The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (10 page)

DEMIPHO
(to himself, not seeing them ) :
I wonder what they’ll say to me, or what excuse they’ll find.

GETA
(aside
to
Phædria):
I’ve found one already: look you for another.

DEMIPHO (to himself, not seeing
them) :
Will he excuse himself by saying, “I did it against my will, the law compell’d me?” I hear him, and allow it to be so.

GETA
(aside):
Well say’d.

DEMIPHO (to
himself)
: But knowingly, without speaking a word, to give up his cause to his adversaries! Did the law compel him to that too?

PHÆDRIA
(aside to Geta):
That strikes home.

GETA
(aside to Phædria)
: I’ll find an excuse for that: leave it to me.

DEMIPHO
(to himself):
I know not what to do, because this has happen‘d, beyond my expectation or belief: I’m so provok’d, that I am scarcely capable of thinking: ev‘ry one therefore, in the heighth of his prosperity, should then think within himself how he cou’d bear adversity; let him always, as he returns home, consider thus, I may meet with dangers, losses, a disobedient son, a dead wife, or a sick daughter, and these are misfortunes common to all men, there’s nothing new or strange in either of them, therefore whatever happens beyond his expectation he should account as gain.

GETA
(aside
to
Phædria):
O! Phædria, ‘tis scarcely to be believ’d how much wiser I am than my master: I have consider’d of all the inconveniences which can happen to me, if my master shou’d return, I concluded that I should be condemn’d to perpetual imprisonment to grind there, to be well drubbed, to be fettered, or sentenced to work in the fields; neither of which wou’d be new or strange to me; therefore whatever happens beyond my expectation I shall account as gain: but why don’t you go up to the old gentleman, and speak him fair?

DEMIPHO
(to himself)
: There’s Phædria my brother’s son, I see, coming this way.

PHÆDRIA: Uncle, your servant.

DEMIPHO: Your servant: but where’s Antipho?

PHÆDRIA: I’m glad to see you safe return’d.

DEMIPHO: I believe you: but give me an answer to what I ask.

PHÆDRIA: He’s very well; and he’s not far off; but are all things as you’d have ‘em?

DEMIPHO: I wish they were.

PHÆDRIA: What’s the matter?

DEMIPHO: Do you ask, Phædria? Ye’ve patch’d up a fine marriage here in my absence.

PHÆDRIA: 0, what, are you angry with him for that?

GETA (to
himself):
He manages him dextrously!

DEMIPHO: Ought I not to be angry with him? I wish he’d come into my presence, that he may see now how he has provok’d a good-natured father by his offence.

PHÆDRIA: But he has done nothing, uncle, to merit your displeasure.

DEMIPHO: See how they hang together; they’re all alike; know one, you know all.

PHÆDRIA: Indeed you mistake us.

DEMIPHO: Let one commit a fault, and the other’s ready to defend him; if one’s here, the other’s not far off; so they help one another.

GETA
(to himself)
: The old man has spoke the truth of them without knowing it.

DEMIPHO: For if it was not so, you wou’d not stand up for him, Phædria.

PHÆDRIA: Uncle, if Antipho had been so much his own enemy as to have been guilty of any fault, contrary to his interest or honour, I would not open my lips in his behalf, but give him over to what he might deserve; but supposing any one, by his malicious stratagems, has lay’d a snare for us youth, and has caught us in it, are we to be blam’d or the judges, who often thro envy take from the rich, and as often thro pity add to the poor?

GETA
(aside):
If I did not know the affair, I shou’d believe what he’s saying to be true.

DEMIPHO: How should any judge know your right, when you don’t speak a word for yourself, as he did not?

PHÆDRIA: He behav’d like a gentleman; when he came before the judges, he was unable to utter what he had premeditated, his modesty and fear so confounded him.

GETA : Well defended: but why don’t I go directly up to the old man? (To
himself)
Your servant, Sir: I’m glad to see you safe return’d.

DEMIPHO: Oh! thou excellent guardian, your servant, thou prop of our family, to whose care I committed my son when I went from hence.

GETA: I hear you have been accusing us all undeservedly, and me most undeservedly of all; for what wou’d you have me do for you in this affair? The laws don’t allow a servant to plead, nor is his evidence taken.

DEMIPHO: Well, be it so: grant besides that the young man was foolishly fearful, I allow it, you’re but a servant; however, if she was ever so near related, there was no occasion for him to marry her; but, as the law requires, you shou’d have giv’n her a portion; and she might look out for another husband: what reason had he to take a beggar home?

GETA: We did not want reason, but money.

DEMIPHO: He shou’d have borrow’d it anywhere.

GETA: Anywhere? Nothing more easily said.

DEMIPHO: If he cou’d not borrow it on other terms, he shou’d have took it up on interest.

GETA: Huy! that’s well said: as if any one would lend him money, while you are alive.

DEMIPHO: No, no, it must not be so, it never can: shall I suffer her to live with him one day? There’s no temptation for it. I wish that fellow was brought before me, or that I knew where he lives.

GETA: You mean Phormio.

DEMIPHO: The woman’s friend.

GETA: I’ll bring him here presently.

DEMIPHO: Where’s Antipho now?

GETA: Within.

DEMIPHO: Go, Phædria, look for him, and bring him hither.

PHÆDRIA: I’ll go directly.

GETA
(aside):
Yes, to Pamphila.

DEMIPHO: I’ll go home and thank the Gods for my return; then I’ll go to the market, and summons some of my friends to be present in this affair, that I may not be unprovided if Phormio comes.

PHORMIO: Say you so, is he gone, and afraid to shew his face to his father?

GETA: ‘Tis even so.

PHORMIO: And is Phanium left to herself, say you?

GETA: Neither better nor worse.

PHORMIO: And is the old man in a rage?

GETA: Yes, and in a great one.

PHORMIO: The burden, Phormio, must lie on your shoulders: you’ve a hard crust to mumble; you must down with it: set about it.

GETA: Pray do.

PHORMIO: Suppose he should question me about—

GETA: Our hope is in you.

PHORMIO: Ay, but consider, what if he replies?

GETA: You forced us.

PHORMIO: Well, I think that’s right.

GETA: Come, give us your assistance.

PHORMIO: Let the old man come; I’ll warrant you I am provided for him.

GETA: What do you intend?

PHORMIO: What, but secure Phanium’s marriage, and free Antipho from what he’s accused of, and take all the old man’s anger on myself?

GETA: You’ve a stout heart of your own, and we are much oblig’d to you: but I’m very much afraid, Phormio, lest you draw the string till it breaks at last.

PHORMIO: Ah! there’s no danger of that; I’m experi enc’d in those things; I tread sure. How many men d‘y’ think I have worried to death, strangers and citizens? The oftener I’ve try’d, the more my hand’s in. Tell me now, did you ever hear of an action of battery against me?

GETA: How have you escap’d?

PHORMIO: Because the net is never spread for such birds as the hawk or the kite, which are mischievous to us, but for such as do us no harm; because these are precious morsels, the other are not worth the labour: so they who have anything to lose are most in danger; they know I’ve nothing: but they’ll commit you to prison, say you; to which I answer they do not chuse to maintain such a devouring fellow as I am; and, in my opinion, they’ll shew their wisdom, in not doing me so good an office in return for a bad one.

GETA: He can never thank you enough for your favour.

PHORMIO: O! nobody can thank a prince enough for his royal favour. Is it not pleasant for you to come at free cost, anointed, and fresh from the bath, with an easy mind, while another has the trouble and expense? While you have what you chuse, he’s fretting himself, you laugh, drink the first cup, and take the first place, when the dubious entertainment is serv’d up.

GETA: Dubious, why dubious?

PHORMIO: Because you’re doubtful what to eat of most:—when you consider how delicious and dear these things are, does not the master of the feast appear a very God to you?

GETA: Here comes the old man: be on your guard: the first onset’s the fiercest; if you sustain that, you may wind him about as you will afterwards.

DEMIPHO
(to the advocates):
Did ye ever hear of any one being more injuriously used than I am in this? Pray assist me.

GETA
(aside
to
Phormio):
He’s in a passion.

PHORMIO
(aside
to
Geta):
Do you but mind your cue; I’ll rouse him presently. (Aloud to
Geta)
Good Gods! does Demipho deny that Phanium’s related to him? Does Demipho deny it?

GETA
(aloud) :
He does deny it.

DEMIPHO (to the
advocates):
This is he, I think, that I’ve to do with. Keep close to me.

PHORMIO
(aloud
to
Geta):
And that he does not know who her father was?

GETA
(aloud) :
He denies it.

PHORMIO
(aloud
to
Geta):
Nor who Stilpho was?

GETA
(aloud):
He knows nothing of him.

PHORMIO (
aloud to Geta
): Because she was left destitute, poor girl, her father’s not known, and she’s slighted: see, what avarice can make some people dol

GETA (
aloud to Phormio
): If you reflect upon my master for avarice, I’ll give you your own.

DEMIPHO (
aside to the advocates
): The impudence of the fellow! Does he come on purpose to accuse me?

PHORMIO (
aloud to Geta
): There’s no reason to be angry with the young man, if he had no great knowledge of him; for the poor man was old, and liv’d by his labour, almost confining himself to the country: where he farm’d a piece of ground of my father: the old man has often told me that this kinsman of his slighted him; but what a man did he slight? The best man that I ever saw in my life.

GETA (
aloud to Phormio
): See that you say no more than you can prove of yourself and him.

PHORMIO (
aloud to Geta
): Go hang yourself; if I did not think as well of him as I report him, I’d never get such ill will to our family as I do for her sake that he so ungenerously slights now.

GETA (
aloud to Phormio
): Do you still abuse my master in his absence, you villain?

PHORMIO (
aloud to Geta
): ‘Tis no more than he deserves.

GETA (
aloud to Phormio
): Say, you so, you jailbird?

DEMIPHO: Geta.

GETA (
aloud to Phormio, pretending not to hear Demipho
): You’re an invader of other people’s rights, a perverter of the laws.

DEMIPHO: Geta.

PHORMIO (
aside to Geta
): Answer him.

GETA: Who’s that? O! is’t you, Sir?

DEMIPHO: Don’t talk to him.

GETA: He has been abusing you behind your back, without ceasing, in such a manner as you don’t deserve, though he does.

DEMIPHO (
to Geta
): Well, say no more. (
To Phormio
) First, young man, if you’ll vouchsafe me an answer, I desire to know, with your good leave, who that friend of yours was, and how he claim’d relation to me.

PHORMIO: So you examine me, as if you did not know.

DEMIPHO: I know?

PHORMIO: Yes.

DEMIPHO: I deny it; you, who affirm it, rub up my memory.

PHORMIO: Huy, huy, as if you did not know your first cousin!

DEMIPHO: You kill me: tell me his name.

PHORMIO: His name?

DEMIPHO: To be sure. Why don’t you tell it?

PHORMIO (
aside
): I’m ruin‘d, by Hercules, I’ve forgot his name.

DEMIPHO: Ha, what’s that you say?

PHORMIO (
aside to Geta
): Geta, if you remember the name I told you just now, tell it me. (
To Demipho
) I’ll not tell you, as if you did not know! You come to try me.

DEMIPHO: I try you?

GETA (
aside to Phormio
): Stilpho.

PHORMIO : What is’t to me? ‘Tis Stilpho.

DEMIPHO: What’s his name, say you?

PHORMIO: Stilpho, I say, you knew him.

DEMIPHO: I knew no such person, nor was any of that name related to me.

PHORMIO: Can you say so? Aren’t you asham’d of this? But if he had left an estate of ten talents—

DEMIPHO: The Gods confound you.

PHORMIO:—You’d have been the first to have trac’d your family from generation to generation.

DEMIPHO: It may be so; then, if I had gone about it, I could have told how she was related to me: now do you the same: tell me how she’s my relation.

GETA (
to Demipho
): Well said, master. (
To Phormio
) You, Sir, take care of yourself.

PHORMIO: I made it appear plain enough, where I ought, before the judges: if it was false, why did not your son then refute it?

DEMIPHO: What tell you me of my son, whose folly can’t be sufficiently expressed?