Perde 1
[Textpart 2]
That which a bad man would do.
CALLICLES
That is no name of mine.
MEGARONIDES
Have you not bought this house from that young man? (A pause.) Why are you silent?
This, where you yourself are now living.
125
CALLICLES
I did buy it, and I gave the money for it,—forty minae Forty minae: Unless he adds the adjective aurea, golden, Plautus always means silver minae. The mina was the sixtieth part of the Attic talent, and contained one hundred drachmae, of about ninepence three-farthings each., to the young man himself, into his own hand.
125
MEGARONIDES
You gave the money, do you say?
CALLICLES
’Twas done; and I am not sorry ’twas done.
MEGARONIDES
I’ faith—a young man committed to untrusty keeping. Have you not by these means given him a sword with which to slay himself?
For, prithee, what else is it, your giving ready money to a young man who loves women, and weak in intellect, with which to complete his edifice of folly which he had already commenced?
130
CALLICLES
Ought I not to have paid him the money?
MEGARONIDES
You ought not to have paid him; nor ought you either to have bought anything of or sold anything to him;
nor should you have provided him with the means of becoming worse. Have you not taken in the person who was entrusted to you? Have you not driven out of his house the man who entrusted him to you? By my faith, a pretty trust, and a faithful guardianship! Leave him to take care of himself; he would manage his own affairs much better.
135
CALLICLES
You overpower me, Megaronides, with your accusations, in a manner so strange, that what was privately entrusted to my secrecy, fidelity, and constancy, for me to tell it to no one, nor make it public, the same I am now compelled to entrust to you.
140
MEGARONIDES
Whatever you shall entrust to me, you shall take up the same where you have laid it down.
145
CALLICLES
Look round you, then, that no overlooker may be near us (MEGARONIDES looks on every side); and look around every now and then, I beg of you.
MEGARONIDES
I am listening if you have aught to say.
CALLICLES
If you will be silent, I will speak. At the time when Charmides set out hence for foreign parts,
he showed me a treasure in this house, here in a certain closet— (He starts as if he hears a noise.) But do look around.
150
MEGARONIDES
There is no one.
CALLICLES
Of Philippean pieces Of Philippean pieces: These were gold coins much in circulation throughout Greece, struck by Philip, King of Macedon. to the number of three thousand. Alone with myself, in tears, he entreated me, by our friendship and by my honour, not to entrust this to his son, nor yet to any one, from whom that might come to his knowledge.
