Bacchides, or The Twin Sisters (572b-590)

I follow you then.

Of a debauched and unscrupulous fellow am I the Parasite—a Captain, who has brought his mistress with him from Samos.

Now he has ordered me to go to her, and make enquiry whether she will pay back the gold, or whether she will depart together with him. You, boy, who have for some time been with her, whichever of these is the house, do you knock. Go to the door forthwith. (The BOY goes to knock.) Are you coming back from there, you hangdog[*]? How the graceless scoundrel does knock!

You can gobble up a loaf three feet wide, and yet you don’t know how to knock at a door. (He calls out and knocks violently.) Is there any one in-doors? Hallo! is there any one here? Does any one open this door? Who’s coming out?

What’s the matter? What’s this knocking? Why, what the confounded torment possesses you, to be exerting your strength in this fashion on another person’s door?

You’ve almost broken the door down. What do you want now?

Young gentleman, my respects.

And my respects. But whom are you looking for?

For Bacchis.

But which of them?

Of that I know nothing, only it’s Bacchis. In a few words, the Captain, Cleomachus,

has sent me to her, either for her to pay back the tyro hundred golden Philippeans, or to go hence this day, together with him, to Elatia[*].