from some person or other. GETA From some person or other? Nothing more easily said. DEMIPHO After all, if on no other terms, on interest. GETA Aye, aye, fine talking; as if any one would have trusted him, while you were living. While you were living. There was a law at Athens which enacted that persons who lent money to young men in the lifetime of their parents should have no power to recover it. In line 303 of the Pseudolus, Plautus alludes to the Quinavicenarian or Laetorian Law, at Rome , which forbade credit to be given to persons under the age of twenty-five years, and deprived the creditor of all right to recover his money or goods. DEMIPHO No, it shall not be so; it must not be. Ought I to allow her to remain with him as his wife a single day? She merits no indulgence. I should like this fellow to be pointed out to me, or to be shown where he lives. GETA Phormio, do you mean? DEMIPHO That fellow, the woman’s next friend? The woman’s next friend. The patronus was the person who undertook to conduct a lawsuit for another. GETA I’ll have him here immediately. DEMIPHO Where is Antipho at present? GETA Away from home. DEMIPHO Go, Phedria, look for him, and bring him here. PHAEDRIA I’Il go straightway to the place. GETA (aside.) To Pamphila, you mean. (Exeunt PHAEDRIA and GETA.) DEMIPHO (to himself.) I’ll just step home to salute the house-hold Gods. Salute the household Gods. It was the custom for those returning from a voyage or journey, to give thanks to their household Gods for having protected them in their absence. Thus, in the Amphitryon of Plautus, Jupiter , while personating Amphitryon, pretends, in 1. 983, that he is going to offer sacrifice for his safe return. From there, I’ll go to the Forum, and summon some of my friends to give me their assistance in this affair; so that I may not be unprepared, when Phormio comes. (Goes into his house.) (Enter PHORMIO and GETA.) PHORMIO And so you say And so you say. Donatus tells the following story with reference to this passage: This Play being once rehearsed before Terence and some of his most intimate acquaintances, Ambivius, who acted the part of Phormio, came in drunk, which threw the author into a violent passion; but Ambivius had scarcely repeated a few lines, stammering and scratching his head, before Terence became pacified, declaring that when he was writing these very lines, he had exactly such a Parasite as Ambivius then represented, in his thoughts. that, dreading his father’s presence, he has taken himself off? GETA Exactly so. PHORMIO That Phanium is left alone? GETA Just so. PHORMIO And that the old man is in a rage? GETA Extremely so. PHORMIO The whole business, Phormio, rests on yourself alone; you yourself have hashed it up; Have hashed it up. He is thought to allude here, figuratively, to the composition of a dish called moretum, (in praise of which Virgil wrote a poem,) which was composed of garlic, onions, cheese, eggs, and other ingredients, beaten up in a mortar. The allusion to eating is appropriately used in an address to a Parasite. it must all be swallowed by yourself, so set about it. GETA I entreat you— PHORMIO (to himself.) If he inquires. GETA In you is all our hope. PHORMIO (to himself.) Look at this, now:— What if he sends her back? GETA It was you that urged us. PHORMIO (to himself.) I think that will do. GETA Do help us.