Perde 1
[Textpart]
Let me bestow on you my love
Has Cupid or has love overpowered you?
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Perhaps to suspect that you are in love.
20
Get money from that quarter
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for I really do believe that with ease you can enchant the heart of any manThe heart of any man: With this line conclude the fragments which have been brought to light by Ritschel; in the previous editions the next line commences the second Scene, the spurious Scene preceding it..
[Textpart 1]
And suppose it is much better that you should hold your peace, and I should speak?
35
2nd BACCHIS
With pleasure; you may proceed.
35
1st BACCHIS
When my memory shall fail me, then do you take care to aid me, sister.
2nd BACCHIS
I’ faith, I’m more afraid that I shan’t have the choice of prompting you.
1st BACCHIS
Troth, I’m afraid the little nightingale may lose her powersMay lose her powers: The nightingale was supposed to sing continually; so that lusciniae deest cantio, the nightingale has lost her song, became a proverb which expressed the happening of anything extraordinary. of song. Follow this way.
PISTOCLERUS
What are these two Courtesans, the namesake-sisters, about?
1st BACCHIS
Nothing is there more wretched than a woman.
PISTOCLERUS
What, say you, is there more worthy of it?
What have you been planning in your consultation?
40
1st BACCHIS
What’s proper?
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PISTOCLERUS
I’ faith, that doesn’t belong to the Courtesan.
40
1st BACCHIS
This sister of mine entreats me so to find some person to protect her against this Captain; that when she as served her timeHas served her time: Emeritus was the term applied to soldiers who had served out their time, or got their discharge. Plautus probably uses the term satirically, as applied to the engagement which the Second Bacchis had made with the Captain. he may bring her back home. Do you, I entreat you, be her protector.
PISTOCLERUS
Why should I protect her?
1st BACCHIS
That she may be brought home again,
