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 bluntedAre 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.PHAEDROMUS You shall eat something just now.CURCULIO I’ faith, I don’t want something; I’d rather have what’s fixed for certain, than your something. PHAEDROMUS Aye, but if you only knew what has been put by for you.CURCULIO I’d very much like to know where it is; for really it’s necessary for it and my teeth to make acquaintance.PHAEDROMUS A gammon of bacon, a sow’s stomach, some udder and kernels of the throat.CURCULIO What, all this do you say? Perhaps you mean that they are in the flesh-market?PHAEDROMUS In the dishes, I mean; they’ve been got ready for you, since we knew that you were about to arrive.CURCULIO Take care you don’t be fooling me.PHAEDROMUS So may the fair one love me whom I love, I don’t say what’s false. But as to what I sent you upon I’m none the wiser yet.CURCULIO I’ve brought back nothing. PHAEDROMUS You’ve undone me.CURCULIOI can find something, if you’ll give me your attention. After, at your request, I had set out, I arrived in Caria;I saw your friend; I asked him to make me a loan of some money. In answer, you were to know that he was willing to oblige you; he didn’t wish to disappoint you, as it is only proper that a person who is a friend should be ready, and should assist his friend. In a few words he answered me, and quite in confidence, that he also was in the same extreme want of money as yourself.PHAEDROMUS By your words you ensure my undoing.CURCULIO Why no; I’m saving you, and wish you to be saved. After this answer was given me, I went away from him to the Forum, in sorrow that I had applied to him in vain. By accident I espied a military officer; this person I accosted, and as I approached I saluted him. Save you, said he to me, took my right hand, drew me aside, and asked me why I had come to Caria. I said that I had come there for the sake of amusement. Upon this he asked me whether I knew a certain Lyco, a banker of Epidaurus. I said I knew him. Well, and the Procurer Cappadox? I answered yes, that I had seen him. But what do you want of him? said I. Because, said he, I bought of him a girl for thirty minae, her clothes and golden jewels too; and for these last ten minae more are added.Have you paid the money? said I. No, said he; it is lodged with this Lyco the banker, whom I was mentioning, and I’ve instructed him that the person who should bring a letter sealed with my own ring, to him he was to give his services, that he might receive the damsel, with her jewels of gold and her clothes, from the Procurer. After he told me this, I was going away from him. At once he called me back,invited me to dinner; it was a point of conscience, I was unwilling to refuse him. What if we go off home, and take our places at table? said he. The suggestion pleased me; it is neither proper to lengthen out the day, nor to curtail the night. Everything was prepared, and we, for whom it was prepared, were at our places. After we had dined and well drunk, he asked for the dice to be fetched him.He challenged me to play with him a game of hazard. I staked my cloak, he staked his ring against it; he called on the nameCalled on the name: On the custom of invoking their mistresses, when playing at dice, see a Note to the Captivi, Act I., Sc. 1. We are, perhaps, to suppose that the Captain takes off his ring for the purpose of staking it, which would enable Curculio to steal it the more easily. of Planesium.PHAEDROMUS What, my mistress? CURCULIO Be silent a while. He threw a most losing castMost losing cast: When playing with the tali, or knucklebone dice, with only four marked sides, they used sets of four. Volturii quatuor (literally, the four vultures) was the most unlucky throw of all, and is supposed to have been four aces.. I took up the dice, and invoked Hercules as my genial patronMy genial patron: Nutricem; literally, nurse. It has been suggested that the Parasite intended to compliment his entertainer, the Captain, under the name of Hercules, whom he invokes for luck. The Delphin Commentator says that Parasites invoked Hercules because the tenths of entertainments were offered to him, and these were distributed among the needy, in the number of whom they ranked.; I threw a first-rate castA first-rate cast: The best throw with the tali was called Venus or Venereus jactus, when the dice turned up 2, 3, 4, and 5. As it war by this throw that the Romans chose the King of the Feast, it received the name of Basilicus, the king’s throw. See the last Scene in the Asinaria., and pledged him in a bumping cup; in return he drank it off, reclined his head, and fell fast asleep. I slily took away from him the ring, and took my legs quietly from off the couch, so that the Captain mightn’t perceive it. The servants enquired whither I was going; I said that I was going whither persons when full are wont to go. When I beheld the door, at once on the instant I betook myself away from the place.PHAEDROMUS I commend you. CURCULIO Commend me when I’ve brought this thing about which you desire. Now let’s go indoors, that we may seal the letter.