Perde 4
[Textpart 1]
Of a debauched and unscrupulous fellow am I the Parasite—a Captain, who has brought his mistress with him from Samos.
PARASITE
Now he has ordered me to go to her, and make enquiry whether she will pay back the gold, or whether she will depart together with him. You, boy, who have for some time been with her, whichever of these is the house, do you knock. Go to the door forthwith. (The BOY goes to knock.) Are you coming back from there, you hangdogYou hangdog: Dierecte. The meaning of this word has been explained in the Notes to the Trinummus.? How the graceless scoundrel does knock!
575
You can gobble up a loaf three feet wide, and yet you don’t know how to knock at a door. (He calls out and knocks violently.) Is there any one in-doors? Hallo! is there any one here? Does any one open this door? Who’s coming out?
580
[Textpart 2]
What’s the matter? What’s this knocking? Why, what the confounded torment possesses you, to be exerting your strength in this fashion on another person’s door?
PISTOCLERUS
You’ve almost broken the door down. What do you want now?
PARASITE
Young gentleman, my respects.
PISTOCLERUS
And my respects. But whom are you looking for?
PISTOCLERUS
But which of them?
PARASITE
Of that I know nothing, only it’s Bacchis. In a few words, the Captain, Cleomachus,
has sent me to her, either for her to pay back the tyro hundred golden Philippeans, or to go hence this day, together with him, to ElatiaTo Elatia: Elatia was a city of Phocis, a district in the Northern part of Greece..
590
PISTOCLERUS
She doesn’t go: she says she shan’t go. Begone, and take back this message—she loves another person, and not him. Take yourself off from the house.
PARASITE
You’re too hasty.
PISTOCLERUS
And would you know now hasty I am?
By my faith, your phiz isn’t far off from a mishap; so much are these teeth-crackers (looking at his fists) longing in my fists.
595
PARASITE
So far as I understand his words, ’tis a warning to me, lest he should knock my nut-crackers out of my jaws. (To PISTOCLERUS.) At your own peril, I’ll tell him this.
PISTOCLERUS
What do you say?
600
PARASITE
I’ll tell him that which you bade me.
600
PISTOCLERUS
Who are you? Tell me.
600
PARASITE
I’m the skill of his bodySkin of his body: Integumentum corporis. Literally, the skin, or covering of the body. This was probably a nickname for a body guard, or hanger-on.
