The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (11 page)

PHORMIO: But do you, who are so very wise, make your appearance in court, and get the same cause tried over again, since you are sovereign here, and you only can obtain a second decree in the same cause.

DEMIPHO: Though I’m much injured, yet, rather than follow lawsuits, or hear you prate, I’ll give you fifteen guineas with her, which is the portion that is requir’d by law supposing she was my relation.

PHORMIO: Ha, ha, ha, a pretty sort of a man.

DEMIPHO: What’s the matter? Is there anything unreasonable in what I propose? Can’t I obtain this, which is common justice?

PHORMIO: Is it come to that, pray, does the law require, after you have used a citizen like a whore, that you should pay her and turn her off? Is it not otherwise, is it not requir‘d, to prevent her from bringing shame on herself through poverty, that she should be married to her next relation, that she may have to do only with him, which you are against?

DEMIPHO: Yes, to her next relation; but what have we to do with that? Why must we be concerned?

PHORMIO: O, O, ‘tis all over, as they say, you can’t try it again.

DEMIPHO: I’ll not try it again: yet I’ll not drop it till I have gone thro with it.

PHORMIO: Words, words.

DEMIPHO: See if I don’t make ‘em good.

PHORMIO: In short, Demipho, I’ve nothing to do with you; ‘tis your son that’s cast, not you; for you are a little too old for a young bride.

DEMIPHO: Imagine that ‘tis he that says all which I now say to you, or I’ll thrust him and his wife out of doors.

GETA (
aside to Phormio
): He’s nettled.

PHORMIO: You’ll think better on’t.

DEMIPHO: Are you so provided to do all you can against me, you unlucky knave?

PHORMIO (
aside to Geta
): He’s afraid of us, though he endeavours so earnestly to conceal it.

GETA (
aside to Phormio
): You have begun successfully.

PHORMIO: Why don’t you bear what can’t be avoided like a man? ‘Twill be more to your advantage, if you end it amicably with us.

DEMIPHO: Amicably with you? Why shou’d I see you, or hear your impertinence?

PHORMIO: If you and she can agree, you’ll have a comfort to your old age: have some regard to your years.

DEMIPHO: Do you take her for a comfort.

PHORMIO: Be not in such a passion.

DEMIPHO: Observe me: we have had words enough; unless you take the wench away quickly, I’ll turn her out: I have said it, Phormio.

PHORMIO (
aloud to Demipho
): If you offer to handle her otherwise than becomes a gentlewoman, I’ll bring a heavy action against you: I have said it, Demipho. (
Aside to Geta
) If you want me, you’ll find me at home.

GETA: I understand you. (
Phormio goes
)

(Demipho, Geta, Hegio, Cratinus, and Crito
)

DEMIPHO (
to Geta
): What care and anxiety my son brings upon me, by intangling himself and me in this marriage! and he does not come near me, that I may know at least what he has to say for himself, or what his sentiments are now.—Go you, and see if he isn’t come home yet.

GETA: I will. (
Geta goes
)

(
Demipho
,
Hegio, Cratinus, and Crito
)

DEMIPHO: Ye see how this affair stands: what must I do? Your opinion, Hegio.

HEGIO: Whose, mine? Let Cratinus speak first, if you think fit.

DEMIPHO: Your opinion, Cratinus.

CRATINUS: Mine?

DEMIPHO: Yes.

CRATINUS: I’d have you do what is most to your interest in this affair: I think that what your son did in your absence ought in justice and equity to be made void: and that’s what you’ll obtain: I’ve given my opinion.

DEMIPHO: Now, Hegio, your opinion.

HEGIO: I believe he has spoke his best; but so it is, so many men so many minds; ev‘ry one has his way: I think what the law has done can’t be revoked; and ’tis scandalous to attempt it.

DEMIPHO: Crito, your opinion.

CRITO: I think it requires more time to consider of it: ‘tis a weighty affair.

HEGIO: Do you want any more with us?

DEMIPHO: Ye’ve done enough—(
The Advocates go
) I am now more at a loss than I was before.

(
Geta and Demipho
)

GETA: He’s not come home, they say.

DEMIPHO: I wait for my brother, whose advice I’ll follow in this affair: I’ll go and enquire at the waterside, to learn what tidings I can of him. (
Demipho goes
)

GETA: And I’ll look out for Antipho, that I may inform him of what’s done here: but here he comes just as I want him.

(
Antipho and Geta
)

ANTIPHO (
to himself, not seeingGeta
) : Indeed, Antipho, your want of courage is much to be blamed; could you go away, and leave your life and safety in the hands of other persons? Did you believe other people would be more careful of your affairs than yourself? However other things went, you ought certainly to consider her that you left at home, and not let her suffer any harm, and be deceived through her confidence in you, whose hope, poor creature, and all whose interest, now depend on you alone.

GETA: And indeed, master, we did not spare you in your absence for going from us.

ANTIPHO: I was looking for you.

GETA: But we were never the more negligent for that.

ANTIPHO: Pray tell me how my interests and my fortunes stand: has my father any suspicion?

GETA: Not yet.

ANTIPHO: Is there any hope left?

GETA: I don’t know.

ANTIPHO: How!

GETA: But Phædria did all he could for you.

ANTIPHO: There’s nothing new in that.

GETA: Then Phormio has been as hearty and as active in this as in other affairs.

ANTIPHO: What has he done?

GETA: He was too hard for the old gentleman as angry as he was.

ANTIPHO: O! brave Phormio.

GETA: I did what I could too.

ANTIPHO: My Geta, I love ye all.

GETA: The first conference was as I tell you: the affair’s in a good situation at present; and your father now waits for your uncle’s arrival, before he proceeds any farther.

ANTIPHO: What does he wait for him for?

GETA: He said that he’d be directed by his advice in this affair.

ANTIPHO: How I dread my uncle’s return now, Geta! For by his sentence only, as you tell me, I must live or die.

GETA: Here comes Phædria.

ANTIPHO: Where?

GETA: See, he’s coming from his usual place of exercise.

(
Phædria, Dorio
,
Antipho, and Geta
)

PHÆDRIA (
not seeing Antipho and Geta
): Prithee hear me, Dorio.

DORIO: Not I.

PHÆDRIA: A little.

DORIO: Don’t trouble me.

PHÆDRIA: Hear what I have to say.

DORIO: But ‘tis tiresome to hear the same a thousand times over and over.

PHÆDRIA: But you’ll be pleas’d with what I’m going to say now.

DORIO: Well, let’s hear.

PHÆDRIA: Can’t I prevail on you to stay three days longer? Where are you going?

DORIO: I should wonder if you had offered anything new to me.

ANTIPHO (
aside to Geta
): The bawd, I fear, is drawing an old house over his head.

GETA (
aside to Antipho
): I fear so too.

PHÆDRIA: You do not believe me.

DORIO: There you’re right.

PHÆDRIA: Upon my credit.

DORIO: Mere flams.

PHÆDRIA: You’ll have no reason to repent, you’ll confess so afterwards.

DORIO: Words, words.

PHÆDRIA: Believe me, you’ll be glad of it; ‘tis true, by Hercules.

DORIO: ‘Tis all a dream.

PHÆDRIA: Do but try, ‘tis not long.

DORIO: The same story over again.

PHÆDRIA: I’ll acknowledge you for a kinsman, a father, a friend, a—

DORIO: ‘Tis all but talk.

PHÆDRIA: That you can be so hardened and inexorable, to be moved neither by pity nor entreaty!

DORIO: That you can be so inconsiderate and ignorant, Phædria, to think by your fine speeches to wheedle me out of what’s my own for nothing!

ANTIPHO (
aside to Geta
): I pity him.

PHÆDRIA (
to himself
): Ah! what he says is too true.

GETA (
aside to Antipho
): How they both keep to their characters!

PHÆDRIA: When Antipho is in full possession of his love, that I should have this plague!

ANTIPHO: Ah! Phædria, what’s the matter?

PHÆDRIA: O! fortunate Antipho!

ANTIPHO: I fortunate?

PHÆDRIA: Yes, in having what you love at home, and in not having to do with such a villain as this.

ANTIPHO: What I love at home? Yes, as the saying is, I have a wolf by the ears; for I know not how to let her go, nor how to keep her.

DORIO: That’s my case with this spark.

ANTIPHO (
to the bawd
): O! brave bawd, don’t depart from your character. (
To Phædria
) What has he done at last?

PHÆDRIA: Done? Like an inhuman fellow, he has sold my Pamphila.

GETA: What? Sold her?

ANTIPHO: Sold her, say you?

PHÆDRIA: He has sold her.

DORIO: A horrid crime, to sell a wench that I paid for!

PHÆDRIA (
to Antipho
): I can’t persuade him to break off with the other, and stay three days, till I get the money which my friends promis’d. (
To the bawd
) If I don’t give it you then, don’t stay an hour longer.

DORIO: You stun me.

ANTIPHO: ‘Tis but a little time that he requires, Dorio: be prevail’d upon: he’ll make it doubly up to you, and you’ll deserve it.

DORIO: These are but words.

ANTIPHO (
to Phædria
): Will you endure that Pamphila should be carried from this town? (
To the bawd
) Can you be so hardhearted as to tear these lovers from one another?

DORIO: ‘Tis neither I, nor you, that do it.

GETA: May the Gods deny you nothing that you deserve.

DORIO: I have, contrary to my disposition, indulged you many months, you’ve promised, and whimpered, but never performed anything; now I have found one that proceeds in quite a different strain, who can pay without sniveling; give place to your betters.

ANTIPHO (
to the bawd
): Certainly, if I remember rightly, there was a day fixed formerly, in which you were to let him have her.

PHÆDRIA: There was so.

DORIO: Do I deny it?

ANTIPHO: Is that day pass’d?

DORIO: No, but this is come before it.

ANTIPHO: Aren’t you ashamed of your roguery?

DORIO: Not when ‘tis to my advantage.

GETA: Dirty rascal!

PHÆDRIA: Dorio, d‘y’ think you do as you ought?

DORIO: ‘Tis my custom, if you like me, use me.

ANTIPHO: Do you impose upon him thus?

DORIO: Rather, Antipho, he imposes upon me; for he knew me to be such a person; I thought him another sort of a man; he has deceived me; I am just the same with him that I always was: but yet, however the affair stands, I’ll do this; the captain promised to bring me the money early to-morrow; if you bring it before he does, Phædria, I’ll keep up my custom, and prefer the first comer: so adieu. (
Dorio goes
)

PHÆDRIA: What shall I do? How shall I now, that am not worth a straw, raise the money for him so suddenly? If he could but have been prevailed upon to stay three days, I was promised it then.

ANTIPHO: Shall we forsake him, Geta, in his distress, that, according to your own report, assisted me so friendly just now? Rather let us try to return the favor, now there’s occasion.

GETA: I know it is but just that we should.

ANTIPHO: Set about it therefore, you are the only man that can save him.

GETA: What can I do?

ANTIPHO: Raise the money.

GETA: With all my heart; but tell me how.

ANTIPHO: My father’s at hand.

GETA: I know that; but what then?

ANTIPHO: Pshaw, a word to the wise is enough.

GETA: Say you so?

ANTIPHO: Yes.

GETA: Very fine advice, by Hercules! Why don’t you go about it? Shan’t I have reason to triumph, if I escape on the account of your marriage, but you must now insist on my bringing one misfortune on the back of another over my head, for his sake too?

ANTIPHO: What he says is true.

PHÆDRIA: What? Do you look upon me as a stranger, Geta?

GETA: By no means; but is it of no consideration, now we have enraged the old man against us all, whether we provoke him so that no room can be left for entreaty?

PHÆDRIA: Shall another man bear her from my eyes to an unknown land? Alas! Speak to me, Antipho, and consider me, while you may, and while I’m with ye.

ANTIPHO: Why? What are you about now? Tell me.

PHÆDRIA: Whatever part of the world she’s carried to, I’m resolved to follow her, or to perish.

GETA: Good luck go with you; yet I’d advise you not to be in a hurry.

ANTIPHO: See if you can assist him, do.

GETA: Assist him? How?

ANTIPHO: Pray try, lest he should more or less, Geta, than we’d wish, and which we shou’d be sorry for afterwards.

GETA: I’m trying. He’s secure, I believe; but I’m afraid that I shall suffer for’t

ANTIPHO: Don’t be afraid: we’ll share your fortune with you, be it good or bad.

GETA (
to Phædria
): How much money d‘y’ want? Tell me.