HEG. For certain? ARIST. Why, nothing, I say, will you find more certain than this certainty. Philocrates, from when a boy, has ever since that time been my friend. HEG. But of what appearance is your friend Philocrates? ARIST. I'll tell you: with a thin face, sharp nose, light hair, dark eyes, somewhat ruddy, with hair rather crisp and curling. HEG. _The description_ is like. TYND. (_aside_). _Aye_, so much so, indeed, that I've this day, much to my sorrow, got into the midst of this, i' faith. Woe to those unfortunate rods, which this day will be meeting their end upon my back. HEG. I see that I've been imposed upon. TYND. (_aside_). Why, fetters, do you delay to run towards me and to embrace my legs that I may have you in custody? HEG. And have these _two_ rascally captives really deceived me this day with their tricks? the other one pretended that he was the servant and this one that he himself was the master. I've lost a kernal; for a security, I've left the shell. To such a degree have they imposed upon me, [13] both on this side and that, with their trickeries. Still, this fellow shall never have the laugh against me. Colaphus, Cordalio, Corax [14] (_to the_ SLAVES), go you away and bring out the thongs. SLAVE. Are we to be sent to gather faggots [15]? (_The _SLAVES _go and bring the thongs from the house_.) [Footnote 1: _Which is spit out_)--Ver. 566. Some would render the words "qui sputatur," "which is spit upon," and fancy that they find authorities in the ancient writers for thinking that epilepsy was treated by spitting upon the patient. However, it seems much more probable, that the notion was that epilepsy was cured by the patient himself spitting out the noxious saliva; and that the word "sputatur" means, "is spit out," _i. e._ "is cured by spitting." Celsus thus describes the "comitialis morbus," "epilepsy," or "falling sickness: The person seized, suddenly falls down; foam drops from the mouth; then, after a little time, he comes to himself, and gets up again without any assistance." Pliny, in his Natural History, B. 38, c. 4, says: "Despuimus comitiales morbos, hoc est, contagia regerimus," "We spit out the epilepsy, that is, we avert the contagion." This is said, probably, in reference to a belief, that on seeing an epileptic person, if we spit, we shall avoid the contagion; but it by no means follows that the person so doing must spit upon the epileptic person. We read in the first Book of Samuel, ch. xxi., ver. 12: "And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish, the King of Gath. And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down on his beard." He probably pretended to be attacked with epileptic fits. In fact, after due examination, there seems little doubt that it was a common notion with the ancients that the distemper was discharged with the saliva.]