No one forbids any person from going along the public road, so long as he doesn’t make a path through the field that’s fenced around; so long as you keep yourself away from the wife, the widow, the maiden, youthful age, and free-born children, love what you please.PHAEDROMUS This is the house of a Procurer.PALINURUS A curse befall it. PHAEDROMUSWhy so?PALINURUS Because it serves in an infamous service.PHAEDROMUS You speak out. PALINURUS Be it so, most especially.PHAEDROMUS Once more, will you hold your tongue?PALINURUS You bade me speak outBade me speak out: Phaedromus had said to Palinurus, Obloquere, which may either mean you are abusive or do you speak out. Phaedromus intends it in the former sense, but Palinurus pretends to understand it in the latter; and when his master tells him to be quiet, he says, Why, I thought you told me to speak out., I thought.PHAEDROMUS Then, now I forbid you. But, as I had begun to say, he has a young female slave—PALINURUS This Procurer, you mean, who’s living here?PHAEDROMUS You have hold of it exactly.PALINURUS The less shall I be in dread of its falling.PHAEDROMUS You are impertinent. He wishes to make her a courtesan, while she is desperately in love with me; whereas I don’t wish to have her upon loan.PALINURUS Why so? PHAEDROMUS Because I’m for having her as my own; I love her equally as well.PALINURUS Clandestine courtship is bad; ’tis utter ruin.PHAEDROMUS I’ troth, ’tis so as you say.PALINURUS Has she as yet submitted to the yoke of Venus?PHAEDROMUSFor me she is as chaste as though she were my own sister, unless, indeed, she is any the more unchaste for some kissing. PALINURUSAlways, do you understand, flame follows very close on smoke; with smoke, nothing can be burnt, with flame, it can.He who wishes to eat the kernelTo eat the kernel: This is exactly our proverb, which implies that labour attends every pursuit—To extract the kernel, you must crack the shell. of the nut, first breaks the nut; he who wishes to seduce, opens the danceOpens the dance: There is an indecent allusion intended in this line, which is somewhat modified in the translation. with kisses.PHAEDROMUS But she is chaste, and never yet has bestowed her favours upon man.PALINURUS That I could believeI could believe: Palinurus thinks it impossible that such a wretch as Cappadox would leave her untouched., if any Procurer had any shame.PHAEDROMUS Well, but what think you of her? When she has any opportunity, she steals away to me; when she has given me a kiss, she’s off again. This happens by reason of this, because this Procurer is lying a-bed ill in the TempleIn the Temple: It was the custom of those who wished to ask anything of the Gods, to lie in their Temples, in order that they might receive their answers and instructions in their sleep. of Aesculapius; that fellow is my torturer.PALINURUS How so? PHAEDROMUSAt one time he asks me for thirty minae for her, at another for a great talent; and from him I cannot obtain any fair and just dealing.PALINURUS You are too exacting, in requiring that of him which no Procurer possesses.PHAEDROMUS Now, I’ve sent my Parasite hence to Caria To Caria : Caria was in Asia Minor. Schmieder justly observes, that the Parasite must have used the wings of Daedalus, to go from Epidaurus in the Peloponnesus, to Caria, and discharge his commission and return in four days only. A Roman audience would not, however, be likely to know much about the relative distance of places so far off., to ask for money on loan from my friend; if he doesn’t bring me this, which way to turn myself I know not.