Perde 3
[Textpart 2]
What is that?
630
LESBONICUS
An injury to a friend.
630
LYSITELES
It is no way of mine, and I have not learned so to do.
LESBONICUS
Untaught as you are, how cleverly you do it. What would you have done, if any one had taught you to be thus annoying to me? You, who, when you pretend to be acting kindly to me, use me ill, and are intending evil.
LYSITELES
How do I use you ill?
LESBONICUS
Inasmuch as you do that which I do not wish.
LYSITELES
I wish to consult your advantage.
635
LESBONICUS
Are you kinder to me than I am to myself? I have sense enough; I see sufficiently well those things that are for my own advantage.
635
LYSITELES
And is it having sense enough to refuse a kindness from a well-wisher?
LESBONICUS
I reckon it to be no kindness, when it does not please him on whom you are conferring it. I know, and I understand myself what I am doing, and my mind forsakes not its duty;
nor will I be driven by your speeches from paying due regard to my own character.
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LYSITELES
What do you say? For now I cannot be restrained from saying to you the things which you deserve. Have your forefathers, I pray, so handed down this reputation to you, that you, by your excesses, might lose what before was gained by their merit, and that you might become a bar to the honour of your own posterity?
Your father and your grandfather made an easy and a level path for you to attain to honour; whereas you have made it to become a difficult one, by your extreme recklessness and sloth, and your besotted ways. You have made your election, to prefer your passions to virtue. Now, do you suppose that you can cover over your faults by these means? Alas! ’tis impossible.
645
Welcome virtue to your mind, if you please, and expel slothfulness from your heart. Give your attention to your he-friends in the Courts of justice In the Courts of justice: It was the custom of the young men of the Patrician class among the Romans to plead gratuitously for their friends and clients, in the Forum or Court of justice., and not to the couch of your she-friend, as you are wont to do. And earnestly do I now wish this piece of land to be left to you for this reason, that you may have wherewithal to reform yourself; so that those citizens, whom you have for enemies, may not be able altogether to throw your poverty in your teeth.
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LESBONICUS
All these things which you have been saying, I know—could even set my seal Set my seal: Affixing the seal to an instrument was then, as now the most solemn way of ratifying it. to them: how I have spoiled my patrimonial estate and the fair fame of my forefathers. I knew how it became me to live; to my misfortune I was not able to act accordingly. Thus, overpowered by the force of passion, inclined to ease, I fell into the snare; and now to you, quite as you deserve, I do return most hearty thanks.
655
LYSITELES
Still, I cannot suffer my labour to be thus lost, and yourself to despise these words; at the same time, it grieves me that you have so little shame. And, in fine, unless you listen to me, and do this that I mention, you yourself will easily lie concealed behind your own self, so that honour cannot find you; when you will wish yourself to be especially distinguished, you will be lying in obscurity.
660
I know right well, for my part, Lesbonicus, your highly ingenuous disposition; I know that of your own accord you have not done wrong, but that it is Love that has blinded your heart; and I myself comprehend all the ways of Love. As the charge of the balista Charge of the balista: The word balista here signifies the charge of the military engine known as the balista. It was used by the ancients for the purpose of discharging stones against the higher part of the walls of besieged places, while the catapulta was directed against the lower. The charge of the balista varied from two pounds to three hundred-weight. is hurled, so is Love; nothing is there so swift, or that so swiftly flies; he, too, makes the manners of men both foolish and froward Foolish and froward: Moros. This word is derived from the Greek μωρὸς, foolish. It seems to be used in juxtaposition with morosos, for the sake of the alliteration..
665
That which is the most commended pleases him the least Pleases him the least: So Shakspeare alludes to the contradictory nature of love in Romeo and Juliet: Love—heavy lightness! serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms. ; that from which he is dissuaded pleases him. When there is a scarcity, then you long for a thing; when there is an abundance of it, then you don’t care for it. The person that warns him off from a thing, the same invites him; he that persuades him to it interdicts him. ’Tis a misfortune of insanity for you to fly to Cupid for refuge. But I advise you again and again to think of this, how you should seek to act.
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