Perde 1
[Textpart 1]
Although this acquaintanceship between us is of very recent date, from the time in fact of your purchasing an estate here in the neighborhood,
CHREMES
yet either your good qualities, or our being neighbors (which I take to be a sort of friendship), induces me to inform you, frankly and familiarly, that you appear to me to labor beyond your years,
and beyond what your affairs require. For, in the name of Gods and men, what would you have? What can be your aim? You are, as I conjecture, sixty years of age, or more. No man in these parts has a better or a more valuable estate, no one
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more servants; and yet you discharge their duties just as diligently as if there were none at all. However early in the morning I go out, and however late in the evening I return home, I see you either digging, or plowing, or doing something, in fact, in the fields.
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You take respite not an instant, and are quite regardless of yourself. I am very sure that this is not done for your amusement. But really I am vexed how little work is done here.How little work is done here: Vollbehr thinks that his meaning is, that he is quite vexed to see so little progress made, in spite of his neighbor’s continual vexation and turmoil, and that, as he says in the next line, he is of opinion that if he were to cease working himself, and were to overlook his servants, he would get far more done. It is more generally thought to be an objection which Chremes suggests that Menedemus may possibly make. If you were to employ the time you spend in laboring yourself, in keeping your servants at work, you would profit much more.
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MENEDEMUS
Have you so much leisure, Chremes, from your own affairs, that you can attend to those of others—those which don’t concern you?
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CHREMES
I am a man,I am a man: Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto. St. Augustine says, that at the delivery of this sentiment, the Theatre resounded with applause; and deservedly, indeed, for it is replete with the very essence of benevolence and disregard of self. Cicero quotes the passage in his work De Officiis, B. i., c. 9. The remarks of Sir Richard Steele upon this passage, in the Spectator, No. 502, are worthy to be transcribed at length. The Play was the Self-Tormentor. It is from the beginning to the end a perfect picture of human life, but I did not observe in the whole one passage that could raise a laugh. How well-disposed must that people be, who could be entertained with satisfaction by so sober and polite mirth! In the first Scene of the Comedy, when one of the old men accuses the other of impertinence for interposing in his affairs, he answers, I am a man, and can not help feeling any sorrow that can arrive at man. It is said this sentence was received with an universal applause. There can not be a greater argument of the general good understanding of a people, than their sudden consent to give their approbation of a sentiment which has no emotion in it. If it were spoken with ever so great skill in the actor, the manner of uttering that sentence could have nothing in it which could strike any but people of the greatest humanity—nay, people elegant and skillful in observation upon it. It is possible that he may have laid his hand on his heart, and with a winning insinuation in his countenance, expressed to his neighbor that he was a man who made his case his own; yet I will engage, a player in Covent Garden might hit such an attitude a thousand times before he would have been regarded. and nothing that concerns a man do I deem a matter of indifference to me. Suppose that I wish either to advise you in this matter, or to be informed myself: if what you do is right, that I may do the same; if it is not, then that I may dissuade you.
MENEDEMUS
It’s requisite for me to do so; do you as it is necessary for you to do.
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CHREMES
Is it requisite for any person to torment himself?
CHREMES
If you have any affliction, I could wish it otherwise. But prithee, what sorrow is this of yours? How have you deserved so ill of yourself?
CHREMES
Do not weep, but make me acquainted with it, whatever it is.
Do not be reserved; fear nothing; trust me, I tell you. Either by consolation, or by counsel, or by any means, I will aid you.
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MENEDEMUS
Do you wish to know this matter?
CHREMES
Yes, and for the reason I mentioned to you.
MENEDEMUS
I will tell you.
CHREMES
But still, in the mean time, lay down that rake; don’t fatigue yourself.
CHREMES
What can be your object?
