Act V, Scene IV

Enter CLITIPHO from the house of CHREMES.

CLIT. If there ever was any time, mother, when I caused you pleasure, being called your son by your own desire, I beseech you to remember it, and now to take compassion on me in my distress. A thing I beg and request-- do discover to me my parents.

SOS. I conjure you, my son, not to entertain that notion in your mind, that you are another person’s child.

CLIT. I am.

SOS. Wretch that I am! (Turning to CHREMES.) Was it this that you wanted, pray? (To CLITIPHO.) So may you be the survivor of me and of him, you are my son and his; and henceforth, if you love me, take care that I never hear that speech from you again.

CHREM. But I say, if you fear me, take care how I find these propensities existing in you.

CLIT. What propensities?

CHREM. If you wish to know, I’ll tell you; being a trifler, an idler, a cheat, a glutton, a debauchee, a spendthrift-- Believe me, and believe that you are our son.

CLIT. This is not the language of a parent.

CHREM. If you had been born from my head, Clitipho, just as they say Minerva was from Jove’s, none the more on that account would I suffer myself to be disgraced by your profligacy.

SOS. May the Gods forbid it.

CHREM. I don’t know as to the Gods; so far as I shall be enabled, I will carefully prevent it. You are seeking that which you possess-- parents; that which you are in want of you don’t seek-- in what way to pay obedience to a father, and to preserve what he acquired by his industry. That you by trickery should bring before my eyes-- I am ashamed to mention the unseemly word in her presence (pointing to SOSTRATA), but you were not in any degree ashamed to act thus.

CLIT. (aside.) Alas! how thoroughly displeased I now am with myself! How much ashamed! nor do I know how to make a beginning to pacify him.