Page:Comedies of Publius Terentius Afer (1870).djvu/81



Lest any of you wonder why the poet

Sends me, an old man, forward, I will show it.

This day we act a drama from the Greek—

Heautontimorumenos—and seek

To make its single plot a double one:

Therefore our comedy is new, or none.

Who wrote the Grecian comedy—you know;

That is one point I have no need to show.

But wherefore am I here, you ask again:

Pleader am I, your suffrages to gain.

Ye are our judges. We seek your applause

So I, and not the prologue, plead the cause;

And though some tongues malevolent declare

The Grecian plots contaminated are

Whence he indites his Latin, nor doth he

Deny the charge nor will defend the plea.

He can produce authority to show

That greater bards have done so long ago.

Another charge malevolence adduces,

That he with music now your ears seduces,

Instead of his own talents. We submit

That to your judgment; you must settle it.

Shut up your ears to slanders we entreat you,

And open them to hopes in which we greet you

Listen to us who weave fair novelties,

Not like the breathless slave who ranting cries,