The Comedies of Plautus, Vol. II

In that room, I have tunneled through the wall
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65 so that there might be a secret passage for the woman from here to there;
and I did this with the old man’s knowledge: he provided the plan.
For my fellow slave is a man of little value,
whom the soldier has added as a guard to his concubine.
With clever inventions and skillful tricks,
70 we will cast a glaucuma a deceptive film/blindfold over his eyes, and we will make it so
that what he has seen, he has not seen.
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And soon, so that you are not mistaken, this woman will act the part of two today,
both from here and from there, she will bear the image,
and she will be the same person, but she will pretend to be someone else.
75 Thus, the face of the woman's guard will be smeared meaning: he will be hoodwinked.
But the door of the neighboring old man has creaked;
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he is coming out himself: this is that charming old man I mentioned.

ii PERIPLECTOMENUS, PALAESTRIO

PE. If, by Hercules, you break the ankles of anyone from now on whom you see on the

or any stranger, I will turn your flanks into leather meaning: I will have you whipped.
My neighbors are already judges of what happens in my house,
as they look in through the impluvium open central roof/courtyard. Now I declare to

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5 anyone whom you see on our

from this soldier’s household,
except for Palaestrio alone, throw them out here onto the street.
Whether he says he is chasing a hen, a dove, or a monkey,