Cistellaria, or The Casket (517b-536)

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.