HEG. (_to the _SLAVES). Put the manacles on this whipp'd villain.
TYND. (_whilst the_ SLAVES _are fastening him_). What's the matter? What
have I done wrong?
HEG. Do you ask the question? You weeder and sower of villanies, and in
especial their reaper.
TYND. Ought you not to have ventured to say the harrower first? For
countrymen always harrow before they weed.
HEG. Why, with what assurance he stands before me.
TYND. It's proper for a servant, innocent and guiltless, to be full of
confidence, most especially before his master.
HEG. (_to the _SLATES). Bind this fellow's hands tightly, will you.
TYND. I am your own--do you command them to be cut off even. But what is
the matter on account of which you blame me?
HEG. Because me and my fortunes, so far as in you singly lay, by your
rascally _and_ knavish stratagems you have rent in pieces, and have
districted my affairs and spoiled all my resources and my plans, _in
that_ you've thus robbed me of Philocrates by your devices. I thought
that he was the slave, you the free man. So did you say yourselves, and
in this way did you change names between you.
TYND. I confess that all was done so, as you say, and that by a
stratagem he has got away from you, through my aid and cleverness; and
prithee, now, do you blame me for that, i' faith?
HEG. Why, it has been done with your extreme torture _for the
consequence_.
TYND. So I don't die by reason of my misdeeds, I care but little. If I
do die here, then he returns not, as he said _he would_; but when I'm
dead, this act will be remembered to my honor, that I caused my captive
master to return from slavery and the foe, a free man, to his father in
his native land; and that I preferred rather to expose my own life to
peril, than that he should be undone.
HEG. Take care, then, to enjoy that fame at Acheron.
TYND. He who dies for virtue's sake, still does not perish.
HEG. When I've tortured you in the most severe manner, and for your
schemes put you to death, let them say either that you have perished or
that you have died; so long as you do die, I don't think it matters if
they say you live.
TYND. I' faith, if you do do so, you'll do it not without retribution,
if he shall return here, as I trust that he will return.
ARIST. (_aside_). O ye immortal Gods! I understand it now; now I know
what the case _really_ is. My friend Philocrates is at liberty with his
father, in his native land. 'Tis well; nor have I any person to whom I
could so readily wish well. But this thing grieves me, that I've done
this person a bad turn, who now on account of me and my talking is in
chains.
HEG. (_to_ TYNDARUS). Did I not forbid you this day to utter anything
false to me?
TYND. You did forbid me. HEG. Why did you dare to tell me lies?
TYND. Because the truth would have prejudiced him whom I was serving;
now falsehood has advantaged him.
HEG. But it will prejudice yourself.
TYND. 'Tis very good. Still, I have saved my master, whom I rejoice at
being saved, to whom my elder master had assigned me as a protector. But
do you think that this was wrongly done?
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.]
[Footnote 2: _He shall be taken all care of_)--Ver. 733. Struck with
admiration at his fidelity, Aristophontes begs Hegio not to destroy
Tyndarus. As the verb "perduis" might also mean "lose" him, Hegio
ironically takes it in the latter sense, and says that there is no
fear of that, for he shall be well taken care of; or, in other words,
strictly watched.]
[Footnote 3: _This really is violence_)--Ver. 755. According to
Suetonius, Julius Caesar used an exactly similar expression when first
attacked by his murderers in the senate-house. On Tullius Cimber seizing
bold of his garments he exclaimed, "Ita quidem vis est!" "Why, really,
this is violence!"]