Perde 2
[Textpart 7]
Into the bottomless pit, I would rather. (LABRAX rushes into the Temple, and shuts the door.) Prithee, stranger, show me some spot where I may go to sleep.
570
SCEPARNIO
Go to sleep there, wherever you please (points to the ground); no one hinders, it’s free to the public.
CHARMIDES
But do you see me, in what wet clothes I’m dressed? Do take me under shelter; lend me some dry clothes,
while my own are drying; on some occasion I’ll return you the favour.
575
SCEPARNIO
See, here’s my outer coat, which alone is dry; that, if you like, I’ll lend you. (Takes it off and holds it out to him.) In that same I’m wont to be clothed, by that same protected, when it rains. Do you give me those clothes of yours; I’ll soon have them dried.
CHARMIDES
How now, are you afraid that, as I’ve been washed bare Washed bare: The poor joke here turns on the double meaning of the word eluo, which, in the passive, means to be shipwrecked, and in the active, either to bathe or to be ruined in one’s fortunes. It is not very dissimilar to an expression common with us, and might be rendered, I wasn’t cleaned out enough at sea fast night, but you want to clean me out still more. Sceparnio takes the word in the sense of to bathe, and says, Bathe or anoint yourself; I don’t care a fig. Anointing followed immediately after bathing, last night at sea, I mayn’t be made bare again here upon shore?
SCEPARNIO
Wash you bare, or anoint you well, I don’t care one fig One fig: Ciccum. Ciccum was the thin skin in the pomegranate that divided the kernels.. I shall never entrust anything to you unless upon a pledge being taken. Do you either sweat away or perish with cold, be you either sick or well. I’ll put up with no stranger-guest in my house; I’ve had disagreements enough.
580
CHARMIDES
What, are you off? (A pause.) He’s a trafficker in slaves for money For money: His meaning is, he is so inhuman, that surely he is a slave-dealer, and nothing less. ; whoever he is,
he has no bowels Has no bowels: Non est misericors. Literally, he is not merciful. of compassion. But why in my wretchedness am I standing here, soaking? Why don’t I rather go away from here into the Temple of Venus, that I may sleep off this debauch which I got with drinking last night against the bent of my inclination? Neptune has been drenching us with salt water as though we were Greek wines Were Greek wines: He uses this comparison because it was the custom of the ancients to mix sea-water with all the Greek wines, except the Chian, which Horace styles maris expers, unmixed with the sea., and so he hoped that our stomachs might be vomited up with his salt draughts.
585
What need of words? If he had persisted in inviting us a little longer, we should have gone fast asleep there; as it is, hardly alive has he sent us off home. Now I’ll go see the Procurer, my boon companion, what he’s doing within.
590
