Perde 2
[Textpart 6]
Where the plague are you hurrying to, Labrax? For really I cannot follow you so fast.
LABRAX
I only wish that you had perished by direful tornments in Sicily before I had looked upon you with my eyes,
you on whose account this misfortune has befallen me.
CHARMIDES
I only wish that on the day on which you admitted me into your house, I had laid me down in a prison sooner. I pray the immortal Gods, that so long as you live,
you may have all your guests just like your own self.
500
LABRAX
In your person I admitted misfortune into my house. What business had I to listen to a rogue like you, or what to depart hence? Or why to go on board ship, where I have lost even more wealth Even more wealth: He means that he has not only lost his existing property by the shipwreck, but his hopes of profit as well on his arrival at Sicily, by means of his traffic with Palaestra and Ampelisca. than I was possessor of?
CHARMIDES
Troth, I’m far from being surprised if your ship has been wrecked, which was carrying yourself, a villain, and your property villanously acquired.
505
LABRAX
You’ve utterly ruined me with your wheedling speeches.
CHARMIDES
A more accursed dinner of yours have I been dining upon than the ones that were set before Thyestes and Tereus Thyestes and Tereus: Atreus killed the children of his brother Thyestes, and served them up to their father. Progne slew her son Itys, and set him before his father Tereus, who had ravished and mutilated her sister Philomela..
LABRAX
I’m dying; I’m sick at heart. Prithee, do hold up my head.
510
CHARMIDES
By my troth, I could very much wish that you would vomit up your lungs.
LABRAX
Alas! Palaestra and Ampelisca, where are you now?
CHARMIDES
Supplying food for the fishes at the bottom, I suppose.
LABRAX
You have brought beggary upon me by your means,
while I was listening to your bragging lies.
515
CHARMIDES
You have reason deservedly to give me many hearty thanks, who from an insipid morsel by my agency have made you salt Have made you salt: Ex insulso salsum. The humour in this passage depends on the double meaning of the word salsus, which signifies saited, and, figuratively, sharp, clever. witty..
LABRAX
Nay, but do you get out from me to extreme and utter perdition.
CHARMIDES
You be off; I was just going to do that very thing.
LABRAX
Alas! what mortal being is there living more wretched than I?
520
CHARMIDES
I am by very far much more wretched, Labrax, than yourself.
