What’s the matter?EUTYCHUSYour wife is peaceful and appeased. Give me your right hands this moment.(Shakes hands with them both.)LYSIMACHUSThe Gods are favouring me.EUTYCHUS(to DEMIPHO.)I bring you word that you have got no mistress. DEMIPHOThe Gods confound you. Why, prithee, what affair is this?EUTYCHUSI’ll tell you. Give your attention then, both of you.LYSIMACHUSWell then, we are giving you our attention, both of us.EUTYCHUSThose who are born of a good family, if they are of bad tendencies, by their own faultiness withdraw nobleness from their rank, and disgrace their disposition.DEMIPHOHe says what’s true. LYSIMACHUSThen it’s to yourself he says it.EUTYCHUSFor this reason is this the more true; for at this time of life, it wasn’t just for you to take away from your son, a young man, his mistress, purchased with his own money.DEMIPHOHow say you? Is she the mistress of Charinus?EUTYCHUS(aside.)How the rogue does dissemble.DEMIPHOWhy, he said that he had bought her as a maidservant for his mother. EUTYCHUSWas it for that reason, then, you bought her, you young lover, you old boy?LYSIMACHUSVery well said, i’ troth! Proceed, proceed. I’ll stand by him here on the other side. Let’s both load him well with such speeches as he’s worthy of.DEMIPHO(aside.)I’m done for.EUTYCHUSWho has done an injustice so great to his blameless son; whom, in fact, upon my faith, I brought back home just when he was setting out in self-banishment; for he was going into exile.DEMIPHOHas he gone then? LYSIMACHUSWhat, do you speak, you hobgoblin? At this time of life you ought to abstain from those pursuits.DEMIPHOI confess it; undoubtedly I’ve acted wrong.EUTYCHUSWhat, do you speak, you hobgoblin? You ought at this time of life to have done with these guilty practices. Just as the seasons of the year, so different lines of conduct befit different ages; but if this is proper, that old fellows should be wenching in their old age, where in the world is our common welfare? DEMIPHOAlas! wretch that I am! I’m undone.EUTYCHUSThe young men are more in the habit of giving their attention to following those pursuits.DEMIPHOTroth, now, prithee, do take her to yourselves, with pigs and with basketWith pigs and with basket: Cum porcis, cum piscinâ. This was probably a countrified expression, analogous to our phrases with bag and baggage, stump and rump..EUTYCHUSRestore her to your son; let him have her, now, as he wishes.