- Source
- Terence. Publii Terentii Comoediae Sex. Parry, Edward St. John, editor. London: Whittaker and Co.; George Bell, 1857.
- Translation
- AI-generated (gemini-3.5-flash) — machine translation; may contain errors
- Languages
- 日本語 · English · 简体中文 · 한국어
- CTS URN
- urn:cts:latinLit:phi0134.phi005.humanitext-lat2:487-545
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-10-27
Pamphilus departs, prioritizing his duty to his mother despite his love for Philumena. The fathers clash, and Philumena's mother, Myrrhina, appears and gets into a heated argument with her husband Phidippus over their daughter's childbirth and her concealment of it.
Quod nollem; et saepe quod vellem meritam scio.1
Pamphilus: (Which I wish were not so); and I know she has often deserved what I would wish.
Amoque et laudo et vehementer desidero;
And I love, praise, and intensely long for her;
Nam fuisse erga me miro ingenio expertus sum;
for I have experienced that she was of an extraordinary disposition toward me.
Illique exopto ut reliquam vitam exigat
And I pray for her that she may spend the rest of her life
Cum eo viro me qui sit fortunatior;
with a husband who is more fortunate than I;
Quandoquidem illam a me distrahit necessitas.
since necessity tears her away from me.
Tibi id in manu est ne fiat.
Laches: It is in your power to prevent that.
Si sanus sies,
If you are in your right mind,
Iube illam redire.
order her to return.
Non est consilium, pater.
Pamphilus: It is not my plan, father.
Matris servibo commodis.
I will consult my mother’s convenience.
Quo abis? mane;
Laches: Where are you going? Stay;
Mane, inquam: quo abis?
stay, I say: where are you going?
Quae haec est pertinacia?
What obstinacy is this?
Dixin, Phidippe, hanc rem aegre laturum esse eum?
Did I not say, Phidippus, that he would take this matter hard?
Quamobrem te orabam filiam ut remitteres.
For which reason I begged you to send your daughter back.
Non credidi edepol adeo inhumanum fore.
Phidippus: By Pollux, I did not believe he would be so stubborn.
Ita nunc is sibi me supplicaturum putat?
Does he now think that I will supplicate him?
Si est ut velit2 reducere uxorem, licet;
If he indeed wants to take his wife back, he may;
Sin alio est animo, renumeret dotem huc; eat.
but if his mind is otherwise, let him pay back the dowry here; let him go.
Ecce autem tu quoque proterve iracundus es.
Laches: But look, you too are insolently angry.
Percontumax redisti huc nobis, Pamphile.
You have returned to us very obstinate, Pamphilus.
Decedet iam ira haec, etsi merito iratus est.
This anger will soon pass, even though he is deservedly angry.
Quia paulum vobis accessit pecuniae,
Phidippus: Because a little money has come to you,
Sublati animi sunt.
your spirits are raised.
Etiam mecum litigas?
Laches: Are you arguing with me too?
Deliberet, renuntietque hodie mihi,
Phidippus: Let him deliberate and report to me today,
Velitne an non; ut alii, si huic non sit, siet.
whether he wants her or not; so that she may belong to another, if not to this man.
Phidippe, ades, audi paucis. Abiit. Quid mea?3
Laches: Phidippus, stay, listen to a few words. He is gone. What is it to me?
Postremo inter se transigant ipsi, ut libet;
In the end, let them settle it among themselves as they please;
Quando nec natus neque hic mihi quicquam obtemperant;
since neither my son nor this man obeys me at all;
Quae dico parvi pendunt. Porto hoc iurgium
they care little for what I say. I will take this quarrel
Ad uxorem, cuius haec fiunt consilio omnia;
to my wife, by whose advice all these things are done;
Atque in eam hoc omne quod mihi aegre est evomam.
and on her I will vent all this vexation of mine.
Perii: quid agam? quo me vertam? quid viro meo respondebo
Myrrhina: I am ruined! What shall I do? Where shall I turn? What shall I answer to my husband,
Misera? nam audivisse vocem pueri visus est vagientis:
unhappy me? For he seemed to have heard the voice of a crying child:
Ita corripuit derepente tacitus sese ad filiam.
so silently and suddenly he rushed in to our daughter.
Quod si rescierit peperisse eam, id qua causa clam me habuisse
But if he finds out that she has given birth, for what reason I kept this secret from him,
Dicam non edepol scio.
by Pollux, I do not know what to say.
Sed ostium concrepuit. Credo ipsum exire ad me: nulla sum.
But the door creaked. I believe he himself is coming out to me; I am undone.
Uxor ubi me ad filiam ire sensit, se duxit foras;
Phidippus: When my wife perceived that I was going to our daughter, she went outside;
Atque eccam video. Quid ais, Myrrhina? Heus, tibi dico.
and look, I see her. What do you say, Myrrhina? Hey, I am speaking to you.
Mihine, mi vir?
Myrrhina: To me, my husband?
Vir ego tuus sim? tun virum me aut hominem deputas adeo esse?
Phidippus: Am I your husband? Do you indeed consider me a husband or even a man?
Nam si utrumvis horum, mulier, unquam tibi visus forem,
For if I had ever seemed to you to be either of these, woman,
Non sic ludibrio tuis factis habitus essem.
I would not have been thus made a laughing-stock by your actions.
Quibus?
Myrrhina: By what actions?
At rogitas?
Phidippus: Do you even ask?
Peperit filia. Hem, taces? ex quo?
Our daughter has given birth. What, are you silent? By whom?
Istuc patrem rogare est aequum?
Myrrhina: Is it proper for a father to ask that?
Perii: ex quo censes nisi ex illo cui data est nuptum, obsecro?
I am ruined! By whom do you think, pray, except by him to whom she was given in marriage?
Credo; neque adeo arbitrari patris est aliter: sed demiror
Phidippus: I believe it; indeed, it is not a father’s part to think otherwise. But I wonder
Quid sit quamobrem tantopere omnes nos celare volueris
what the reason is why you wished to conceal the birth so much from all of us,
Partum, praesertim quum et recte et tempore suo pepererit.
especially since she gave birth properly and in her own time.
Adeon pervicaci esse animo4 ut puerum praeoptares perire,
Were you of so stubborn a mind as to prefer that the child should perish,
Ex quo firmiorem inter nos fore amicitiam posthac scires,
from whom you knew that a firmer friendship would exist between us hereafter,
Potius quam adversum animi tui libidinem esset cum illo nupta?
rather than that she should remain married to him contrary to your heart’s desire?
Ego etiam illorum esse hanc culpam credidi, quae te est penes.
I even believed that this fault belonged to those people, but it is in your hands.
Misera sum.
Myrrhina: I am miserable.
Utinam sciam ita esse istuc sed nunc mihi in mentem venit
Phidippus: Would that I knew it were so; but now there comes to my mind
De hac re quod locuta es olim, quum illum generum cepimus:
what you once spoke of regarding this matter, when we took him as our son-in-law:
Nam negabas nuptam posse filiam tuam te pati
for you said you could not bear your daughter being married
Cum eo qui meretricem amaret, qui pernoctaret foris.
to one who loved a courtesan, who spent his nights away from home.
Quamvis causam5 hunc suspicari quam ipsam veram mavolo.
Myrrhina: (Aside) I prefer him to suspect any reason whatsoever rather than the true one itself.
Multo prius scivi quam tu illum amicam habere, Myrrhina:
Phidippus: I knew much sooner than you, Myrrhina, that he had a mistress;
Verum id vitium nunquam decrevi esse ego adolescentiae:
but I never decided that this was a fault of youth;
Nam id est omnibus innatum: at pol iam aderit se quoque etiam quum oderit.
for it is innate in all of them; but by Pollux, the time will soon be here when he will even hate himself.
Sed ut olim te ostendisti eadem esse nihil cessavisti usque adhuc,
But as you once showed yourself, you have never ceased to be the same up to now,
Ut filiam ab eo abduceres, neu quod ego egissem asset ratum.
to withdraw our daughter from him, and to prevent what I had done from being valid.
- 487Quod nollem; et saepe quod vellem meritam scio.
The relative pronoun quod in quod nollem refers to the preceding statement "She has never deserved anything bad of me." nollem is an imperfect subjunctive expressing an unrealizable wish ("I wish it were otherwise," i.e., "I wish she had given me a reason to hate her, making it easier to leave her"). In the second clause, quod vellem ("what I would wish," i.e., good things/praise) is the object of the infinitive meritam (esse) (with its subject eam omitted), where quod acts as a relative pronoun without an explicit antecedent.
- 501Si est ut velit
si est ut followed by ut with the subjunctive (velit) is an impersonal periphrastic construction meaning "if it is the case that he wishes," which emphasizes a simple conditional si vult ("if he wishes").
- 510Quid mea?
The feminine singular ablative of the possessive pronoun mea is used with the ellipsis of the verb refert (or interest). quid mea refert? is an idiomatic rhetorical question meaning "What does it matter to me?" or "What is that to me?".
- 532Adeon pervicaci esse animo
An exclamatory accusative and infinitive construction expressing indignation, with the accusative subject (te) omitted. pervicaci animo is an ablative of quality. Literally, it translates as "That you should be of so stubborn a mind!", expressing strong reproach and anger.
- 540Quamvis causam
Here quamvis is not used as a concessive conjunction ("although"), but functions as an indefinite relative adjective modifying the noun causam, meaning "any cause whatsoever" or "whatever cause you please."