Yes, I myself, with these eyes of mine.PALAESTRIO Get away, it isn’t likely what you say, nor did you see her.SCELEDRUS Do I, then, appear to you as if I were purblind?PALAESTRIO’Twere better for you to ask the doctor about that. But, indeed, if the Gods only love you, don’t you rashly father thisRashly father this: Tollas fabulam. This metaphor is borrowed from the custom among the Romans of laying the new-born child upon the ground upon which it was taken up (tollebatur) by the father, or other person who intended to stand in the place of parent to it. idle story. Now are you breeding thence a fatal dilemma for your legs and head; for, in two ways, the cause is contrived for you to be ruined, unless you put a check upon your foolish chattering.SCELEDRUS But how, two ways? PALAESTRIO I’ll tell you. First then, if you falsely accuse Philocomasium, by that you are undone; in the next place, if it is true, having been appointed her keeper, there you are undone.SCELEDRUS What may happen to me, I know not; I know for certain that I did see this.PALAESTRIO Do you persist in it, unfortunate wretch?SCELEDRUS What would you have me say to you, but that I did see her? Moreover, she is in there, next door, at this very moment.PALAESTRIO What! Isn’t she at home?SCELEDRUS Go and see. Go in-doors yourself; for I don’t ask now for any confidence to be put in me.PALAESTRIO I’m determined to do so. SCELEDRUS I’ll wait here for you.(PALAESTRIO goes into the CAPTAIN’S house. SCLEDRUS, alone.)

SCELEDRUSIn this direction will I be on the watch for her,Part of the second part of line 303 in the Latin. how soon the heifer may betake herself from the pasture this way towards her stall. What now shall I do? The Captain gave me to her as her keeper. Now, if I make a discovery, I’m undone; if I am silent, still I am undone, if this should be discovered. What is there more abandoned or more daring than a woman? While I was upon the tiles, this woman betook herself out of doors from her dwelling. By my troth, ’twas a brazen act she did. If, now, the Captain were to know of this,i’ faith, I believe he would pull down the whole entire house next door, and me he would send to the gibbet.To the gibbet: Crucem. Literally. cross. Whatever comes of it, i’ faith, I’ll hold my tongue rather than come to a bad end. I cannot keep effectual guard on a woman that puts herself up for sale.

PALAESTRIO(Enter PALAESTRIO from the CAPTAIN’s house.) Sceledrus, Sceledrus, what one man is there on earth more impudent than yourself? Who more than yourself has been born with the Deities hostile and enraged?SCELEDRUS What’s the matter? PALAESTRIO Do you want those eyes of yours gouged out, with which you see what never existed?SCELEDRUS How, what never existed? PALAESTRIO I would not buy your life at the price of a rotten nut.SCELEDRUS Why, what’s the matter? PALAESTRIO What’s the matter, do you ask?SCELEDRUS And why shouldn’t I ask? PALAESTRIO Why don’t you beg for that tongue of yours to be cut out, that prates so at random?SCELEDRUS Why should I beg for that?PALAESTRIO Why, Philocomasium is there at home, she whom you were saying that you had seen next door kissing and toying with another man.SCELEDRUS ’Tis a wonder that you are in the habit of feeding on darnelFeeding on darnel: He means to say that his sight must have failed him, and, by way of accounting for it, that he must have lived on bread made of darnel. This grain was supposed not only to cause the person eating to appear as it intoxicated, but very seriously to affect the eyesight. Ovid says in the Fasti, B. 1., l. 691, Let the fields, also, be clear of darnel that weakens the eyes., with wheat at so low a price.PALAESTRIO Why so? SCELEDRUS Because you are so dim of sight.PALAESTRIO You gallows-bird, ’tis you, indeed, that are blind, with a vengeance, and not dim of sight; for, sure enough, there she is at home.SCELEDRUS How? At home? PALAESTRIO At home, i’ faith, undoubtedly.SCELEDRUS Be off with you; you are playing with me, Palaestrio