Perde 2
[Textpart 3]
Ha! What! Bacchis? How now, you rascal! whither are you bringing her?
SYRUS
Whither am I bringing her? To our house, to be sure.
CLITIPHO
What! to my father’s?
CLITIPHO
Oh, the audacious impudence of the fellow!
SYRUS
Hark’ye, no great and memorable action is done without some risk.
CLITIPHO
Look now; are you seeking to gain credit for yourself, at the hazard of my character, you rascal, in a point, where, if you only make the slightest slip, I am ruined? What would you be doing with her?
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SYRUS
If you’ll give me leave, I’ll tell you.
CLINIA
Do give him leave.
CLITIPHO
I give him leave then.
SYRUS
This affair is now just as though when—
CLITIPHO
Plague on it, what roundabout story is he beginning to tell me?
CLINIA
Syrus, he says what’s right—do omit digressions; come to the point.
SYRUS
Really I can not hold my tongue. Clitipho, you are every way unjust, and can not possibly be endured.
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CLINIA
Upon my faith, he ought to have a hearing. (To CLITIPHO.) Do be silent.
SYRUS
You wish to indulge in your amours; you wish to possess your mistress; you wish that to be procured wherewithal to make her presents; in getting this, you do not wish the risk to be your own. You are not wise to no purpose,—if indeed it is being wise to wish for that which can not happen.
Either the one must be had with the other, or the one must be let alone with the other. Now, of these two alternatives, consider which one you would prefer; although this project which I have formed, I know to be both a wise and a safe one. For there is an opportunity for your mistress to be with you at your father’s house, without fear of a discovery; besides, by these self-same means, I shall find the money which you have promised her—
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to effect which, you have already made my ears deaf with entreating me. What would you have more?
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