Miles Gloriosus
Plautus, Titus Maccius
Plautus. The Comedies of Plautus, Volume 1. Riley, H. T., translator. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1912.
- What mischance is this?
- A disgraceful one.
- Do you then keep it to yourself alone: don’t tell it me; I don’t want to know it.
- But I won’t let you not know it. To-day I was following our monkey upon the tiles, next door there. Points to the house.
- By my troth, Sceledrus, a worthless fellow, you were following a worthless beast.
- The Gods confound you!
- That befits yourself, since you began the conversation.
- By chance, as it happened, I looked down there through the skylight, into the next house; and there I saw Philocomasium toying with some strange young man, I know not whom.
- What scandalous thing is this I hear of you, Sceledrus?
- I’ faith, I did see her, beyond a doubt.
- What, yourself?
- Yes, I myself, with these eyes of mine.
- Get away, it isn’t likely what you say, nor did you see her.
- Do I, then, appear to you as if I were purblind?
- ’Twere better for you to ask the doctor about that. But, indeed, if the Gods only love you, don’t you rashly father this[*](Rashly father this: Tollas fabulam.This metaphor is borrowed from the custom among the Romans of laying the new-born child upon the ground upon which it was taken up (tollebatur) by the father, or other person who intended to stand in the place of parent to it.) idle story. Now are you breeding thence a fatal dilemma for your legs and head; for, in two ways, the cause is contrived for you to be ruined, unless you put a check upon your foolish chattering.
- But how, two ways?
- I’ll tell you. First then, if you falsely accuse Philocomasium, by that you are undone; in the next place, if it is true, having been appointed her keeper, there you are undone.
- What may happen to me, I know not; I know for certain that I did see this.
- Do you persist in it, unfortunate wretch?