O dear, prithee, do hold your tongue. PYTHIAS You seem to me to be far from sensible of his assurance.CHAEREA I’ll not do any thing, Pythias.PYTHIAS Upon my faith, I don’t believe you, Chaerea, except in case you are not trusted.CHAEREA Nay but, Pythias, do you be my keeper.PYTHIAS Upon my faith, I would neither venture to give any thing to you to keep, nor to keep you myself: away with you!THAIS Most opportunely the brother himself is coming.CHAEREA I’faith, I’m undone. Prithee,let’s be gone in-doors, Thais. I don’t want him to see me in the street with this dress on.THAIS For what reason, pray? Because you are ashamed?CHAEREA Just so.PYTHIAS Just so? But the young woman—THAIS Go first; I’ll follow. You stay here, Pythias, that you may show Chremes in.(THAIS and CHAEREA go into the house.)

(Enter CHREMES and SOPHRONA.)PYTHIAS(to herself.)Well! what now can suggest itself to my mind?What, I wonder, in order that I may repay the favor to that villain who palmed this fellow off upon us?CHREMES Really, do bestir yourself more quickly, nurse.SOPHRONA I am bestirring.CHREMES So I see; but you don’t stir forward.PYTHIAS(to CHREMES.)Have you yet shown the tokens to the nurse?CHREMES All of them.PYTHIAS Prithee, what does she say? Does she recognize them?CHREMES Yes, with a full recollection of them.PYTHIAS Upon my faith, you do bring good news; for I really wish well to this young woman. Go in-doors: my mistress has been for some time expecting you at home. (CHREMES and SOPHRONA go into THAIS’s house.) But look, yonder I espy that worthy fellow, Parmeno, coming: just see, for heaven’s sake, how leisurely he moves along. I hope I have it in my power to torment him after my own fashion.I’ll go in-doors, that I may know for certain about the discovery; afterward I’ll come out, and give this villain a terrible fright.(Goes into the house.)

(Enter PARMENO.)PARMENO(to himself.)I’ve just come back to see what Chaerea has been doing here. If he has managed the affair with dexterity, ye Gods, by our trust in you, how great and genuine applause will Parmeno obtain! For not to mention that a passion, full of difficulty and expense, with which he was smitten for a virgin, belonging to an extortionate courtesan, I’ve found means of satisfying for him, without molestation, without outlay, and without cost; then, this other point—that is really a thing that I consider my crowning merit, to have found out the way by which a young man may be enabled to learn the dispositions and manners of courtesans, so that by knowing them betimes, he may detest them ever after. (PYTHIAS enters from the house unperceived.) For while they are out of doors, nothing seems more cleanly, nothing more neat or more elegant; and when they dine with a gallant, they pick daintily about:Pick daintily about: He seems here to reprehend the same practice against which Ovid warns his fair readers, in his Art of Love, B. iii. l. 75. He says, Do not first take food at home, when about to go to an entertainment. Westerhovius seems to think that ligurio means, not to pick daintily, but to be fond of good eating; and refers to the Bacchides of Plautus as portraying courtesans of the ligurient kind, and finds another specimen in Bacchis in: the Heautontimorumenos. to see the filth, the dirtiness, the neediness of these women; how sluttish they are when at home, and how greedy after victuals; in what a fashion they devour the black bread with yesterday’s broth:—to know all this, is salvation to a young man.(Enter PYTHIAS from the house.)PYTHIAS(apart, unseen by PARMENO.)Upon my faith, you villain, I’ll take vengeance upon you for these sayings and doings; so that you sha’n’t make sport of us with impunity. (Aloud, coming forward.) O, by our trust in the Gods, what a disgraceful action! O hapless young man! O wicked Parmeno, to have brought him here!PARMENO What’s the matter?