Perde 5
[Textpart 4]
to have found out the way by which a young man may be enabled to learn the dispositions and manners of courtesans, so that by knowing them betimes, he may detest them ever after. (PYTHIAS enters from the house unperceived.) For while they are out of doors, nothing seems more cleanly, nothing more neat or more elegant;
930
PARMENO
and when they dine with a gallant, they pick daintily about:Pick daintily about: He seems here to reprehend the same practice against which Ovid warns his fair readers, in his Art of Love, B. iii. l. 75. He says, Do not first take food at home, when about to go to an entertainment. Westerhovius seems to think that ligurio means, not to pick daintily, but to be fond of good eating; and refers to the Bacchides of Plautus as portraying courtesans of the ligurient kind, and finds another specimen in Bacchis in: the Heautontimorumenos. to see the filth, the dirtiness, the neediness of these women; how sluttish they are when at home, and how greedy after victuals; in what a fashion they devour the black bread with yesterday’s broth:—to know all this, is salvation to a young man.
935
PYTHIAS
Upon my faith, you villain, I’ll take vengeance upon you for these sayings and doings; so that you sha’n’t make sport of us with impunity. (Aloud, coming forward.) O, by our trust in the Gods, what a disgraceful action! O hapless young man! O wicked Parmeno, to have brought him here!
940
PARMENO
What’s the matter?
PYTHIAS
I do pity him; and so that I mightn’t see it, wretched creature that I am, I hurried away out of doors.
What a dreadful example they talk of making him!
945
PARMENO
O Jupiter! What is this tumult? Am I then undone? I’ll accost her. What’s all this, Pythias? What are you saying? An example made of whom?
945
PYTHIAS
Do you ask the question, you most audacious fellow? You’ve proved the ruin of the young man whom you brought hither for the Eunuch, while you were trying to put a trick upon us.
PARMENO
How so, or what has happened? Tell me.
PYTHIAS
I’ll tell you: that young woman who was to-day made a present to Thais, are you aware that she is a citizen of this place, and that her brother is a person of very high rank?
950
PARMENO
I didn’t know that.
PYTHIAS
But so she has been discovered to be; he, unfortunate youth, has ravished her. When the brother came to know of this being done, in a most towering rage, he—
PYTHIAS
First, bound him in a shocking manner.
PYTHIAS
And even though Thais entreated him that he wouldn’t do so—
955
PARMENO
What is it you tell me?
PYTHIAS
Now he is threatening that he will also do that which is usually done to ravishers; a thing that I never saw done, nor wish to.
PARMENO
With what assurance does he dare perpetrate a crime so heinous?
