Chapter 3

(Enter DAEMONES, from his house.)

DAEMONES: (to himnself.) In wondrous ways do the Gods make sport of men, in wondrous fashions do they send dreams in sleep.

Not the sleeping, even, do they allow to rest. As, for example, I, this last night which has gone by, dreamed a wonderful and a curious dream. A she-ape seemed to be endeavouring to climb up to a swallow’s nest;

and she was not able thence to take them out. After that, the ape seemed to come to me to beg me to lend a ladder to her. I in these terms gave answer to the ape, that swallows are the descendants of Philomela and of Progne.

I expostulated with her, that she might not hurt those of my country. But then she began to be much more violent, and seemed gratuitously to be threatening me with vengeance. She summoned me to a court of justice. Then, in my anger, I seemed to seize hold of the ape by the middle, in what fashion I know not;

and I fastened up with chains this most worthless beast. Now to what purpose I shall say that this dream tends, never have I this day been able to come to any conclusion. (A loud noise is heard in the Temple.) But what’s this noise that arises in this Temple of Venus, my neighbour? My mind’s in wonder about it.

(Enter TRACHALIO, in haste, from the Temple.)

TRACHALIO: (aloud.) O citizens of Cyrene, I implore your aid, countrymen, you who are near neighbours to these spots, bring aid to helplessness, and utterly crush a most vile attempt. Inflict vengeance, that the power of the wicked, who wish themselves to be distinguished by crimes, may not be stronger than of the guiltless.

Make an example for the shameless man, give its reward to modest virtue; cause that one may be allowed to live here rather under the control of the laws than of brute force. Hasten hither into the Temple of Venus; again do I implore your aid, you who are here at hand and who hear my cries.

Bring assistance to those who, after the recognized usage, have entrusted their lives to Venus and to the Priestess of Venus, under their protection.

Wring ye the neck of iniquity before it reaches yourselves.

DAEMONES: What’s all this to-do?

TRACHALIO: (embracing his knees.) By these knees of yours, I do entreat you, old gentleman, whoever you are—

DAEMONES: Nay, but do you let go my knees, then, and tell me why it is that you are making a noise?

TRACHALIO: I do beg and entreat you, that if you hope this year that you will have abundance of laserwort and silphium, and that that export will arrive at Capua safe and sound, and that you may ever enjoy freedom from diseased eyes—

DAEMONES: Are you in your senses?

TRACHALIO: —Or whether you trust that you will have plenty of juice of silphium, that you will not hesitate to give me the aid which I shall entreat of you, aged sir.

DAEMONES: And I, by your legs, and ancles, and back, do entreat you that, if you hope that you will have a crop of elm-twigs, and that a fruitful harvest of beatings will this year be your lot, you will tell me what’s the matter here, by reason of which you are making this uproar.

TRACHALIO: Why do you choose to speak me ill? For my part, I wished you everything that’s good.

DAEMONES: And for my part, I’m speaking you well, in praying that things which you deserve may befall you.

TRACHALIO: Prithee, do prevent this.

DAEMONES: What’s the matter, then?

TRACHALIO: (pointing to the Temple.) Two innocent women are inside here, in need of your aid, on whom, against law and justice, an injury has been, is being, glaringly committed here in the Temple of Venus. Besides, the Priestess of Venus is being disgracefully insulted.

DAEMONES: What person is there of effrontery so great as to dare to injure the Priestess? But these women, who are they? Or what injury is being done to them?

TRACHALIO: If you give me your attention, I’ll tell you. They have clung to the statue of Venus; a most audacious fellow is now trying to tear them away. They ought, by rights, both of them to be free.

DAEMONES: What fellow is it that so lightly holds the Gods? In a few words tell me.

TRACHALIO: One most full of fraud, villany, parricide, and perjury; a lawbreaker, an immodest, unclean, most shameless fellow; to sum up all in one word, he is a Procurer; why need I say more about him?

DAEMONES: Troth now, you tell of a man that ought to be handed over to retribution.

TRACHALIO: A villain, to seize the Priestess by the throat.

DAEMONES: By my troth, but he has done it at his own great peril. (Calls aloud at his door.) Come you out of doors here, Turbalio and Sparax; where are you?

TRACHALIO: Prithee, do go in, and hasten to their rescue.

DAEMONES: (impatiently.) And am I to call for them once more? (from the cottage.)

DAEMONES: Follow me this way.

TRACHALIO: Come on now this instant, bid them tear his eyes out, just in the way that cooks do cuttle-fish.

DAEMONES: Drag the fellow out here by his legs, just like a slaughtered pig. (DAEMONES and his SERVANTS go into the Temple.)

TRACHALIO: (listening at the door.) I hear a scuffling; the Procurer, I guess, is being belaboured with their fists; I’d very much like them to knock the teeth out of the jaws of the most villanous fellow. But see, here are the women themselves coming out of the Temple in consternation.

(Enter PALAESTRA and AMPELISCA, in haste, from the Temple, with dishevelled locks.)

PALAESTRA: Now is that time arrived when destitution of all resources and aid, succour and defence, overtakes us. Neither hope nor means is there to bring us aid, nor know we in what direction we should commence to proceed. In exceeding terror now are we both, in this our wretchedness. Such cruelty and such outrage have been committed towards us just now in-doors here by our master, who, in his villany, pushed down the old lady, the Priestess, headlong, and struck her in a very disgraceful manner, and with his violence tore us away from the inner side of the statue. But as our lot and fortunes are now showing themselves,

’twere best to die, nor in our miseries is there anything better than death.

TRACHALIO: (behind.) What’s this? Whose words are those? Why do I delay to console them? (Aloud.) Harkye, Palaestra,

Ampelisca, harkye!

PALAESTRA: Prithee, who is it that calls us?

AMPELISCA: Who is it that calls me by name?

TRACHALIO: If you turn round and look, you’ll know.

PALAESTRA: (turning round.) O hope of my safety!

TRACHALIO: Be silent and of good courage; trust me.

PALAESTRA: If only it can be so, let not violence overwhelm us.

TRACHALIO: What violence?

PALAESTRA: That same which is driving me to commit violence on myself.

TRACHALIO: Oh, do leave off; you are very silly.

PALAESTRA: Then do you leave off at once your consoling me in my misery with words.

AMPELISCA: Unless you afford us protection in reality, Trachalio, it’s all over with us.

PALAESTRA: I’m resolved to die sooner than suffer this Procurer to get me in his power. But still I am of woman’s heart; when, in my misery, death comes into my mind, fear takes possession of my limbs.

TRACHALIO: By my troth, although this is a bitter affliction, do have a good heart.

PALAESTRA: Why where, pray, is a good heart to be found for me?

TRACHALIO: Don’t you fear, I tell you; sit you down here by the altar. (Points to it.)

AMPELISCA: What can this altar possibly avail us more than the statue here within the Temple of Venus, from which just now, embracing it, in our wretchedness, we were torn by force?

TRACHALIO: Only you be seated here; then I’ll protect you in this spot. This altar you possess as though your bulwarks; these your fortifications; from this spot will I defend you. With the aid of Venus, I’ll march against the wickedness of the Procurer.

PALAESTRA: We follow your instructions (they advance to the altar and kneel); and genial Venus, we both of us, in tears, implore thee, embracing this thy altar, bending upon our knees, that thou wilt receive us into thy guardianship, and be our protector; that thou wilt punish those wretches who have set at nought thy Temple, and that thou wilt suffer us to occupy this thy altar with thy permission, we who last night were by the might of Neptune cast away;

hold us not in scorn, and do not for that reason impute it to us as a fault, if there is anything that thou shouldst think is not so well attended to by us as it ought to have been.

TRACHALIO: I think they ask what’s just; it ought, Venus, by thee to be granted. Thou oughtst to pardon them;’tis terror forces them to do this. They say that thou wast born from a shell; take thou care that thou dost not despise the shells of these.

But see, most opportunely the old gentleman is coming out, both my protector and your own. (He goes to the altar.)

(Enter DAEMONES, from the Temple, with his two SERVANTS dragging out LABRAX.)

DAEMONES: Come out of the Temple, you most sacrilegious of men, as many as have ever been born. Do you go (calling to the WOMEN) and sit by the altar. (Not seeing them near the door.) But where are they?

TRACHALIO: Look round here.

DAEMONES: (looking round.) Very good; I wanted that. Now bid him come this way. (To LABRAX.) Are you attempting here among us to commit a violation of the laws against the Deities?

(To the SERVANTS, who obey with alacrity.) Punch his face with your fists.

LABRAX: I’m suffering these indignities at your own cost.

DAEMONES: Why, the insolent fellow’s threatening even.

LABRAX: I’ve been robbed of my rights; you are robbing me of my female slaves against my will.

TRACHALIO: Do you then find some wealthy man of the Senate of Cyrene as judge, whether these women ought to be yours, or whether they oughtn’t to be free, or whether it isn’t right that you should be clapped into prison, and there spend your life, until you have worn the whole gaol out with your feet.

LABRAX: I wasn’t prepared to prophesy for this day that I should be talking with a hang-gallows like yourself. (Turning to DAEMONES.) You do I summon to judgment.

DAEMONES: (pointing to TRACHALIO.) In the first place, try it with him who knows you.

LABRAX: (to DAEMONES.) My suit is with yourself.

TRACHALIO: But it must be with myself. (Pointing to the WOMEN.) Are these your female slaves?

LABRAX: They are.

TRACHALIO: Just come then, touch either of them with your little finger only.

LABRAX: What if I do touch them?

TRACHALIO: That very instant, upon my faith, I’ll make a hand-ball of you, and while you’re in the air I’ll belabour you with my fists, you most perjured villain.

LABRAX: Am I not to be allowed to take away my female slaves from the altar of Venus?

DAEMONES: You may not; such is the law with us.

LABRAX: I’ve no concern with your laws; for my part, I shall at once carry them both away from here.

If you are in love with them, old gentleman (holding out his hand), you must down here with the ready cash.

DAEMONES: But these women have proved pleasing to Venus.

LABRAX: She may have them, if she pays the money.

DAEMONES: A Goddess, pay you money? Now then, that you may understand my determination, only do you commence in mere joke to offer them the very slightest violence;

I’ll send you away from here with such a dressing, that you won’t know your own self. You, therefore (turning to his SERVANTS), when I give you the signal, if you don’t beat his eyes out of his head, I’ll trim you round about with rods just like beds of myrtle with bulrushes.

LABRAX: You are treating me with violence.

TRACHALIO: What, do you even upbraid us with violence, you flagrant specimen of flagitiousness?

LABRAX: You, you thrice-dotted villain, do you dare to speak abusively to me?

TRACHALIO: I am a thrice-dotted villain; I confess it; you are a strictly honorable man; ought these women a bit the less to be free?

LABRAX: What—free?

TRACHALIO: Aye, and your mistresses, too, I’ faith, and from genuine Greece; for one of them was born at Athens of free-born parents.

DAEMONES: What is it I hear from you?

TRACHALIO: That she (pointing to PALAESTRA) was born at Athens, a free-born woman.

DAEMONES: (to TRACHALIO.) Prithee is she a countrywoman of mine?

TRACHALIO: Are you not a Cyrenian?

DAEMONES: No; born at Athens in Attica, bred and educated there.

TRACHALIO: Prithee, aged sir, do protect your countrywomen.

DAEMONES: (aside.) O daughter, when I look on her, separated from me you remind me of my miseries: (aloud) she who was lost by me when three years old; now, if she is living, she’s just about as tall, I’m sure, as she. (Pointing to PALAESTRA.)

LABRAX: I paid the money down for these two, to their owners, of whatever country they were. What matters it to me whether they were born at Athens or at Thebes, so long as they are rightfully in servitude as my slaves?

TRACHALIO: Is it so, you impudent fellow? What, are you, a cat prowling after maidens, to be keeping children here kidnapped from their parents and destroying them in your disgraceful calling?

But as for this other one, I really don’t know what her country is; I only know that she’s more deserving than yourself, you most abominable rascal.

LABRAX: Are these women your property?

TRACHALIO: Come to the trial, then, which of the two according to his back is the more truthful; if you don’t bear more compliments upon your back than any ship of war has nails, then I’m the greatest of liars.

Afterwards, do you examine mine, when I’ve examined yours; if it shall not prove to be so untouched, that any leather flask maker will say that it is a hide most capital and most sound for the purposes of his business, what reason is there why I shouldn’t mangle you with stripes, even till you have your belly full? Why do you stare at them? If you touch them I’ll tear your eyes out.

LABRAX: Yet notwithstanding, although you forbid me to do so, I’ll at once carry them off both together with me.

DAEMONES: What will you do?

LABRAX: I’ll bring Vulcan; he is an enemy to Venus. (Goes towards DAEMONES’ cottage.)

TRACHALIO: Whither is he going?

LABRAX: (calling at the door.) Hallo! Is there anybody here? Hallo! I say.

DAEMONES: If you touch the door, that very instant, upon my faith, you shall get a harvest upon your face with fists for your pitchforks.

SERVANT: We keep no fire, we live upon dried figs.

DAEMONES: I’ll find the fire, if only I have the opportunity of kindling it upon your head.

LABRAX: Faith, I’ll go somewhere to look for some fire.

DAEMONES: What, when you’ve found it?

LABRAX: I’ll be making a great fire here.

DAEMONES: What, to be burning a mortuary sacrifice for yourself?

LABRAX: No, but I’ll burn both of these alive here upon the altar.

DAEMONES: I’d like that. For, by my troth, I’ll forthwith seize you by the head and throw you into the fire, and, half-roasted, I’ll throw you out as food for the great birds. (Aside.) When I come to a consideration of it with myself, this is that ape, that wanted to take away those swallows from the nest against my will, as I was dreaming in my sleep.

TRACHALIO: Aged sir, do you know what I request of you? That you will protect these females and defend them from violence, until I fetch my master.

DAEMONES: Go look for your master, and fetch him here.

TRACHALIO: But don’t let him—

DAEMONES: At his own extreme peril, if he touches them, or if he attempts to do so.

TRACHALIO: Take care.

DAEMONES: Due care is taken; do you be off.

TRACHALIO: And watch him too, that he doesn’t go away anywhere. For we have promised either to give the executioner a great talent, or else to produce this fellow this very day.

DAEMONES: Do you only be off. I’ll not let him get away, while you are absent.

TRACHALIO: I’ll be back here soon. (Exit TRACHALIO.)

(DAEMONES, LABRAX, PALAESTRA, AMPELISCA, and SERVANTS.)

DAEMONES: (to LABRAX, who is struggling with the SERVANTS.) Which, you Procurer, had you rather do, be quiet with a thrashing, or e’en as it is, without the thrashing, if you had the choice?

LABRAX: Old fellow, I don’t care a straw for what you say. My own women, in fact, I shall drag away this instant from the altar by the hair, in spite of yourself, and Venus, and supreme Jove.

DAEMONES: Just touch them.

LABRAX: (going towards them) I’ troth, I surely will touch them.

DAEMONES: Just come then; only approach this way.

LABRAX: Only bid both those fellows, then, to move away from there.

DAEMONES: On the contrary, they shall move towards you.

LABRAX: I’ faith, for my own part, I don’t think so.

DAEMONES: If they do move nearer to you, what will you do?

LABRAX: I’ll retire. But, old fellow, if ever I catch you in the city, never again, upon my faith, shall any one call me a Procurer, if I don’t give you some most disagreable sport.

DAEMONES: Do what you threaten. But now, in the meantime, if you do touch them, a heavy punishment shall be inflicted on you.

LABRAX: How heavy, in fact?

DAEMONES: Just as much as is sufficient for a Procurer.

LABRAX: These threats of yours I don’t value one straw; I certainly shall seize them both this instant without your leave.

DAEMONES: Just touch them.

LABRAX: By my troth, I surely will touch them.

DAEMONES: You will touch them, but do you know with what result? Go then, Turbalio, with all haste, and bring hither from out of the house two cudgels.

LABRAX: Cudgels?

DAEMONES: Aye, good ones; make haste speedily. (TURBALIO goes in.)

I’ll let you have a reception this day in proper style, as you are deserving of.

LABRAX: (aside.) Alas! cursedly unfortunate. I lost my headpiece in the ship; it would now have been handy for me, if it had been saved. (To DAEMONES.) May I at least address these women?

DAEMONES: You may not

(TURBALIO enters bringing two cudgels.) Well now, by my faith, look, the cudgel-man is coming very opportunely here.

LABRAX: (aside.) By my troth, this surely is a tingling for my ears.

DAEMONES: Come, Sparax, do you take this other cudgel. (Giving him one.) Come, take your stand, one on one side, the other on one other. Take your stations both of you. (They stand with lifted cudgels on each side of he altar.) Just so. Now then attend to me:

if, I’ faith, that fellow there should this day touch these women with his finger against their inclination, if you don’t give him a reception with these cudgels even to that degree that he shan’t know which way he is to get home, you are undone, both of you. If he shall call for any one, do you make answer to this fellow in their stead.

But if he himself shall attempt to get away from here, that instant, as hard a you can, lay on to his legs with your sticks.

LABRAX: Are they not even to allow me to go away from here?

DAEMONES: I’ve said sufficient. And when that servant comes here with his master, he that has gone to fetch his master, do you at once go home.

Attend to this with great diligence, will you. (DAEMONES goes into his house.)

LABRAX: O rare, by my troth, the Temple here is surely changed all of a sudden; this is now the Temple of Hercules which was that of Venus before; in such fashion has the old fellow planted two statues here with clubs. I’ faith, I don’t know now whither in the world I shall fly from here;

so greatly are they both raging now against me, both land and sea. Palaestra!

SERVANT: What do you want?

LABRAX: Away with you, there is a misunderstanding between us; that, indeed, is not my Palaestra that answers. Harkye, Ampelisca.

SERVANT: Beware of a mishap, will you.

LABRAX: (aside.) So far as they can, the worthless fellows advise me rightly enough.

(Aloud.) But, harkye, I ask you, whether it is any harm to you for me to come nearer to these women?

SERVANT: Why none at all to ourselves.

LABRAX: Will there be any harm to myself?

SERVANT: None at all, if you only take care.

LABRAX: What is it that I’m to take care against?

SERVANT: Why, look you, against a heavy mishap.

LABRAX: Troth now, prithee, do let me approach them.

SERVANT: Approach them, if you like.

LABRAX: I’ faith, obligingly done; I return you thanks, I’ll go nearer to them. (Approaches them.)

SERVANT: Do you stand there on the spot, where you are. (Drags him to his place, with the cudgel over his head.)

LABRAX: (aside.) By my faith, I’ve come scurvily off in many ways. Still, I’m resolved to get the better of them this day by constantly besieging them.

(Enter PLESIDIPPUS and TRACHALIO, at a distance, on the other side of the stage.)

PLESIDIPPUS: And did the Procurer attempt by force and violence to drag my mistress away from the altar of Venus?

TRACHALIO: Even so.

PLESIDIPPUS: Why didn’t you kill him on the instant?

TRACHALIO: I hadn’t a sword.

PLESIDIPPUS: You should have taken either a stick or a stone.

TRACHALIO: What! ought I to have pelted this most villanous fellow with stones like a dog?

LABRAX: (aside, on seeing them.) By my troth, but I’m undone now; see, here’s Plesidippus;

he’ll be sweeping me away altogether this moment with the dust.

PLESIDIPPUS: Were the damsels sitting on the altar even then when you set out to come to me?

TRACHALIO: Yes, and now they are sitting in the same place.

PLESIDIPPUS: Who is now protecting them there?

TRACHALIO: Some old gentleman, I don’t know who, a neighbour of the Temple of Venus—he gave very kind assistance;

he is now protecting them with his servants—I committed them to his charge.

PLESIDIPPUS: Lead me straight to the Procurer. Where is this fellow? (They go towards LABRAX.)

LABRAX: Health to you.

PLESIDIPPUS: I want none of your healths. Make your choice quickly, whether you lad rather be seized by your throat wrenched, or be dragged along; choose whichever you please, while you may.

LABRAX: I wish for neither.

PLESIDIPPUS: Be off then, Trachalio, with all speed to the sea-shore; bid those persons that I brought with me to hand over this rascal to the executioner, to come from the harbour to the city to meet me; afterwards return hither and keep guard here. I’ll now drag this scoundrelly outcast to justice. (Exit TRACHALIO. Pleusicles addresses LABRAX.)

Come, proceed to a court of justice.

LABRAX: In what have I offended?

PLESIDIPPUS: Do you ask? Didn’t you receive an earnest of me for this woman (pointing to PALAESTRA), and carry her off from here?

LABRAX: I didn’t carry her off.

PLESIDIPPUS: Why do you deny it?

LABRAX: Troth now, because I put her on board ship; carry her off unfortunately, I couldn’t. For my part, I told you that this day I would make my appearance at the Temple of Venus; have I swerved at all from that? Am I not there?

PLESIDIPPUS: Plead your cause in the court of justice; here a word is enough. Follow me. (They lay hold of him.)

LABRAX: (calling aloud.) I entreat you, my dear Charmides, do come to my rescue; I am being seized with my throat wrenched. (Enter CHARMIDES, from the Temple.)

CHARMIDES: (looking about.) Who calls my name?

LABRAX: Do you see me how I’m being seized?

CHARMIDES: I see, and view it with pleasure.

LABRAX: Don’t you venture to assist me?

CHARMIDES: What person is seizing you?

LABRAX: Young Plesidippus.

CHARMIDES: What you’ve got, put up with;’twere better for you, with a cheerful spirit, to slink to gaol; that has befallen you which many greatly wish for for themselves.

LABRAX: What’s that?

CHARMIDES: To find for themselves that which they are seeking.

LABRAX: I entreat you, do follow me.

CHARMIDES: You try to persuade me, just like what you are: you are being taken off to gaol, for that reason is it you entreat me to follow you?

PLESIDIPPUS: (to LABRAX.) Do you still resist?

LABRAX: I’m undone.

PLESIDIPPUS: I trust that may prove the truth. You, my dear Palaestra and Ampelisca, do you remain here in the meanwhile, until I return hither.

SERVANT: I would advise them rather to go to our house, until you return.

PLESIDIPPUS: I’m quite agreable; you act obligingly. (The SERVANTS open the door of the cottage, and PALAESTRA and AMPELISCA go in.)

LABRAX: You are thieves to me.

SERVANT: How, thieves?

PLESIDIPPUS: Lead him along. (The SERVANTS seize him.)

LABRAX: (calling out.) I pray and entreat you, Palaestra.

PLESIDIPPUS: Follow, you hang-dog.

LABRAX: Guest, Charmides!

CHARMIDES: I am no guest of yours; I repudiate your hospitality.

LABRAX: What, do you slight me in this fashion?

CHARMIDES: I do so; I’ve been drinking with you once already.

LABRAX: May the Deities confound you.

CHARMIDES: To that person of yours, say that. (PLESIDIPPUS leads LABRAX off, followed by the SERVANTS.) I do believe that men are transformed, each into a different beast. That Procurer, I guess, is transformed into a stock-dove; for, before long, his neck will be in the stocks. He’ll to-day be building his nest in the gaol.

Still, however, I’ll go, that I may be his advocate,—if by my aid he may possibly be sentenced any the sooner.