Perde 1
[Textpart 1]
Nor is there a single coin in the house.
CALIDORUS
He’s going to carry the damsel away to-morrow.
CALIDORUS
Is it in that fashion that you help me?
PSEUDOLUS
I give you that which I have; for I’ve a perpetual supply of those treasures Supply of those treasures: Of Ehen! Alas! or Oh dear me This he repeats so frequently, because his master has reproached him for not weeping in sympathy with him for the calamities of Phœnicium, in my house.
CALIDORUS
It’s all over with me this very day. But can you now lend me one drachma, which I’ll pay you back to-morrow
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PSEUDOLUS
I’ faith, I hardly think I could, even though I should pawn myself for it. But what do you want to do with this drachma?
CALIDORUS
I want to purchase a halter for myself.
PSEUDOLUS
For what reason?
CALIDORUS
With which to hang myself.
I’m determined, ere ’tis dark, to take Ere ’tis dark, to take: Ante tenebras tenebras persequi. Literally rally, before the shades to reach the shades. A wretched pun is attempted. a leap in the dark.
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PSEUDOLUS
Who then shall pay me back my drachma * * * * ? Do you wish purposely to hang yourself for the very reason, that you may cheat mo out of my drachma if I lend it you?
CALIDORUS
At all events, I can in nowise survive
if she’s removed and carried off from me.
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PSEUDOLUS
Why do you weep, you cuckoo You cuckoo: Cuculus. Cuckoo seems to have been in all ages a term of reproach. Horace mentions it as being applied by the common people to the vintagers in the autumn. Shakspeare, in the beautiful song in the Fifth Act of Love’s Labour Lost, has these lines: The cuckoo then on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo! Cuckoo! cuckoo! O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear! Perhaps the reason of this epithet being deemed opprobrious was the simple fact that the cuckoo is the laziest of birds, inasmuch as it is too idle to build its own nest. The subject is further referred to in a future note.? You shall survive.
CALIDORUS
Why should I not weep, who have neither a coin of silver in ready money, nor have the hope of a groat Hope of a groat: Libella was the smallest silver coin among the Romans, the tenth part of a denarius. anywhere in the world?
PSEUDOLUS
As I understand the tenor of this letter,
unless you weep for her with tears of silver, the affection which you wish yourself by those tears to prove is of no more value than if you were to pour water into a sieve. But have no fear, I’ll not forsake you in your love. In troth, I do trust that this day, from some quarter or other, by my good aid
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I shall find you help in the money line. But whence that is to come,—that whence I know not how to pronounce; except only that so it shall be; my eyebrow twitches My eyebrow twitches: The itching of the eye, or the twitching of the eyebrows, has been supposed by superstitious persons in all ages to presage some impending event. to that effect.
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