Bacchides, or The Twin Sisters (1040-1100)

I would rather give the gold than suffer him to be corrupted. There is a twofold choice consider which you would adopt; either to lose the gold, or for a lover to be forsworn. I neither order you, nor forbid you, nor do I persuade you.

I’m sorry for him.

You don’t do anything surprising—he is your son.

If still more must be lost, ’tis better for it to go, than for this disgrace to be everywhere proclaimed.

By my troth, I certainly had much rather he had been at Ephesus, so long as he was well, than that he had returned home. But why don’t I hasten to get rid of that which is doomed to be squandered away?

I’ll bring you just now from in-doors twice two hundred Philippeans, both those which, a little time since, to my sorrow, I promised to the Captain, and these others. Wait there; I’ll be out to you, Chrysalus, this instant.

Troy is laid waste, the chiefs have razed Pergamus. I knew some time ago that I should be the ruin of Pergamus.

I’ faith I wouldn’t dare make a bet with him who should say that I was deserving of severe torture; so great confusion am I making. But the door makes a noise; the plunder’s being brought forth from Troy. For the present I’ll hold my tongue.

Take you this gold, Chrysalus; go, carry it to my son.

But I’ll go hence to the market-place to pay this to the Captain.

For my part, I’ll not receive it; do you seek somebody at once to take it. I won’t have it entrusted to me.

But do take it; you’re worrying me now.

For my part, I’ll not take it.

But, prithee do.

I am telling you what is the fact.

You are delaying me.

I don’t want, I say, the gold to be entrusted to me. At all events, find some person to keep a watch upon me.

You’re plaguing me.

Well, give it me, if it must be so.

Take care of it. I’ll be back here just now.

I’ve taken care—that you shall be a most wretched old fellow; this is bringing an undertaking to a fair ending; even as it has proved my lot to go rejoicing, laden with the spoil.

With safety to myself, and the city taken by stratagem, I now bring home my whole army unhurt. But, Spectators, don’t you now be surprised that I don’t go in triumph; ’tis such a common thing, I don’t care for it. Still however, the soldiers shall be received with the usual honeyed wine.

Now I’ll carry off all this booty at once to the Quaestor[*].

The more I revolve it in my breast, what disturbances my son has raised, into what a course of life, and into what habits he unwittingly has headlong plunged himself, the greater is my concern, and the more do I dread lest he may be ruined or corrupted. I know it; I once was of the same age, and I did all these things; but in a quiet way.

I was gay, I had my mistress, I drank, I feasted, I made presents, but still it was seldom I did so. The methods, too, please me not which I see parents in general employ towards their sons. I have determined to give some latitude to my son, that he may have some scope for his inclinations. I think that’s right; but still, I don’t wish him to give way too much to sloth and wantonness. Now I’m going to Mnesilochus,

to see whether, as I requested, by his endeavours he has turned him for me to virtue and to sobriety; as, indeed, I am sure he has done if he has met him, of such a disposition is he by nature.

Whoever there are in any place whatsoever, whoever have been, and whoever shall be, in time to come, fools, blockheads, idiots, dolts, sots, oafs, lubbers[*], I singly by far exceed them all in folly and absurd ways.

I’m undone. I’m ashamed of myself; that I at this time of life should disgracefully have been twice made a fool of! The more I think of this confusion which my son has made, the more am I incensed. I’m ruined, and I’m utterly destroyed; I’m distracted in every possible way. All plagues harass me, by all modes of death do I perish. This day has Chrysalus rent me in pieces; Chrysalus has plundered wretched me;

he, the villain, by his clever tricks, has shaved, to the very quick, simple me, just as he has pleased. For the Captain says that she is a Courtezan, whom that fellow said was his wife; and he has informed me of everything, as each particular happened; how that she had been hired by him for this year; how that that much gold was left to be repaid[*], which I, most simple man, had promised him. ’Tis this, this, I say, through which my breast boils with indignation[*]; ’tis this, in fine, by which I am distracted;

that I, at my time of life, should be made a fool of, aye, by Heaven, so made a very sport of, and with my hoary head and white beard, that wretched I should be bamboozled out of my gold. Undone am I, inasmuch as this slave of mine has dared in this way to set not the value of a nutshell upon me. And I—if any other way I had lost a greater sum—I should have taken it less amiss, and have deemed it less of a loss to me.