Scene III
Enter Clitipho, speaking to Clinia within.
As yet, my Clinia, you’ve no cause to fear:
They are not long: and she, I’m confident,
Will be here shortly with the messenger.
Prithee, away then with these idle cares,
Which thus torment you!
Chrem. (behind.) Whom does my son speak to?
Clit. My father as I wish’d—Good Sir, well met.
Chrem. What now?
Clit. D’ye know our neighbor Menedemus?
Chrem. Aye, very well.
Clit. D’ye know he has a son?
Chrem. I’ve heard he is in Asia.
Clit. No such thing.
He’s at our house, Sir.
Chrem. How!
Clit. But just arriv’d:
Ev’n at his landing I fell in with him,
And brought him here to supper: for, from boys,
We have been friends and intimates.
Chrem. Good news:
Now do I wish the more that Menedemus,
Whom I invited, were my guest to-day,
That I, and under my own roof, might be
That I, and under my own roof, had been
The first to have surpris’d him with this joy!
And I may yet. (Going.)
Clit. Take heed! it were not good.
Chrem. How so?
Clit. Because the youth is yet in doubt:
Newly arriv’d; in fear of ev’ry thing;
He dreads his father’s anger, and suspects
The disposition of his mistress tow’rds him;
Her, whom he dotes upon; on whose account,
This diff’rence and departure came about.
Chrem. I know it.
Clit. He has just dispatch’d his boy
Into the city to her, and our Syrus
I sent along with him.
Chrem. What says the son?
Clit. Says? that he’s miserable.
Chrem. Miserable!
Who needs be less so? for what earthly good
Can man possess which he may not enjoy?
Parents, a prosp’rous country, friends, birth, riches.
Yet these all take their value from the mind
Of the possessor: he that knows their use,
To him they’re blessings; he that knows it not,
To him misuse converts them into curses.
Clit. Nay, but he ever was a cross old man:
And now there’s nothing that I dread so much,
As lest he be transported in his rage
To some gross outrages against his son.
Chrem. He!—He!—But I’ll contain myself. ’Tis good
For Menedemus that his son should fear. (Aside.)
Clit. What say you, Sir, within yourself! (Overhearing.)
Chrem. I say,
Be’t as it might, the son should have remain’d.
Grant that the father bore too strict a hand
Upon his loose desires; he should have borne it.
Whom would he bear withal, if not a parent?
Was’t fitting that the father should conform
To the son’s humor, or the son to his?
And for the rigor that he murmurs at,
’Tis nothing: the severities of fathers,
Unless perchance a hard one here and there,
Are much the same: they reprimand their sons
For riotous excesses, wenching, drinking;
And starve their pleasures by a scant allowance.
Yet this all tends to good: but when the mind
Is once enslav’d to vicious appetites,
It needs must follow vicious measures too.
Remember then this maxim, Clitipho,
A wise one ’tis to draw from others’ faults
A profitable lesson for yourself.
Clit. I do believe it.
Chrem. Well, I’ll in, and see
What is provided for our supper: you,
As the day wears, see that you’re not far hence.
Exit.