I wish your attention to be given; for, unacquainted with female matters and ways, I come now as a pupil to you, my instructresses; in order that each of you may tell me what endowments matrons ought to have, who are the best esteemed.PAMPHILA What’s the reason that you come hither to enquire about the ways of females?ANTIPHO Troth, I’m looking for a wife, as your mother’s dead and gone.PAMPHILA You’ll easily find, father, one both worse and of worse morals than she was; one better you’ll neither find nor does the sun behold.ANTIPHO But I’m making the enquiry of you, and of this sister of yours.PAMPHILA I’ faith, father, I know how they should be, if they are to be such as I think right.ANTIPHO I wish, then, to know what you do think right.PAMPHILA That when they walk through the city, they should shut the mouths of all, so that none can speak ill of them with good reason.ANTIPHO(to PHILUMENA.)And now speak you in your turn.PHILUMENA What do you wish that I should speak to you about, father?ANTIPHO How is the woman most easily distinguished, who is of a good disposition?PHILUMENA When she, who has the power of doing ill, refrains from doing so.ANTIPHO Not bad that. (To PAMPHILA.) Come, say you, which choice is the preferable, to marry a maiden or a widow?PAMPHILA So far as my skill extends, of many evilsOf many evils: Pamphila is embarrassed here; and as she probably does not wish her father to marry either widow or maiden, but still does not like to tell him so, she takes refuge in a truism, rather than give a direct answer to his question. Aristotle tells us that Epicharmus was much in the habit of giving utterance to remarks of this nature., that which is the least evil, the same is the least an evil.He that can avoid the women, let him avoid them,so that each day he takes care, the day before, not to do that which, the day after, he may regret.ANTIPHO What sort of woman, pray, seems to you by far the wisest?PHILUMENA She who, when affairs are prosperous, shall still be able to know herself, and who with equanimity can endure it to be worse with her than it has been.ANTIPHO By my troth, in merry mood have I been trying the bent of your dispositions. But ’tis this for which I am come to you, and for which I wished to meet you both. My friends are advising me to the effect that I should remove you hence to my own house.PAMPHILA But still, we, whose interests are concerned, are advising you quite otherwise.