Blessings on you. PHILENIUM Do you wish for blessings on me, to whom you are bringing disease by your departure? ARGYRIPPUS Your mother has bid me the last farewell Bid me the last farewell : The word vale, farewell, is here understood, and reference is made, figuratively, to the usage of exclaiming vale when fire was set to the funeral pile. In saying that she bade him go home he refers to the expression with which the ceremony concluded, ilicet, you may go away, or you may go home. ; she has requested me to go home. PHILENIUM A bitter death will she cause her daughter, if I must part from you. LIBANUS (apart, to LEONIDA.) Troth now, the man has been turned out of doors there. LEONIDA (apart.) Such is the fact. ARGYRIPPUS Prithee, do let me go. PHILENIUM Whither are you going now? Why don’t you stay here? ARGYRIPPUS This night, if you choose, I’ll stay. LIBANUS (apart.) Don’t you hear him? How profuse he is of his attentions by night. But now, in the daytime, he’s engaged; surely he’s a Solon He’s a Solon : Solon was one of the wise men of Greece , and the great lawgiver of the Athenians. He was remarkable for he severity of his morals. to write laws whereby the public may regulate itself. Psha! those who would be in readiness for themselves to pay obedience to his laws, would decidedly never do any good; they would be drinking night and day. LEONIDA (apart.) Troth now, for sure, he wouldn’t budge a foot from her if she would let him, who is now in such haste, and is threatening that he’s going away from her. LIBANUS (apart.) Now make an end of your talk, that I may catch his discourse. ARGYRIPPUS Farewell! PHILENIUM Whither are you hastening? ARGYRIPPUS Kindly fare you well! I shall see you in the other world In the other world : Apud Orcum. Orcus was a name of the Shades below, and was also an epithet of the God Pluto. . For indeed now, so soon as I can, I shall sever myself from life. PHILENIUM Prithee, why, while I do not deserve it, do you wish to consign me to death? ARGYRIPPUS I—you? whom, if I were to hear that you were in want of life, at once would I present you my own life, and from my own would add to yours. PHILENIUM Why, then, do you threaten that you will quit life? For what do you suppose that I shall do, if you do that which you are talking of? I’m determined to do everything exactly the same to myself that you do to yourself. ARGYRIPPUS O! sweeter than honey are you to me. PHILENIUM And surely you are my life. Embrace me. ARGYRIPPUS I do so with pleasure. (They embrace.) PHILENIUM Would that thus we might be carried to the tomb. LEONIDA (apart.) O Libanus, how wretched is the man that loves. LIBANUS (apart.) Aye, but surely, faith, the man that’s hanging up The man that’s hanging up : He alludes to the punishment of the thieves, which has been before referred to. is much more wretched. LEONIDA (apart.) I know that, who have had experience of it. Let’s go round them: let’s accost them, one on the one side, one on the other. (One walks towards them from each side.) LIBANUS Health to you, master. But is this female, smoke, that you are embracing? ARGYRIPPUS Why so? LIBANUS Because your eyes are filled with tears; ’twas for that reason I asked.