Asinaria, or The Ass-Dealer

Perseus Latin · Perseus Latin · 707 sections

2.4.471
By my faith, to your own great misfortune now are you talking uncivilly to him.
2.4.472
Dirty, worthless fellow, don’t you see he’s angry?
2.4.472b
Be off then.
2.4.473
Scoundrelly fellow. (Aside to him.) Prithee, do give him the money lest he should abuse you.
2.4.474
On my word, you are seeking evil for yourselves.
2.4.474b
By the powers, your legs shall be broken,
2.4.475
if you don’t proclaim this shameless fellow.
2.4.475b
Troth, I’m undone. Be off, you shameless fellow.
2.4.476
You rascal.
2.4.476a
Won’t you venture to assist me, you rascal?
2.4.477
Do you persist in soliciting the scamp?
2.4.477b
How’s this? (To LEONIDA.) Do you, rascal, who are a slave, speak abusively to a free man?
2.4.478b
Give him a beating.
2.4.478c
By my faith, that surely shall befall yourself to get a beating as soon as ever I shall see Demaenetus this day.
2.4.480
I summon you to judgments.
2.4.480b
I shan’t go.
2.4.480c
You won’t go? Remember—
2.4.480d
I do remember.
2.4.481
I’ faith, I’ll have satisfaction out of your back.
2.4.481b
Woe unto you? What, villain—satisfaction to be given by us to you indeed?
2.4.482b
Aye, and even this very day satisfaction shall be given me for your abusive language.
2.4.484_485
How now, whip-knave? How say you, hang-dog? Do you suppose that we shall run away from our master? Go this instant then to our master, where you were citing us just now, and where you were wishing to go.
2.4.487
What, now at last? Still, you shall never get a coin of money away from me, unless Demaenetus shall order me to give it.
2.4.488b
Do so. Come, move on then. Are you to offer insults to another person, and are they not to be repeated to yourself?
2.4.490
I’m a man as much as you are.
2.4.490b
No doubt such is the fact.
2.4.490c
Follow me this way, then. With your good leave I would now say this: not a person has ever accused me by reason of my deserving it, nor is there in Athens one other individual, this day, whom they would think they could as safely trust.
2.4.493b
Perhaps so: but still, you shall never this day persuade me to entrust to you, whom I don’t know, this money.
2.4.495
A man to a man is a wolf, not a man, when the other doesn’t know of what character he is.
2.4.496
Now at last you are appeasing me: I was sure that this day you would give satisfaction to this poor head of mine; although I’m in mean garb, still, I’m well to do, nor can an estimate of my means be formed from it.
2.4.499
Perhaps so.
2.4.499b
Still more then I tell you: Periphanes, a merchant of Rhodes, a rich man,
2.4.500
in the absence of my master, himself alone paid over to me, in private, a talent of silver, and trusted me, nor was he deceived in it.
2.4.502
Perhaps so.
2.4.502b
And you, too, yourself, as well, if you had enquired about me of other people, would, i’ faith, I’m quite sure, have entrusted to me what you now have with you.
2.4.503b
I don’t deny it.
3.1.504
And am I unable to render you obedient to my injunctions?
3.1.505
Or are you so disposed as to be free from the control of your mother?
3.1.506
How could I propitiate Piety, if I could desire to please you, being endowed with these manners, after the fashion, mother, that you enjoin upon me?
3.1.508
Is it consistent with propriety for you to oppose my precepts?
3.1.508b
How so?
3.1.509
Is this worshipping Piety, to lessen the authority of a mother?
3.1.510
Those who act right I blame not, nor do I love those who do wrong.
3.1.511
You are a very prating, lovesick girl.
3.1.511b
Mother, that is my living. His tongue woos me, his person seeks me, his passion pleads, opportunity prompts.
3.1.513
I was purposing to convince you. Are you come as my accuser?
3.1.514
By my troth, I neither do accuse you, nor do I think it right I should do so;
3.1.515
but I do complain of my lot, when I am separated from him whom I love.
3.1.516
Will then one bit of the whole day’s talk be left for myself?
3.1.517
Both my share of the speaking and your own do I give up to you. Do you yourself keep the signal both for speaking and for being silent.
3.1.520
But, i’ faith, if I only put up my oars in the boat-house while I’m resting, all the welfare of the household is at a standstill for you.
3.1.521
How say you, the out and out most insolent woman that ever I saw? How often have I forbidden you to speak to Argyrippus, the son of Demaenetus, or to touch him, or to hold discourse with him, or to look at him? What has he ever given? What has he ordered to be brought to our house? Or do you fancy to yourself
3.1.525
that smooth words are gold?—that clever speeches are as good as presents? Of your own accord you fell in love with him; of your own accord you go after him; of your own accord you request him to be sent for to you. Those who are givers, those same you laugh at; those who are cheating us, you are dying for. If any one promises you that he’ll make you rich when his mother dies, ought you to be waiting for that?
3.1.530
I’ faith, a great risk impends over ourselves and the household, that we may die of hunger while we are awaiting her death. Now therefore, unless he brings me here twenty minae of silver, upon my word, though profuse of his tears, he shall certainly be turned from here out of doors. This day’s the end of excuses for poverty at my house.
3.1.535
If, my mother, you were to order me to go without victuals, I would submit.
3.1.536
I don’t forbid you to love those who give that for the sake of which they ought to be loved.
3.1.537
What, mother, if this inclination of mine is fixed? What am I to do? Tell me.
3.1.537b
Oh dear—look at my head, if, indeed, you consider your own interest.
3.1.539_540
Even the shepherd, mother, that feeds the sheep of another, has a certain one of his own to be the consoler of his hopes. For the sake of my affection, do allow me to love Argyrippus only, who is my choice.
3.1.543
Go in-doors, for, upon my word, there is really nothing more impudent than yourself.
3.1.544
Mother, you have given birth to a daughter obedient to your commands.
3.2.545
Great praise and thanks we give deservedly to perfidy, when relying upon our tricks, our stratagems, and our devices, upon our confidence in our shoulder-blades and the hardihood resulting from the elm-twigs so oft applied, against the whips, the searing-irons, the crosses, and the fetters,
3.2.549_550
the cords, the chains, the prisons, the stocks, the shackles, the collars, and taskmasters most cruel and well acquainted with our backs, who many a time before have imprinted scars upon our shoulder-blades; by conquering, now, these legions, troops and armies of thieves,
3.2.555
by our prowess, through our perjuries, O brave, have we gained the victory. This, through the valour of this comrade of mine, and through my own courtesy, has been brought about.
3.2.557
What man is there more firm than myself at enduring stripes?
3.2.558
By the powers, you who can extol your exploits now, as I can do exploits, which in peace and in warfare you have so — villanously performed;
3.2.560
verily, in troth, many in number may they be now recounted according to your deserts; where you have defrauded him that trusted you, where you have proved faithless to your master, where knowingly and wilfully you have on solemn oath been perjured, where you have bored through party walls, where you have been detected in theft, where you have full oft pleaded your cause, as you hung up, against eight
3.2.565
clever, hardened fellows, sturdy stripers.
3.2.566
Certainly I do admit, Leonida, that it is true as you say. But verily, in troth, your many misdeeds, too, may be recounted as well and truly; where wilfully you have proved faithless to the trusting, where you have been detected in theft and scourged in public,
3.2.570
where you have proved forsworn, where you have laid hands on sacred things, where to your masters you have full oft proved a loss, a trouble, and a disgrace, where you have stoutly denied that that was given to you which had been entrusted to you, where you have proved more faithful to your wench than to your friend, where through your hardihood you have frequently reduced to weariness eight
3.2.575
sturdy lictors, armed with pliant twigs of elm. (To the AUDIENCE.) Is the compliment ill repaid in the way that I’ve praised my comrade?
3.2.577
Just as befits both me and yourself, and our dispositions.
3.2.578
Now drop this, and answer me this that I ask.
3.2.578b
Enquire of me what you please.
3.2.579
Have you got the twenty silver minae?
3.2.579b
Guess —
3.2.580
Upon my word, the old gentleman Demaenetus, has been very obliging to us. How cleverly he pretended that I was Saurea. With the greatest difficulty did I withhold my laughter, when he rebuked the stranger, because in his absence he had been unwilling to put confidence in me; and with what readiness did he call me Saurea the chamberlain.
3.2.585
Stop a moment.
3.2.585b
What’s the matter?
3.2.585c
Isn’t this Philenium that’s coming from in-doors, and Argyrippus with her.
3.2.586b
Keep silence, ’tis he; let’s listen quietly to them.
3.2.587
In tears, she holds him, weeping, by the lappet of his garment; what, I wonder, am I to say is the matter?
3.2.588
Let’s listen in silence.
3.2.588b
Dear me, a thought, I’ faith, has just come into my mind; I very much wish I had a long stick here.
3.2.589b
For what reason?
3.2.589c
With which to beat these asses, if perchance they should begin to bray out here, from within the bag.
3.3.591
Why are you holding me back?
3.3.591b
Because, as I love you, I cannot bear your departing.
3.3.592
Farewell.
3.3.592b
I should fare somewhat better, if you were to remain here.
3.3.593
Blessings on you.
3.3.593b
Do you wish for blessings on me, to whom you are bringing disease by your departure?
3.3.594
Your mother has bid me the last farewell; she has requested me to go home.
3.3.595
A bitter death will she cause her daughter, if I must part from you.
3.3.596
Troth now, the man has been turned out of doors there.
3.3.596b
Such is the fact.
3.3.596c
Prithee, do let me go.
3.3.597
Whither are you going now? Why don’t you stay here?
3.3.597b
This night, if you choose, I’ll stay.
3.3.598
Don’t you hear him? How profuse he is of his attentions by night. But now, in the daytime, he’s engaged; surely he’s a Solon

Perseus Latin. CTS URN phi0119.phi002.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.