The Comedies of Plautus, Vol. II

115 I prepare a ship for myself as quickly as I live,
I board it, so that I may report this matter to my master at Naupactus.
40 When we have sailed out into the deep, it happens as the gods wish,
pirates capture the ship in which I was being carried:
I perished before I came to my master where I had started to go.
120 He who captured me gives me as a gift to this soldier.
After he led me home to his house,
45 I see that friend of my master who was in Athens.
When she looked at me in return, she gave me a sign with her eyes
not to address her; then, after there was an opportunity,
125 the woman complains to me of her fortunes:
she says that she desires to flee Athens from this house,
50 that she loves my master who was in Athens,
and that she hates no one worse than this soldier.
Since I inspected the woman's mind,
130 I took tablets, signed them, and secretly
gave them to a certain merchant so that he might deliver them to that
55 master of mine, who had been in Athens, who had loved her,
so that he might come here. He did not reject the message;
for he both came and is staying near here
135 at the house of his paternal host, a pleasant old man;
and so he does the favor for his loving guest
and encourages and helps us with effort and counsel.
60 And so I have prepared great machinations here inside
so that I might make the lovers meet with each other.
140 For the one room, which the soldier gave to his concubine,
where no one but she herself might set foot,