The Comedies of Terence | Page 4

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.
SOS. What then stands in the way? Why should they not take place?
SIM. You shall hear. In about a few days after these things had been
agreed on, Chrysis, this neighbor, dies.

SOS. Bravo! You've made me happy. I was afraid for him on account
of Chrysis.
SIM. 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,[35] for his sake, went forth to
the funeral, as yet suspecting no harm.
SOS. Ha! what is this?
SIM. 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.
SOS. Very likely.
SIM. 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;[36] 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."
SOS. How I dread what you are coming to!
SIM. The funeral procession meanwhile advances; we follow; we come
to the burying-place.[37] 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!
SOS. What do you say?
SIM. 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.
SOS. 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}?
SIM. 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.
SOS. Did not you then {reprove} your son?
SIM. Not even this was a cause sufficiently strong for censuring him.
SOS. How so? Tell me.
SIM. "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."
SOS. What room for reproving him, then, is there left?
SIM. 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.
SOS. For what reason?
SIM. 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