Why, because thee dost call me churlish. Therefore now, if thee doesn’t be off this instant, and tell me quickly what thee want’st, adzookers, woman, I’ll be, here this very instant, trampling thee beneath my feet like a sow her piglings. ASTAPHIUM This is indeed right country, and no mistake; ’tis an abominable and truly a monkey race. STRATILAX (holding up his fist.) Dost thee throw the country in my teeth, when thee hast found a man who’s ashamed of what’s foul? Hast thee come hither to tempt me with thy decked out bones Decked out bones : Ossibus, with your bones. Probably, in allusion to her thinness, he insinuates that she is a skeleton. Exornatis may apply either to her dress or to the paint upon her face. ? Was it for that, shameless slut, thee dyed thy mantle of its smoke-dried colour, or art thee so fine because that thee’s been a stealing? Come thee towards me then. ASTAPHIUM Now you charm me. STRATILAX How much I wish I could charm thee. ASTAPHIUM You tell a lie. Part of line 273 in a variant reading of the Latin. STRATILAX Tell me— Part of line 273 in the Latin. ASTAPHIUM What? Part of line 273 in the Latin. STRATILAX What I ask thee. Dost thee wish to be taken for a bondswoman, who dost carry on thee those rings? (Pointing to her fingers.) ASTAPHIUM They give them to those who are worthy. STRATILAX These are the spoils of Laverna Spoils of Laverna : Laverna was the tutelary Divinity of thieves and he intends to insinuate that she has stolen the rings. which thee dost possess. Part of line 275 in the Latin? (Lays hold of her.) ASTAPHIUM Don’t be touching me. (Moving away.) STRATILAX I, touch thee? So help me my weeding-hoe, I’d rather i’ the country for me to be harnessed like an ox with crumpled horns, and with it spend the livelong night upon the straw, than that a hundred nights with thee, with a dinner apiece, were given me for nothing! But what business, woman, hast thee at our house? Why dost thee come running this way as often as we come to town? ASTAPHIUM I want to meet with your women. STRATILAX What women art thee talking to me about, when there’s not even a single woman-fly within the house?
 ASTAPHIUM What, does no woman live here? STRATILAX They’ve gone into the country, I say. Be off. ASTAPHIUM Why are you bawling out, you lunatic? STRATILAX If thee doesn’t make haste to get away from this with prodigious speed, I’ll forthwith be separating even from thy brains those falsified, daintily arranged, corkscrew curls of thine, with all their grease as well. ASTAPHIUM For what reason, pray? STRATILAX Why, because thee hast even presumed to approach our door anointed up with thine unguents, and because thee hast those cheeks so nicely, painted pink. ASTAPHIUM I’ troth, it was by reason of your clamour that I coloured in my alarm. STRATILAX And is it so? Thee coloured? As though, hussy, thee really hadst left to thy skin the power of receiving any colour. Redden up thy cheeks, thee hast given all thy skin its colour with chalk Its colour with chalk : Chalk was much used by the Roman females for the purposes of a cosmetic. . Ye are scoundrelly jades. What’s the reason, abominable hussies, that this way ? I know more than thee think’st I know.