Casina, or The Stratagem Defeated

Perseus Latin · Perseus Latin · 752 sections

3.3.578b
Are the things ready now? Have you by this brought over here to our house this female neighbour of yours,
3.3.580
who was to assist you?
3.3.580b
I sent for her as you requested me; but this companion of yours, your very good friend, was in a pet with his wife about something, I don’t know what; he said, when I went to fetch her, that he wouldn’t send her.
3.3.584
That’s your greatest fault; you are not courteous enough.
3.3.585
It’s not the part of matrons, but of harlots, to be showing courtesies, my husband, to the husbands of others. Go yourself and fetch her; I wish to attend in-doors, my husband, to what is requisite to be done.
3.3.588b
Make haste then.
3.3.588c
Very well. (Aside.) Now, faith, I shall inspire some apprehensions in his heart.
3.3.590
I’ll this day render this lovesick man completely miserable.
3.4.591
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.
3.4.594
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?
3.4.595b
What’s the matter?
3.4.596
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?
3.4.599
Why don’t you go hang yourself? Why, ’twas you yourself said that
3.4.600
your wife would come and fetch mine from our house?
3.4.601
Then she declares that she has been to fetch her, and that you said you wouldn’t let her go.
3.4.602b
But she herself, of her own accord, said to me that she didn’t care for her assistance.
3.4.604
But ’tis she herself who has deputed me to come and fetch her.
3.4.605
But I don’t care for that.
3.4.605b
But you are proving my ruin.
3.4.605c
But that’s as it should be. But I shall still go on delaying; but I very much long for—
3.4.607
But—
3.4.607b
nothing but to do you some mischief;
3.4.607c
but I’ll do it with pleasure. Never this day shall you have a but the more than I.
3.4.609
But, in fine, really, upon my faith, may the Gods confound you.
3.4.610
What now? Are you going to send your wife to my house?
3.4.611
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.
3.4.615
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!
3.4.620
what’s that noise, prithee, that’s going on in our house?
3.5.621
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:
3.5.625
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!
3.5.630
Why, what is the matter—that she, frightened and half dead with fear, rushes hither out of doors? Pardalisca!
3.5.631b
Whence do my ears catch the sound?
3.5.632
Just look back at me.
3.5.632b
My master!
3.5.632c
What’s the matter? What?
3.5.632d
I’m undone.
3.5.633
How undone?
3.5.633b
I’m undone, and you are undone.
3.5.633c
Disclose it, what’s the matter with you?
3.5.634
Woe to you!
3.5.634b
Aye, and the same to yourself.
3.5.634c
That I mayn’t fall down, prithee do hold, hold me.
3.5.635
Whatever it is, tell me quickly.
3.5.635b
Do support my throbbing breast, prithee do make a little air with your cloak.
3.5.636b
I’m in alarm as to what is the matter; (aside) unless this woman has been somewhere upsetting herself with the pure cream of Bacchus.
3.5.641
Hold my ears, pray do.
3.5.641b
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,
3.5.645
you hussey, who have thus far been making a laughing-stock of me.
3.5.646
My master!
3.5.646b
What do you want, my servant?
3.5.646c
You are too angry.
3.5.646d
You are saying so too soon. But whatever this is, tell it; relate in a few words what has been the disturbance in-doors.
3.5.648b
You shall know.
3.5.649_650
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.
3.5.653
What is it?
3.5.653b
Fever prevents the use of my tongue.
3.5.654
What is it? Can I possibly learn from you what is the matter?
3.5.654b
I’ll tell you. Your female slave, she whom you intend to give as a wife to your bailiff, in-doors she—
3.5.656b
In-doors what? What is it?
3.5.657
Is imitating the wicked practices of wicked women, in threatening her husband—
3.5.659
What then?
3.5.659b
Ah!
3.5.659c
What is it?
3.5.659d
She says that she intends to take her husband’s life.
3.5.660
A sword—
3.5.660b
Hah!
3.5.660c
A sword—
3.5.660d
What about that sword?
3.5.661
She has got one.
3.5.661b
Ah! wretch that I am! Why has she got it?
3.5.662
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,
3.5.665
are mute with fear.
3.5.665b
I’m murdered and ruined outright! What malady is this that has so suddenly befallen her?
3.5.667
She is mad.
3.5.667b
I do think that I am the most unfortunate of men!
3.5.668
Aye, and if you were to know the speeches she uttered to-day.
3.5.669
I long to know about what she said.
3.5.669b
Listen.
3.5.670
By all the Gods and Goddesses she swore that she would murder the person with whom she should bed.
3.5.672
Will she murder me?
3.5.672b
Does that bear reference to yourself in any way?
3.5.672c
Pshaw!
3.5.673
What business have you with her?
3.5.673b
I made a mistake; him, the bailiff, I meant to say.
3.5.675
It’s on purpose that you are turning aside from the high road into bye-paths.
3.5.676
Does she threaten anything against myself?
3.5.676b
She is hostile to you individually more than any person.
3.5.677b
For what reason?
3.5.677c
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,
3.5.679_680
to be prolonged until the morrow. I have been sent hither to tell you this, that you might beware of her.
3.5.681b
By my troth, to my misery I’m quite undone!
3.5.682
There neither is nor ever was any old man in love so wretched as I.
3.5.683_685b
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.
3.5.688b
Hark you, Pardalisca!
3.5.689
What is it?
3.5.689b
There is —
3.5.689c
What?
3.5.689d
There is something that I want to enquire of you about.
3.5.690
You are causing me delay.
3.5.690b
Why, you are causing me sorrow. But has Casina got that sword even still?

Perseus Latin. CTS URN phi0119.phi006.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.