Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights
John C. Rolfe, Ed.

[p. 197] And that my wife makes me by looks and acts:
If I kept still, I should betray myself
No less. And she has all that you would wish
She had not, save the dowry that she brought.
Let him who's wise a lesson take from me,
Who, like a free man captive to the foe,
Am slave, though town and citadel are safe.
What! wish her safe who steals whate'er I prize?
While longing for her death, a living corpse am I.
She says I've secret converse with our maid—
That's what she said, and so be laboured me
With tears, with prayers, with importunities,
That I did sell the wench. Now, I suppose,
She blabs like this to neighbours and to friends:
" Which one of you, when in the bloom of youth,
Could from her husband win what I from mine
Have gained, who've robbed him of his concubine."
Thus they, while I, poor wretch, am torn to shreds.

Now, not to mention the charm of subject matter and diction, which is by no means the same in the two books, I notice this general fact—that some of Menander's lines, brilliant, apt and witty, Caecilius has not attempted to reproduce, even where lie might have done so; but he has passed them by as if they were of no value, and has dragged in some other farcical stuff; and what Menander took from actual life, simple, realistic and delightful, this for some reason or other Caecilius has missed. For example, that same old husband, talking with another old man, a neighbour of his, and cursing the arrogance of his rich wife, says: ¹