I rejoice that we cameThat we came: Ventum. There is probably a poor pun intended on the other meaning of this word, as the accusative case of ventus, wind. to you; in such a delightful manner have we been here this day received; nor except in the management, was there anything there at your house but what pleased me.SILENIUM How so, prithee?A PROCURESS Too seldom did the servant give me something to drink, and, as it was, it clouded the colour of the wine.GYMNASIUM Pray, is that becoming to be mentioned here?A PROCURESS It’s both right and proper; there’s no other person here. SILENIUM With reason do I love you both, who esteem and honor me.A PROCURESS I’ faith, my dear Silenium, it befits this class to be kindly disposed among themselves, and carefully to keep up friendships, when you see these matrons of elevated rank, born of the noblest families, how they value friendship, and how carefully they keep it united between themselves. If we do that same thing, if we imitate the same example, still as it is, with difficulty do we exist with their extreme dislike. Of their own enjoyments they would have us to be in want, in resources of our own they would have us not to possess any power, and to stand in need of them in all matters, that we may be their humble servantsMay be their humble servants: Ut simus sibi supplices. Literally, that we may be suppliants to themselves.. If you wait upon them, you’d rather be giving your room than your company. So very kind are they before the world to our class; in private, if ever there’s the opportunity, underhandedly they pour cold waterPour cold water: Meaning, in other words, They try to do us all the mischief they can. upon us. They declare that we are in the habit of having commerce with their husbands; they say that we are their supplanters; they attempt to crush us. Because we are the free daughters of slavesFree daughters of slaves: The professae, or courtesans, at Rome, were mostly of the class of libertinae—children of slaves who had been made free, or else freed-women themselves, who had been the mistresses of their former owners. From this circumstance, to lead a libertine life came to mean the same as to pass a loose or unchaste life., both I and your mother, we became Courtesans; she brought up yourself, and I this girl (pointing to GYMNASIUM), by chance-fathers. Nor yet for the sake of vanity have I driven her to the calling of a Courtesan, but that I mightn’t starve.SILENIUM But it had been better to give her in marriage to a husband in preference.A PROCURESS Heyday, now! Surely, faith, she’s married to a husband every day; she has both been married to one to-day, she’ll be marrying again to-night. I’ve never allowed her to go to bed a widow. For if she weren’t to be marrying, the household would perish with doleful famine.GYMNASIUM It behoves me, mother, to be just as you wish I should be.A PROCURESS I’ troth, I don’t regret it, if you will prove such as you say you’ll be; for if, indeed, you shall be such as I intend, you’ll never be a HecaleA Hecale: Hecala seems a preferable reading here to Hecata. Hecale was a very poor old woman, whom Plutarch mentions as having entertained Theseus on one of his expeditions. As poor as Hecale, became a proverb. Her poverty is mentioned by Ovid, in the Remedy of Love, in conjunction with that of the beggar Irus. in your old age, and you’ll ever keep that same tender age which you now have,