Andria; or, The Fair Andrian (127b-184)

The funeral procession meanwhile advances; we follow; we come to the burying-place.[*] She is placed upon the pile; they weep. In the mean time, this sister,

whom I mentioned, approached the flames too incautiously, with considerable danger. There, at that moment, Pamphilus, in his extreme alarm, discovers his well-dissembled and long-hidden passion; he runs up, clasps the damsel by the waist. My Glycerium, says he, what are you doing? Why are you going to destroy yourself.

Then she, so that you might easily recognize their habitual attachment, weeping, threw herself back upon him—how affectionately!

What do you say?

I returned thence in anger, and hurt at heart: and yet there was not sufficient ground for reproving him. He might say; What have I done? How have I deserved this, or offended, father?

She who wished to throw herself into the flames, I prevented; I saved her. The defense is a reasonable one.

You judge aright; for if you censure him who has assisted to preserve life, what are you to do to him who causes loss or misfortune to it?

Chremes comes to me next day, exclaiming:

"Disgraceful conduct!"—that he had ascertained that Pamphilus was keeping this foreign woman as a wife. I steadfastly denied that to be the fact. He insisted that it was the fact. In short, I then left him refusing to bestow his daughter.

Did not you then reprove your son?

Not even this

was a cause sufficiently strong for censuring him.

How so? Tell me.

You yourself, father, he might say, have prescribed a limit to these proceedings. The time is near, when I must live according to the humor of another; meanwhile, for the present allow me to live according to my own.

What room for reproving him, then, is there left?

If on account of his amour he shall decline to take a wife, that, in the first place, is an offense on his part to be censured. And now for this am I using my endeavors, that, by means of the pretended marriage, there may be real ground for rebuking him, if he should refuse; at the same time, that if that rascal Davus has any scheme,

he may exhaust it now, while his knaveries can do no harm: who, I do believe, with hands, feet, and all his might, will do every thing; and more for this, no doubt, that he may do me an ill turn, than to oblige my son.

For what reason?

Do you ask? Bad heart, bad disposition. Whom, however, if I do detect —

But what need is there of talking? If it should turn out, as I wish, that there is no delay on the part of Pamphilus, Chremes remains to be prevailed upon by me; and I do hope that all will go well. Now it’s your duty to pretend these nuptials cleverly, to terrify Davus; and watch my son,

what he’s about, what schemes he is planning with him.

’Tis enough; I’ll take care; now let’s go in-doors.

You go first; I’ll follow.

There’s no doubt but that my son doesn’t wish for a wife; so alarmed did I perceive Davus to be just now, when he heard that there was going to be a marriage. But the very man is coming out of the house. (Stands aside.)

I was wondering if this matter was to go off thus; and was continually dreading where my master’s good humor would end; for, after he had heard that a wife would not be given to his son, he never uttered a word to any one of us, or took it amiss.

But now he’ll do so: and that, I fancy, not without heavy cost to you.

He meant this, that we, thus unsuspecting, should be led away by delusive joy; that now in hope, all fear being removed, we might during our supineness be surprised, so that there might be no time for planning a rupture of the marriage. How clever!

The villain! what does he say?

It’s my master, and I didn’t see him.

Davus.