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beginning of the negotiations. She won't Sic est, vera praedico; / nisi etiam hoc falso dici insimulaturus es ("That's right, I'm telling it like it is; unless you're going to tell me that even this is a lie"). In referring to what Amphitruo said to her (736, 762, 813, 818819, 836, 838), the accusations (that she was lying when she said she had lain with him the night before) which she wants retracted with oaths, she is beginning to lay out her (tough) bargaining position. Juppiter comments: Nimis iracunda es ("You're really angry"). To be angry at a lover need not imply a rupture, but the switch from "being angry" to "not being angry'' can be tantamount to making peace.21 His observation acknowledges the state of war, and we infer from Alcumena's next words that he tries to calm her wrath by touching her, offering peace by a gesture.22 |
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ALC. Potin ut abstineas manum?
nam certo, si sis sanus aut sapias satis,
quam tu impudicam esse arbitrere et praedices,
cum ea tu sermonem nec ioco nec serio
tibi habeas, nisi sis stultior stultissimo. |
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ALC. Could you take your hands off me?
Because, if you were sane or bright enough
you wouldn't talk, in earnest or in game,
with a woman you think and call unchaste
unless you were dumber than the dumbest.
(9036) |
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The expression "take your hands off me" could carry a different force in another context; here it signifies the rejection of yet another peace overture. And by referring once more to Amphitruo's accusation that she has been impudica, Alcumena is again calling for a retraction. In verbal retaliation for those insults, she ventures one of her own, calling Juppiter "dumber than the dumbest". Since his overtures and pre-requests have been useless, Juppiter must retract what he didn't say: |
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Si dixi, nihilo magis es, neque ego esse arbitor,
et id huc revorti uti me purgarem tibi.
nam numquam quicquam meo animo fuit aegrius,
quam postquam audivi ted esse iratam mihi.
cur dixisti? inquies. ego expediam tibi.
non edepol quo te esse impudicam crederem;
verum periclitatus sum animum tuom,
quid faceres et quo pacto id ferre induceres. |
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21 Both in this scene and in the one we shall be looking at from the Poenulus, peace is made when the woman says she is not angry (here, at v. 937; in Poenulus, at v.404). |
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22 It may be characteristic of many moves in classical love poetry that they can also be enacted by a gesture. Cf. Levinson (1983) 281 and the references cited there. |
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