Perde 4
[Textpart 1]
So may the Gods favour me, and preserve for me my daughters, it is a pleasure to me, Pamphilus, that I see you both return home to your native land, your business prosperously managed, yourself and your brother.
505
PAMPHILUS
I should have heard enough from you, Antipho, did I not see that you are friendly to me; now, since I’ve found that you are my friend, I’ll give you credence.
ANTIPHO
I would invite you to my house to dinner, had not your brother told me that you were going to dine at his house to-day, when he invited myself to his house to dinner. And it would have been more proper for me to give you an entertainment on your arrival, than to engage myself to him, were it not that I didn’t wish to disoblige him. Now I don’t wish with words alone to insinuate myself into your favour;
510
to-morrow you shall be at my house, both you and he, with your wives.
515
PAMPHILUS
Then, the day after, at my house; for it was yesterday he invited me for to-day. But am I quite reconciled to you, Antipho?
ANTIPHO
Since you have thus thrived in your affairs, as it behoves yourselves and persons friendly disposed to wish, let there be good-will and intercourse between us. Take you care to think of this;
according as wealth is obtained by each man, so does he experience his friends. If his fortunes are flourishing, so are his friends true; if his prospects decline, so, too, do his friends decline. Fortune finds friends.
520
EPIGNOMUS
I’m now returned. ’Tis a great delight, if you have been long from home, when you return home again, if no anxieties come in contact with your feelings.
But, in my absence, so well has my wife taken care of my private affairs, that she has made me free and unembarrassed by anxieties. But, see, here’s my brother Pamphilus, walking with his father-in-law.
525
PAMPHILUS
How fares it, Epignomus?
EPIGNOMUS
How with you? How long since you came into harbour?
PAMPHILUS
Not very long ago.
EPIGNOMUS
And is it since then that he has become on smooth terms with you?
ANTIPHO
More smooth than the sea, on which you have both been borne.
530
EPIGNOMUS
You do as you are wont to do other things. Do we unlade the ship to-day, brother?
530
PAMPHILUS
I would rather go quietly to work. Let’s rather lade ourselves with delights in their turn. How soon will the dinner be cooked? I haven’t breakfasted to-day.
EPIGNOMUS
Go in-doors to my house and bathe.
PAMPHILUS
I’ll only step home to my own house, to salute the GodsTo salute the Gods: To thank his household Gods for his escape from the perils of the sea, and his success in his speculations. and my wife.
If I do that as I wish, I’ll forthwith return to your house.
535
EPIGNOMUS
But your wife is hastening to come here with her sister.
