Perde 5
[Textpart 4]
What do you say?
SIMO
What is this that you say?
PAMPHILUS
Prick up your ears, Pamphilus.
SIMO
Why do you suppose so?
CHREMES
That Phania was my brother.
SIMO
I knew him, and I am aware of it.
CHREMES
He, flying from the wars, and following me to Asia, set out from here. At the same time he was afraid to leave her here behind; since then, this is the first time I have heard what became of him.
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PAMPHILUS
I am scarcely myself, so much has my mind been agitated by fear, hope, joy, and surprise at this so great, so unexpected blessing.
SIMO
Really, I am glad for many reasons that she has been discovered to be a citizen.
PAMPHILUS
I believe it, father.
CHREMES
But there yet remains one difficulty One difficulty: Scrupus, or scrupulus, was properly a stone or small piece of gravel which, getting into the shoe, hurt the foot; hence the word figuratively came to mean a scruple, difficulty, or doubt. We have a similar expression: to be graveled. with me, which keeps me in suspense.
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PAMPHILUS
You deserve to be —, with your scruples, you plague. You are seeking a knot in a bulrush. A knot in a bulrush: Nodum in scirpo quaerer. was a proverbial expression implying a desire to create doubts and difficulties where there really were none; there being no knots in the bulrush. The same expression occurs in the Menaechmi of Plautus, 1. 247.
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CHREMES
The names don’t agree.
CRITO
Troth, she had another when little.
CHREMES
What was it, Crito? Can you remember it?
CRITO
I’m trying to recollect it.
PAMPHILUS
Am I to suffer his memory to stand in the way of my happiness, when I myself can provide my own remedy in this matter? I will not suffer it. (Aloud.) Hark you, Chremes, that which you are trying to recollect is Pasibula.
CHREMES
The very same.
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