Perde 3
[Textpart 1]
Keep yourselves withinKeep yourselves within: There was but one Scene throughout the representation of each Roman Comedy. In the present instance, the Scene is in front of the houses of Periplecomenus and the Captain. Nothing can more strikingly show the absurdity of such a plan than the present instance: where Palaestrio comes out of the house of Periplecomenus, for the very purpose, right in front of the house of his own master, of holding a conversation and completing his plot with Pleusicles and Periplecomenus, for the purpose of deceiving his master and carrying off his mistress. With machinery so defective, it is only surprising that the writer completed his task so well as he has done. doors, yet a moment, Pleusicles. Let me first look out, that there may be no ambush anywhere, against that council which we intend to hold. For now we have need of a safe place from which no enemy can win the spoils of our counsels.
PALAESTRIO
For a well-devised plan is very often filched away, if the place for deliberating has not been chosen with care or with caution; and what is well-advised is ill-advised if it proves of use to the enemy; and if it proves of use to the enemy, it cannot otherwise than prove a detriment to yourself. For if the enemy learn your plans,
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by your own self-same plans they tie your tongue and bind your hands; and they do the very same to you that you intended to do to them. But I’ll spy about, lest any one, either in this direction on the left or on the right, should come like a huntsman on our counsels with his ears like toilsEars like toils.:—Auritis plagis, literally toils with ears.. (Looks about.) Quite vacant is the prospect hence right to the bottom of the street.
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I’ll call them out. Hallo! Periplecomenus and Pleusicles, come out!
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[Textpart 2]
Behold us here obedient to your call.
PALAESTRIO
The sway is easy over the good. But I wish to know, if we are to carry out the matter on the same plan that we formed within?
PERIPLECOMENUS
Why, in fact there’s nothing can be more conducive to our purpose.
Well, what say you, Pleusicles?
PLEUSICLES
Can that displease me which pleases yourselves? What person is there more my friend than your own self?
PERIPLECOMENUS
You speak kindly and obligingly.
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PALAESTRIO
Faith, and so he ought to do.
PLEUSICLES
But this affair shockingly distresses me, and torments my very heart and body.
PERIPLECOMENUS
What is it that torments you? Tell me.
PLEUSICLES
That I should cause childish actions in a person of your years, and that I should require of you deeds that neither become yourself nor your virtues;
and that, with all your might, for my sake you are striving to aid me in my passion, and are doing actions of such a kind, as, when done, these years of yours are wont rather to avoid than follow. I am ashamed that I cause you this trouble in your old age.
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PERIPLECOMENUS
You are a person in love after a new fashion. If, in fact, you are ashamed of anything you do,
you are nothing of a lover. You are rather the shadow of those who are in love, than a true lover, Pleusicles.
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PLEUSICLES
Ought I to employ these years of yours in seconding my love?
PERIPLECOMENUS
How say you? Do I seem to you so very much a subject for AcheronSubject for Acheron: Acherunticus, an inhabitant of Acheron, meaning one on the very verge of the grave.? So much a bier’s-manA bier’s-man: The bodies of the more respectable people were carried to the grave on a kind of couch, which was called feretrum, or capulus; whence the present term capularis, a subject for the capulus. The bodies of poor citizens and slaves were carried on a kind of bier, called sandapila. Oudendorp and Becker think, however, that the word capulus means a coffin of wood or of stone, and not the same as feretrum, a couch, or bier. The old gentleman is very naturally somewhat offended at the remark of Pleusicles.? Do I seem to you to have had so very long a life? Why, really, I am not more than four-and-fifty years old;
I see clearly with my eyes, I’m ready with my hands, I’m active with my feet.
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