That purse that you are carrying has been smelt out by her.MENAECHMUS SOSICLES(aside.) I’ faith, and rightly have you put me in mind. Take it, then; I’ll know now whether she loves myself or the purse most.(Gives him the purse.)EROTIUM Let’s go in the house to breakfast.MENAECHMUS SOSICLES You invite me kindly; so far, my thanks.EROTIUM Why then did you bid me a while since prepare a breakfast for you?MENAECHMUS SOSICLES I, bid you prepare?EROTIUM Certainly you did, for yourself and your Parasite.MENAECHMUS SOSICLES A plague, what Parasite? Surely this woman isn’t quite right in her senses.EROTIUM Peniculus.MENAECHMUS SOSICLES Who is this Peniculus The one with which the shoes are wiped cleanAre wiped clean: Baxae or baxeae were sandals made a twigs or fibres. They were often worn on the stage by Comic actors, and probably on saying this, Menaechmus Sosicles points to his own. The Egyptians made them of palm-leaves and papyrus. They were much worn by the philosophers of ancient times. Probably the peniculi, made of the tails of oxen, were much used for the purpose of dusting shoes.?EROTIUM Him, I mean, who came with you a while ago, when you brought me the mantle which you purloined from your wife.MENAECHMUS SOSICLES What do you mean? I, gave you a mantle, which I purloined from my wife? Are you in your senses? Surely this woman dreams standing, after the manner of a geldingManner of a gelding: He compares her to a horse, which sleeps and dreams (if it dreams at all) in a standing posture..EROTIUM Why does it please you to hold me in ridicule, and to deny to me things that have been done by you?MENAECHMUS SOSICLES Tell me what it is that I deny after having done it?EROTIUM That you to-day gave me your wife’s mantle.MENAECHMUS SOSICLES Even still do I deny it. Indeed, I never had a wife, nor have I one; nor have I ever set my foot here within the city gate since I was born. I breakfasted on board ship; thence did I come this way, and here I met you.EROTIUM See that now; I’m undone, wretched creature that I am! What ship are you now telling me about?MENAECHMUS SOSICLES A wooden one, weather-beaten full oft, cracked full oft, many a time thumped with mallets. Just as the implements of the furrierOf the furrier: The pellio,furrier or skinner, would require a great many pegs in fastening down the skins for the purpose of stretching them. Meursius thinks that Plautus intends a sly hit here at Pellio, the bad actor, who is mentioned in the Second Scene of the Second Act in the Bacchides. If so, the joke is quite lost on us.; so peg is close to peg.EROTIUM Now, prithee, do leave off making fun of me, and step this way with me.MENAECHMUS SOSICLES for, madam, you are looking for some other person, I know not whom, not me.EROTIUM Don’t I know you, Menaechmus, the son of your father Moschus, who are said to have been born in Sicily, at Syracuse, where King Agathocles reigned, and after him PintiaAfter him Pintia: She is supposed, by the Commentators, to be purposely represented here as quite mistaken in her historical facts, and as making nothing but a confused jumble of them. Some think that the words Pintia and Liparo are ablative cases; but it is much more probable that they are nominatives. Gronovius thinks that one Phintias is alluded to, who, as we are told by Diodorus Siculus, assumed the government at Agrigentum after the death of Agathocles. He did not, however, reign at Syracuse. We do not learn from history that Hiero received the government from Liparo, but, on the contrary, that his virtuous character was the sole ground for his election to the sovereignty. Lipara was the name of one of the Aeolian islands (now called the Isles of Lipari), not far from the coast of Sicily. Some think that she means to call Agathocles by the additional names of Plintias (and not Pintia) from πλιντὸς, pottery, as he had exercised the trade of a potter, and of Liparo, from the Greek λυπηρός, savage, by reason of the cruelty of which he was guilty in the latter part of his life. This notion seems, however, to be more fanciful than well-founded., the third Liparo, who at his death left the kingdom to Hiero—which Hiero is now king?MENAECHMUS SOSICLES You say, madam, what is not untrue.MESSENIO By Jupiter, hasn’t this woman come from there, who knows you so readily? MENAECHMUS SOSICLES(apart.) Troth, I think she must not be denied.MESSENIO(apart.) Don’t you do it. You are undone, if you enter inside her threshold.MENAECHMUS SOSICLES(apart.) But you only hold your tongue The matter goes on well. I shall assent to the woman, whatever she shall say, if I can get some entertainment. Just now, madam (speaking to her in a low voice),I contradicted you not undesignedly; I was afraid of that fellow, lest he might carry word to my wife about the mantle and the breakfast. Now, when you please, let’s go in-doors.EROTIUM Are you going to wait for the Parasite as well?