Perde 3
[Textpart 1]
For what reason, Chremes?
CHREMES
Because there you would judge extremely ill both for yourself and for him, if you were to show yourself of a spirit so weak and irresolute.
MENEDEMUS
I can not help it: enough already, enough, have I proved a rigorous father.
Menedemus! you are too precipitate in either extreme, either with profuseness or with parsimony too great. Into the same error will you fall from the one side as from the other. In the first place, formerly, rather than allow your son to visit a young woman, who was
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then content with a very little, and to whom any thing was acceptable, you frightened him away from here. After that, she began, quite against her inclination, to seek a subsistence upon the town. Now, when she can not be supported without a great expense, you are ready to give any thing. For, that you may know
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how perfectly she is trained to extravagance, in the first place, she has already brought with her more than ten female attendants, all laden with clothes and jewels of gold; if a satrapIf a satrap: Satrapa was a Persian word signifying a ruler of a province. The name was considered as synonymous with possessor of wealth almost inexhaustible. had been her admirer, he never could support her expenses, much less can you.
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MENEDEMUS
Is she at your house?
CHREMES
Is she, do you ask?
I have felt it; for I have given her and her retinue one dinner; had I to give them another such, it would be all over with me; for, to pass by other matters, what a quantity of wine she did consume for me in tasting only,In tasting only: Pytiso was the name given to the nasty practice of tasting wine, and then spitting it out; offensive in a man, but infinitely more so in a woman. It seems in those times to have been done by persons who wished to give themselves airs in the houses of private persons; at the present day it is probably confined to wine-vaults and sale-rooms where wine is put up to auction, and even there it is practiced much more than is either necessary or agreeable. Doubtless Bacchis did it to show her exquisite taste in the matter of wines. saying thus, This wine is too acid,Is too acid: Asperum; meaning that the wine was not old enough for her palate. The great fault of the Greek wines was their tartness, for which reason sea-water was mixed with them all except the Chian, which was the highest class of wine. respected sir,Respected sir: Pater, literally father; a title by which the young generally addressed aged persons who were strangers to them. do please look for something more mellow.
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I opened all the casks, all the vesselsAll the casks, all the vessels: Dolia omnia, omnes serias. The finer kinds of wine were drawn off from the dolia, or large vessels, into the amphorae, which, like the dolia, were made of earth, and sometimes of glass. The mouths of the vessels were stopped tight by a plug of wood or cork, which was made impervious to the atmosphere by being rubbed over with a composition of pitch, clay, wax, or gypsum. On the outside, the title of the wine was painted, and among the Romans the date of the vintage was denoted by the names of the Consuls then in office. When the vessels were of glass, small tickets or labels, called pittacia, were suspended from them, stating to a similar effect. The seriae were much the same as the dolia, perhaps somewhat smaller; they were both long, bell-mouthed vessels of earthen-ware, formed of the best clay, and lined with pitch while hot from the furnace. Seriae were also used to contain oil and other liquids; and in the Captivi of Plautus the word is applied to pans used for the purpose of salting meat. Relino signifies the act of taking the seal of pitch or Wax off the stopper of the wine-vessel.; she kept all on the stir: and this but a single night. What do you suppose will become of you when they are constantly preying upon you? So may the Gods prosper me, Menedemus, I do pity your lot.
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MENEDEMUS
Let him do what he will;
let him take, waste, and squander; I’m determined to endure it, so long as I only have him with me.
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CHREMES
If it is your determination thus to act, I hold it to be of very great foment that he should not be aware that with a full knowledge you grant him this.
MENEDEMUS
What shall I do?
CHREMES
Any thing, rather than what you are thinking of;
supply him with money through some other person; suffer yourself to be imposed upon by the artifices of his servant: although I have smelt out this too, that they are about that, and are secretly planning it among them. Syrus is always whispering with that servant of yours;With that servant of yours: Dromo. they impart their plans to the young men; and it were better for you to lose
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a talent this way, than a mina the other. The money is not the question now, but this—in what way we can supply it to the young man with the least danger. For if he once knows the state of your feelings, that you would sooner part with your life, and sooner
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with all your money, than allow your son to leave you; whew! what an inletWhat an inlet: Fenestram; literally, a window. will you be opening for his debauchery! aye, and so much so, that henceforth to live can not be desirable to you. For we all become worse through indulgence. Whatever comes into his head, he’ll be wishing for; nor
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will he reflect whether that which he desires is right or wrong. You will not be able to endure your estate and him going to ruin. You will refuse to supply him: he will immediately have recourse to the means by which he finds that he has the greatest hold upon you, and threaten that he will immediately leave you.
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