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Enter ALCESIMUS, from his house.
ALCESIMUS
to himself . I'll go see here if the lover has come back home from the Forum, who, an old ghost, has been making fools of myself and my wife. But see, there he is before his house. Addressing STALINO. I' faith, 'twas just in good time I was coming to your house. STALINO
And, i' faith, I to yours. How say you, you good-for-nothing fellow? What did I enjoin you? What did I beg of you? ALCESIMUS
What's the matter? STALINO
How nicely you've had your house empty for me! How well you have sent your wife over to our house here! Isn't it through yourself that I and the opportunity are lost, both of us? ALCESIMUS
Why don't you go hang yourself? Why, 'twas you yourself said that your wife would come and fetch mine from our house? STALINO
Then she declares that she has been to fetch her, and that you said you wouldn't let her go. ALCESIMUS
But she herself, of her own accord, said to me that she didn't care for her assistance. STALINO
But 'tis she1 herself who has deputed me to come and fetch her. ALCESIMUS
But I don't care for that. STALINO
But you are proving my ruin. ALCESIMUS
But that's as it should be. But I shall still go on delaying; but I very much long for nothing but to do you some mischief; but I'll do it with pleasure. Never this day shall you have a "but" the more than I. But, in fine, really, upon my faith, may the Gods confound you. STALINO
What now? Are you going to send your wife to my house? ALCESIMUS
You may take her, and be off to utter and extreme perdition, both with her and with that one of yours, and with that mistress of yours as well. A way with you, and attend to something else; I'll at once bid my wife to pass thither through the garden to your wife. STALINO
Now you are proving yourself a friend to me in genuine style! ALCESIMUS goes into his house. Under what auspices am I to say that this passion was inflicted upon me, or what have I ever done amiss towards Venus, that when I'm thus in love crosses so many should befall me in my path? A noise is heard. Hey day! what's that noise, prithee, that's going on in our house?
1 But 'tis she: The repetition of "quin," "but," is intended as a ludicrous mark of the contempt that these antagonists have for each other.
The Comedies of Plautus. Henry Thomas Riley. London. G. Bell and Sons. 1912.
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