Chapter 1

(Enter SIMO and SOSIA, followed by SERVANTS carrying provisions.)

SIMO: (to the Servants.) Do you carry those things away in-doors; begone. (Beckoning to SOSIA.) Sosia, just step here; I want a few words with you.

SOSIA: Consider it as said;

that these things are to be taken care of, I suppose.

SIMO: No, it’s another matter.

SOSIA: What is there that my ability can effect for you more than this?

SIMO: There’s no need of that ability in the matter which I have in hand; but of those qualities which I have ever known as existing in you, fidelity and secrecy.

SOSIA: I await your will.

SIMO: Since I purchased you, you know that, from a little child, your servitude with me has always been easy and light. From a slave I made you my freedman; for this reason, because you served me with readiness. The greatest recompense that I possessed, I bestowed upon you.

SOSIA: I bear it in mind.

SIMO: I am not changed.

SOSIA: If I have done or am doing aught that is pleasing to you, Simo, I am glad that it has been done; and that the same has been gratifying to you, I consider sufficient thanks. But this is a cause of uneasiness to me; for the recital is, as it were, a censure to one forgetful of a kindness.

But tell me, in one word, what it is that you want with me.

SIMO: I’ll do so. In the first place, in this affair I give you notice: this, which you suppose to be such, is not a real marriage.

SOSIA: Why do you pretend it then?

SIMO: You shall hear all the matter from the beginning; by that means you’ll be acquainted with both my son’s mode of life and my own design, and what I want you to do in this affair. For after he had passed youthfulness, Sosia, and had obtained free scope of living, (for before, how could you know or understand his disposition, while youthful age, fear, and a master were checking him?)—

SOSIA: That’s true.

SIMO: What all young men, for the most part, do,—devote their attention to some particular pursuit, either to training horses or dogs for hunting, or to the philosophers; in not one of these did he engage in particular beyond the rest, and yet in all of them in a moderate degree.

I was pleased.

SOSIA: Not without reason; for this I deem in life to be especially advantageous; that one do nothing to excess.

SIMO: Such was his mode of life; readily to bear and to comply with all; with whomsoever he was in company, to them to resign himself; to devote himself to their pursuits; at variance with no one;

never preferring himself to them. Thus most readily you may acquire praise without envy, and gain friends.

SOSIA: He has wisely laid down his rule of life; for in these days obsequiousness begets friends; sincerity, dislike.

SIMO: Meanwhile, three years ago, a certain woman from Andros removed hither into this neighborhood, driven by poverty and the neglect of her relations, of surpassing beauty and in the bloom of youth.

SOSIA: Ah! I’m afraid that this Andrian will bring some mischief.

SIMO: At first, in a modest way, she passed her life with thriftiness and in hardship, seeking a livelihood with her wool and loom. But after an admirer made advances, promising her a recompense, first one and then another; as the disposition of all mankind has a downward tendency from industry toward pleasure, she accepted their proposals, and then began to trade upon her beauty.

Those who then were her admirers, by chance, as it often happens, took my son thither that he might be in their company. Forthwith I said to myself, He is surely caught; he is smitten. In the morning I used to observe their servant-boys coming or going away; I used to make inquiry, Here, my lad, tell me, will you, who had Chrysis yesterday? for that was the name of the Andrian. (touching SOSIA on the arm.)

SOSIA: I understand.

SIMO: Phaedrus, or Clinias, or Niceratus, they used to say; for these three then loved her at the same time. Well now, what did Pamphilus do? What? He gave his contribution; he took part in the dinner. Just so on another day

I made inquiry, but I discovered nothing whatever that affected Pamphilus. In fact, I thought him sufficiently proved, and a great pattern of continence; for he who is brought into contact with dispositions of that sort, and his feelings are not aroused even under such circumstances, you may be sure that he is already capable of undertaking the governance of his own life. This pleased me, and every body with one voice began to say all kinds of flattering things, and to extol my good fortune, in having a son endowed with such a disposition. What need is there of talking? Chremes, influenced by this report, came to me of his own accord, to offer his only daughter as a wife to my son, with a very large portion. It pleased me; I betrothed him; this was the day appointed for the nuptials.

SOSIA: What then stands in the way? Why should they not take place?

SIMO: You shall hear. In about a few days after these things had been agreed on,

Chrysis, this neighbor, dies.

SOSIA: Bravo! You’ve made me happy. I was afraid for him on account of Chrysis.

SIMO: Then my son was often there, with those who had admired Chrysis; with them he took charge of the funeral; sorrowful, in the mean time, he sometimes wept with them in condolence. Then that pleased me.

Thus I reflected: He by reason of this slight intimacy takes her death so much to heart; what if he himself had wooed her? What will he do for me his father? All these things I took to be the duties of a humane disposition and of tender feelings. Why do I detain you with many words?

Even I myself, for his sake, went forth to the funeral, as yet suspecting no harm.

SOSIA: Ha! what is this?

SIMO: You shall know. She is brought out; we proceed. In the mean time, among the females who were there present, I saw by chance one young woman of beauteous form.

SOSIA: Very likely.

SIMO: And of countenance, Sosia, so modest, so charming, that nothing could surpass. As she appeared to me to lament beyond the rest, and as she was of a figure handsome and genteel beyond the other women, I approached the female attendants; I inquired who she was. They said that she was the sister of Chrysis.

It instantly struck my mind: Ay, ay, this is it; hence those tears, hence that sympathy.

SOSIA: How I dread what you are coming to!

SIMO: The funeral procession meanwhile advances; we follow; we come to the burying-place. She is placed upon the pile; they weep. In the mean time, this sister, whom I mentioned, approached the flames too incautiously, with considerable danger. There, at that moment, Pamphilus, in his extreme alarm, discovers his well-dissembled and long-hidden passion; he runs up, clasps the damsel by the waist. My Glycerium, says he, what are you doing? Why are you going to destroy yourself.

Then she, so that you might easily recognize their habitual attachment, weeping, threw herself back upon him—how affectionately!

SOSIA: What do you say?

SIMO: I returned thence in anger, and hurt at heart: and yet there was not sufficient ground for reproving him. He might say; What have I done? How have I deserved this, or offended, father?

She who wished to throw herself into the flames, I prevented; I saved her. The defense is a reasonable one.

SOSIA: You judge aright; for if you censure him who has assisted to preserve life, what are you to do to him who causes loss or misfortune to it?

SIMO: Chremes comes to me next day, exclaiming:

"Disgraceful conduct!"—that he had ascertained that Pamphilus was keeping this foreign woman as a wife. I steadfastly denied that to be the fact. He insisted that it was the fact. In short, I then left him refusing to bestow his daughter.

SOSIA: Did not you then reprove your son?

SIMO: Not even this was a cause sufficiently strong for censuring him.

SOSIA: How so? Tell me.

SIMO: You yourself, father, he might say, have prescribed a limit to these proceedings. The time is near, when I must live according to the humor of another; meanwhile, for the present allow me to live according to my own.

SOSIA: What room for reproving him, then, is there left?

SIMO: If on account of his amour he shall decline to take a wife, that, in the first place, is an offense on his part to be censured. And now for this am I using my endeavors, that, by means of the pretended marriage, there may be real ground for rebuking him, if he should refuse; at the same time, that if that rascal Davus has any scheme, he may exhaust it now, while his knaveries can do no harm: who, I do believe, with hands, feet, and all his might, will do every thing; and more for this, no doubt, that he may do me an ill turn, than to oblige my son.

SOSIA: For what reason?

SIMO: Do you ask? Bad heart, bad disposition. Whom, however, if I do detect —

But what need is there of talking? If it should turn out, as I wish, that there is no delay on the part of Pamphilus, Chremes remains to be prevailed upon by me; and I do hope that all will go well. Now it’s your duty to pretend these nuptials cleverly, to terrify Davus; and watch my son, what he’s about, what schemes he is planning with him.

SOSIA: ’Tis enough; I’ll take care; now let’s go in-doors.

SIMO: You go first; I’ll follow. (SOSIA goes into the house of SIMO.)

SIMO: (to himself.)

There’s no doubt but that my son doesn’t wish for a wife; so alarmed did I perceive Davus to be just now, when he heard that there was going to be a marriage. But the very man is coming out of the house. (Stands aside.)

(Enter DAVUS from the house of SIMO.)

DAVUS: (aloud to himself.) I was wondering if this matter was to go off thus; and was continually dreading where my master’s good humor would end; for, after he had heard that a wife would not be given to his son, he never uttered a word to any one of us, or took it amiss.

SIMO: (apart, overhearing him.) But now he’ll do so: and that, I fancy, not without heavy cost to you.

DAVUS: (to himself:) He meant this, that we, thus unsuspecting, should be led away by delusive joy; that now in hope, all fear being removed, we might during our supineness be surprised, so that there might be no time for planning a rupture of the marriage. How clever!

SIMO: (apart.) The villain! what does he say?

DAVUS: (overhearing him, to himself.) It’s my master, and I didn’t see him.

SIMO: Davus.

DAVUS: Well, what is it?

SIMO: Just step this way to me.

DAVUS: (to himself.) What does he want?

SIMO: What are you saying?

DAVUS: About what?

SIMO: Do you ask the question? There’s a report that my son’s in love.

DAVUS: The public troubles itself about that, of course.

SIMO: Will you attend to this, or not?

DAVUS: Certainly, I will, to that.

SIMO: But for me to inquire now into these matters, were the part of a severe father. For what he has done hitherto, doesn’t concern me at all. So long as his time of life prompted to that course, I allowed him to indulge his inclination: now this day brings on another mode of life, demands other habits.

From this time forward, I do request, or if it is reasonable, I do entreat you, Davus, that he may now return to the right path.

DAVUS: (aside.) What can this mean?

SIMO: All who are intriguing take it ill to have a wife given them.

DAVUS: So they say.

SIMO: And if anyone has adopted a bad instructor in that course, he generally urges the enfeebled mind to pursuits still more unbecoming.

DAVUS: I’faith, I do not comprehend.

SIMO: No? Ha—

DAVUS: No—I am Davus, not Oedipus.

SIMO: Of course then, you wish me to speak plainly in what further I have to say.

DAVUS: Certainly, by all means.

SIMO: If I this day find out that you are attempting any trickery about this marriage, to the end that it may not take place; or are desirous that in this matter it should be proved how knowing you are; I’ll hand you over, Davus, beaten with stripes, to the mill, even to your dying day, upon this condition and pledge, that if ever I release you, I shall grind in your place. Now, do you understand this? Or not yet even this?

DAVUS: Yes, perfectly: you have now spoken so plainly upon the subject, you have not used the least circumlocution.

SIMO: In any thing would I more willingly allow myself to be imposed upon than in this matter.

DAVUS: Fair words, I entreat.

SIMO: You are ridiculing me: you don’t at all deceive me. I give you warning, don’t act rashly, and don’t say you were not warned. Take care.

(Shaking his stick, goes into the house.)

(DAVUS alone.)

DAVUS: (to himself.) Assuredly, Davus, there’s no room for slothfulness or inactivity, so far as I’ve just now ascertained the old man’s mind about the marriage; which if it is not provided against by cunning, will be bringing either myself or my master to ruin. What to do, I am not determined; whether I should assist Pamphilus or obey the old man.

If I desert the former, I fear for his life; if I assist him, I dread the other’s threats, on whom it will be a difficult matter to impose. In the first place, he has now found out about this amour; with hostile feelings he watches me, lest I should be devising some trickery against the marriage. If he discovers it, I’m undone; or even if he chooses to allege any pretext, whether rightfully or wrongfully, he will consign me headlong to the mill.

To these evils this one is besides added for me. This Andrian, whether she is his wife, or whether his mistress, is pregnant by Pamphilus. It is worth while to hear their effrontery; for it is an undertaking worthy of those in their dotage, not of those who dote in love; whatever she shall bring forth, they have resolved to rear;

and they are now contriving among themselves a certain scheme, that she is a citizen of Attica. There was formerly a certain old man of this place, a merchant; he was shipwrecked off the Isle of Andros; he died. They say that there, the father of Chrysis, on that occasion, sheltered this girl, thrown on shore, an orphan, a little child. What nonsense!

To myself at least it isn’t very probable; the fiction pleases them, however. But Mysis is coming out of the house. Now I’ll betake myself hence to the Forum, that I may meet with Pamphilus, lest his father should take him by surprise about this matter.

(Exit.)

(Enter MYSIS from the house of GLYCERIUM.)

MYSIS: (speaking at the door to Archylis within.) I’ve heard you already, Archylis; you request Lesbia to be fetched. Really, upon my faith, she is a wine-bibbing and a rash woman, and not sufficiently trustworthy for you to commit to her care a female at her first delivery; is she still to be brought? (She receives an answer from within, and comes forward.) Do look at the inconsiderateness of the old woman; because she is her pot-companion. Ye Gods, I do entreat you, give her ease in her delivery, and to that woman an opportunity of making her mistakes elsewhere in preference. But why do I see Pamphilus so out of spirits? I fear what it may be.

I’ll wait, that I may know whether this sorrow portends any disaster.

(Stands apart.)

(Enter PAMPHILUS, wringing his hands.)

PAMPHILUS: (to himself.) Is it humane to do or to devise this? Is this the duty of a father?

MYSIS: (apart.) What does this mean?

PAMPHILUS: (to himself.) O, by our faith in the Gods! what is, if this is not, an indignity? He had resolved that he himself would give me a wife to-day; ought I not to have known this beforehand? Ought it not to have been mentioned previously?

MYSIS: (apart.) Wretched me! What language do I hear?

PAMPHILUS: (to himself.) What does Chremes do? He who had declared that he would not intrust his daughter to me as a wife; because he himself sees me unchanged he has changed. Thus perversely does he lend his aid, that he may withdraw wretched me from Glycerium. If this is effected, I am utterly undone.

That any man should be so unhappy in love, or so unfortunate as I am! Oh, faith of Gods and men! shall I by no device be able to escape this alliance with Chremes? In how many ways am I contemned, and held in scorn? Every thing done, and concluded! Alas! once rejected I am sought again; for what reason? Unless perhaps it is this, which I suspect it is:

they are rearing some monster, and as she can not be pushed off upon any one else, they have recourse to me.

MYSIS: (apart.) This language has terrified wretched me with apprehension.

PAMPHILUS: (to himself.) But what am I to say about my father? Alas! that he should so thoughtlessly conclude an affair of such importance! Passing me in the Forum just now, he said, Pamphilus, you must be married to-day:

get ready; be off home. He seemed to me to say this: Be off this instant, and go hang yourself. I was amazed; think you that I was able to utter a single word, or any excuse, even a frivolous, false, or lame one? I was speechless. But if any one were to ask me now what I would have done, if I had known this sooner, why, I would have done any thing rather than do this. But now, what course shall I first adopt?

So many cares beset me, which rend my mind to pieces; love, sympathy for her, the worry of this marriage; then, respect for my father, who has ever, until now, with such an indulgent disposition, allowed me to do whatever was agreeable to my feelings. Ought I to oppose him? Ah me! I am in uncertainty what to do.

MYSIS: (apart.) I’m wretchedly afraid how this uncertainty is to terminate.

But now there’s an absolute necessity, either for him to speak to her, or for me to speak to him about her. While the mind is in suspense, it is swayed by a slight impulse one way or the other.

PAMPHILUS: (overhearing her.) Who is it speaking here? (Seeing her.) Mysis? Good-morrow to you.

MYSIS: Oh! Good-morrow to you, Pamphilus.

PAMPHILUS: How is she?

MYSIS: Do you ask? She is oppressed with grief, and on this account the poor thing is anxious, because some time ago the marriage was arranged for this day. Then, too, she fears this, that you may forsake her.

PAMPHILUS: Ha! could I attempt that? Could I suffer her, poor thing, to be deceived on my account? She, who has confided to me her affection, and her entire existence? She, whom I have held especially dear to my feelings as my wife? Shall I suffer her mind, well and chastely trained and tutored, to be overcome by poverty and corrupted? I will not do it.

MYSIS: I should have no fear if it rested with yourself alone; but whether you may be able to withstand compulsion—

PAMPHILUS: Do you deem me so cowardly, so utterly ungrateful, inhuman, and so brutish, that neither intimacy, nor affection, nor shame, can move or admonish me to keep faith?

MYSIS: This one thing I know, that she is deserving that you should not forget her.

PAMPHILUS: Forget her? Oh Mysis, Mysis, at this moment are those words of Chrysis concerning Glycerium written on my mind. Now at the point of death, she called me;

I went to her; you had withdrawn; we were alone; she began: My dear Pamphilus, you see her beauty and her youth; and it is not unknown to you to what extent both of these are now of use to her, in protecting both her chastity and her interests. By this right hand I do entreat you, and by your good Genius, by your own fidelity, and by her bereft condition, do not withdraw yourself from her, or forsake her; if I have loved you as my own brother, or if she has always prized you above all others, or has been obedient to you in all things.

You do I give to her as a husband, friend, protector, father. This property of mine do I intrust to you, and commit to your care. She placed her in my hands; that instant, death came upon her. I accepted her; having accepted, I will protect her.

MYSIS: So indeed I hope.

(Moving.)

PAMPHILUS: But why are you leaving her?

MYSIS: I’m going to fetch the midwife.

PAMPHILUS: Make all haste. And—do you hear?— take care, and not one word about the marriage, lest that too should add to her illness.

MYSIS: I understand.

(Exeunt severally.)