Philto right heartily wishes health to both master and servant, Lesbonicus and Stasimus.LESBONICUSMay the Gods give you, Philto, whatever you may wish for. How is your son?PHILTOHe wishes well to you.LESBONICUSIn good sooth, he does for me what I do for him in return!STASIMUS(aside.)That phrase, He wishes well, is worthless, unless a person does well too. I, too, wish to be a free man; I wish in vain. He, perhaps, might wish to become frugal; he would wish to no purpose.PHILTOMy son has sent me to you to propose an alliance and bond of friendship between himself and your family. He wishes to take your sister for his wife; and I have the same feelings, and I desire it.LESBONICUSI really don’t understand your ways; amid your prosperity you are laughing at my adversity.PHILTOI am a manI am a man: This is somewhat like the celebrated line in Terence: Homo sum, humani nihil alienum a me puto,I am a man, nothing that is human do I think unbecoming to me.: you are a man. So may Jupiter love me, I have neither come to laugh at you, nor do I think you deserving of it! But as to what I said, my son begged me to ask for your sister as his wife.LESBONICUSIt is right that I should know the state of my own circumstances. My position is not on an equal footing with yours; seek some other alliance for yourselves.STASIMUS(to LESBONICUS.)Are you really sound in mind or intellectto refuse this proposal? For I perceive that he has been found for you a very friend in needFriend in need: Ferentarius, The ferentarii were the light-armed troops, who, being unencumbered with heavy armour, were ready to come immediately and opportunely to the assistance of those who were in danger of being overpowered by the army. The word is here used figuratively, to signify a friend in need..LESBONICUSGet away hence, and go hang yourselfAnd go hang yourself: The word dierecte is supposed to come from an obsolete verb, dierigo, to extend out on both sides, and to allude to a punishment inflicted upon slaves, when they were fastened to a stake in the ground, with the arms and legs extended. Applied to a slave, it would be an opprobrious expression, equivalent to go and be hanged..STASIMUSFaith, if I should commence to go, you would be forbidding meBe forbidding me: He means, that if he should take his master at his word and go away, he would be the first to stop him..LESBONICUSUnless you want me, Philto, for anything else, I have given you my answer.PHILTOI trust, Lesbonicus, that you will one day be more obliging to me than I now find you to be. For both to actBoth to act: -2. The exact meaning of these lines is somewhat obscure. Thornton’s translation is: Or in wordOr deed to play the trifler would ill suitOne of my years. unwisely and to talk unwisely, Lesbonicus, are sometimes neither of them profitable. STASIMUSTroth, he says what’s true.LESBONICUSI will tear out your eye if you add one word.STASIMUSTroth, but I will talk; for if I may not be allowed to do so as I am, then I will submit to be called the one-eyed manThe one-eyed man: He means that he is determined to speak out at all risks, even if his master should be as good as his word, and tear his eye out..PHILTODo you now say this, that your position and means are not on an equal footing with ours?LESBONICUSI do say so.PHILTOWell, suppose, now, you were to come to a building to a public banquet, and a wealthy man by chance were to come there as your neighbourAs your neighbour: Par here means a close neighbour, as reclining next to him on the same triclinium, or couch, at the entertainment..The banquet is set on table, one that they style a public oneStyle a public one: It is not certain what kind of public banquets are here referred to. Public entertainments were given to the people on the occasion of any public rejoicing: such, for instance, as a triumph, as we learn from Suetonius in his life of Julius Caesar. They were also given when the tenths were paid to Hercules. The clients, also, of the Patricians were in the habit of giving entertainments to their patrons on festival days, when each client contributed his share in kind; and numerous invitations were given, abundance and hospitality being the order of the day. Sometimes these feasts were held in a temple, and perhaps they are here referred to. There were also frequent entertainments in the Curiae, or Court-houses of Rome, at which the curiales, or men of the curia, or ward, met together.. Suppose that dainties were heaped up before him by his dependents, and suppose any-thing pleased you that was so heaped up before him, would you eat, or would you keep your place next to this wealthy man, going without your dinner?LESBONICUSI should eat, unless he were to forbid me doing so.STASIMUSBut I, by my faith, even if he were to forbid me,would eat and cram with both cheeks stuffed out; and what pleased him, that, in especial, would I lay hold of beforehand; nor would I yield to him one jot of my very existence. At table it befits no one to be bashful; for there the decisionThere the decision: Scaliger supposes that Stasimus is making a parody on the transaction of business by the Senate, who were said to give their decisions on matters sacred and human; and that he means to say that the feast is his Senate-house, and the food are the things sacred and human which he is bound to discuss, without respect for anybody. is about things both divine and human.