Miles Gloriosus
Plautus, Titus Maccius
Plautus. The Comedies of Plautus, Volume 1. Riley, H. T., translator. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1912.
- Do contrive one; in the meantime, I’ll retire hence to a distance from you, to this spot. He retires to a distance. Look at him, please to the AUDIENCE, revolving his cares with brow severe, how he stands. He strikes his breast with his fingers I fancy he’s about to call his heart outside. See, he shifts his posture; again he places his left hand upon his left thigh. His right hand is reckoning down his plans upon his fingers; in despair he strikes his thigh. His right hand is moving rapidly[*](Is moving rapidly: Micostrictly means, to have a tremulous motion imparted.Micare digitisproperly meant to play at a game called mora, in which two persons suddenly raised or compressed the fingers, and at the same moment each guessed the number of the other. The expression also means, to determine anything by suddenly raising the fingers, as who is to do or to have anything.); with difficulty does it suggest what he is to do. He snapshis fingers now; he’s striving hard; full oft he changes his position. But see how he shakes his head; it pleases him not what he has hit upon. Whatever it is, nothing crude will he bring forth, something well-digested will he produce. But see, he is building; he has placed his hand as a pillar [*](As a pillar: He means that Palaestrio looks up in thought, while his clenched hand is placed, as though it were a pillar beneath his chin.) beneath his chin. Have done with it in truth, this mode of building pleases me not; for I have heard say that the head of a foreign Poet[*](Of a foreign Poet: Barbaro.The speaker being supposed to be a Greek, and a native of Ionia, he would speak of a Roman as being barbarus.It is generally supposed that Plautus here refers to the Roman poet Naevius, who had a habit of using this posture, and was, as is thought, at that moment in prison for having offended, in one of his Comedies, the family of the Metelli. He was afterwards liberated on having apologised in his plays called Hariolus (the Wizard) and Leo (the Lion). Periplecomenus thinks that this posture bodes no good, and is ominous of an evil result.) is wont to be supported thus, over whom two guards are ever at all hours keeping watch. Bravo! how becomingly he stands,—i’ faith, how like a very slave[*](Like a very slave: He says that the actor is well representing the character of the slave. The actors themselves, as already remarked, were generally slaves in the earlier times of the Republic.), and how faithful to his part. Never, this day,will he rest, before he has completed that which he is in search of. He has it, I suspect. Come—to the business you’re about: keep wide awake, think not of sleep; unless, indeed, you wish to be keeping your watch here all checquered o’er with stripes. ’Tis T, that am talking to you; schemer, don’t you know that I am speaking to you? Palaestrio! awake, say; arouse yourself, I say; ’tis daylight now, I say.
- I hear you.
- Don’t you see that the enemy is upon you, and that siege is being laid to your back? Take counsel, then; obtain aid and assistance in this matter; the hastily, not the leisurely, is befitting here. Get the start of them in some way, and in some direction this moment lead around your troops. Close round the enemy in siege; prepare the convoy for our side. Cut off the enemy’s provision, secure yourself a passage, by which supplies and provision may be enabled in safety to reach yourself and your forces. Look to this business; the emergency is sudden. Invent—contrive—this instant give us some clever plan; so that that which has been seen here within, may not have been seen; that which has been done, may not have been done. There, my man, you undertake a great enterprise; lofty the defences which you erect. If you yourself alone but say you undertake this, I have a certainty that we are able to rout our foes.
- I do say so, and I do undertake it.
- And I do pronounce that you shall obtain that which you desire.
- May Jupiter kindly bless you then!
- But, friend, do you impart to me the plan which you have devised.
- Be silent, then, while I am inducting you in the direction of my devices; that you may know as well as my own self my plans.
- The same you shall receive safe from the same spot where you have deposited them.
- My master is surrounded with the hide of an elephant, not his own, and has no more wisdom than a stone.