Hecyra
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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and to look after my affairs, in order that my circumstances might be able to support your lavishness and comforts, not sparing my own exertions, beyond what’s reasonable and my time of life allows. That you should take no care, in return for all this, that there should be nothing to vex me!
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SOSTRATA
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Upon my word, through no means or fault of mine has this taken place.
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LACHES
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Nay, through you in especial; you were the only person here; on you alone, Sostrata, falls all the blame.
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You ought to have taken care of matters here, as I had released you from other anxieties. Is it not a disgrace for an old woman to pick a quarrel with a girl? You will say it was her fault.
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SOSTRATA
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Indeed I do not say so, my dear Laches.
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LACHES
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I am glad of that, so may the Gods prosper me, for my son’s sake. I am quite sure of this, that no fault of yours can possibly put you in a worse light.
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SOSTRATA
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How do you know, my husband, whether she may not have pretended to dislike me, on purpose that she might be more with her mother?
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LACHES
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What say you to this? Is it not proof sufficient, when yesterday no one was willing to admit you into the house, when you went to see her?
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SOSTRATA
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Why, they told me that she was very ill just then; for that reason I was not admitted to her.
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LACHES
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I fancy that your humors are more her malady than any thing else;
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and with good reason in fact, for there is not one of you but wants her son to take a wife; and the match which has taken your fancy must be the one; when, at your solicitation, they have married, then, at your solicitation, they are to put them away again.
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PHIDIPPUS
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Although I am aware, Philumena, that I have the right to compel you to do what I order, still, being swayed by the feelings of a father,
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I will prevail upon myself to yield to you, and not oppose your inclination.
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LACHES
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And look, most opportunely I see Phidippus; I’ll presently know from him how it is. (Accosting him.) Phidippus, although I am aware that I am particularly indulgent to all my family, still it is not to that degree to let my good nature corrupt their minds. And if you would do the same, it would be more for your own interest and ours.
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At present I see that you are under the control of those women.
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PHIDIPPUS
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Just look at that, now !
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LACHES
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I waited on you yesterday about your daughter; you sent me away just as wise as I came. It does not become you, if you wish this alliance to continue, to conceal your resentment. If there is any fault on our side, disclose it; either by clearing ourselves, or excusing it, we shall remedy these matters for you,
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yourself the judge. But if this is the cause of detaining her at your house, because she is ill, then I think that you do me an injustice, Phidippus, if you are afraid lest she should not be attended with sufficient care at my house. But, so may the Gods prosper me, I do not yield in this to you, although you are her father, that you can wish her well more than I do, and that on my son’s account,
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who I know values her not less than his own self. Nor, in fact, is it unknown to you, how much, as I believe, it will vex him, if he comes to knowIf he comes to know: Donatus observes that the Poet shows his art in here preparing a reason to be assigned by Pamphilus for his pretended discontent at the departure of his wife. of this; for this reason, I wish to have her home before he returns.
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PHIDIPPUS
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Laches, I am sensible of both your carefulness and your good-will, and I am persuaded that all you say is just as you say:
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and I would have you believe me in this; I am anxious for her to return to you, if I possibly can by any means effect it.
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LACHES
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What is it prevents you from effecting it? Come, now, does she make any complaint against her husband?
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PHIDIPPUS
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By no means; for when I urged it still more strongly, and attempted to constrain her by force to return, she solemnly protested that she couldn’t possibly remain with you, while Pamphilus was absent.
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Probably each has his own failing; I am naturally of an indulgent disposition; I can not thwart. my own family.
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LACHES
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Ha! Sostrata!Ha! Sostrata: Colman observes on this passage: This is extremely artful. The answer of Philumena, as related by Phidippus, contains an ample vindication of Pamphilus. What, then, can we suppose could make the house so disagreeable to her in his absence, but the behavior of Sostrata? She declares her innocence; yet appearances are all against her. Supposing this to be the first Act of the Play, it would be impossible for a Comedy to open in a more interesting manner.
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SOSTRATA
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Alas! wretched me!
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LACHES
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Is this your final determination ?
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PHIDIPPUS
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For the present, at least, as it seems; but have you any thing else to say? for I have some business that obliges me to go at once to the Forum.
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LACHES
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I’ll go with you. (Exeunt.)
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SOSTRATA
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Upon my faith, we assuredly are all of us hated by our husbands with equal injustice,
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on account of a few, who cause us all to appear deserving of harsh treatment. For, so may. the Gods prosper me, as to what my husband accuses me of, I am quite guiltless. But it is not so easy to clear myself, so strongly have people come to the conclusion that all step-mothers are harsh: i’ faith, not I, indeed, for I never regarded her otherwise than if she had been my own daughter; nor can I conceive how this has befallen me.
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But really, for many reasons, I long for my son’s return home with impatience. (Goes into her house.)
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PAMPHILUS
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No individual, I do believe, ever met with more crosses in love than I. Alas! unhappy me! that I have thus been sparing of life! Was it for this I was so very impatient to return home? O, how much more preferable had it been for me to pass my life any where in the world
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than to return here and be sensible that I am thus wretched! For all of us know who have met with trouble from any cause, that all the time that passes before we come to the knowledge of it, is so much gain.
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PARMENO
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Still, as it is, you’ll the sooner know how to extricate yourself from these misfortunes. If you had not returned, this breach might have become much wider;
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but now, Pamphilus, I am sure that both will be awed by your presence. You will learn the facts, remove their enmity, restore them to good feeling once again. These are but trifles which you have persuaded yourself are so grievous.
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PAMPHILUS
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Why comfort me? Is there a person in all the world so wretched as I? Before I took her to wife, I had my heart engaged by other affections.
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Now, though on this subject I should be silent, it is easy for any one to know how much I have suffered; yet I never dared refuse her whom my father forced upon me. With difficulty did I withdraw myself from another, and disengage my affections so firmly rooted there! and hardly had I fixed them in another quarter, when, lo! a new misfortune has arisen, which may tear me from her too. Then besides, I suppose that in this matter I shall find either my mother or my wife in fault;
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and when I find such to be the fact, what remains but to become still more wretched? For duty, Parmeno, bids me bear with the feelings of a mother; then, to my wife I am bound by obligations; with so much temper did she formerly bear my usage, and on no occasion disclose the many wrongs inflicted on her by me. But, Parmeno, something of consequence, I know not what it is, must have happened
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for this misunderstanding to have arisen between them, that has lasted so long.
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PARMENO
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Or else something frivolous, i’ faith, if you would only give words their proper value; those which are sometimes the greatest enmities, do not argue the greatest injuries; for it often happens that in certain circumstances, in which another would not even be out of temper, for the very same reason a passionate man becomes your greatest enemy.
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What enmities do children entertain among themselves for trifling injuries! For what reason? Why, because they have a weak understanding to direct them. Just so are these women, almost like children with their fickle feelings; perhaps a single word has occasioned this enmity between them, master.
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PAMPHILUS
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Go, Parmeno, into the house, and carry wordAnd carry word: It was the custom with the Greeks and Romans, when returning from abroad, to send a messenger before them, to inform their wives of their arrival. See for example Cicero’s last letter to his wife, 47 BC. that I have arrived. (A noise is heard in the house of PHIDIPPUS.)
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PARMENO
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Ha! What means this?
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PAMPHILUS
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Be silent.
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I perceive a bustling about, and a running to and fro.
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PARMENO
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Come then, I’ll approach nearer to the door. (He listens.) Ha! did you hear?
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PAMPHILUS
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Don’t be prating. (He listens.) O Jupiter, I heard a shriek!
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PARMENO
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You yourself are talking, while you forbid me.
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MYRRHINA
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Prithee, my child, do be silent.
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PAMPHILUS
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That seems to be the voice of Philumena’s mother. I’m undone
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PARMENO
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Why so?
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PAMPHILUS
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Utterly ruined!
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PARMENO
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For what reason?
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PAMPHILUS
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Parmeno, you are concealing from me some great misfortune to me unknown.
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PARMENO
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They said that your wife, Philumena, was in alarm aboutWas in alarm about: Pavitare. Casaubon has a curious suggestion here; he thinks it not improbable that he had heard the female servants whispering among themselves that Philumena paritare, was about to be brought to bed, which he took for pavitare, was in fear of something. something, I know not what; whether that may be it, perchance, I don’t know.
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PAMPHILUS
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I am undone! Why didn’t you tell me of this?
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PARMENO
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Because I couldn’t tell every thing at once.
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PAMPHILUS
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What is the malady?
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PARMENO
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I don’t know.
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PAMPHILUS
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What! has no one brought a physician to see her?
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PARMENO
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I don’t know.
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PAMPHILUS
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Why delay going in-doors, that I may know as soon as possible for certain what it is?
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In what condition, Philumena, am I now to find you? But if you are in any peril, beyond a doubt I will perish with you. (Goes into the house of PHIDIPPUS.)
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PARMENO
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There is no need for me to follow him into the house at present, for I see that we are all disagreeable to them. Yesterday, no one would give Sostrata admittance.
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If, perchance, the malady should become worse, which really I could far from wish, for my master’s sake especially, they would at once say that Sostrata’s servant had been in there; they would invent a story that I had brought some mischief against their lives and persons, in consequence of which the malady had been increased.
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My mistress would be blamed, and I should incur heavy punishment.Heavy punishment: Probably meaning that he will be examined by torture, whether he has not, by drugs or other means, contributed to Philumena’s illness.
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SOSTRATA
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In dreadful alarm, I have for some time heard, I know not what confusion going on here; I’m sadly afraid Philumena’s illness is getting worse. Aesculapius, I do entreat thee, and thee, Health,And thee, Health: She invokes Aesculapius, the God of Medicine, and Salus, or Health, because, in Greece, their statues were always placed near each other; so that to have offered prayers to one and not to the other, would have been deemed a high indignity. On the worship of Aesculapius, see the opening Scene of the Curculio of Plautus. that it may not be so. Now I’ll go visit her.
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PARMENO
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Hark you, Sostrata.
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SOSTRATA
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Well.
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PARMENO
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You will again be shut out there.
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SOSTRATA
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What, Parmeno, is it you? I’m undone! wretch that I am, what shall I do? Am I not to go see the wife of Pamphilus, when she is ill here next door?
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PARMENO
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Not go see her! Don’t even send any person for the purpose of seeing her; for I’m of opinion that he who loves, a person to whom he is an object of dislike, commits a double mistake: he himself takes a useless trouble, and causes annoyance to the other.
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Besides, your son went in to see how she is, as soon as he arrived.
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SOSTRATA
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What is it you say? Has Pamphilus arrived?
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PARMENO
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He has.
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SOSTRATA
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I give thanks unto the Gods! Well, through that news my spirits are revived, and anxiety has departed from my heart.
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PARMENO
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For this reason, then, I am especially unwilling you should go in there; for if Philumena’s malady at all abates,
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she will, I am sure, when they are by themselves, at once tell him all the circumstances; both what misunderstandings have arisen between you, and how the difference first began. But see, he’s coming out-how sad he looks!
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SOSTRATA
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O my son!
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PAMPHILUS
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My mother, blessings on you.
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SOSTRATA
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I rejoice that you are returned safe. Is Philumena in a fair way?
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PAMPHILUS
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She is a little better.
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SOSTRATA
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Would that the Gods may grant it so! Why, then, do you weep, or why so dejected?
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PAMPHILUS
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All’s well, mother.
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SOSTRATA
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What meant that confusion? Tell me; was she suddenly taken ill?
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PAMPHILUS
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Such was the fact.
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SOSTRATA
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What is her malady?
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PAMPHILUS
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A fever.
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SOSTRATA
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An intermitting one?An intermitting one: Quotidiana, literally, daily.
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PAMPHILUS
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So they say. Go in the house, please, mother; I’ll follow you immediately.
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SOSTRATA
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Very well. (Goes into her house.)
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PAMPHILUS
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Do you run and meet the servants, Parmeno, and help them with the baggage.
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PARMENO
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Why, don’t they know the way themselves to come to our house?
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PAMPHILUS
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Do you loiter?
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PAMPHILUS
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I can not discover any fitting commencement of my troubles, at which to begin to narrate the things that have so unexpectedly befallen me, some of which with these eyes I have beheld; some I have heard with my ears; and on account of which I so hastily betook myself, in extreme agitation, out of doors.
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For just now, when, full of alarm, I rushed into the house, expecting to find my wife afflicted with some other malady than what I have found it to be—ah me! immediately the servant-maids beheld that I had arrived, they all at the same moment joyfully exclaimed, He is come, from having so suddenly caught sight of me. But I soon perceived the countenances of all of them change,All of them change: This must have been imaginary, as they were not likely to be acquainted with the reason of Philumena’s apprehensions.
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because at so unseasonable a juncture chance had brought me there. One of them in the mean time hastily ran before me to give notice that I had come. Impatient to see my wife, I followed close. When I entered the room, that instant, to my sorrow, I found out her malady; for neither did the time afford any interval to enable her to conceal it,
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nor could she complain in any other accents than those which the case itself prompted. When I perceived this: O disgraceful conduct! I exclaimed, and instantly hurried away from the spot in tears, overwhelmed by such an incredible and shocking circumstance. Her mother followed me; just as I got to the threshold, she threw herself on her knees: I felt compassion for her. Assuredly it is the fact, in my opinion, just as matters befall us all, so are we elated or depressed.
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At once she began to address me in these words: O my dear Pamphilus, you see the reason why she left your house; for violence was offered to her when formerly a maid, by some villain to us unknown. Now, she took refuge here then, that from you and others she might conceal her labor.