Perde 4
[Textpart 2]
You are a diviner. But, prithee, good woman, do lay aside all mystification, and to the point; tell me at once, whence did you get these trinkets?
HALISCA
This daughter of my mistress had them.
LAMPADISCUS
You tell a falsehood; for my own mistress’s daughter had them, not yours.
750
PHANOSTRATA
Don’t interrupt.
PHANOSTRATA
Good woman, go on speaking. Where is she who had them?
PHANOSTRATA
By the powers, surely the son-in-law of my husband is living there.
PHANOSTRATA
Interrupting again? (To HALISCA.) Go on relating it. How many years old is she said to be?
PHANOSTRATA
She is my own daughter then!
LAMPADISCUS
’Tis she, as the number of her years has proved.
HALISCA
What you are seeking, you have found; I now seek what’s mine.
LAMPADISCUS
Why, faith, they’ve found what’s their own, I’ll seek for number three For number three: Quaero tertiam. Literally, I seek a third. This he says by way of joke; as one has been looking for her daughter another for the casket, he must look for something as well, a mistress, to wit..
PHANOSTRATA
My daughter, the object which I was seeking, I have discovered.
HALISCA
It’s proper to keep in safety what has been entrusted in confidence, lest a kindness should turn out a detriment to the well-deserving. This fosterling of ours is assuredly your daughter,
760
and my mistress is about to restore you your own, and for that purpose has she come from her house. But, prithee,
enquire of her own self; I am but a servant.
765
PHANOSTRATA
You ask what’s just.
765
