Perde 1
[Textpart 2]
What do you see?
SCEPARNIO
I see two young women sitting in a boat alone. How the poor things are being tossed about That’s good, that’s good, well done.
The surge is driving the boat away from the rock towards the shore. Not a pilot could have ever done it better. I don’t think that I ever saw billows more huge. They are saved, if they can escape those waves. Now, now’s the danger; it has sent one overboard!
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See you that one whom the waves have thrown out of the boat?
Still, she’s in a shallow place; she’ll easily wade through it now. O capital!
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now she’s safe; she has escaped from the water; she’s now on shore. But that other one has now sprung towards the land from the boat—from her alarm she has fallen into the waves upon her knees.
She has got up again; if she takes this direction, the matter’s safe; (a pause) but she has taken to the right, to utter destruction. Ah, she will be wandering all the day—
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DAEMONES
What signifies that to you?
SCEPARNIO
If she should fall down from that rock towards which she is wending her way,
she’ll be putting a period to her wandering.
DAEMONES
If you are about to dine this evening at their expense, I think you may then be concerned for them, Sceparnio; if you are going to eat at my house, I wish your services to be devoted to myself.
SCEPARNIO
You ask what’s good and proper.
DAEMONES
Then follow me this way.
SCEPARNIO
I follow I follow: The Scene of the wreck, previously described by Sceparnio, was probably not visible to the Audience, but was depicted by him while directing his view towards the side of the stage..
[Textpart 3]
By heavens, the mishaps of mortals are spoken of as much less bitter than the sharp pangs that are inflicted in the experience of them Has this then pleased the Deity, that I, clad in this guise, should, in my terror, be cast upon a spot unknown? Shall I then declare that I have been born to this wretched lot?
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PALAESTRA
Do I receive this meed in return for my exemplary piety? For to me it would not prove a hardship to endure this laborious lot, if I had conducted myself undutifully towards my parents or the Gods; but if studiously I have exerted myself to beware of that, then, unduly and unjustly,
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Deities, you send upon me this. For what henceforth shall the glaringly impious receive, if after this fashion you pay honor to the guiltless? But if I knew that I or my parents had done anything wicked, now should I have grieved the less. But the wickedness of this master of mine is pressing hard upon me, his impiety is causing my woes; everything has he lost in the sea;
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these are the remains (looking at her dress) of his property. Even she, who was carried together with me in the boat, was washed out by the violence of the waves; I am now alone. If she at least If she at least: Exactly the same sentiment occurs to Defoe’s hero, Robinson Crusoe, when he visits the Spanish ship wrecked off his island: I cannot explain by any possible energy of words what a strange longing or hankering of desires I felt in my soul upon this sight, breaking out sometimes thus, O that there had been but one or two, nay, or but one soul saved out of this ship, to have escaped to me, that I might have had one companion, one fellow-creature to have spoken to me and to have conversed with! had been saved for me, through her aid my affliction here would have been lighter to me. Now, what hope or aid or what counsel shall I receive,
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a spot so lonesome here have I lighted upon alone? Here are the rocks, here roars the sea, and not one individual comes across my path. This dress that I am clothed in forms all my riches quite entirely; nor know I with what food or roof I am to be provided. What hope have I through which to desire to live?
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Neither am I acquainted with the place, nor was I ever here before. At least I could have wished for some one who would point out to me either a road or a path from these spots; so much am I now at a loss for advice whether to go this way or that; neither, indeed, do I see Neither, indeed, do I see: She is unable to see the Temple of Venus and the house of Daemones, by reason of the high crags among which she is wandering, some of which are represented in the front of the stage. anywhere near here a cultivated spot.
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