The Captivi and the MostellariaPlautus, Titus Maccius
General
The Captivi and the Mostellaria
Plautus, Titus Maccius
Latin drama (Comedy); Plautus, Titus Maccius -- Translations into English
HEG. Most wrongfully. TYND. But I, who disagree with you, say, rightly.
For consider, if any slave of yours had done this for your son, what
thanks you would have given him. Would you have given that slave his
freedom or not? Would not that slave have been in highest esteem with
you? Answer me _that._
HEG. I think so. TYND. Why, then, are you angry with me?
HEG. Because you have proved more faithful to him than to myself.
TYND. How now? Did you expect, in a single night and day, for yourself
to teach _me_--a person just made captive, a recent _slave, and_ in his
noviciate--that I should rather consult your interest than his, with
whom from childhood I have passed my life?
HEG. Seek, then, thanks from him for that. (_To the_ SLAVES.) Take him
where he may receive weighty and thick fetters, thence, after that, you
shall go to the quarries for cutting stone. There, while the others are
digging out eight stones, unless you daily do half as much work again,
you shall have the name of the six-hundred-stripe man [1].
ARIST. By Gods and men, I do entreat you, Hegio, not to destroy this
man.
HEG. He shall be taken all care of [2]. For at night, fastened with
chains, he shall be watched; in the daytime, beneath the ground, he
shall be getting out stone. For many a day will I torture him; I'll not
respite him for a single day.
ARIST. Is that settled by you? HEG. Not more settled that I shall
die. (_To the_ SLAVES.) Take him away this instant to Hippolytus, the
blacksmith; bid thick fetters to be rivetted on him. From there let him
be led outside the gate to my freedman, Cordalus, at the stone-quarries.
And tell him that I desire this man so to be treated, that he mayn't be
in any respect worse off than he who is the most severely treated.
TYND. Why, since you are unwilling, do I desire myself to survive? At
your own hazard is the risk of my life. After death, no evil have I to
apprehend in death. Though I should live even to extreme age, still,
short is the space for enduring what you threaten me with. Farewell
and prosper; although you are deserving for me to say otherwise. You,
Aristophontes, as you have deserved of me, so fare you; for on your
account has this befallen me.
HEG. (_to the_ SLAVES). Carry him off.
TYND. But this one thing I beg, that, if Philocrates should come back
here, you will give me an opportunity of meeting him.
HEG. (_to the_ SLAVES). At your peril, if you don't this instant remove
him from my sight. (_The_ SLAVES _lay hold of_ TYNDARUS, _and push him
along._)
TYND. I' troth, this really is violence [3], to be both dragged and
pushed at the same time. (_He is borne off by the_ SLAVES.)
[Footnote 1: _Six-hundred-stripe man_)--Ver. 731. "Sexcentoplago." This
is a compound word, coined by the author.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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