHIO
When will you be making an end?
385
AGORASTOCLES
Was it in that fashion I requested you to plead for me?
MILPHIO
How then was I to plead?
AGORASTOCLES
Do you ask me that? Why thus you should have said, you scoundrel: his delight, I do entreat of you, his honey, his heart, his little lip, his tongue, his sweet kiss, his biestings, his sweet cream-cheese, you whip-scoundrel.
All these things which you spoke of as yours, you should have mentioned as mine.
MILPHIO
By my troth, I do entreat you, his delight and my own aversion; his full-bosomed mistress, my enemy and evil-wisher; his eye, my eyesore; his honey, my gall—
don’t you be angry with him; or, if that cannot be, do take a rope and hang yourself, with your master and your household: for I see that henceforth, on your account, I shall have to live upon sighing; and as it is, I’ve already got my back about as hard with weals as an oyster-shell, by reason of your amours.
395
ADELPHASIUM
Prithee, do you wish me to hinder him
from beating you, rather than that he should not prove untrue towards me?
400
ANTERASTYLIS
Do answer him in somewhat kindly terms, there’s a dear, that he mayn’t be annoying to us; for he’s detaining us from our purpose.
ADELPHASIUM
That’s true. This one fault more will I pardon you for, Agorastocles. I am not angry.
AGORASTOCLES
You are not?
AGORASTOCLES
That I may believe you, give me a kiss then.
ADELPHASIUM
I’ll give you one by-and-by, when I return from the sacrifice.
405
