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We’re still in Act 2 of Casina! It's a long act. Olympio and Lysidamus are on stage, and Cleostrata and Chalinus just showed up with the urn and tokens for drawing lots over Who Gets To Marry Casina. (Where by "marry Casina" we apparently mean "get his preferred master the privilege of having sex with Casina, and also get to have sex with her too, not that anyone cares what Casina thinks about all this." Sigh.) Maybe there'll be more jokes about torture! Ha ha!
Act 2, Scene 6
CLEOSTRATA: Clarify for me, Chalinus, what my husband wants from me.
CHALINUS: That man, by Pollux, [wants] to see you cremated outside the city.
CLEOSTRATA: By Castor, I believe he wants it.
CHALINUS: And by Pollux, I don’t think, but know it’s true.
LYSIDAMUS: I have more servants than I thought; I have this fortune-teller in my house. What if we draw the symbols nearer and go towards them? Follow me.* What are you two doing?
CHALINUS: Everything you ordered is present: wife, lots, urn, and I myself.
OLYMPIO: That adds you as one thing more than I want.
CHALINUS: Indeed, by Pol, it seems so to you; but now I’m a goad for you, I prod your little heart; you’re pouring with sweat out of fear, you rascal.
LYSIDAMUS: Be quiet, Chalinus.
CHALINUS: Control him.
OLYMPIO: Better to control him, who’s used to giving it up.**
LYSIDAMUS: Put the urn here, and give the lots to me; pay attention. And yet I proposed that I could order this, my wife, that Casina be given to me as a wife, and even now I propose it.
CLEOSTRATA: That she be given to you?
LYSIDAMUS: Yes, to me--oh! That’s not what I meant to say; while I wanted ‘to me’, I said ‘to this man’, and I go to myself while I desire--by Hercules, I said it wrong just now.
CLEOSTRATA: By Pollux, you certainly did, and you’re acting wrong too.
LYSIDAMUS: To this man--but by Hercules to me--oh! I barely got back to the true path.
CLEOSTRATA: By Pollux, you do wander very often.***
LYSIDAMUS: So it is, wherever one wants anything so greatly. But aside from you by your right, we’re talking about me and this man.
CLEOSTRATA: What is it?
LYSIDAMUS: For I will speak, my honey: you will make a present of this Casina to our steward here.
CLEOSTRATA: And by Pollux I’m neither doing that nor getting angry.
LYSIDAMUS: Therefore I will now distribute the lots.
CLEOSTRATA: Who picks?
LYSIDAMUS: I judge this man to be the best and fairest by rights. Finally, if what we wish should come forth from this drawing, we shall rejoice; if it happens otherwise, we shall endure it with a calm demeanor. Have a marker for yourself; see what’s written on it.
OLYMPIO: “One.”
CHALINUS: That’s not fair, since it was given to him before me.
LYSIDAMUS: So you take this one, if you like.
CHALINUS: Give it over.
OLYMPIO: Leave it alone; “one” pleases me. Watch out that no other lots go into the water from him.
CHALINUS: You scoundrel, do you think I’m like you?
LYSIDAMUS: It’s nothing. Only keep quiet.
[Olympio moves to cast his lot into the jug of water, here.]
OLYMPIO: May it be good and fortunate to me--
CHALINUS: --a great evil--
OLYMPIO: It will be thus to you, by Pollux! I didn’t know your piety. But wait now; are these lots of yours made of poplar or fir?^
CHALINUS: Why should you care?
OLYMPIO: I’m afraid it’ll float in the water.
LYSIDAMUS: Well said! Watch it. Throw the lots in there. There we go. Wife, equalize it.^^
OLYMPIO: Don’t trust your wife.
LYSIDAMUS: Be optimistic.
OLYMPIO: I believe, by Hercules, that she’ll enchant the lots today, if she touches them.
LYSIDAMUS: Hush.
OLYMPIO: I’m hushing. I beseech the gods--
CHALINUS: --that indeed you’ll bear a chain and cross today.
OLYMPIO: --that the drawing fall to me today--
CHALINUS: That indeed, by Hercules, you’ll hang with dangling feet.
OLYMPIO: But that your eyes may be knocked out of your head through your nose. What are you afraid of? A noose should’ve been readied for you by now. You’re dead.
LYSIDAMUS: Both of you, pay attention!
OLYMPIO: I’m hushing.
LYSIDAMUS: Now for you, Cleostrata, so that you won’t speak about this matter as if I’ve acted maliciously, or be suspicious, I leave it to you: you draw the lot.
OLYMPIO: You’re ruining me!
CHALINUS: That makes it a profit for him.
CLEOSTRATA: You’re making the right choice.
CHALINUS: I beseech the gods that your lot has escaped the urn.
OLYMPIO: What are you saying? Since you’re a runaway type, you want everything to imitate you?
CHALINUS: May your lot dissolve away during the drawing, just as it happened to the descendants of Hercules.^^^
OLYMPIO: May you dissolve away yourself, the instant you’re warmed up by young women.
LYSIDAMUS: Please pay attention, Olympio.
OLYMPIO: If this scholar will let me.
LYSIDAMUS: May it be good and fortunate to me.
OLYMPIO: Indeed thus, and to me.
CHALINUS: Not.
OLYMPIO: By Hercules--
CHALINUS: By Hercules to me.
CLEOSTRATA: If you beat this man, you’ll live as a miserable wretch.
LYSIDAMUS: You, strike his mouth for saying such horrors. Go on, do it.
CLEOSTRATA: Don’t touch him!
OLYMPIO: Do I punch him or slap him?
LYSIDAMUS: Proceed as you like.
OLYMPIO: Take that!
CLEOSTRATA: Why is that man hitting you?%
OLYMPIO: Because my Jupiter ordered it.
CLEOSTRATA: Carry the response back, just like he did.
OLYMPIO: I’m dying! I’m being cut down by blows, Jupiter.
LYSIDAMUS: Why is this man hitting you?
CHALINUS: Because my Juno here ordered it.
LYSIDAMUS: It must be endured, if only because with me still living, my wife can show off power.
CLEOSTRATA: It’s proper that this man be allowed to speak just as much as that one.
OLYMPIO: Why is he spoiling my omen?
LYSIDAMUS: I warn you, Chalinus, to beware trouble.
CHALINUS: A bit late, after my face was struck.
LYSIDAMUS: Go on, wife, draw the lots already; you two, pay attention. (I don’t know where I’ll be, out of fear; I think I have a queasy heart; it jumped a moment ago; my chest is thumping over the matter.)
CLEOSTRATA: I’m holding the lot.
LYSIDAMUS: Draw it out.
CHALINUS: Am I done for?
OLYMPIO: Show it. It’s mine.
CHALINUS: Indeed a cruel torture.
CLEOSTRATA: You’ve won, Olympio.
LYSIDAMUS: Since the gods aided us, Olympio, I rejoice.
OLYMPIO: It was done from my piety and my ancestors.
LYSIDAMUS: Go inside, wife, and prepare the wedding.%%
CLEOSTRATA: I shall do as you bid.
LYSIDAMUS: Do you know that he’ll be marrying in the country villa, a long way off?
CLEOSTRATA: I know.
LYSIDAMUS: Go inside, and however painful this is to you, make sure you take care of things.
CLEOSTRATA: As you like.
[Cleostrata leaves.]
LYSIDAMUS: Let’s go inside too, and cheer on the hurrying.
OLYMPIO: I won’t delay you.
[Olympio leaves.]
LYSIDAMUS: For I don’t want this man to be there, all chatty.
[Lysidamus leaves, so that Chalinus is alone on the stage.]
---
* To Olympio, presumably, as they’re crossing the stage to meet up with Cleostrata and Chalinus.
** There’s a complicated pun and bit of innuendo going on here, in which Olympio is claiming both that Chalinus is used to being told to shut, and that Chalinus (as a slave in the house, rather than at the farm) is used to submitting to sexual advances from his master. It’s worth noting that this is considered an insult towards Chalinus, but not towards Lysidamus.
*** Yes, this does have the same “walk around haphazardly” and “err morally” double meaning in Latin, too.
^ Lots are supposed to sink into the water, so as to be indistinguishable from each other; they’re usually made of stone or a heavy wood.
^^ Apparently this would be the command for shaking a jar with a large number of lots in it. Under the circumstances, the notes in my book sort of shrug and go “I guess she’s shaking the urn?”
^^^ According to the commentary, some descendants of Hercules were drawing lots over who got to control a particular territory. Another relative, favoring one of them over the other, put in clay lots--one fire-dried, and one just sun-dried--so that the latter dissolved in the water, and only the first could be pulled out.
% It’s an exceedingly strange phrasing of this, in the grammar: literally, it’s more like “In regards to what is a touch to you from that source?”
%% Or “decorate for the wedding”; I’m not sure if it’s referring to preparing a wedding dinner, dressing the bride, or both.
Act 2, Scene 6
CLEOSTRATA: Clarify for me, Chalinus, what my husband wants from me.
CHALINUS: That man, by Pollux, [wants] to see you cremated outside the city.
CLEOSTRATA: By Castor, I believe he wants it.
CHALINUS: And by Pollux, I don’t think, but know it’s true.
LYSIDAMUS: I have more servants than I thought; I have this fortune-teller in my house. What if we draw the symbols nearer and go towards them? Follow me.* What are you two doing?
CHALINUS: Everything you ordered is present: wife, lots, urn, and I myself.
OLYMPIO: That adds you as one thing more than I want.
CHALINUS: Indeed, by Pol, it seems so to you; but now I’m a goad for you, I prod your little heart; you’re pouring with sweat out of fear, you rascal.
LYSIDAMUS: Be quiet, Chalinus.
CHALINUS: Control him.
OLYMPIO: Better to control him, who’s used to giving it up.**
LYSIDAMUS: Put the urn here, and give the lots to me; pay attention. And yet I proposed that I could order this, my wife, that Casina be given to me as a wife, and even now I propose it.
CLEOSTRATA: That she be given to you?
LYSIDAMUS: Yes, to me--oh! That’s not what I meant to say; while I wanted ‘to me’, I said ‘to this man’, and I go to myself while I desire--by Hercules, I said it wrong just now.
CLEOSTRATA: By Pollux, you certainly did, and you’re acting wrong too.
LYSIDAMUS: To this man--but by Hercules to me--oh! I barely got back to the true path.
CLEOSTRATA: By Pollux, you do wander very often.***
LYSIDAMUS: So it is, wherever one wants anything so greatly. But aside from you by your right, we’re talking about me and this man.
CLEOSTRATA: What is it?
LYSIDAMUS: For I will speak, my honey: you will make a present of this Casina to our steward here.
CLEOSTRATA: And by Pollux I’m neither doing that nor getting angry.
LYSIDAMUS: Therefore I will now distribute the lots.
CLEOSTRATA: Who picks?
LYSIDAMUS: I judge this man to be the best and fairest by rights. Finally, if what we wish should come forth from this drawing, we shall rejoice; if it happens otherwise, we shall endure it with a calm demeanor. Have a marker for yourself; see what’s written on it.
OLYMPIO: “One.”
CHALINUS: That’s not fair, since it was given to him before me.
LYSIDAMUS: So you take this one, if you like.
CHALINUS: Give it over.
OLYMPIO: Leave it alone; “one” pleases me. Watch out that no other lots go into the water from him.
CHALINUS: You scoundrel, do you think I’m like you?
LYSIDAMUS: It’s nothing. Only keep quiet.
[Olympio moves to cast his lot into the jug of water, here.]
OLYMPIO: May it be good and fortunate to me--
CHALINUS: --a great evil--
OLYMPIO: It will be thus to you, by Pollux! I didn’t know your piety. But wait now; are these lots of yours made of poplar or fir?^
CHALINUS: Why should you care?
OLYMPIO: I’m afraid it’ll float in the water.
LYSIDAMUS: Well said! Watch it. Throw the lots in there. There we go. Wife, equalize it.^^
OLYMPIO: Don’t trust your wife.
LYSIDAMUS: Be optimistic.
OLYMPIO: I believe, by Hercules, that she’ll enchant the lots today, if she touches them.
LYSIDAMUS: Hush.
OLYMPIO: I’m hushing. I beseech the gods--
CHALINUS: --that indeed you’ll bear a chain and cross today.
OLYMPIO: --that the drawing fall to me today--
CHALINUS: That indeed, by Hercules, you’ll hang with dangling feet.
OLYMPIO: But that your eyes may be knocked out of your head through your nose. What are you afraid of? A noose should’ve been readied for you by now. You’re dead.
LYSIDAMUS: Both of you, pay attention!
OLYMPIO: I’m hushing.
LYSIDAMUS: Now for you, Cleostrata, so that you won’t speak about this matter as if I’ve acted maliciously, or be suspicious, I leave it to you: you draw the lot.
OLYMPIO: You’re ruining me!
CHALINUS: That makes it a profit for him.
CLEOSTRATA: You’re making the right choice.
CHALINUS: I beseech the gods that your lot has escaped the urn.
OLYMPIO: What are you saying? Since you’re a runaway type, you want everything to imitate you?
CHALINUS: May your lot dissolve away during the drawing, just as it happened to the descendants of Hercules.^^^
OLYMPIO: May you dissolve away yourself, the instant you’re warmed up by young women.
LYSIDAMUS: Please pay attention, Olympio.
OLYMPIO: If this scholar will let me.
LYSIDAMUS: May it be good and fortunate to me.
OLYMPIO: Indeed thus, and to me.
CHALINUS: Not.
OLYMPIO: By Hercules--
CHALINUS: By Hercules to me.
CLEOSTRATA: If you beat this man, you’ll live as a miserable wretch.
LYSIDAMUS: You, strike his mouth for saying such horrors. Go on, do it.
CLEOSTRATA: Don’t touch him!
OLYMPIO: Do I punch him or slap him?
LYSIDAMUS: Proceed as you like.
OLYMPIO: Take that!
CLEOSTRATA: Why is that man hitting you?%
OLYMPIO: Because my Jupiter ordered it.
CLEOSTRATA: Carry the response back, just like he did.
OLYMPIO: I’m dying! I’m being cut down by blows, Jupiter.
LYSIDAMUS: Why is this man hitting you?
CHALINUS: Because my Juno here ordered it.
LYSIDAMUS: It must be endured, if only because with me still living, my wife can show off power.
CLEOSTRATA: It’s proper that this man be allowed to speak just as much as that one.
OLYMPIO: Why is he spoiling my omen?
LYSIDAMUS: I warn you, Chalinus, to beware trouble.
CHALINUS: A bit late, after my face was struck.
LYSIDAMUS: Go on, wife, draw the lots already; you two, pay attention. (I don’t know where I’ll be, out of fear; I think I have a queasy heart; it jumped a moment ago; my chest is thumping over the matter.)
CLEOSTRATA: I’m holding the lot.
LYSIDAMUS: Draw it out.
CHALINUS: Am I done for?
OLYMPIO: Show it. It’s mine.
CHALINUS: Indeed a cruel torture.
CLEOSTRATA: You’ve won, Olympio.
LYSIDAMUS: Since the gods aided us, Olympio, I rejoice.
OLYMPIO: It was done from my piety and my ancestors.
LYSIDAMUS: Go inside, wife, and prepare the wedding.%%
CLEOSTRATA: I shall do as you bid.
LYSIDAMUS: Do you know that he’ll be marrying in the country villa, a long way off?
CLEOSTRATA: I know.
LYSIDAMUS: Go inside, and however painful this is to you, make sure you take care of things.
CLEOSTRATA: As you like.
[Cleostrata leaves.]
LYSIDAMUS: Let’s go inside too, and cheer on the hurrying.
OLYMPIO: I won’t delay you.
[Olympio leaves.]
LYSIDAMUS: For I don’t want this man to be there, all chatty.
[Lysidamus leaves, so that Chalinus is alone on the stage.]
---
* To Olympio, presumably, as they’re crossing the stage to meet up with Cleostrata and Chalinus.
** There’s a complicated pun and bit of innuendo going on here, in which Olympio is claiming both that Chalinus is used to being told to shut, and that Chalinus (as a slave in the house, rather than at the farm) is used to submitting to sexual advances from his master. It’s worth noting that this is considered an insult towards Chalinus, but not towards Lysidamus.
*** Yes, this does have the same “walk around haphazardly” and “err morally” double meaning in Latin, too.
^ Lots are supposed to sink into the water, so as to be indistinguishable from each other; they’re usually made of stone or a heavy wood.
^^ Apparently this would be the command for shaking a jar with a large number of lots in it. Under the circumstances, the notes in my book sort of shrug and go “I guess she’s shaking the urn?”
^^^ According to the commentary, some descendants of Hercules were drawing lots over who got to control a particular territory. Another relative, favoring one of them over the other, put in clay lots--one fire-dried, and one just sun-dried--so that the latter dissolved in the water, and only the first could be pulled out.
% It’s an exceedingly strange phrasing of this, in the grammar: literally, it’s more like “In regards to what is a touch to you from that source?”
%% Or “decorate for the wedding”; I’m not sure if it’s referring to preparing a wedding dinner, dressing the bride, or both.