1032.] The Captives, of Plan his. 155 



What massacre of fat sow's pap. Of brawn 

 What havoc there will be ! Then what fatigue 

 Awaits the butchers ! what the pork-sellers ! 

 But to say more of what belongs to a good repast, 

 Is loss of time, and hindrance. I will now 

 Go enter on my government, and sit 

 In judgment o'er the bacon, set at liberty 

 Hams, that have hung untried or uncondemned. 



Hegio's servants, unaccustomed to such lavish profusion as Ergasilus 

 was contemplating with such rapture, were quite alarmed at his por- 

 tentous threats, and terrified at the prospect of such promiscuous expen- 

 diture ; though their fright probably arose more from an apprehension 

 of the result of such proceedings to themselves, than from the strange- 

 ness of the circumstances; for Hegio was one of that class of gentlemen, 

 who, though they possess considerable wealth, conduct their establish- 

 ments with a frugal, if not a parsimonious economy. The consternation 

 of Hegio's domestics is amusingly described in the following scene, in 

 which a lad comes rushing out of the house, to give the signal of alarm 

 to any one he could find. His exclamations may not be unworthy of a 

 translation : 



May Jove, and all the gods, Ergasilus, 

 Confound thee and thy belly, with all parasites, 

 And all who shall hereafter entertain them ! 

 Storm, tempest, devastation, have just broke 

 Their way into our house ! I was. afraid 

 He would have seized me, like a famished wolf; 

 I was, -indeed, in a most piteous fright, 

 He made such horrid grinding with his teeth. 

 Soon as he came, he knocked down the whole larder, 

 With all the meat in't : then he snatched a knife, 

 And stuck three pigs directly in the throat ; 

 Broke all the pots and cups, except the measures, 

 And asked the cook whether the salting pans, 

 With their contents, might not be clapped upon 

 The fire altogether all at once : He has broke 

 The cellar door down, laid the store-room open.- 

 Secure him, I beseech you, fellow-servants : 

 I'll to my master, tell him he must order 

 Some more provisions, if he means to have 

 Any himself: for as this fellow manages, 

 There's nothing left, or will be nothing soon. 



Hegio is now returning from the port with his son Philopolemus and 

 Philocrates, till at last they arrive at the house, where they all meet 

 together Hegio, Tyndarus, Philocrates, Philopolemus, and the slave 

 who stole him ; and now, on comparing notes, they discover that Tyn- 

 darus, whom Hegio had condemned to labour in the mines, is in reality 

 his son ; and Tyndarus has some faint recollection that his father's 

 name was Hegio. The chains are accordingly taken off from Tyndarus, 

 and fastened on the slave who stole Philopolemus, and to whom we are 

 primarily indebted for the Capteivei of Plautus. 



Thus then have we presented the readers of THE MONTHLY with 

 the first of our series of "Specimens of Latin Comedy" a subject 

 which has been much neglected in modern times, and in England almost 

 entirely forgotten. How deserving it is of this neglect, our readers will 



