Perde 2
[Textpart 4]
Am I to be rendered accountable to you?
515
STASIMUS
We are evidently done for, unless I devise something or other. Philto, I want you.
515
PHILTO
If you wish aught, Stasimus.
STASIMUS
Step a little this way.
STASIMUS
I tell you this in secrecy, that neither he nor any one else may learn it of you.
PHILTO
Trust me boldly with anything you please.
STASIMUS
By Gods and men I warn you, not to allow that piece of land ever to become yours or your son’s. I’ll tell you my reasons for this matter.
520
PHILTO
Troth, I should like to hear them.
STASIMUS
First of all then, when at any time the ground is being ploughed, in every fifth furrow the oxen die.
PHILTO
Preserve me from it.Part of line 525 in the Latin.
525
STASIMUS
The gate of Acheron is in that land of ours.
525
Then the grapes, before they are ripe, hang in a putrid state.
LESBONICUS
He is persuading the man to something, I think. Although he is a rogue, still he is not unfaithful to me.
STASIMUS
Hear the rest. Besides that, when elsewhere the harvest of wheat is most abundant,
there it comes up less by one-fourth than what you have sowed.
530
PHILTO
Ah! bad habits ought to be sown on that spot, if in the sowing they can be killed.
STASIMUS
And never is there any person to whom that piece of land belongs, but that his affairs turn out most unfortunate. Of those to whom it has belonged,
some have gone away in banishment; some are dead outright; some, again, have hanged themselves. See this man, now, to whom it belongs, how he has been brought to a regular backgammoned state Backgammoned state: Ad incitas redactus, brought to a standstill, was a term borrowed from the game of Duodecim Scripta, or twelve points, and was applied when one of the parties got all his men on the twelfth point, and, being able to move no further, lost the game in consequence. Probably the game partook of the nature of both backgammon and chess..
535
PHILTO
Preserve me from this piece of land.
