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Enter CLEOSTRATA and PARDALISCA, from the house of STALINO.
CLEOSTRATA
at the door, to the SERVANTS, within . Seal fast the store-rooms1, bring back the signet to me. I'm going here to my next door neighbour; if my husband wants me for anything, take care and send for me thence. PARDALISCA
The old gentleman ordered a breakfast to be got ready for him to-day. CLEOSTRATA
Tut! Hold your tongue, and be off. PARDALISCA goes into the house. I don't prepare it, and it shan't be cooked; since he sets himself against myself and his son, for the sake of his passion and his appetite. A disgraceful fellow that! I'll punish this lover with hunger, I'll punish him with thirst, with abuse, with hardships. By my faith, I'll thoroughly worry him with disagreable speeches; I'll make him to pass a life in future just as he deserves--fit food for Acheron, a hunter after iniquity, a stable of infamy! Now I'll away hence to my neighbours, to lament my lot. But the door makes a noise; and see, she's coming out of doors herself. On my word, I've not started for my call at a convenient time.
1 Seal fast the store-rooms: This passage bears reference to the common practice of the ancients, who were in the habit of sealing boxes and cupboards with the impression of their signets, stamped on wax. So in St. Matthew, xxvii, 66: "So they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch;" and in Daniel, vi., 17: "A stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords."
The Comedies of Plautus. Henry Thomas Riley. London. G. Bell and Sons. 1912.
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