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early rescued from the cares which increase with growing years; no delights are worth thy stay, smiling as they seem and gay; short and sickly are they all, hardly tasted ere they pall.

PASSAGES FOR TRANSLATION

INTO GREEK COMIC VERSE

1428

1429

1430

Lov

LOVE

OVE, the disturber of the peace of heaven,
and grand fomenter of Olympian feuds,
was banished from the synod of the gods:
they drove him down to earth at the expence
of us poor mortals, and curtailed his wings
to spoil his soaring and secure themselves
from his annoyance. Selfish, hard decree!
for ever since he roams the unquiet world,
the tyrant and despoiler of mankind.

WH

CHRISTOPHER SLY

R. CUMBERLAND

HAT, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly's son of Burton-Heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a card-maker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker? Ask Marion Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence in her score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not bestraught.

W. SHAKESPEARE

DEATH NEVER WELCOME

AH, good my master, you may sigh for death,

and call amain upon him to release you, but will you bid him welcome when he comes? Old Charon has a stubborn task

Not you.

Passages for Translation into Greek Comic Verse 575

1431

to tug you to his wherry, and dislodge you
from your rich tables, when your hour is come:
I muse the gods send not a plague amongst you,
a good, brisk, sweeping, epidemic plague:
there's nothing else can make you all immortal.

1432

'M peppered:

I'

R. CUMBERLAND

I was in the midst of all, and banged of all hands :
they made an anvil of my head; it rings yet;
never so threshed. Do you call this fame? I have
famed it;

I have got immortal fame; but I'll no more on't:
I'll no such scratching saint to serve hereafter.

O' my conscience, I was killed above twenty times;
and yet, I know not what a devil's in it,

I crawled away, and lived again still. I am hurt
plaguily.

BAPTISTA-HORTENSIO

Bap. HOW now, my friend! why dost thou look so

pale?

Hor. For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.

Bap. What, will my daughter prove a good musician?
Hor. I think, she'll sooner prove a soldier:

iron may hold with her, but never lutes.

Bap. Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?
Hor. Why, no, for she hath broke the lute to me.

1433 K.

I did but tell her she mistook her frets,
and bowed her hand to teach her fingering,
when with a most impatient, devilish spirit,
'frets, call you these?' quoth she, 'I'll fume with
them :'

and with that word she struck me on the head,
and through the instrument my pate made way.

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G. What say you to a neat's foot?

K. 'Tis passing good: I prythee let me have it.

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576

G.

Passages for Translation

I fear, 'tis too choleric a meat.

How say you to a fat tripe, finely broiled?
K. I like it well: good Grumio, fetch it me.
G. I cannot tell; I fear 'tis choleric.

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What say you to a piece of beef, and mustard?
A dish that I do love to feed upon.

Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.
Why, then the beef, and let the mustard rest.

W. SHAKESPEARE

1434

IN

NCERTUM est, quid agam: quia praeter spem, atque incredibile hoc mi obtigit:

ita sum irritatus, animum ut nequeam ad cogitandum instituere.

Quamobrem omnes, cum secundae res sunt maxume, tum maxume

meditari secum oportet, quo pacto advorsam aerumnam ferant:

pericla, damna, exilia peregre rediens semper cogitet, aut fili peccatum, aut uxoris mortem, aut morbum

filiae:

communia esse haec; ne quid horum unquam accidat animo novum,

quicquid praeter spem eveniat, omne id deputare esse in lucro.

T. M. PLAVTVS.

1435 FATHERS INCONSIDERATE TO THEIR SONS

UAM iniqui sunt patres in omnis adolescentes iudices!

Οι

qui aequom esse censent, nos iam a pueris illico nasci senes:

neque illarum affines esse rerum, quas fert adolescentia:

ex sua libidine moderantur, nunc quae est, non quae

olim fuit.

Mihi si unquam filius erit, nae ille facili me utetur patre:

nam et cognoscendi et ignoscendi dabitur peccatis

locus ;

non ut meus, qui mihi per alium ostendit suam sententiam.

Perii! is mihi, ubi adbibit plus paulo, sua quae narrat facinora?

Nunc ait, periculum ex aliis facito, tibi quod ex usu siet:

astutus: nae ille haud scit, quam mihi nunc surdo narret fabulam.

P. TERENTIVS AFER

1436

P.

WH

PAULO-SLAVE-MERCHANT

HAT can he do?

S. Why anything that's ill,

and never blush at it: he's so true a thief,

that he'll steal from himself, and think he has got
by it.

He stole out of his mother's belly, being an infant;
and from a lousy nurse he stole his nature,
from a dog his look, and from an ape his nimbleness;
he will look in your face and pick your pockets,
rob ye the most wise rat of a cheese-paring;
there, where a cat will go in, he will follow,
his body has no back-bone. Now if any of you
be given to the excellent art of lying,
behold, before you here, the master-piece!

P. MASSINGER

1437

W

THE SOLDIER'S LIFE

our pay,

HAT slave would be a soldier, to be censured
by such as ne'er saw danger? to have
our worths and merits, balanced in the scale

of base moth-eaten peace? I have had wounds
would have made all this bench faint and look pale,
but to behold them searched. They lay their heads
on their soft pillows, pore upon their bags,
grow fat with laziness and resty ease;
and us, that stand betwixt them and disaster,
they will not spare a drachma. O! my soldiers,
before you want, I'll sell my small possessions,
even to my skin, to help you; plate and jewels,
all shall be yours. Men that are men indeed,
the earth shall find, the sun and air must feed.
J. WEBSTER
37

F. S. III

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