Publii Terentii Carthaginiensis Afris poëtae lepidissimi comoediae sex Anglo-Latinae in usum ludi-discipulorum, quo Feliciùs venustatem linguae Latinae ad sermonem quotidianum exercendum assequantur / a Carolo Hoole ... = Six comedies of that excellent poet Publius Terentius, an African of Carthage, in English and Latine : for the use of young scholars, that they may the more readily attain the purity of the Latine tongue for common discourse / by Charles Hoole ...

Act. IV. Scen. I.

MYRRHINA. PHIDIPPUS..

My.

I Am undone, what shall I doe? which way shall I turn my self? what answer Shall I poor wretch make to my husband? for he seemed to have heard the voice of the crying childe: He got himself away on such a suddain to my daughter & said nothing: But if he shall perceive she is brought to bed, trulie I do not know, [line 5] For what reason I should say I concealed it. But the door creeks; I believe he comes forth to me. I am undone.

Ph.

My wife, as soon as she saw I went to my daughter, got her self out of doors; and loe I see her. What say you, Myrrhina? Ho, I speak to you.

My.

To me, my husband?

P.

Am I your husband? do you verilie account me to be a husband or a man? [line 10] For if ever, woman, I seemed to you to be one of these, I should not have been thus made a laughing stock by your doings.

My.

By what?

Ph.

Do you ask? Is my daughter delivered? ha do you not speak? of whom?

My.

Is it fit for a father to ask the question? I am undone; of whom think you but of him to whom she was mar∣ried, I pray you?

Ph.

I believe it, neither is it for a father to think otherwise. But I wonder, [line 15] What the matter should be, that you so much desire to conceal this child-birth from us, Especially seeing she was both safelie delivered, and according to her counts: That you should be so crosse-minded, as to wish the child to be lost, By whom you might understand the friendship amongst us would here∣after be more stable, Rather then she should be married with him against your will. [line 20] I also thought this to be their fault, which is whollie in you.

My.

I am a wretched woman.

Ph.

I wish I knew that was so. But now I remember, What you said about this matter heretofore, when we took him to be our son in law,

For you said you could not abide that your daughter should be married With him which loved an harbor, who lodged out of doors.

Myr.

[line 25] I had rather have him to suspect anie reason, then the true one it self.

Ph.

I knew long before you, Myrrhina, that he had a sweet-heart, But I never judged that to be a fault of youth; For that is ingrafted in all men; but trulie the time will be shortly, when he will also dislike himself. But as heretofore you have shewed your self to be the same, you have not ceased hitherto [line 30] To withdraw your daughter from him, lest what I had done, should be established. Now this thing plainly discovereth, how you would have it done.

My.

Do you think I am so ••••••art towards 〈◊〉〈◊〉, to whom I am a mo∣ther, That I should be of that minde, if this marriage might be for our good?

Ph.

Are you able to foresee or judge what may be for our benefit? [line 35] You have heard perhaps of some bodie, that might say he saw him Going out or coming in to his sweet-heart: what then of all this, If he have done this modestly and seldome? is it not more friendlie For us to dissemble, then to labour to know those things, whereby he should bete us? For if he can on a suddain withdraw himself from her [line 40] With whom he hath been acquainted so manie years, I should judge him Neither a man nor a husband constant enough to my daughter.

My.

Let the young man alone, I pray you, And those things which you say I have done amisse: go your way, talk you alone by your selves. Ask him whether he will have his wife or not; if it be that he say he will, Let him have her again; but if it be that he will not, then have I well provided for my daughter.

Ph.

[line 45] If truly he will not, and you Myrrhina perceived there was a fault In him, I was by, by whose advice it was fitting those things should have been ordered. Wherefore I am inflamed with anger that you should dare to do these things without my bidding, I charge you, that you carrie not the child anie whither out of the house.

But I am the more fool that require her to obey my commands: [line 50] I will go in, and charge my servants, that they do not suffer it 〈◊〉〈◊〉 be carried out anie whither.

Myr.

I think trulie no woman▪ •…•…th more miserable then I. For indeed it is not unknown to me, how he will take this, If he understand the matter it self, how it is; seeing he takes this so impatiently, which is a lighter thing. Neither do I know which way his minde may be changed. [line 55] Of verie manie miseries this one mischief was left me, If he shall constrain me to bring up the childe, whose father we know not, who he is. For when my daughter was ravished, his feature could not be known in the dark: Neither was then ani•• thing pluckt from him, whereby she might after∣wards know who he was: He himself when he went away snatch't away a ring by force from the maid, which she had on her finger. [line 60] Withall I am afraid lest Pamphilus cannot conceal what we in∣treated him Anie longer, when he shall know another man's childe to be brought up instead of his.