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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
397
397
PHILOCRATES
397
Why don’t I recollect you?
985b
985b
STALAGMUS
985b
Because it’s the fashion for persons to forget, and not to know him whose favour is esteemed as worth nothing.
398
398
PHILOCRATES
398
Tell me, was he the person whom you sold to my father, who was given me for my private service?
988b
988b
STALAGMUS
988b
It was his son.
399
399
HEGIO
399
Is this person now living?
989b
989b
STALAGMUS
989b
I received the money I cared nothing about the rest.
400
400
HEGIO
400
What do you say?
990b
990b
PHILOCRATES
990b
Why, this very Tyndarus is your son, according, indeed, to the proofs that he mentions. For, a boy himself together with me from boyhood was he brought up, virtuously and modestly, even to manhood.
401
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HEGIO
401
I am both unhappy and happy, if you are telling the truth. Unhappy for this reason, because, if he is my son, I have badly treated him.
402
Alas! why have I done both more and less than was his due. That I have ill treated him I am grieved; would that it only could be undone. But see, he’s coming here, in a guise not according to his deserts.
403
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TYNDARUS
403
I have seen many of the torments which take place at AcheronAt Acheron: He here speaks of Acheron, not as one of the rivers of hell, but as the infernal regions themselves. often represented in paintingsRepresented in paintings: Meursius thinks that the torments of the infernal regions were frequently represented in pictures, for the purpose of deterring men from evil actions, by keeping in view the certain consequences of their bad conduct.; but most certainly there is no Acheron equal
404
to where I have been in the stone-quarries. There, in fine, is the place where real lassitude must be undergone by the body in laboriousness. For when I came there, just as either jackdaws, or ducks, or quails, are given to Patrician childrenTo Patrician children: This passage is confirmed by what Pliny the Younger tells us in his Second Epistle. He says, that on the death of the son of Regulus, his father, in his grief, caused his favourite ponies and dogs, with his nightingales, parrots, and jackdaws, to be consumed on the funeral pile. It would certainly have been a greater compliment to his son’s memory had he preserved them, and treated them kindly; but probably he intended to despatch them as playthings for the child in the other world., for them to play with, so in like fashion, when I arrived, a crow was givenA crow was given: Upupa. He puns upon the twofold meaning of this word, which signified either a mattock or a bird called a hoopoe, according to the context. To preserve the spirit of the pun, a somewhat different translation has been given. me with which to amuse myself.
405
But see, my master’s before the door; and lo! my other master has returned from Elis.
1006b
1006b
HEGIO
1006b
Hail to you, my much wished-for son.
1006c
1006c
TYNDARUS
1006c
Ha! how—my son? Aye, aye, I know why you pretend yourself to be the father, and me to be the son; it is because, just as parents do, you give me the means of seeing the lightOf seeing the light: He says, You can only resemble a parent in the fact that you have given me the opportunity of seeing the light of day by taking me out of the dark stone-quarries..
406
406
PHILOCRATES
406
Hail to you, Tyndarus.
1009b
1009b
TYNDARUS
1009b
And to you, for whose sake I am enduring these miseries.
407
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PHILOCRATES
407
But now I’ll make you in freedom come to wealth. For (pointing to HEGIO) this is your father; (pointing to STALAGMUS) that is the slave who stole you away from here when four years old, and sold you to my father for six minae. He gave you, when a little child, to me a little child for my own service. He (pointing to STALAGMUS) has made a confession, for we have brought him back from Elis.
408
408
TYNDARUS
408
How, where’s Hegio’s son?
1015b
1015b
PHILOCRATES
1015b
Look now; indoors is your own brother.
409
409
TYNDARUS
409
How do you say? Have you brought that captive son of his?
410
410
PHILOCRATES
410
Why, he’s in-doors, I say.
1071b
1071b
TYNDARUS
1071b
By my faith, you’ve done both well and happily.
411
411
PHILOCRATES
411
Now this is your own father; (pointing to STALAGMUS) this is the thief who stole you when a little child.
412
412
TYNDARUS
412
But now, grown up, I shall give him grown up to the executioner for his thieving.
413
413
PHILOCRATES
413
He deserves it.
1020b
1020b
TYNDARUS
1020b
I’ faith, I’ll deservedly give him the reward that he deserves. (To HEGIO.) But tell me I pray you, are you my father?
1021b
1021b
HEGIO
1021b
I am he, my son.
414
414
TYNDARUS
414
Now, at length, I bring it to my recollection, when I reconsider with myself: troth, I do now at last recall to memory that I had heard, as though through a mist, that my father was called Hegio.
415
415
HEGIO
415
I am he.
1025b
1025b
PHILOCRATES
1025b
I pray that your son may be lightened of these fetters, and this slave be loaded with them.
1026b
1026b
HEGIO
1026b
I’m resolved that that shall be the first thing attended to. Let’s go in-doors, that the blacksmith may be sent for, in order that I may remove those fetters from you, and give them to him. (They go into the house.)
1028b
1028b
STALAGMUS
1028b
To one who has no savings of his own, you’ll be rightly doing soBe rightly doing so. Stalagmus chooses to take the word dem, may give, used by Hegio in its literal sense, and surlily replies, I have nothing of my own by way of savings, ‘peculium,’ so I am the very person to whom you ought to give..
416
416
COMPANY of PLAYERS
416
Spectators, this play is founded on chaste manners.
417
No wenching is there in this, and no intriguing, no exposure of a child, no cheating out of money; and no young man in love here make his mistress free without his father’s knowledge. The Poets find but few ComediesFind but few Comedies: He here confesses that he does not pretend to frame the plots of his Plays himself, but that he goes to Greek sources for them; and forgetting that beggars must not be choosers, he complains that so very few of the Greek Comedies are founded upon chaste manners. Indeed, this Play is justly deemed the most pure and innocent of all the Plays of Plautus; and the Company are quite justified in the commendations which, in their Epilogue, they bestow on it, as the author has carried out the promise which he made in the Prologue (with only four slight exceptions), of presenting them with an immaculate Play. of this kind, where good men might become better. Now, if it pleases you,
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and if we have pleased you, and have not been tedious, do you give this sign of it: you who wish that chaste manners should have their reward, give us your applause.