Perde 4
[Textpart 4]
He doesn’t say unreasonably, Gripus, that the wallet should be shown.
GRIPUS
Yes, I’ faith, confoundedly unreasonably.
GRIPUS
Because, if I do show it, at once they’ll say, of course, that they recognize it.
TRACHALIO
Source of villany, do you suppose that all other people are just like yourself, you author of perjury?
GRIPUS
All this I easily put up with, so long as he (pointing to DAEMONES) is of my way of thinking Of my way of thinking: Dum hic hinc à me sentiat. This is clearly the meaning, though one translation renders this line thus: I easily bear all those things until this fellow may feel that he must go away hence from me, and TRACHALIO moves farther off as he delivers the next line..
1100
TRACHALIO
But now he is against you; from this (pointing to the wallet) will he obtain true testimony.
DAEMONES
Gripus, do you pay attention. (To TRACHALIO.) You explain in a few words what it is you want?
TRACHALIO
For my part, I have stated it; but if you haven’t understood me, I’ll state it over again. Both of these women (pointing to them), as I said a short time since, ought to be free;
(pointing to PALAESTRA) she was stolen at Athens when a little girl.
1105
GRIPUS
Tell me what that has got to do with the wallet, whether they are slaves or whether free women?
1105
TRACHALIO
You wish it all to be told over again, you rascal, so that the day may fail us.
DAEMONES
Leave off your abuse, and explain to me what I’ve been asking.
TRACHALIO
There ought to be a casket of wicker-work Casket of wicker-work: Caudeam. Festus tells us that this kind of casket was made of wicker, and received its name from its resemblance to a horse’s tail, cauda; others, however, perhaps with more probability, derive it from caudex, a piece of wood. in that wallet,
in which are tokens by means of which she may be enabled to recognize her parents, by whom, when little, she was lost at Athens, as I said before.
1110
GRIPUS
May Jupiter and the Gods confound you. What do you say, you sorcerer of a fellow? What, are these women dumb, that they are not able to speak for themselves?
TRACHALIO
They are silent for this reason, because a silent woman is always better than a talking one.
GRIPUS
Then, I’ faith, by your way of speaking, you are neither a man nor a woman to my notion.
1115
GRIPUS
Why, because neither talking nor silent are you ever good for anything. Prithee (to DAEMONES), shall I ever be allowed to-day to speak?
