Rudens, or The Fisherman's Rope (360-401)

a right pleasant throw[*] hast thou made; thou didst break a-villain. But where now is the Procurer Labrax?

Perished through drinking, I suppose; Neptune last night invited him to deep potations.

By my troth, I fancy it was given him to drink by way of cup of necessity[*]. How much I do love you, my dear Ampelisca; how pleasing you are; what honied words you do utter.

But you and Palaestra, in what way were you saved?

I’ll let you know. Both in affright, we leapt from the ship into a boat, because we saw that the ship was being borne upon a rock; in haste, I unloosed the rope, while they were in dismay. The storm separated us from them with the boat in a direction to the right. And so, tossed about by winds and waves,

in a multitude of ways, we, wretched creatures, during the livelong night ⋯ half dead, the wind this day has scarce borne us to the shore.

I understand; thus is Neptune wont to do; he is a very dainty Aedile[*]; if any wares are bad, over he throws them all.

Woe to your head and life!

To your own, my dear Ampelisca. I was sure that the Procurer would do that which he has done; I often said so. It were better I should let my hair grow[*], and set up for a soothsayer.

Did you not take care then, you and your master, that he shouldn’t go away, when you knew this?

What could he do?

If he was in love, do you ask what he could do?

Both night and day he should have kept watch; he should have been always on his guard. But, by my troth, he has done like many others; thus finely has Plesidippus taken care of her.

For what reason do you say that?

The thing is evident.

Don’t you know this? Even he who goes to the bath to bathe, while there he carefully keeps an eye upon his garments, still they are stolen; inasmuch as some one of those that he is watching is a rogue;

the thief easily marks him for whom he’s upon the watch; the keeper knows not which one is the thief. But bring me to her; where is she?

Well then, go here into the Temple of Venus; you’ll find her sitting there, and in tears.

How disagreable is that to me already. But why is she weeping?

I’ll tell you; she’s afflicting herself in mind for this; because the Procurer took away a casket from her which she had,

and in which she kept that by which she might be enabled to recognize her parents; she fears that this has been lost.

Where was that little casket, pray?

There, on board the ship; he himself locked it up in his wallet, that there mightn’t be the means by which she might recognize her parents.

O scandalous deed! to require her to be a slave, who ought to be a free woman.

Therefore she now laments that it has gone to the bottom along with the ship. There, too, was all the gold and silver of the Procurer.

Some one, I trust, has dived and brought it up.

For this reason is she sad and disconsolate, that she has met with the loss of them.

Then have I the greater occasion to do this, to go in and console her, that she mayn’t thus distress herself in mind.

For I know that many a lucky thing has happened to many a one beyond their hopes.

But I know too that hope has deceived many who have hoped.