View:
By Line
77
(Enter PENICULUS.)
PENICULUS
The young men have given me the name of Peniculus
1
, for this reason, because when I eat, I wipe the tables clean.
The persons who bind captives with chains,
and who put fetters upon runaway slaves, act very foolishly, in my opinion at least. For if bad usage is added to his misfortune for a wretched man, the greater is his inclination to run away and to do amiss. For by some means or other do they release themselves from the chains;
80
while thus fettered, they either wear away a link with a file, or else with a stone they knock out the nail; ’tis a mere trifle this. He whom you wish to keep securely that he may not run away, with meat and with drink ought he to be chained; do you bind down the mouth of a man to a full table.
85
So long as you give him what to eat and what to drink at his own pleasure in abundance every day, i’ faith he’ll never run away, even if he has committed an offence that’s capital; easily will you secure him so long as you shall bind him with such chains. So very supple are these chains of food,
90
the more you stretch them so much the more tightly do they bind. But now I’m going directly to Menaechmus; whither for this long time I have been sentenced, thither of my own accord I am going, that he may enchain me. For, by my troth, this man does not nourish persons, but he quite rears and reinvigorates them; no one administers medicine more agreably.
95
Such is this young man; himself with a very well-stocked larder, he gives dinners fit for Ceres
2
; so does he heap the tables up, and piles so vast of dishes does he arrange, you must stand on your couch if you wish for anything at the top. But I have now had an interval these many days,
100
while I’ve been lording it at home all along together with my dear ones
3
;—for nothing do I eat or purchase but what it is most dear. But inasmuch as dear ones, when they are provided, are in the habit of forsaking us, I am now paying him a visit. But his door is opening; and see, I perceive Menaechmus himself; he is coming out of doors.
105
The young men have given me the name of Peniculus
1
, for this reason, because when I eat, I wipe the tables clean.
The persons who bind captives with chains,
and who put fetters upon runaway slaves, act very foolishly, in my opinion at least. For if bad usage is added to his misfortune for a wretched man, the greater is his inclination to run away and to do amiss. For by some means or other do they release themselves from the chains;
80
while thus fettered, they either wear away a link with a file, or else with a stone they knock out the nail; ’tis a mere trifle this. He whom you wish to keep securely that he may not run away, with meat and with drink ought he to be chained; do you bind down the mouth of a man to a full table.
85
So long as you give him what to eat and what to drink at his own pleasure in abundance every day, i’ faith he’ll never run away, even if he has committed an offence that’s capital; easily will you secure him so long as you shall bind him with such chains. So very supple are these chains of food,
90
the more you stretch them so much the more tightly do they bind. But now I’m going directly to Menaechmus; whither for this long time I have been sentenced, thither of my own accord I am going, that he may enchain me. For, by my troth, this man does not nourish persons, but he quite rears and reinvigorates them; no one administers medicine more agreably.
95
Such is this young man; himself with a very well-stocked larder, he gives dinners fit for Ceres
2
; so does he heap the tables up, and piles so vast of dishes does he arrange, you must stand on your couch if you wish for anything at the top. But I have now had an interval these many days,
100
while I’ve been lording it at home all along together with my dear ones
3
;—for nothing do I eat or purchase but what it is most dear. But inasmuch as dear ones, when they are provided, are in the habit of forsaking us, I am now paying him a visit. But his door is opening; and see, I perceive Menaechmus himself; he is coming out of doors.
105
Menaechmi. Plautus. Henry Thomas Riley (Translator). London. 1912.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Funding provided by NSF, NEH: Digital Libraries Initiative, Phase 2.