if the day is fixedIf the day is fixed: Status condictus dies. This term properly applies to a day appointed for pleading a cause. for pleading your cause with your antagonist, still must you go where they command you, whether you will or no.PALINURUS But pray, pray— PHAEDROMUSPray — you are annoying to me.PALINURUS Really that is neither pretty nor befitting you to say. You are your own servantYour own servant: Puer may signify either servant or boy in this passage. In the former case, Palinurus would mean, you are acting as your own servant, in carrying the torch; in the latter, the allusion would probably be to the fact that boys, handsomely drest, used, at the nuptial ceremony, to carry lighted torches before the bride and bridegroom.; in your fine garb you are showing the light with your waxen torchYour waxen torch: It is not improbable that the flambeaux, or torches, used by the higher classes, were of wax; while those in more common use were made of pine-wood, tow, and other inflammable substances..PHAEDROMUS And ought I not to carry that which is gathered by the labour of the little bees—which has its birth in sweets—to my own sweet one, my little honey?PALINURUS But whither must I say that you are going?PHAEDROMUS If you ask me that, I’ll tell, so that you may know.PALINURUS If I make the enquiry, what would you answer me?PHAEDROMUS This is the Temple (pointing to it) of Aesculapius.PALINURUS That I have known for more than a twelvemonth past.PHAEDROMUS Close to it is that door, dear as my very eyes. (Points to the door of CAPPADOX.) Hail to you! door, dear as my very eyes; have you been quite well of late?PALINURUS Did a fever leave youA fever leave you: He asks his master this, as he is in doubt whether he is in his senses or not. It was a notion among the ancients that fasting was very apt to produce delirium. but yesterday, or the day before, and did you take your dinner yesterday?PHAEDROMUS Are you laughing at me? PALINURUS Why then, madman, are you enquiring whether the door is well or not?PHAEDROMUS I’ faith, I’ve known it as a door most comely and most discreet: never one word does it whisper; when it is opened, it is silent; and when, by night, she secretly comes out to me, it holds its peace.PALINURUS And are you not, Phaedromus, doing, or contemplating the doing of, some deed which is unworthy of yourself or of your family? Are you not laying a snare for some modest fair one, or for one that should be modest?PHAEDROMUS For no one; and may Jupiter not permit me to do so.