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Enter PARDALISCA, running out of the house.
PARDALISCA
bawling out at the door . I'm undone, I'm undone, I'm utterly, utterly ruined! My heart is deadened with fear. My limbs, in my misery, are all a-trembling! I know not whence to obtain or look for any assistance, safety, or refuge for myself, or any means of relief: things so surprising, in a manner so surprisingly done, have I just now witnessed in-doors, a new and unusual piece of audacity. Be on your guard, Cleostrata! prithee do get away from her,lest amid such transports she may be doing you some mischief! Tear away that sword from her, who's not in possession of her senses! STALINO
Why, what is the matter--that she, frightened and half dead with fear, rushes hither out of doors? Pardalisca! PARDALISCA
looking wildly about her . Whence do my ears catch the sound? STALINO
Just look back at me. PARDALISCA
My master! STALINO
What's the matter? What? PARDALISCA
I'm undone. STALINO
How undone? PARDALISCA
I'm undone, and you are undone. STALINO
Disclose it, what's the matter with you? PARDALISCA
Woe to you! STALINO
Aye, and the same to yourself. PARDALISCA
That I mayn't fall down, prithee do hold, hold me. Staggers, on which STALINO supports her. STALINO
Whatever it is, tell me quickly. PARDALISCA
Do support my throbbing breast, prithee do make a little air with your cloak. STALINO
fanning her with the lappet of his cloak . I'm in alarm as to what is the matter; aside unless this woman has been somewhere upsetting herself with the pure cream1 of Bacchus. PARDALISCA
Hold my ears, pray do. Her head falls on her shoulder. STALINO
Away to utter perdition; breast, ears, head, and yourself, may the Gods confound! For, unless I quickly learn from you this matter, whatever it is, I'll forth with be knocking your brains out, you viper, you hussey, who have thus far been making a laughing-stock of me. PARDALISCA
My master! STALINO
What do you want, my servant? PARDALISCA
You are too angry. STALINO
You are saying so too soon. But whatever this is, tell it; relate in a few words what has been the disturbance in-doors. PARDALISCA
You shall know. Hear this most foul crime which just now in-doors at our house your female slave began to attempt after this fashion, a thing that does not befit the regulations lations of Attica. STALINO
What is it? PARDALISCA
Fever prevents the use of my tongue. STALINO
What is it? Can I possibly learn from you what is the matter? PARDALISCA
I'll tell you. Your female slave, she whom you intend to give as a wife to your bailiff, in-doors she---- STALINO
In-doors what? What is it? PARDALISCA
Is imitating the wicked practices of wicked women, in threatening her husband---- STALINO
What then? PARDALISCA
Ah! STALINO
What is it? PARDALISCA
She says that she intends to take her husband's life. A sword---- STALINO
starting . Hah! PAR. A sword---- STALINO
What about that sword? PARDALISCA
She has got one. STALINO
Ah! wretch that I am! Why has she got it? PARDALISCA
She is pursuing them all at home all over the house, and she won't allow any person to approach her; and so, all, hiding in chests and under beds, are mute with fear. STALINO
I'm murdered and ruined outright! What malady is this that has so suddenly befallen her? PARDALISCA
She is mad. STALINO
I do think that I am the most unfortunate of men! PARDALISCA
Aye, and if you were to know the speeches she uttered to-day. STALINO
I long to know about what she said. PARDALISCA
Listen. By all the Gods and Goddesses she swore that she would murder the person with whom she should bed. STALINO
Will she murder me? PARDALISCA
Does that bear reference to yourself in any way? STALINO
Pshaw! PARDALISCA
What business have you with her? STALINO
I made a mistake; him, the bailiff, I meant to say. PARDALISCA
It's on purpose2 that you are turning aside from the high road into bye-paths. STALINO
Does she threaten anything against myself? PARDALISCA
She is hostile to you individually more than any person. STALINO
For what reason? PARDALISCA
Because you have given her as a wife to Olympio; she says that she'll neither suffer your life, nor her own, nor that of her husband, to be prolonged until the morrow. I have been sent hither to tell you this, that you might beware of her. STALINO
aside . By my troth, to my misery I'm quite undone! There neither is nor ever was any old man in love so wretched as I. PARDALISCA
aside, to the AUDIENCE . Don't I play him off cleverly? For everything that I've been telling him as taking place, I've been telling him falsely. My mistress and she who lives next door have concocted this scheme. I've been sent to fool him. STALINO
Hark you, Pardalisca! PARDALISCA
What is it? STALINO
There is ---- PARDALISCA
What? STALINO
There is something that I want to enquire of you about. PARDALISCA
You are causing me delay. STALINO
Why, you are causing me sorrow. But has Casina got that sword even still? PARDALISCA
She has; but two of them. STALINO
Why two? PARDALISCA
She says that this very day she'll murder you with the one, the bailiff with the other. STALINO
I am now the most utterly murdered of all people that do exist. I'll put on me a coat of mail; I think that's the best. What did my wife do? Didn't she go and take them away from her? PARDALISCA
No person dares go near her. STALINO
She should have prevailed on her. PARDALISCA
She is entreating her. She declares that assuredly she will lay them down on no other terms, unless she understands that she shall not be given to the bailiff. STALINO
But whether she likes it or no, because she refuses, she shall marry him this day. For why shouldn't I carry this out that I've begun, for her to marry me?--that, indeed, I didn't intend to say--but, our bailiff? PARDALISCA
You're making your mistakes pretty often. STALINO
It's alarm that impedes my words. But, prithee, do tell my wife, that I entreat her to prevail upon her to put down the sword, and allow me to return in-doors. PARDALISCA
I'll tell her. STALINO
And do you entreat her. PARDALISCA
And I'll entreat her. STALINO
And in soft language, in your usual way. But do you hear me? If you manage this, I'll give you a pair of shoes3 and a gold ring4 for your finger, and plenty of nice things. PARDALISCA
I'll do my best. STALINO
Take care and prevail. PARDALISCA
Now then I'll be off; unless you detain me for anything. STALINO
Be off, and take care. PARDALISCA
aside . Look, his assistant is returning, at last, with the provisions; he's bringing a train after him. She goes into the house.
1 With the pure cream: "Nisi hæc meraclo se uspiam percussit flone Liberi." Literally, "Unless she has somewhere struck herself with the nearly unmixed flower of Liber."
2 It's on purpose: She hints by this that she well knows what his thoughts are, and that really it is no mistake on his part; but that he is designedly deviating from the open path of rectitude, and turning aside into the bye-paths of lust and duplicity.
3 A pair of shoes: Perhaps these would prove very acceptable to Pardalisca, who, as a slave, was probably condemned to wear the heavy "sculponeæ" before mentioned, in l. 478.
4 And a gold ring: Slaves were not in general allowed to wear other than iron rings, called "condalia." See the Notes to the Trinummus, l. 1014, Meursius, as quoted by Limiers, goes so far as to suppose that this is an implied promise of her liberty to Pardalisca, because of this inability of the slaves to wear gold rings. That seems, however, to be a very far-fetched notion.
The Comedies of Plautus. Henry Thomas Riley. London. G. Bell and Sons. 1912.
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