Perde 5
[Textpart 1]
How do you know?
NICOBULUS
I have seen them.
PHILOXENUS
Ah! wretch that I am! I’m ruined outright.
NICOBULUS
Why do we hesitate a moment to knock and to call them both hither out of doors.
PHILOXENUS
I don’t object.
NICOBULUS
Hallo there! Bacchis! Bid the door to be opened this instant, if you please, unless you had rather the door and the posts be knocked to bits with hatchets.
[Textpart 2]
Who is it that calls out my name with such a noise and tumult, and is knocking so hard at the door?
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NICOBULUS
I and this person here.
1st BACCHIS
Pray, what’s the matter now? Who has been driving these sheepDriving these sheep: She calls them sheep, probably, because of their venerable appearance; though she afterwards remarks that they are but dirty sheep. Perhaps, too, it was the custom among ladies of this class, in cant phrase to call those sheep who could stand fleecing; a point on which it will be found in the dialogue that they exchange remarks. Goat. would have been a more appropriate name, under the circumstances for the old sinners. to us?
NICOBULUS
These most shocking hussies call us sheep.
2nd BACCHIS
Their shepherd’s asleep, as they come straying thus from the flock.
1st BACCHIS
But, i’ faith, they are not white; they both look dirty.
2nd BACCHIS
Because they have both been shorn just now.
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PHILOXENUS
How they seem to be laughing at us.
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NICOBULUS
Let them, just as long as they please.
1st BACCHIS
Don’t you think that these sheep are shorn three times a year?
2nd BACCHIS
I’ faith, to-day one of them has been already shorn twice, that’s sure.
1st BACCHIS
They are old and fleecelessOld and fleeceless: Mina ovis was a sheep that had no wool on its belly. It is hard to say why this name was given to it. If the word mina had signified a certain coin, and not a sum of money merely, we might have supposed it alluded to the smoothness of the coin., both of them.
2nd BACCHIS
But I think they have been in good plight once.
1st BACCHIS
Prithee, do you see how they are looking with a sheep’s eye at us?
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