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Enter APÆCIDES and PERIPHANES, from the house of the former.
APAECIDES
Mostly all men1 are ashamed when they have no occasion to be; when they ought to be ashamed, then does shame forsake them, when there's a necessity for their being ashamed. That man, in fact, are you. What is there to be ashamed of in your bringing home a wife, poor, but born of good family? Especially her, whose daughter you say this girl is, who is at your house? PERIPHIANES
I have some regard for my son2. APAECIDES
But, i' faith, the wife whom you buried I thought you had felt some respect for; whose tomb as oft as you see, you straightway sacrifice victims to Orcus; and not without reason, in fact, since you've been allowed to get the better of her by surviving her. PERIPHIANES
Ah me! I was a Hercules while she was with me; and, upon my faith, the sixth labour3 was not more difficult to Hercules than the one that fell to my lot. APAECIDES
I' faith, money's a handsome dowry. PERIPHIANES
Troth, so it is, which isn't encumbered with a wife.
1 Mostly all men: Apæcides has been talking in-doors with Periphanes about his supposed daughter who has lately come home, and is recommending him to atone to Philippa for his conduct to her, by marrying her. It is supposed that Terence had this passage in view in the Andria, l. 637-8.
2 Regard for my son: It was looked upon as a disgraceful thing for a father with grown-up sons to marry again, and thereby introduce a mother- in-law into his family. Apæcides blames Periphanes for this scruple, and hints to him that he ought not to be more ashamed on account of his son, than of his late wife, who, being dead, and for whom he had no hearty liking, could not make him blush at a second marriage.
3 The sixth labour: The sixth labour of Hercules was his combat with the Amazons, when he took Antiope or Hippolyts, their queen, and carried off her girdle.
The Comedies of Plautus. Henry Thomas Riley. London. G. Bell and Sons. 1912.
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