Perde 2
[Textpart 2]
I’m utterly ruined!
DAVUS
I know what you are afraid of.
CHARINUS
I’faith, my life indeed is really in danger.
DAVUS
And what you are afraid of, I know.
DAVUS
As if I did not know it?
DAVUS
Why keep dinning me with it, when I know it all? (To PAMPHILUS.) This are you afraid of, lest you should marry her; and you (to CHARINUS,) lest you should not marry her.
CHARINUS
You understand the matter.
PAMPHILUS
That’s the very thing.
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DAVUS
And that very thing is in no danger; trust me for that.
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PAMPHILUS
I do entreat you, release wretched me as soon as possible from this apprehension.
DAVUS
Well, then, I will release you; Chremes is not going to give you his daughter at present.
PAMPHILUS
How do you know?
DAVUS
You shall know. Your father just now laid hold of me; he said that a wife was to be given you to-day, and many other things as well, which just now I haven’t time to relate.
Hastening to you immediately, I ran on to the Forum that I might tell you these things. When I didn’t find you, I ascended there to ahigh place.To a high place: He probably alludes to some part of the Acropolis, the citadel, or higher part of Athens, which commanded a view of the lower town. I looked around; you were nowhere. There by chance I saw Byrrhia, his servant (pointing to CHARINUS.). I inquired of him; he said he hadn’t seen you. This puzzled me. I considered what I was to do. As I was returning in the mean time, a surmise from the circumstances themselves occurred to me: How now,—
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a very small amount of good cheer; he out of spirits; a marriage all of a sudden; these things don’t agree.
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PAMPHILUS
But to what purpose this?
DAVUS
I forthwith betook myself to the house of Chremes. When I arrived there—stillness before the door;Stillness before the door: Madame Dacier observes that this remark is very appropriately made by Davus, as showing that the marriage was clearly not intended by Chremes. The house of the bride on such an occasion would be thronged by her friends, and at the door would be the musicians and those who were to form part of the bridal procession. then I was pleased at that.
