Truculentus, or The Churl (791-811b)

Now hold your tongue. (To SYRA.) Did you receive the child from her?

I did receive it.

Hold your tongue; I want no more; you’ve confessed enough.

I’m not going to deny it.

By this you’ve now caused some relief for your shoulder-blades. So far, the account of each of them tallies.

Ah wretched me!

my doings are now being disclosed, which I hoped would be concealed.

Speak, you. Who bade you give the child to her?

My elder mistress.

What say you? Why did you receive it?

My young mistress entreated me that the child might be brought, and that all this might remain secret.

Speak, you. What did you do with this child?

I took it to my mistress.

What did your mistress do with this child?

Gave it at once to my mistress.

Plague on it, to what mistress?

There are two of them.

Take you care, unless I ask you anything, only to answer that which I ask of you.

The mother, I say, made a present of it to the daughter.

You are saying more than you did just now.

You are asking more.

Answer me quickly; what did she do, to whom it was given? Tell me.

She passed it off as—

Whose?

As her own

son.

As her own son?

Ye Gods, by my trust in you I do appeal to you, how much more easily does another than she to whom it belongs, bring forth another’s child! She, by the labours of another, has brought forth this child without pain. A child blest indeed! two mothers it has got, and grandams two[*]. I’m now afraid how many fathers there may have been. Do see, please, the shocking deeds of women!

I’ troth, this fraud relates rather to the men than to the women. ’Twas a man, and not a woman, that caused her pregnancy.

I know that too. You were a trusty guardian for it.