Perde 2
[Textpart 2]
Prithee, do tell me where she now is.
PISTOCLERUS
Here, where you just now saw me coming out.
CHRYSALUS
How capital that is! She’s living almost next door. Does she at all remember Mnesilochus?
205
PISTOCLERUS
Do you ask me that? Aye, him alone does she esteem at the very highest value.
PISTOCLERUS
Yes, and were you to believe her, distractedly in love—she quite longs for him.
PISTOCLERUS
Yes, Chrysalus; see, now; not even so small
a space of time ever passes by as thisPasses by as this: This is doing what the Greeks call δεικτικῶς. Suiting the action to the word, he points at the time of speaking to something very small, perhaps the breadth of his finger-nail., out that she is uttering his name.
210
CHRYSALUS
I’ faith, so much the better.
CHRYSALUS
Yes, faith Yes, faith: It has been suggested that Chrysalus is put out of patience here by the frequent repetition by Pistoclerus of the word immo, aye, or yes. on which he rejoins, immo, &c., yes, and I’ll be off., I’d rather be off.
PISTOCLERUS
And do you so unwillingly hear how your master’s interests have prospered?
CHRYSALUS
No, not the subjectNo, not the subject: He seems to mean that he is not displeased with the subject. but at the tedious way in which Pistoclerus relates it to him., but the actor offends my feelings with his tediousness. Even Epidicus, a play that I love quite as much as my own self,
were Pollio to act itPollio to act it: It is clear from this that the Epidicus of Plautus was written before the Bacchides. With a rather unusual degree of license he seems to refer to an event that has recently happened, and it is not improbable that the Epidicus, good play as it was, had suffered from the demerits of some contemptible actor of the day, known as Pollio. Plautus thus excuses his play, and excites a laugh by the quaintness of the remark. There is a passage in the Nigrinus of Lucian that throws light on this: Friend, have you never seen a bad Tragic or Comic actor? some of those I mean who are hissed because they spoil a good play with their acting, and are at last driven off the stage; though the play itself be at other times applauded, and bear away the prize., no play would I see so reluctantly. But, does Bacchis seem handsome, as well, to you?
215
PISTOCLERUS
Do you ask the question? Had I not got a Venus, I should pronounce her a Juno.
CHRYSALUS
I’ faith, Mnesilochus, as I find these matters proceeding, there’s something ready for you to love; ’tis needful that you find something to give her.
But, perhaps you have need of gold for that other one?
220
PISTOCLERUS
Yes, some Philippeans.
220
CHRYSALUS
And you have need of it directly, perhaps?
