The Comedies of Terence | Page 4

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 nuptials cleverly, to terrify Davus; and watch my son, what he's about, what schemes he is planning with him.
SOS. 'Tis enough; I'll take care; now let's go in-doors.
SIM. You go first; I'll follow. (SOSIA goes into the house of SIMO.)
SIM. (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.)
SCENE II.
Enter DAVUS from the house of