Bacchides, or The Twin Sisters

Perseus Latin · Perseus Latin · 938 sections

1.1.90
The Captain, then, shall take her off; don’t you be present at all if you don’t choose.
1.1.91
And am I a thing of nothing, who cannot moderate my own passions?
1.1.92
What’s there for you to fear?
1.1.92b
There’s nothing; all nonsense. Madam, I resign myself to you. I’m yours; to you do I devote my services.
1.1.93b
You are a dear man. Now I wish you to do this. To-day I want to give a welcome entertainment to my sister.
1.1.95
For that purpose I shall at once order the money to be brought you from in-doors. Do you take care and cater for us a splendid entertainment.
1.1.97
No, I’ll stand treat; for it would be a shame, that on my account you both should take trouble for me, and by reason of that trouble should pay the expense from your own means.
1.1.99
But I can’t allow you to give anything.
1.1.99b
Do let me.
1.1.99c
Well, I’ll let you, if you choose.
1.1.100
Prithee, do make haste.
1.1.100b
I shall be here again, before I cease to love you.
1.1.101
You entertain me pleasantly upon my return, my sister.
1.1.101b
How so, prithee?
1.1.102
Because, in my way of thinking, this day a lucky haul has fallen to your lot.
1.1.103
He’s mine, assuredly. Now, sister, with respect to Mnesilochus, I’ll give you my aid, that here at home you may be receiving gold, rather than be going hence together with the Captain.
1.1.105
That’s my desire.
1.1.105b
My aid shall be given you. The water’s warm; let’s go in, that you may bathe. For, as you have travelled on board ship, you are faint, I think.
1.1.106b
A little so, sister. (PISTOCLERUS is seen at a distance.) Besides, he’s beginning to cause I don’t know what bustle. Let’s begone hence.
1.1.108
Follow me this way in-doors to bathe, that you may relieve your weariness.
1.2.109
For some time, Pistoclerus, I’ve been following you in silence,
1.2.110
watching what you were doing in this dress. For, so may the Gods favour me, even Lycurgus himself seems to me as if he could be led into debauchery here. Whither now are you betaking yourself hence in an opposite direction with such a train?
1.2.114b
To this place (pointing to the house.)
1.2.114c
Why to this place? Who lives there?
1.2.115
Love, Pleasure, Venus, Beauty, Joy, Jesting, Dalliance, Converse, and Sweet-kissing.
1.2.117
What intercourse have you with these most destructive Deities?
1.2.118
Bad are those men who speak evil of the good. You speak not well of even the Gods themselves; you do what is not right.
1.2.120
Is Sweet-kissing, then, some God?
1.2.121
And do you not think she is? O Lydus, why, what a barbarians you are, you, whom I had deemed to be far more wise than Thales hinself. Go to, you are more foolish than Potitius, the foreigner, who, at an age so advanced, knew not the names of the Divinities.
1.2.125
This dress of yours pleases me not.
1.2.125b
But no one prepared it for you; it was prepared for myself, whom it pleases well.
1.2.127
And do you commence upon your repartees against myself even? You, who, if you had even ten tongues, ought to be silent.
1.2.129
Not every age, Lydus, is suited for school.
1.2.130
One thing especially is just now on my mind, how the cook may with due care attend to these things as befits the elegance of the entertainment.
1.2.132
Now have you undone yourself and me and all my labours, me who so oft have shown you what is right, all to no purpose.
1.2.134
In the same place have I lost my labour where you’ve lost yours: your instructions profit neither me nor yourself.
1.2.136
O obdurate heart!
1.2.136b
You are troublesome to me. Hold your tongue, Lydus, and follow me.
1.2.137b
Now, see that, please; he no longer calls me tutor, but mere Lydus.
1.2.139
It seems not proper, nor can it be fit, that,
1.2.140
when a person is in a house, and is reclining at the feast together with his mistress, and is kissing her, and the other guests are reclining too, the tutor should be there too in their presence.
1.2.143
Are these provisions purchased for such a purpose, pray?
1.2.144
My intentions, indeed, expect so; how it falls out, is in the hands of the Gods.
1.2.145
Will you be having a mistress?
1.2.145b
When you see, then you’ll know.
1.2.146
Aye, but you shall not have one, and I won’t allow it. Go back again home.
1.2.147
Do leave me alone, Lydus, and beware of mischief.
1.2.147b
What? Beware of mischief?
1.2.149
O yawning gulf, where art thou now? How gladly would I avail myself of thee!
1.2.150
Already have I lived far longer than I could have wished.
1.2.151
’Twere much better now to have once existed than to be living still.
1.2.152
That any pupil should thus threaten his tutor!
1.2.148
My years are now advanced beyond your tutorship.
1.2.153
I want no pupils for me with heated blood.
1.2.154
An up-grown one may harass me thus devoid of strength.
1.2.155
As I guess, I shall become a Hercules, and you a Linus.
1.2.156
I’ faith, I fear more that through your goings-on I shall become a Phœnix, and have to tell the news to your father that you are dead.
1.2.158
Enough of these stories.
1.2.158b
This youth is lost to shame;
1.2.161
the man’s ruined. And does it then recur to you that you have a father?
1.2.162b
Am I your servant, or you mine?
1.2.159
By my troth, you made an exchange not desirable for that age of yours,
1.2.160
when you gained these impudent ways.
1.2.163
Some bad master has been teaching you all this, not I. You are a scholar far more apt at these pursuits
1.2.165
than at those lessons which I taught you when I was losing my labour. Troth, ’twas a bad piece of deceit you were guilty of at your age, when you concealed these vicious tendencies from myself and from your father.
1.2.168
Lydus, you have thus far had liberty of speech; that is enough. So now do you follow this way, and hold your tongue.
2.1.170
All hail, land of my master! which I joyfully behold after the two years that I have been absent hence at Ephesus. I salute thee, neighbour Apollo, who dost have thy shrine close by our house, and to thee do I make my prayer, that thou wilt not let me meet our old gentleman, Nicobulus, before I have seen
2.1.175
Pistoclerus, the friend of Mnesilochus, him to whom Mnesilochus has sent the letter about his mistress, Bacchis.
2.2.178
’Tis strange that you are so earnestly begging me to return, who am able by no possible means to depart hence, if I were willing,
2.2.180
so bound down, and so enchained with love do you hold me.
2.2.181
O, ye immortal Gods, I espy Pistoclerus! O, Pistoclerus, hail!
2.2.182b
Hail, Chrysalus, to you!
2.2.183
I will at present compress many speeches for you in a small space. You are glad that I am come; I give you credit for it.
2.2.185
You promise me lodging and an entertainment coming from my journey, as it is befitting, and I agree to come. I bring you the sincere greetings of your friend. Would you ask me where he is? He’s come.
2.2.188b
Is he alive and well?
2.2.189
That I was wishful to enquire of yourself.
2.2.190
How can I know?
2.2.190b
No one better.
2.2.190c
Why, in what way?
2.2.191
Because if she has been found whom he so loves, he is alive and well. If she is not found, he is not well, and is like to die. His mistress is the very life of a lover. If she is away, he is non-existent; if she is with him, his property is non-existent, and himself worthless and wretched.
2.2.195
But what have you done in respect of his commission?
2.2.196
And ought I not to have his request complied with against his arrival, which his messenger brought to me from him? I’d sooner be dwelling in the realms of Acheron than not.
2.2.199_200
How now, have you found out this Bacchis?
2.2.199_200b
Yes, and a Samian one too.
2.2.201
Prithee, do take care that no one handles her carelessly: you know how soon a Samian vessel is wont to break.
2.2.203
What now, your old habit?
2.2.203b
Prithee, do tell me where she now is.
2.2.204
Here, where you just now saw me coming out.
2.2.205
How capital that is! She’s living almost next door. Does she at all remember Mnesilochus?
2.2.206b
Do you ask me that? Aye, him alone does she esteem at the very highest value.
2.2.207b
Indeed!
2.2.208
Yes, and were you to believe her, distractedly in love—she quite longs for him.
2.2.209
That’s good.
2.2.209b
Yes, Chrysalus; see, now; not even so small
2.2.210
a space of time ever passes by as this, out that she is uttering his name.
2.2.211
I’ faith, so much the better.
2.2.211b
Yes; but—
2.2.211c
Yes, faith , I’d rather be off.
2.2.212b
And do you so unwillingly hear how your master’s interests have prospered?
2.2.213
No, not the subject, but the actor offends my feelings with his tediousness. Even Epidicus, a play that I love quite as much as my own self,

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