Now hold your tongue. (To SYRA.) Did you receive the child from her?SYRAI did receive it.CALLICLES(to SYRA.)Hold your tongue; I want no more; you’ve confessed enough.SYRAI’m not going to deny it.CALLICLESBy this you’ve now caused some relief for your shoulder-blades. So far, the account of each of them tallies.DINARCHUS(apart.)Ah wretched me! my doings are now being disclosed, which I hoped would be concealed.CALLICLES(to the MAID-SERVANT.)Speak, you. Who bade you give the child to her?A MAID-SERVANT of Callicles.My elder mistress. CALLICLES(to SYRA.)What say you? Why did you receive it? SYRAMy young mistress entreated me that the child might be brought, and that all this might remain secret.CALLICLES(to SYRA.)Speak, you. What did you do with this child? SYRAI took it to my mistress.CALLICLESWhat did your mistress do with this child?SYRAGave it at once to my mistress.CALLICLESPlague on it, to what mistress?A MAID-SERVANT of Callicles.There are two of them.CALLICLES(to the MAID.)Take you care, unless I ask you anything, only to answer that which I ask of you.SYRAThe mother, I say, made a present of it to the daughter.CALLICLESYou are saying more than you did just now.SYRAYou are asking more.CALLICLESAnswer me quickly; what did she do, to whom it was given? Tell me.SYRAShe passed it off as— CALLICLESWhose?SYRAAs her ownson. CALLICLESAs 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 twoAnd grandams two: Plautus must, of course, mean two grandmothers by the mother’s side alone; otherwise there was nothing wonderful in a child having two grandmothers.. I’m now afraid how many fathers there may have been. Do see, please, the shocking deeds of women!A MAID-SERVANT of Callicles.I’ troth, this fraud relates rather to the men than to the women. ’Twas a man, and not a woman, that caused her pregnancy.CALLICLESI know that too. You were a trusty guardian for it.