CALIDORUS: Ballio, listen. BALLIO: I'm...

CALIDORUS: Ballio, listen.

BALLIO: I'm deaf.

CALIDORUS: Really, you are uncivil.

BALLIO: You are a chatterer of nonsense.

CALIDORUS: I gave you money so long as I had it.

BALLIO: I'm not asking what you gave.

CALIDORUS: I'll give you some when I have it.

BALLIO: When you have it, bring it to me.

CALIDORUS: Alas, alas! In what a foolish fashion have I lavished what I brought to you, and what I gave you.

BALLIO: Your wealth defunct, you now are talking about it; you are a simpleton, a cause that has been tried you are trying over again.

PSEUDOLUS: At least consider him, who he is.

BALLIO: I've known for a long time now who he was; who he now is, let him know himself.

PSEUDOLUS: And can't you, Ballio, only once give a look this way for your own profit?

BALLIO: At that price I'll give a look; for if I were sacrificing to supreme Jupiter, and were presenting the entrails in my hands to lay them on the altar, if in the meanwhile anything in the way of profit were offered, I should in preference forsake the sacrifice. There's no being able to resist that sort of piety, however other things go.

PSEUDOLUS (aside) . The very Gods, whom it is especially our duty to reverence--them he esteems of little value.

BALLIO: I'll speak to him. Hail to you, right heartily, the very vilest slave in Athens.

PSEUDOLUS: May the Gods and Goddesses favour you, Ballio, both at his wish and at my own; or, if you are deserving of other terms, let them neither favour nor bless you.

BALLIO: What's the matter, Calidorus?

CALIDORUS: Love and pinching want are the matter.

BALLIO: I would pity you, if, upon pity I could support my establishment.

PSEUDOLUS: Aye, aye, we know you quite well, what sort of character you are; don't be proclaiming it. But do you know what we want?

BALLIO: I' faith, I know it pretty nearly; that there may be something unfortunate for me.

PSEUDOLUS: Both to that and this for which we called you back, prithee do give your attention.

BALLIO: I am attending; but compress into a few words what you want, as I'm busy now.

PSEUDOLUS: He (pointing to CALIDORUS) is quite ashamed about what he promised you, and the day for which he promised it, that he hasn't even yet paid you those twenty minæ for his mistress.

BALLIO: That which we are ashamed at is much more easily endured than that which we are vexed at. At not having paid the money, he is ashamed; I, because I have not received it, am vexed.

PSEUDOLUS: Still, he'll pay it, he'll procure it; do you only wait some days to come. But he has been afraid of this, that you'll sell her on account of his embarrassment.

BALLIO: He had an opportunity, had he wished, of paying the money long ago.

CALIDORUS: What if I had it not?

BALLIO: If you had been in love, you would have found it on loan. You would have gone to the usurer; you would have paid the interest; or else you would have pilfered it from your father.

PSEUDOLUS: Ought he to have pilfered it from his father, you most shameless villain? There is no fear that you'll point out to him anything that's right.

BALLIO: That's not like a procurer.

CALIDORUS: And could I possibly pilfer anything from my father, an old man so much on his guard? And besides, if I could do so, filial affection forbids.

BALLIO: I understand you; do you then at night embrace filial affection in place of Phœnicium. But since I see you prefer your filial affection to your love--are all men your fathers? Is there no one for you to ask to lend you some money?

CALIDORUS: Why, the very name of lending's dead and gone by this.

PSEUDOLUS: Look you now; since, i' faith, those fellows arose from the banker's table, with a filled skin, who, when they called in their own, paid what they had borrowed to no born creature, since then, I say, all people have been more cautious not to trust another.

CALIDORUS: Most wretched am I; nowhere am I able to find a coin of silver; so distractedly am I perishing both through love and want of money.

BALLIO: Buy oil on credit, and sell it for ready money; then, i' faith, even two hundred minæ ready money might be raised.

CALIDORUS: There I'm done; the twenty-five year old law founders me. All are afraid to trust me.

BALLIO: The same law have I. I'm afraid to trust you.

PSEUDOLUS: To trust him, indeed! How now, do you repent of the great profit he has been to you?

BALLIO: No lover is a profitable one, except him who keeps continually making presents. Either let him be always giving, or when he has nothing, let him at the same time cease to be in love.

CALIDORUS: And don't you pity me at all?

BALLIO: You come empty-handed; words don't chink. But I wish you life and health.

PSEUDOLUS: Heyday! Is he dead already?

BALLIO: However he is, to me indeed, at all events, with these speeches, he is dead. Then, does a lover really live, when he comes begging to a procurer? Do you always come to me with a complaint that brings its money. As for that, which you are now lamenting about, that you have got no money, complain of it to your stepmother.

PSEUDOLUS: Why, have you ever been married to his father, pray?

BALLIO: May the Gods grant better things.

PSEUDOLUS: Do what we ask you, Ballio, on my credit, if you are afraid to trust him. Within the next three days, from some quarter, in some way, either by land or sea, I'll rout up this money for you.

BALLIO: I, trust you?

PSEUDOLUS: Why not?

BALLIO: Because, i' faith, on the same principle that I trust you, on that principle I should tie a run-away dog to a lamb's fry.

CALIDORUS: Is the obligation thus ungratefully returned by you to me, who have deserved so well of you?

BALLIO: What do you want now?

CALIDORUS: That you will only wait these six days of the Feast, and will not sell her or prove the death of the person who loves her.

BALLIO: Be of good courage; I'll wait six months even.

CALIDORUS: Capital--most delightful man!

BALLIO: Aye; and do you wish, too, that from joyful I should make you even more joyous?

CALIDORUS: How so?

BALLIO: Why, because I've got no Phœnicium to sell.

CALIDORUS: Not got her?

BALLIO: I' faith, not I, indeed.

CALIDORUS: Pseudolus, go fetch the sacrifice, the victims, the sacrificers, that I may make offering to this supreme Jove. For this Jupiter is now much more mighty to me than is Jupiter himself.

BALLIO: I want no victims; with the entrails of minæ I wish to be appeased.

CALIDORUS: (to PSEUDOLUS). Make haste. Why do you hesitate? Go fetch the lambs; do you hear what Jupiter says?

PSEUDOLUS: I'll be here this moment; but first I must run as far as beyond the gate.

CALIDORUS: Why thither?

PSEUDOLUS: I'll fetch two sacrificers thence, with their bells; at the same time I'll fetch thence two bundles of elm twigs, that this day a sufficiency may be provided for the sacrifice to this Jove.

BALLIO: Away to utter perdition.

PSEUDOLUS: Thither shall the pimping Jupiter go.

BALLIO: It isn't for your interest that I should die.

PSEUDOLUS: How so?

BALLIO: This way; because, if I'm dead, there will be no one worse than yourself in Athens. For your interest (to CALIDORUS) it is that I should die.

CALIDORUS: How so?

BALLIO: I'll tell you; because, i' faith, so long as I shall be alive, you'll never be a man well to do.

CALIDORUS: Troth now, prithee, in serious truth, tell me this that I ask you--have you not got my mistress, Phœnicium, on sale?

BALLIO: By my faith, I really have not; for I've now sold her already.

CALIDORUS: In what way?

BALLIO: Without her trappings, with all her inwards.

CALIDORUS: What? Have you sold my mistress?

BALLIO: Decidedly; for twenty minæ.

CALIDORUS: For twenty minæ?

BALLIO: Or, in other words, for four times five minæ, whichever you please, to a Macedonian Captain; and I've already got fifteen of the minæ at home.

CALIDORUS: What is it that I hear of you?

BALLIO: That your mistress has been turned into money.

CALIDORUS: Why did you dare to do so?

BALLIO: 'Twas my pleasure; she was my own.

CALIDORUS: Hallo! Pseudolus. Run, fetch me a sword.

PSEUDOLUS: What need is there of a sword?

CALIDORUS: With which to kill this fellow this instant, and then myself.

PSEUDOLUS: But why not kill yourself only rather? For famine will soon be killing him.

CALIDORUS: What do you say, most perjured of men as many as are living upon the earth? Did you not take an oath that you would sell her to no person besides myself?

BALLIO: I confess it.

CALIDORUS: In solemn form, to wit.

BALLIO: Aye, and well considered too.

CALIDORUS: You have proved perjured, you villain.

BALLIO: I sacked the money at home, however. Villain as I am, I am now able to draw upon a stock of silver in my house; whereas you who are so dutiful, and born of that grand family, haven't a single coin.

CALIDORUS: Pseudolus, stand by him on the other side and load this fellow with imprecations.

PSEUDOLUS: Very well. Never would I run to the Prætor with equal speed that I might be made free. (Stands on the other side of BALLIO.)

CALIDORUS: Heap on him a multitude of curses.

PSEUDOLUS: Now will I publish you with my rebukes. Thou lackshame!

BALLIO: 'Tis the fact.

PSEUDOLUS: Villain!

BALLIO: You say the truth.

PSEUDOLUS: Whipping-post!

BALLIO: Why not?

PSEUDOLUS: Robber of tombs!

BALLIO: No doubt.

PSEUDOLUS: Gallows-bird!

BALLIO: Very well done.

PSEUDOLUS: Cheater of your friends!

BALLIO: That's in my way.

PSEUDOLUS: Parricide!

BALLIO: Proceed, you.

CALIDORUS: Committer of sacrilege!

BALLIO: I own it.

CALIDORUS: Perjurer!

BALLIO: You're telling nothing new.

CALIDORUS: Lawbreaker!

BALLIO: Very much so.

PSEUDOLUS: Pest of youth!

BALLIO: Most severely said.

CALIDORUS: Thief!

BALLIO: Oh! wonderful!

PSEUDOLUS: Vagabond!

BALLIO: Pooh! pooh!

CALIDORUS: Defrauder of the public!

BALLIO: Most decidedly so.

PSEUDOLUS: Cheating scoundrel!

CALIDORUS: Filthy pander!

PSEUDOLUS: Lump of filth!

BALLIO: A capital chorus.

CALIDORUS: You beat your father and mother.

BALLIO: Aye, and killed them, too, rather than find them food; did I do wrong at all?

PSEUDOLUS: We are pouring our words into a pierced cask: we are losing our pains.

BALLIO: Would you like to call me anything else besides?

CALIDORUS: Is there anything that shames you?

BALLIO: Yes; that you have been found to be a lover as empty as a rotten nut. But although you have used towards me expressions many and harsh, unless the Captain shall bring me this day the five minæ that he owes me, as this was the last day appointed for the payment of that money, if he doesn't bring it, I think that I am able to do my duty.

CALIDORUS: What is that duty?

BALLIO: If you bring the money, I'll break faith with him; that's my duty. If it were more worth my while, I would talk further with you. But, without a coin of money, 'tis in vain that you request me to have pity upon you. Such is my determination; but do you, from this, consider what you have henceforth to do? (Moves.)

CALIDORUS: Are you going then?

BALLIO: At present I am full of business. (Exit.)

Henry Thomas Riley. The Comedies of Plautus. London. G. Bell and Sons. 1912. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:latinLit:phi0119.phi016.perseus-eng1:intro

Annotated text of the play: Pseudolus