Perde 4
[Textpart 5]
There is a girl living with her mother.
MICIO
This girl has lost her father; this friend of mine is her next of kin; the law obliges him to marry her.Obliges him to marry her: It appears to have been a law given by Solon to the Athenians that the next male relative of suitable age should marry a female orphan himself, or find her a suitable portion. Madame Dacier suggests that the custom was derived from the Phoenicians, who had received it from the Jews, and quotes the Book of Numbers, xxxvi. 8. This law forms the basis of the plot of the Phormio.
AESCHINUS
Nothing. Very well: proceed.
MICIO
He has come to take her with him; for he lives at Miletus.
AESCHINUS
What! To take the girl away with him?
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AESCHINUS
All the way to Miletus, pray?To Miletus, pray?: A colony of Athens, on the coast of Asia Minor.
AESCHINUS
I’m overwhelmed with grief (To MICIO.) But what of them? What do they say?
MICIO
What do you suppose they should? Why, nothing at all. The mother has trumped up a tale, that there is a child by some other man, I know not who, and she does not state the name;
she says that he was the first, and that she ought not to be given to the other.
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AESCHINUS
Well now, does not this seem just to you after all?
AESCHINUS
Why not, pray? Is the other to be carrying her away from here?
MICIO
Why should he not take her?
AESCHINUS
You have acted harshly and unfeelingly, and even, if, father,
I may speak my sentiments more plainly, unhandsomely.
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