Mime V: A Jealous Lady

BITINNA

Tell me Gastron, art so surfeited, that it sufficeth thee not to stir my legs, but must woo Amphytaea, Meno’s woman?

GASTRON

Amphytaea? I. Have I e’en seen her of whom thou speakest ?

BITINNA

Excuse on excuse all day long !

GASTRON

Bitinna, thy slave am I: use me as thou wilt, ne sup my blood day and night.

BITINNA

And what a tongue hast gotten, slave! Kydilla, where is Pyrrhies ? Call him to me.

PYRRHIES

What is it ?

BITINNA

Bind this fellow—what ? Standest still ?—loosing anon the rope of the bucket. An I mar thee not and set thee as an example to the countriesyde, la ! call me no woman. Am I not rather an Eunuch? Tis I, Gastron, I that fault herein, that I set thee among men. But, an I erred then, thou shalt find Bitinna a fool now no moe, for all thou thinkest. Come, thou, bind him unayded when thou hast stripped him of his smock.

GASTRON

Nay, nay, Bitinna—by thy knees, prithee.

BITINNA

Strip him, I repeat. Must wot that art a slave and that I payd for thee three minae. Ah! ill betyde that day that brought thee hither. Shalt rue it, Pyrrhies—I see that dost aught els save bind him. Truss his arms ; bind till they be perdy severed.

GASTRON

Bitinna, forgive me this errour. Mortal am I. I have erred; but an thou find me moe doing aught thou woldest not, then tattoo me.

BITINNA

Playne not to me, but to Amphytaea with whom thou lyest, and needs must I <your> foot towell <be

PYRRHIES

Thou hast him well bound.

BITINNA

See he escape not loose. Take him to the abode of torment to Hermon, and bid him hammer thousand stripes into his back and thousand into’s belly.

GASTRON

Wilt kill me, Bitinna, ne try first an it be sooth or false ?

BITINNA

What of thine own tongues utteraunce ‘ Bitinna forgive me this errour ’?

GASTRON

Aye, for I wolde quench your choler.

BITINNA

Standest agape, and leadest him not where I bid thee? Kydilla, dint this losells beak, and thou, Drechon, follow now by the way thy fellow leadeth. Slave, wilt give a rag to this curst fellow to hyde his bestiall nakedness, that he be not seen bare through the market? Once moe a second time I cry thee Pyrrhies to tell Hermon that he lay on thousand here and thousand there: hast heard? Soothly an thou traverse aught of my orders thou shalt thine own self pay debt and interest. Walk on and lead him not by Mrs. Smallwaies but on the Mall. But I mind—run, slave-girl, and call them, call them ere they be afar.

KYDILLA

Pyrrhies, deaf wretche, she calleth thee. La, one mote deme ’twas no fellow-slave he mauleth, but a grave-robber : look how dost drag him perforce to the torments, Pyrrhies. La! ‘tis thee that Kydilla will live to see with this pair of eyne in five daies time rubbing with thine ankles at Antidorus abode those Achaean gyves that but yestereen didst doff.

BITINNA

Ho there, come back bringing him bound even as dost lead him out, and enjoyne Kosis the tattooer to come with needles and ink. ‘Thou must be spotted attone. Let him be taught to cringe as low as his honour Davus.

KYDILLA

Nay, mamma, but now—e’en as thou hopest Batyllis may live and maiest one day see her come to a mans house, and maiest lift her children in thine arms—now let him be: this one errour—

BITINNA

Kydilla, vex me not, all of you: or will flee the habitaunce. Am I to let be this slave of slaves ? Who then that encountred me wolde not rightly spit in my face? Nay by the Queen, but since, though mortal he be, he knoweth not himself, soon shall he know it with this inscripcioun on his forehead.

KYDILLA

But ’tis the twentieth, and but four days to the Gerenia.

BITINNA

Now shall I let thee be, and be thankfull to this girl whom I love as Batyllis and in mine own hands did noursle. But whenas we have done libacioun to those that sleep, then shalt have unhonied festival on festivall.