Perde 3
[Textpart 2]
for those who shall eat of my victuals which I have seasoned will be able to exist two hundred years even.
A COOK.
For when I’ve put into the saucepan either cicilendrum, or cepolindrum, or mace Cepolindrum, or mace: With the exception of mace, all these names are gibberish, invented by the Cook for the purpose of imposing upon Bailio., or saucaptis, the very dishes become warmed forthwith. These are sauces for fish, the cattle of Neptune;
the flesh of the earthly cattle I season with cicimandrum, hapalopsis, or cataractria.
835
BALLIO
Now may Jupiter and all the Divinities confound you with your sauces, and with all those lies of yours!
A COOK.
Do allow me to speak, please.
BALLIO
Speak, and go to very perdition.
A COOK.
When all the saucepans are hot, I open them all then does the odour fly towards heaven with its hand hanging down With its hands hanging down: He means to personify the odour and to represent it as flying up to heaven; but, by mistake, he says it flies up, demissis manibus, with its hands hanging down, which would father be the attitude of a person thrown out of, and falling from, the heavens. Ballio repeats the expression in a tone of surprise, on which the Cook corrects himself, and says he meant to say, with its feet hanging down, demissis pedibus..
840
BALLIO
The odour with its hands hanging down?
A COOK.
I made a mistake without thinking.
A COOK.
With its feet hanging down, I meant to say. Jupiter dines on that odour every day.
BALLIO
If you happen not to go out to cook, pray what does Jupiter dine upon?
845
A COOK.
He goes to sleep without his dinner.
BALLIO
Go to very perdition. Is it for this reason that I’m to give you a didrachm to-day?
A COOK.
Well, I confess that I am a very high-priced cook; but I make the results of my labour to be seen for the price,
hired at which I go out.
850
BALLIO
In thieving, to wit.
850
A COOK.
And do you expect to meet with any cook except with the claws of a kite or of an eagle?
BALLIO
And do you expect to go anywhere to cook, and not to cook the dinner there with your claws tied up?
Now, therefore, you boy (to the BOY), who are my servant, I now give you notice to make haste to remove hence all my property; and to keep his eyes as well in your sight. Whichever way he shall look, do you look the same way as well. If he shall move in any direction, do you move as well.
855
