A dimness is beginning to come, my knees are failing through fasting. PHAEDROMUS I’ faith, through lassitude, I think. CURCULIO (staggering.) Support me, prithee, do support me. PHAEDROMUS See how pale he has turned; will you give him a seat, for him to be seated at once, and an ewer with some water? Will you make haste, this very instant? CURCULIO I’m faint. PHAEDROMUS Would you like some water? CURCULIO If it’s full of bits Full of bits : He will like the water very well, if it is in the shape of a rich soup, with plenty of meat in it. of meat, prithee, give it me to swallow down, i’ faith. PHAEDROMUS Woe be to that head of yours. CURCULIO Troth now, prithee do give me cause to rejoice at my arrival At my arrival : Ventum. This word gives occasion to a pun here, as, according to the context, it may either meal that I am arrived, or wind. The Parasite says, Give me reason (by providing some victuals) to rejoice that I have arrived. Phaedromus chooses to understand him as saving, Give me some wind, that I may rejoice, and says By all means, and begins to fan him. The other asks what he is doing, or making; to which he replies, Making some air. . PHAEDROMUS (begins to fan him.) By all means. CURCULIO Prithee, what’s this you’re about. PHAEDROMUS Some air. CURCULIO Really, for my part, I don’t want a breath to be raised. PHAEDROMUS What then? CURCULIO To eat, that I may rejoice on my arrival. PHAEDROMUS May Jupiter and the Deities confound you. CURCULIO I’m quite undone; I can hardly see; my mouth is bitter; my teeth, I find, are blunted Are blunted : It is hard to say what plenos means when applied to the teeth—if indeed, that word is the correct reading here. ; my jaws are clammy through fasting; with my entrails thus lank with abstinence from food am I come.