Perde 1
[Textpart 2]
He, that you are on your road to, who is it that you’re going to fetch?
130
ASTAPHIUM
Achiva, the midwife.
130
DINARCHUS
You are an artful damsel.
ASTAPHIUM
I’m as usual then; that’s my practice.Part of line 131b in the Latin.
DINARCHUS
You deceitful hussy, I’ve caught you detected in a lie.
DINARCHUS
Because you said that you were going to bring his own self, and not herself. A woman, then, has been made out of a man. You are an artful one.
DINARCHUS
But, pray, tell me, Astaphium who is this person? A new lover?
135
ASTAPHIUM
I think that you are a gentleman too much at his ease.
DINARCHUS
Why now do you think so?
ASTAPHIUM
Because you trouble yourself about things that don’t concern your own clothing and food.
DINARCHUS
It’s yourselves have made me a gentleman at ease.
DINARCHUS
I’ll explain it to you. I’ve lost my property; with my property you’ve robbed me of occupation.
If I had preserved my property, there had been something with which I might have been occupied.
140
ASTAPHIUM
And do you suppose that you can possibly well manage the affairs of state, or those of love, on any other terms without being a gentleman at ease?
DINARCHUS
It was she held a public employment, not I; you misinterpret me. But, against the law, in spite of my tax paid for pasturageTax paid for pasturage: Scripturam. This passage is somewhat difficult to be understood. Dinarchus seems to say that he is reduced to idleness from having squandered his property upon Phronesium, and retorts upon Astaphium, by saying that he himself has no public office, but that Phronesium is a publican, alluding to her calling as a public courtesan; and he then proceeds to accuse her of letting the public pasture, for which he had paid the rent or tax (scripturam), to another. Part of the Roman revenue arose from the letting of the uncultivated lands, through the medium of publicani, or farmers of the public revenue, who used to sublet them to private persons. He therefore means to say, that Phronesium has undertaken the duties of a publican, but has failed in duly performing them. It is possible that a pun may be intended on the word scriptura, which also signifies a writing or deed, and may allude to some preceding compact which had been made between Phronesium and himself., she has received other cattle beside myself.
ASTAPHIUM
Most persons who manage their property badly, do the same as you are doing; when they haven’t wherewith to pay the tax, they blame the farmers of the taxes.
145
DINARCHUS
My pasturage contract with you turns out but badly; now in its turn, I wish to have, according to my narrow circumstances, a little bit of arable land here with you.
