(to Artamo) Plant your fists in his face, if he breathes
      a word. (to Chrysalus) What does this letter say?

Chrys.

  Quid me rogas?
  ut ab illo accepi, ad te obsignatas attuli.

      What are you asking me for?  I took it from him and brought
      it to you just as it was, all sealed.

Nic.

Eho tu,[22] loquitatusne es gnato meo male per sermonem, quia mi id aurum reddidit, et te dixisti id aurum ablaturum tamen per sycophantiam?

Oho, you!  So you have been giving my son the rough side of your tongue, because he handed over that gold to me?  Said you’d take it from me just the same by some rascally scheme, eh?

Chrys.

  Egone istuc dixi?

      I said that, I?

Nic.

  Ita.

      Just so.

Chrys.

  Quis homost qui dicat me dixisse istuc?

      Who’s the man says I said that?

Nic.

  Tace,
  nullus homo dicit:  hae tabellae te arguont,
  quas tu attulisti. em hae te vinciri iubent.

      Silence!  No man says it:  this letter indicts you, the one
      you brought yourself. (showing it) There!  This orders
      you to be tied up.

Chrys.

  Aha, Bellorophontem tuos me fecit filius:  810
  egomet tabellas tetuli ut vincirer. sine.

      (resignedly) Aha!  Your son has made a Bellerophon[J] of
      me:  I myself brought the letter to have myself tied up.
      (dangerously) Very well!

        [Footnote J:  Who carried a letter which was to be his
        own death warrant]

Nic.

  Propterea hoc facio, ut suadeas gnato meo
  ut pergraecetur tecum, tervenefice.

      (ironically)) I do this merely to make you persuade my son
      to join you in riotous living, you soulless villain.

Chrys.

  O stulte, stulte, nescis nunc venire te;
  atque in eopse adstas lapide, ut praeco praedicat.

      Oh, you poor poor fool, you don’t know you’re being sold
      this moment; and here you are standing on the very block
      with the crier crying you!

Nic.

  Responde:  quis me vendit?

      (mystified) Answer!  Who is selling me?

Chrys.

Quem di diligunt adulescens moritur, dum valet sentit sapit. hunc si ullus deus amaret, plus annis decem, plus iam viginti mortuom esse oportuit:  terrai odium ambulat, iam nil sapit 820 nec sentit, tantist quantist fungus putidus.

(sneeringly) He whom the gods love dies young, while he has his strength and senses and wits.  If any god loved this fellow, (indicating Nicobulus) it’s more than ten years, more than twenty years ago, he ought to have died.  He ambles along encumbering the earth, absolutely witless and senseless already, worth about as much as a mushroom—­ a rotten one.

Nic.