Book 2
23
Only recently I had an experience of this kind. I was reading the Plocium or Necklace of Caecilius, much to the delight of myself and those who were present. The fancy took us to read also the Plocium of Menander, from which Caecilius had translated the said comedy. But after we took Menander in hand, good Heavens! how dull and lifeless, and how different from Menander did Caecilius appear! Upon my word, the armour of Diomedes and of Glaucus were not more different in value. Homer (Iliad vi. 234 ff) tells us that Diomedes proposed to exchange armour with Glaucus in token of friendship. Diomedes' arms of bronze cost nine oxen; those of Glaucus, inlaid with gold, a hundred. Hence gold for bronze became proverbial. Our reading had reached the passage where the aged husband was complaining of his rich and ugly wife, because he had been forced to sell his maid-servant, a girl skilled at her work and very good looking, since his wife suspected her of being his mistress. I shall say nothing of the great difference; but I have had the lines of both poets copied and submitted to others for their decision. This is Menander: Fr. 402, Kock; p. 428, L.C.L. Now may our heiress fair on both ears sleep. A great and memorable feat is hers; For she has driven forth, as she had planned, The wench that worried her, that all henceforth Of Crobyle alone the face may see, And that the famous woman, she my wife, May also be my tyrant. From the face Dame Nature gave her, she's an ass 'mong apes, As says the adage. I would silent be About that night, the first of many woes. Alas that I took Crobyle to wife, With sixteen talents and a foot of nose. Then too can one her haughtiness endure? By Zeus Olympius and Athena, no ' She has dismissed a maid who did her work More quickly than the word was given her, More quickly far than one will bring her back! But Caecilius renders it thus: vv. 142ff., Ribbeck3. In very truth is he a wretched man, Who cannot hide his woe away from home; And that my wife makes me by looks and acts: If I kept still, I should betray myself No less. And she has all that you would wish She had not, save the dowry that she brought. Let him who's wise a lesson take from me, Who, like a free man captive to the foe, Am slave, though town and citadel are safe. What! wish her safe who steals whate'er I prize? While longing for her death, a living corpse am I. She says I've secret converse with our maid— That's what she said, and so be laboured me With tears, with prayers, with importunities, That I did sell the wench. Now, I suppose, She blabs like this to neighbours and to friends: " Which one of you, when in the bloom of youth, Could from her husband win what I from mine Have gained, who've robbed him of his concubine." Thus they, while I, poor wretch, am torn to shreds.
