Page:Comedies of Publius Terentius Afer (1870).djvu/46

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Davus, you have not managed the plot well,

You don't divide the acts.

Dav. How, master, me?

Sim. Your actors lose their cue.

Dav. I know not what,

Master, you say.

Sim. Ah! if this rogue now had

Caught me in a loose moment, unprepared,

I had been nicely fooled, or if in earnest—

But now he will be shipwrecked—the whilst I

Sail into port.

Les. Archillis! everything as yet goes well;

All promising a speedy convalescence.

Firstly the bath, and afterwards the potion,

Pursuant both to time and quantity.

I will return immediately. Ecastor,

A noble boy is born to Pamphilus.

May the good gods preserve him—for so kind

And good a father, and who would not wrong

The mother by its death.

Sim. Now who can doubt,

Hearing this stuff, but that you are its author.

Dav. Author of what?

Sim. Why, mark you, in the house

She held her peace, nor issued her commands;

But thence departed,—forthwith she begins

Here in the street to bellow out this stuff.

Oh, Davè! did you think me such a fool

To be deceived, to be outwitted thus—