Cistellaria, or The Casket (500-536)

Will you allow me to be forsworn?

Yes, and a little more easily than myself and my affairs to go to ruin, and my daughter to be trifled with. Begone! go seek where there is confidence enough in your oaths; here now, with us, Alcesimarchus, you’ve renounced your title[*] to our friendship.

Make trial of me but once.

I have made that trial full oft; which I lament has been so made.

Give her back to me.

Under new circumstances I’ll use an old proverb: What I have given, I wish I had not given; what’s left, that I shall not give.

Won’t you restore her again to me?

Answer yourself for me.

You won’t restore her then?

You know the whole of my resolution already.

Is that quite resolved upon by you in your heart?

Why, in fact, I’m thinking about something else;

i’ faith, I don’t at present catch these words of yours with my ears.

Not hear? Why, what are you doing?

[*]Then do you give heed at once, that you may know what you are doing.

Then, so may the Gods and Goddesses of above and below, and of middle rank[*], and so may Juno the queen and the daughter[*] of supreme Jove, and so may Saturn his uncle—

I’ troth, his father—

And so may Ops the opulent, his grandam—

Indeed, his mother, rather.

Juno his daughter, and Saturn his uncle, supreme Jove—You are maddening me; it’s through you I make these mistakes.

Go on saying so.

Is it that I’m to know[*] what conclusion you are going to come to?

Go on talking; I shall not send her back, that’s resolved upon.

Why then, so may Jupiter,

and so may Juno and Saturn, to me, so may—I don’t know what to say—Now I know—Yes, madam, listen, that you may know my mind; may all the Deities, great and small, and those honored with the platter[*] ⋯ cause me not surviving to give a kiss this day to Silenium, if I don’t this very day murder you and your daughter and myself,

and after that, with the break of day, if I don’t to-morrow kill you both, and indeed, by all the powers, if at the third onset I don’t demolish you all, if you don’t send her back to me. I’ve said what I intended. Farewell.

He’s gone in-doors in a rage. What shall I do now? If she comes back to him, matters will be just in the same position. When satiety begins to take possession;

he’ll be turning her out of doors, when he shall be bringing home this Lemnian wife. But still I’ll go and follow him; there’s necessity for caution, lest he, in love, should be doing some mischief. In fine, since with strict justice a poor person’s not allowed to contend with a rich one, I’ll lose my labour rather than lose my daughter. But who’s this that straight along the street is directing his course this way?

Both the other matter do I fear, and this do I dread; so utterly in trepidation am wretched I.

I’ve followed the old woman with my clamour through the streets; I’ve kept her most dreadfully plagued. In what a multitude of ways has she, this day, kept guard upon herself, and been able to remember nothing. How many alluring things, what advantages I’ve promised her.