Perde 2
[Textpart 1]
You won’t restore her then?
MELAENIS
You know the whole of my resolution already.
ALCESIMARCHUS
Is that quite resolved upon by you in your heart?
MELAENIS
Why, in fact, I’m thinking about something else;
i’ faith, I don’t at present catch these words of yours with my ears.
510
ALCESIMARCHUS
Not hear? Why, what are you doing?
MELAENIS
Part of line 511 in Latin attributed to the prior speaker.Then do you give heed at once, that you may know what you are doing.
ALCESIMARCHUS
Then, so may the Gods and Goddesses of above and below, and of middle rank Of middle rank: Medioxumi. By these are meant the Demigods., and so may Juno the queen and the daughter And the daughter: In his confusion he calls Juno, the sister and wife of Jupiter, his daughter. of supreme Jove, and so may Saturn his uncle—
MELAENIS
I’ troth, his father—
ALCESIMARCHUS
And so may Ops the opulent, his grandam—
515
MELAENIS
Indeed, his mother, rather.
515
ALCESIMARCHUS
Juno his daughter, and Saturn his uncle, supreme Jove—You are maddening me; it’s through you I make these mistakes.
MELAENIS
Go on saying so.
ALCESIMARCHUS
Is it that I’m to know That I’m to know: According to the suggestion of Rost, the reading sciam, I may know, has been preferred to scias, you may know, in the present passage. what conclusion you are going to come to?
MELAENIS
Go on talking; I shall not send her back, that’s resolved upon.
ALCESIMARCHUS
Why then, so may Jupiter,
and so may Juno and Saturn, to me, so may—I don’t know what to say—Now I know—Yes, madam, listen, that you may know my mind; may all the Deities, great and small, and those honored with the platter Honored with the platter: Patellarii. These were the Lares and Penates, the household Gods, to whom offerings were made of victuals in small plates or platters. Ovid, in the Fasti, B. 2, l. 634, says: Offer, too a share of the viands, that the presented platter, testimony of the pleasing honor, may feed the well-girt Lares. cause me not surviving to give a kiss this day to Silenium, if I don’t this very day murder you and your daughter and myself,
520
and after that, with the break of day, if I don’t to-morrow kill you both, and indeed, by all the powers, if at the third onset I don’t demolish you all, if you don’t send her back to me. I’ve said what I intended. Farewell.
525
MELAENIS
He’s gone in-doors in a rage. What shall I do now? If she comes back to him, matters will be just in the same position. When satiety begins to take possession;
he’ll be turning her out of doors, when he shall be bringing home this Lemnian wife. But still I’ll go and follow him; there’s necessity for caution, lest he, in love, should be doing some mischief. In fine, since with strict justice a poor person’s not allowed to contend with a rich one, I’ll lose my labour rather than lose my daughter. But who’s this that straight along the street is directing his course this way?
530
