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Enter PYTHODICUS, from the house of MEGADORUS.
PYTHODICUS
Mind you your business; I'll step in and see what the cooks are doing, to observe whom, i' faith, to-day it is a most laborious task. Unless I manage this one thing, for them to cook the dinner down in the dungeon1; thence, when cooked, we might bring it up again in small baskets. But if they should eat below2 whatever they should cook, those above would go without their dinner, and those below have dined. But here am I chattering, as though I had no business, when there's such a pack of thieves in the house. Goes into the house.
1 In the dungeon: By the use of the word "puteus" he may possibly mean the black hole or dungeon alluded to in l. 301, whence there was no means of agress but by being drawn up. He means to say that such a place will be the only one for preventing the cooks from thieving whatever comes in their way. The thievish propensities of the hired cooks are also referred to in the Pseudolus.
2 Should eat below: He reflects that if they are put in the "puteus" to prevent their thieving, they may possibly revenge themselves by eating up the victuals as fast as they cook it.
The Comedies of Plautus. Henry Thomas Riley. London. G. Bell and Sons. 1912.
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