Perde 1
[Textpart 2]
Hark you, you that are roaming about Temples for the sake of your stomach, ’twere better for you to order a breakfast to be got ready at home.
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SCEPARNIO
Perhaps you’ve been invited here Been invited here: It was the custom of Parasites to prowl about the Temples, for the purpose of joining in the feasts which sometimes took place at the conclusion of the sacrifice. to breakfast. He that invited you, hasn’t he come at all?
PLESIDIPPUS
’Tis the fact.
SCEPARNIO
There’s no risk then in your betaking yourself hence home without your breakfast.
It’s better for you to be a waiter upon Ceres than upon Venus; the latter attends to love, Ceres attends to wheat.
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PLESIDIPPUS
This fellow has been making sport of me in a digraceful manner.
DAEMONES
O ye immortal Gods, Sceparnio, what means those people near the sea-shore?
SCEPARNIO
According to my notion,
they’ve been invited to a parting breakfast To a parting breakfast: Prandium propter viam. Thornton has the following Note here: This is a sorry joke, even for Sceparnio, on so serious and melancholy an occasion, and cannot be well expressed in our tongue. When the ancients were about to undertake any voyage, they used to make a sacrifice to Hercules before they set off, which was for that reason called propter viam; and the custom was to burn all they didn’t eat. Wherefore Sceparnio says laverunt, which signifies they have consumed their all as well as they have bathed. alluding to the ship being lost..
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SCEPARNIO
Why, because, after dinner, I fancy, they yesterday washed themselves clean;
their ship has gone to pieces out at sea.
DAEMONES
Such is the fact.
SCEPARNIO
But, I’ faith, on dry land our cottage and tiles have done the same.
DAEMONES
Oh dear! what unfortunate creatures you are; (to SCEPARNIO) how the shipwrecked people are swimming.
PLESIDIPPUS
Prithee, where are these people?
DAEMONES
This way, to the right; don’t you see them near the shore?
PLESIDIPPUS
I see them; (to his FRIENDS) follow me. I only wish it may be he that I’m seeking, that most accursed fellow. (To DAEMONES and SCEPARNIO.) Fare you well.
SCEPARNIO
If you hadn’t put us in mind, we should have thought of that ourselves.
But, O Palaemon Palaemon: This was one of the names of Melicerta. or Portunus, the son of Athamas and Ino. Athamas being about to slay him and Ino, they leaped into the sea, where they became sea Divinities., hallowed associate of Neptune, who art said to be the partner of Hercules, what shocking thing do I see?
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