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, PalaestrioPALAESTRIO My hands are dirty, then. SCELEDRUS How so?PALAESTRIO Because I am playing with dirt.SCELEDRUS A mischief on your head. PALAESTRIO Nay rather, Sceledrus, it shall be on yours, I promise you, unless you change for fresh your eyes and your talk. But our door made a noise.SCELEDRUSWell, I shall watch here out of doors, for there is no way by which she can pass hence in-doors, except through the front door. PALAESTRIOBut there she is, at home. I don’t know, Scledrus, what mischief is possessing you.