Aliam nunc mi orationem despoliato praedicas, longe aliam, inquam, praebes nunc atque olim, quom dabam, aliam atque olim, quom inliciebas me ad te blande ac benedice. tum mi aedes quoque arridebant, cum ad te veniebam, tuae; me unice unum ex omnibus te atque illam amare aibas mihi; It’s a different sort of eloquence you use on me now I’ve been fleeced, very different, I say, from that former sort when I was giving you things, different from that former sort when you were luring me on with your smooth, suave talk. Then your very house used to be wreathed in smiles, when I turned up. You used to say I was the one and only love in all the world for you and her. ubi quid dederam, quasi columbae pulli in ore ambae meo usque eratis, meo de studio studia erant vostra omnia, 210 usque adhaerebatis: quod ego iusseram, quod volueram faciebatis, quod nolebam ac votueram, de industria fugiebatis, neque conari id facere audebatis prius. nunc neque quid velim neque nolim facitis magni, pessumae. After I’d given you anything the both of you used to keep hanging on my lips like a pair of young doves. Whatever I fancied, you fancied, and nothing else. You used to keep clinging to me. I ordered a thing, wished a thing,--you used to do it: I disliked a thing, forbade a thing,--you used to take pains to avoid doing it: you didn’t dare attempt to do it then. Now you don’t care tuppence what I like, or don’t like, you vile wretches! _Cle._ Non tu scis? hic noster quaestus aucupi simillimust. auceps quando concinnavit aream, offundit cibum; aves adsuescunt: necesse est facere sumptum qui quaerit lucrum; saepe edunt: semel si sunt captae, rem solvent aucupi. itidem his apud nos: aedes nobis area est, auceps sum ego, 219,220 esca est meretrix, lectus inlex est, amatores aves; (_still cheerfully superior_) You miss the point? This profession of ours is a great deal like bird-catching. The fowler, when he has his fowling-floor prepared, spreads food around; the birds become familiarized: you must spend money, if you wish to make money. They often get a meal: but once they get caught they recoup the fowler. It is quite the same with us here: our house is the floor, I am the fowler, the girl the bait, the couch the decoy, the lovers the birds. bene salutando consuescunt, compellando blanditer, osculando, oratione vinnula, venustula. si papillam pertractavit, haud est ab re aucupis; savium si sumpsit, sumere eum licet sine retibus. haecine te esse oblitum, in ludo qui fuisti tam diu?