Perde 2
[Textpart 3]
Upon my faith, this is the fact. Now, then, let your promises be made good, if you please, or if indeed the affair is a deserving one for you to exert your energies upon. The girl isn’t like our girls, whom their mothers are anxious to have with shoulders kept down, and chests well girthed,Shoulders kept down and chests well girthed: Ovid, in the Art of Love, B. iii., 1. 274, alludes to the strophium or girth here referred to: For high shoulders, small pads are suitable; and let the girth encircle the bosom that is too prominent. Becker thinks that the strophium was different from the fascia or stomacher, mentioned in the Remedy of Love, 1. 338: Does a swelling bosom cover all her breast, let no stomacher conceal it. From Martial we learn that the strophium was made of leather. that they may be slender. If one is a little inclined to plumpness, they declare that she’s training for a boxer,Training for a boxer: Pugilem. This means robust as a boxer, or athlete. These persons were naturally considered as the types of robustness, being dieted for the purpose of increasing their flesh and muscle. and stint her food;
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CHAEREA
although their constitutions are good, by their treatment they make them as slight as bulrushes; and so for that reason they are admired, forsooth.
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PARMENO
What sort of a girl is this one of yours?
CHAEREA
A new style of beauty.
CHAEREA
Her complexion genuine,Complexion genuine: Color verus. The same expression is used by Ovid, in the Art of Love, B. iii., 1. 164: Et melior vero quaeritur arte color: And by art a color is sought superior to the genuine one. her flesh firm and full of juiciness.Full of juiciness: Succi plenum. A similar expression occurs in the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus, 1. 787, where Periplecoimenus wishes inquiry to be made for a woman who is siccam, at succidam, sober, but full of juice: i. e. replete with the plumpness and activity of youth.
PARMENO
The very flower of youth.The very flower of youth. Ovid makes mention of the flos or bloom of youth, Art of Love, B. ii., 1. 663: And don’t you inquire what year she is now passing, nor under what Consulship she was born; a privilege which the rigid Censor possesses. And this, especially, if she has passed the bloom of youth, and her best years are fled, and she now pulls out the whitening hairs.
CHAEREA
Do you make, it your care to obtain her for me either by force, stealth, or entreaty; so that I only gain her, it matters not how to me.
PARMENO
Well, but to whom does the damsel belong?
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CHAEREA
That, i’faith, I don’t know.
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PARMENO
Whence did she come?
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CHAEREA
That, just as much.
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PARMENO
Where does she live?
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CHAEREA
Nor yet do I know that.
PARMENO
Where did you see her?
PARMENO
How did you come to lose her?
CHAEREA
Why, that’s what I was just now fretting myself about; and I do not believe that there is one individual to whom all good luck is a greater stranger than to myself.
