Miles Gloriosus

Plautus, Titus Maccius

Plautus. The Comedies of Plautus, Volume 1. Riley, H. T., translator. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1912.

  1. Why, Philocomasium is there at home, she whom you were saying that you had seen next door kissing and toying with another man.
SCELEDRUS
  1. ’Tis a wonder that you are in the habit of feeding on darnel[*](Feeding on darnel: He means to say that his sight must have failed him, and, by way of accounting for it, that he must have lived on bread made of darnel. This grain was supposed not only to cause the person eating to appear as it intoxicated, but very seriously to affect the eyesight. Ovid says in the Fasti, B. 1., l. 691, Let the fields, also, be clear of darnel that weakens the eyes.), with wheat at so low a price.
PALAESTRIO
  1. Why so?
SCELEDRUS
  1. Because you are so dim of sight.
PALAESTRIO
  1. You gallows-bird, ’tis you, indeed, that are blind, with a vengeance, and not dim of sight; for, sure enough, there she is at home.
SCELEDRUS
  1. How? At home?
PALAESTRIO
  1. At home, i’ faith, undoubtedly.
SCELEDRUS
  1. Be off with you; you are playing with me, Palaestrio
PALAESTRIO
  1. My hands are dirty, then.
SCELEDRUS
  1. How so?
PALAESTRIO
  1. Because I am playing with dirt.
SCELEDRUS
  1. A mischief on your head.
PALAESTRIO
  1. Nay rather, Sceledrus, it shall be on yours, I promise you, unless you change for fresh your eyes and your talk. But our door made a noise.
SCELEDRUS
  1. Well, I shall watch here out of doors, for there is no way by which she can pass hence in-doors, except through the front door.
PALAESTRIO
  1. But there she is, at home. I don’t know, Scledrus, what mischief is possessing you.
SCELEDRUS
  1. I see for my own self, I judge for my own self, I have especial faith in my own self: no man shall frighten me out of it, but that she is in that house. Points to the house of PERIPLECOMENUS. Here I’ll take my stand, that she may not steal out home without my knowledge.
PALAESTRIO
  1. (aside) This fellow is in my hands; now will I drive him from his strong hold. (To SCLEDRUS) Do you wish me now to make you own that you don’t see correctly?
SCELEDRUS
  1. Come, do it then.
PALAESTRIO
  1. And that you neither think aright in your mind, nor yet make use of your eyes?
SCELEDRUS
  1. I’d have you do it.