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Here in Casina, everyone but Chalinus has just exited to the house. Olympio (and thus Lysidamus) won the lottery to marry Casina, so they’re all off to prepare for the wedding.
This being a comedy where the “lovers love each other” part of the story is considered so insignificant that neither of said lovers ever appear on the stage, of course it’s not going to end there. So we pick up with an actual monologue. Yay, monologue!
Act 2, Scene 7
CHALINUS: If I hang myself now, I’ll have wasted my work, and beyond that, the deed will cost me the expense of a rope, and I’ll give pleasure to my enemies. What’s the point, for a man like me who’s done for anyway? I was beaten at the lot; Casina is marrying the steward.
And it’s not as bitter that the steward’s now won, as that the old man wanted this to happen so badly, that she not be given to me and that she wed that man. How agitated he was, how he hurried, how he leapt when the steward won...
Oh! I’ll walk over here; I hear someone about to come outside. My well-wishers and friends are approaching. From over here, I’ll lay a trap out of traps for these men.
[Olympio and Lysidamus enter]
OLYMPIO: Just let him come into the country; I’ll return the man to you in the city with a stick over his shoulders like a charcoal-bearer.*
LYSIDAMUS: It’s proper that it happen so.
OLYMPIO: I’ll have it attended to and done.
LYSIDAMUS: I would have liked to send Chalinus (if he’d been at home) to get the food, so that even in his grieving I’d bind this misery to him as well, by our hatred.
CHALINUS: (I’ll back away to this wall; I’ll imitate a crab. I must capture this conversation of theirs secretly. For one of them wants to torture me, and the other wants to vex me. But this white-dressed scoundrel approaches, that box of whips.** I’ll postpone my death; it’s certain that I’ll send him to Acheron first.)
OLYMPIO: How gratifying, that I was acquired by you!*** Because you desired so greatly, I gave you that gift. Which will be with you today because you love in secret from your wife.
LYSIDAMUS: Hush! May the gods love me this well, that I may scarcely press those lips, regarding that reasons, I will kiss you, my passion...
CHALINUS: (What, you’ll kiss? What reason? What passion of yours? By Hercules, I believe this man wants to prick the ass of his steward.)
OLYMPIO: Do you love me now at all?
LYSIDAMUS: By Pollux, I love myself less than I do you! May I embrace you?
CHALINUS: (What, embrace?)
OLYMPIO: You may.
LYSIDAMUS: Since I embrace you, how it seems to me like licking up honey!
OLYMPIO: Let go, lover! Get off of my back!
CHALINUS: (That, that is why he made this man his steward! And long ago, when I had escorted that very man home, he wanted to make me his door-keeper in the very doorway.)^
OLYMPIO: How compliant for you today, how compliant I was for your pleasure!
LYSIDAMUS: For you, while you live, I wish you well even more than myself.
CHALINUS: (By Hercules, I think that today they’re going to knock boots. This old man is actually accustomed to piercing bearded men.)
LYSIDAMUS: Oh, that today I will kiss Casina! Oh, that I’ll do so many good things for myself, in secret from my wife!
CHALINUS: (Oh, oh! Now at last, by Pollux, I get back to the right path. The master himself is desperately in love with Casina. I have them.)
LYSIDAMUS: Now, by Hercules, I am passionate to be embraced, to be kissed.
OLYMPIO: Let her be married first. Why, damn it, are you in such a rush?
LYSIDAMUS: I’m in love!
OLYMPIO: But I don’t think it can happen today.
LYSIDAMUS: It can, if only you think you could be freed tomorrow.
CHALINUS: (For indeed my ears must be turned more towards this conversation; now in one agreeable move, I’ll catch two boars.)
LYSIDAMUS: The place has been prepared for you, in the house of my friend and neighbor; I confided all my love to him; he said he would give me the place.
OLYMPIO: What of his wife? Where will she be?
LYSIDAMUS: I worked it out well. My wife will call the woman to her side during the wedding, and she will be with her here, and help her, and spend the night with her. I gave the order, and my wife said she’d have it done. That woman will sleep here; I’ll see to it that her husband leaves the house.
You will marry your wife in the country; the “country” will be here, and meanwhile I’ll make a marriage with Casina. Then tomorrow before daylight you’ll lead her into the country from here. Is that cunning enough?
OLYMPIO: Clever.
CHALINUS: (Go on, build it up: it’s to your disadvantage to be so clever.)
LYSIDAMUS: Do you know what you’re doing now?
OLYMPIO: Tell me.
LYSIDAMUS: Take the purse. Buy food, hurry, and I want it done charmingly; delicate dishes, the way she’s delicate.
OLYMPIO: So it is.
LYSIDAMUS: Buy little cuttle-fish, little limpets, little squids, little fishes...
CHALINUS: (No, wheat-fish, if you’d just taste it.)^^
LYSIDAMUS: ...little soles...
CHALINUS: (Why, I wonder, do you want those more than clogs, by which your mouth could be struck, you worthless old man?)
OLYMPIO: Do you want fish?
LYSIDAMUS: What’s the point, when my wife is at home? That’s a gossiper for you all, for she’s never silent.
OLYMPIO: When I’m on the spot, I’ll be able to judge, out of the supply of fishes, what I will buy.
LYSIDAMUS: A good point; go on. Don’t spare the silver; buy plenty of food. Now I need to go meet with my neighbor over there, so that he’ll take care of what I entrusted to him.
OLYMPIO: Shall I go now?
LYSIDAMUS: I’d like you to.
[Olympio exits. Lysidamus exits, though he’ll be back shortly. Chalinus is alone on the stage again.]
CHALINUS: I cannot be led away (even by liberty given to me three times) from zealously preparing a great wickedness for those men today, or from making this whole matter known to my lady. By this evidence I’ve got my enemies in a bind. But if my lady now wishes to do her duty, the whole conflict is ours; I will outstrip the men beautifully. The day turns in our favor; now we losers are winning.
I’ll go inside, so that what another cook seasoned, I will, on the contrary, spice a different way, and so that which is being prepared will not be prepared, and may it be prepared what hadn’t been prepared. ^^^
---
* There’s a pun being made on the “furca”, which can be a stick slung over the shoulders for carrying heavy objects, or the beam that slaves are tied to for torture.
** Olympio, who is now wearing white clothes in preparation for his wedding. The “box of whips” is part of a trend of slaves insulting each other based on references to beatings and torture.
*** Or, “How I yield to you, that...” There are a lot of puns and double entendres going on here, that I will try to translate appropriately, but probably won’t mark out overall. It’s challenging in that where Latin doesn’t require any pronoun for a lot of positions--subjects of sentences, implied possessive adjectives--or can use a gender-neutral one, English wants gender-marked pronouns all over the place. So some of Chalinus’ comic confusion just isn’t going to make sense, since I’ll be translating the less awkward her/hers/she in places where in the Latin, it could be either gender referred to.
^ The joke doesn’t translate well, but it may help to note that there were often slaves assigned to escort a (presumably drunk) master home from dinner-parties, and the door-keeper would be the domestic slave with a similar position of authority as the steward would have out on the farm.
^^ I cannot possibly explain the puns going on in this section succinctly. Or at all, in some cases. Sorry. It doesn’t help that in several cases, we don’t know what type of fish is being referenced, so it’s just translated as ‘fish’. Various fish sound like the words for barley, slippers, gossipers...
^^^ It’s a lot wittier in Latin. I sincerely hope that it makes more sense in Latin than I got from it.
---
Anyway, that takes us to the end of the second act. The third act of the play has about half the total wordcount, so that'll be a few separate posts over the next few weeks. If I'm lucky, I can get ahead over spring break, because I really need to start working on my paper for this class.
My long, complicated paper which I don't have a very good thesis for yet. Right now I'm going through Plautus' other plays (in the sense of skimming plot summaries, then reading particular scenes if they seem relevant) to try to pick between one of two possible paper topics: one would be about slave girls in Plautus, with a focus on Pardalisca (and her unseen foil, Casina) in this play; the other would be discussing interactions between slaves, in this play and other Plautus.
Unfortunately, those are both good topics in the sense of being nice and narrow. Because there's not so many instances of each to have a zillion papers written on them already. Which makes research... interestingly challenging. But, hey! If there was a ton of material already, there'd be no point in my writing about it too.
This being a comedy where the “lovers love each other” part of the story is considered so insignificant that neither of said lovers ever appear on the stage, of course it’s not going to end there. So we pick up with an actual monologue. Yay, monologue!
Act 2, Scene 7
CHALINUS: If I hang myself now, I’ll have wasted my work, and beyond that, the deed will cost me the expense of a rope, and I’ll give pleasure to my enemies. What’s the point, for a man like me who’s done for anyway? I was beaten at the lot; Casina is marrying the steward.
And it’s not as bitter that the steward’s now won, as that the old man wanted this to happen so badly, that she not be given to me and that she wed that man. How agitated he was, how he hurried, how he leapt when the steward won...
Oh! I’ll walk over here; I hear someone about to come outside. My well-wishers and friends are approaching. From over here, I’ll lay a trap out of traps for these men.
[Olympio and Lysidamus enter]
OLYMPIO: Just let him come into the country; I’ll return the man to you in the city with a stick over his shoulders like a charcoal-bearer.*
LYSIDAMUS: It’s proper that it happen so.
OLYMPIO: I’ll have it attended to and done.
LYSIDAMUS: I would have liked to send Chalinus (if he’d been at home) to get the food, so that even in his grieving I’d bind this misery to him as well, by our hatred.
CHALINUS: (I’ll back away to this wall; I’ll imitate a crab. I must capture this conversation of theirs secretly. For one of them wants to torture me, and the other wants to vex me. But this white-dressed scoundrel approaches, that box of whips.** I’ll postpone my death; it’s certain that I’ll send him to Acheron first.)
OLYMPIO: How gratifying, that I was acquired by you!*** Because you desired so greatly, I gave you that gift. Which will be with you today because you love in secret from your wife.
LYSIDAMUS: Hush! May the gods love me this well, that I may scarcely press those lips, regarding that reasons, I will kiss you, my passion...
CHALINUS: (What, you’ll kiss? What reason? What passion of yours? By Hercules, I believe this man wants to prick the ass of his steward.)
OLYMPIO: Do you love me now at all?
LYSIDAMUS: By Pollux, I love myself less than I do you! May I embrace you?
CHALINUS: (What, embrace?)
OLYMPIO: You may.
LYSIDAMUS: Since I embrace you, how it seems to me like licking up honey!
OLYMPIO: Let go, lover! Get off of my back!
CHALINUS: (That, that is why he made this man his steward! And long ago, when I had escorted that very man home, he wanted to make me his door-keeper in the very doorway.)^
OLYMPIO: How compliant for you today, how compliant I was for your pleasure!
LYSIDAMUS: For you, while you live, I wish you well even more than myself.
CHALINUS: (By Hercules, I think that today they’re going to knock boots. This old man is actually accustomed to piercing bearded men.)
LYSIDAMUS: Oh, that today I will kiss Casina! Oh, that I’ll do so many good things for myself, in secret from my wife!
CHALINUS: (Oh, oh! Now at last, by Pollux, I get back to the right path. The master himself is desperately in love with Casina. I have them.)
LYSIDAMUS: Now, by Hercules, I am passionate to be embraced, to be kissed.
OLYMPIO: Let her be married first. Why, damn it, are you in such a rush?
LYSIDAMUS: I’m in love!
OLYMPIO: But I don’t think it can happen today.
LYSIDAMUS: It can, if only you think you could be freed tomorrow.
CHALINUS: (For indeed my ears must be turned more towards this conversation; now in one agreeable move, I’ll catch two boars.)
LYSIDAMUS: The place has been prepared for you, in the house of my friend and neighbor; I confided all my love to him; he said he would give me the place.
OLYMPIO: What of his wife? Where will she be?
LYSIDAMUS: I worked it out well. My wife will call the woman to her side during the wedding, and she will be with her here, and help her, and spend the night with her. I gave the order, and my wife said she’d have it done. That woman will sleep here; I’ll see to it that her husband leaves the house.
You will marry your wife in the country; the “country” will be here, and meanwhile I’ll make a marriage with Casina. Then tomorrow before daylight you’ll lead her into the country from here. Is that cunning enough?
OLYMPIO: Clever.
CHALINUS: (Go on, build it up: it’s to your disadvantage to be so clever.)
LYSIDAMUS: Do you know what you’re doing now?
OLYMPIO: Tell me.
LYSIDAMUS: Take the purse. Buy food, hurry, and I want it done charmingly; delicate dishes, the way she’s delicate.
OLYMPIO: So it is.
LYSIDAMUS: Buy little cuttle-fish, little limpets, little squids, little fishes...
CHALINUS: (No, wheat-fish, if you’d just taste it.)^^
LYSIDAMUS: ...little soles...
CHALINUS: (Why, I wonder, do you want those more than clogs, by which your mouth could be struck, you worthless old man?)
OLYMPIO: Do you want fish?
LYSIDAMUS: What’s the point, when my wife is at home? That’s a gossiper for you all, for she’s never silent.
OLYMPIO: When I’m on the spot, I’ll be able to judge, out of the supply of fishes, what I will buy.
LYSIDAMUS: A good point; go on. Don’t spare the silver; buy plenty of food. Now I need to go meet with my neighbor over there, so that he’ll take care of what I entrusted to him.
OLYMPIO: Shall I go now?
LYSIDAMUS: I’d like you to.
[Olympio exits. Lysidamus exits, though he’ll be back shortly. Chalinus is alone on the stage again.]
CHALINUS: I cannot be led away (even by liberty given to me three times) from zealously preparing a great wickedness for those men today, or from making this whole matter known to my lady. By this evidence I’ve got my enemies in a bind. But if my lady now wishes to do her duty, the whole conflict is ours; I will outstrip the men beautifully. The day turns in our favor; now we losers are winning.
I’ll go inside, so that what another cook seasoned, I will, on the contrary, spice a different way, and so that which is being prepared will not be prepared, and may it be prepared what hadn’t been prepared. ^^^
---
* There’s a pun being made on the “furca”, which can be a stick slung over the shoulders for carrying heavy objects, or the beam that slaves are tied to for torture.
** Olympio, who is now wearing white clothes in preparation for his wedding. The “box of whips” is part of a trend of slaves insulting each other based on references to beatings and torture.
*** Or, “How I yield to you, that...” There are a lot of puns and double entendres going on here, that I will try to translate appropriately, but probably won’t mark out overall. It’s challenging in that where Latin doesn’t require any pronoun for a lot of positions--subjects of sentences, implied possessive adjectives--or can use a gender-neutral one, English wants gender-marked pronouns all over the place. So some of Chalinus’ comic confusion just isn’t going to make sense, since I’ll be translating the less awkward her/hers/she in places where in the Latin, it could be either gender referred to.
^ The joke doesn’t translate well, but it may help to note that there were often slaves assigned to escort a (presumably drunk) master home from dinner-parties, and the door-keeper would be the domestic slave with a similar position of authority as the steward would have out on the farm.
^^ I cannot possibly explain the puns going on in this section succinctly. Or at all, in some cases. Sorry. It doesn’t help that in several cases, we don’t know what type of fish is being referenced, so it’s just translated as ‘fish’. Various fish sound like the words for barley, slippers, gossipers...
^^^ It’s a lot wittier in Latin. I sincerely hope that it makes more sense in Latin than I got from it.
---
Anyway, that takes us to the end of the second act. The third act of the play has about half the total wordcount, so that'll be a few separate posts over the next few weeks. If I'm lucky, I can get ahead over spring break, because I really need to start working on my paper for this class.
My long, complicated paper which I don't have a very good thesis for yet. Right now I'm going through Plautus' other plays (in the sense of skimming plot summaries, then reading particular scenes if they seem relevant) to try to pick between one of two possible paper topics: one would be about slave girls in Plautus, with a focus on Pardalisca (and her unseen foil, Casina) in this play; the other would be discussing interactions between slaves, in this play and other Plautus.
Unfortunately, those are both good topics in the sense of being nice and narrow. Because there's not so many instances of each to have a zillion papers written on them already. Which makes research... interestingly challenging. But, hey! If there was a ton of material already, there'd be no point in my writing about it too.