Perde 3
[Textpart 4]
that you don’t know him, who are calling him Tyndarus, instead of Philocrates. Him whom you see, you don’t know; you are addressing him as the person whom you don’t see.
565
ARISTOPHONTES
On the contrary this fellow’s saying that he is the person who he is not; and he says that he is not the person who he really is.
TYNDARUS
You’ve been found, of course, to excel Philocrates in truthfulness.
ARISTOPHONTES
By my troth, as I understand the matter, you’ve been found to brazen out the truth by lying. But i’ faith, prithee, come then, look at me.
ARISTOPHONTES
Say, now; do you deny that you are Tyndarus?
570
TYNDARUS
I do deny it, I say.
ARISTOPHONTES
Do you say that you are Philocrates?
TYNDARUS
I do say so, I say.
ARISTOPHONTES
And do you believe him?
HEGIO
More, indeed, than either you or myself. For he, in fact, who you say that he is (pointing to TYNDARUS), has set out hence to-day for Elis, to this person’s father.
ARISTOPHONTES
What father, when he’s a slaveWhen he’s a slave: Slaves were not considered to have any legal existence; and, therefore, to have neither parents or relations..
you a slave, and yet you were a free man; and I trust that so I shall be, if I restore his son here to liberty.
575
ARISTOPHONTES
How say you, villain? Do you say that you were born a free man [liber]?
TYNDARUS
I really do not say that I am LiberThat I am Liber: Aristophontes asks him if he means to assert that he was born a free man, liber. As Liber was also a name of Bacchus, Tyndarus quibbles, and says, I did not assert that I am Liber, but that I am Philocrates. In consequence of the idiom of the Latin language, his answer (non equidem me Liberum, sed Philocratem esse aio) will admit of another quibble, and may be read as meaning, I did not say that I am a free man, but that Philocrates is. This maybe readily seen by the Latin scholar, but is not so easily explained to the English reader., but that I am Philocrates.
ARISTOPHONTES
How’s this? How this scoundrel, Hegio, is making sport of you now.
For he’s a slave himself, and never, except his own self, had he a slave.
580
TYNDARUS
Because you yourself are destitute in your own country, and haven’t whereon to live at home, you wish all to be found like to yourself; you don’t do anything surprising. ’Tis the nature of the distressed to be ill-disposed, and to envy the fortunate.
ARISTOPHONTES
Hegio, take you care, please, that you don’t persist in rashly placing confidence in this man;
