Hecyra
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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PAMPHILUS
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Nor is there need, in fact; therefore keep it a secret: I don’t wish it to be the case here as it is in the Comedies,In the Comedies: Madame Dacier observes on this passage: Terence here, with reason, endeavors to make the most of a circumstance peculiar to his Play. In other Comedies, every body, Actors as well as Spectators, are at last equally acquainted with the whole intrigue and catastrophe, and it would even be a defect in the plot were there any obscurity remaining. But Terence, like a true genius, makes himself superior to rules, and adds new beauties to his piece by forsaking them. His reasons for concealing from part of the personages of the Drama the principal incident of the plot, are so plausible and natural, that he could not have followed the beaten track without offending against manners and decency. This bold and uncommon turn is one of the chief graces of the Play. where every thing is known to every body. Here, those’ who ought to know, know already; but those who ought not to know, shall neither hear of it nor know it.
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BACCHIS
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Nay more, I will give you a proof why you may suppose that this may be the more easily concealed.
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Myrrhina has told Phidippus to this effect—that she has given credit to my oath, and that, in consequence, in her eyes you are exculpated.
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PAMPHILUS
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Most excellent; and I trust that this matter will turn out according to our wishes.
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PARMENO
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Master, may I not be allowed to know from you what is the good that I have done to-day, or what it is you are talking about?
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PAMPHILUS
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You may not.
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PARMENO
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Still I suspect.
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I restore him, when dead, from the shades below.From the shades below: Parmeno says this, while pondering upon the meaning of all that is going on, and thereby expresses his impatience to become acquainted with it. He therefore repeats what Pamphilus has before said in the twelfth line of the present Act, about his having been restored from death to life by his agency. In what way?
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PAMPHILUS
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You don’t know, Parmeno, how much you have benefited me to-day, and from what troubles you have extricated me.
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PARMENO
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Nay, but indeed I do know: and I did not do it without design.
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PAMPHILUS
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I know that well enough (ironically).
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BACCHIS
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Could Parmeno, from negligence, omit any thing that ought to be done?
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PAMPHILUS
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Follow me in, Parmeno.
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PARMENO
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I’ll follow; for my part, I have done more good to-day,
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without knowing it, than ever I did, knowingly, in all my life.
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Grant us your applause.Your applause: We may here remark, that the Hecyra is the only one of the Plays of Terence with a single plot.