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"to be reconciled." One criterion for identifying a speech-act or move is that there exist in natural language a way of describing it.28 |
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Alcumena, even as she yields, adds a final reprimand: |
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ALC. Primum cavisse oportuit ne diceres
verum eadem si isdem purgas mi, patiunda sunt. |
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ALC. You shouldn't have said it in the first place,
but since with those words you atone for it,
I'll have to let it pass.
(9445) |
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Jupiter does not respond directly to this, but instead orders that preparations be made for him to fulfill the vows he (as Amphitruo) had taken when he prayed for his safe return home (946948). Alcumena says she will take care of it (949) and Juppiter tells her to summon Sosia, who should summon Blepharo (the helmsman of their ship) to lunch. In short, now that the peace negotiations have been successfully concluded, Juppiter reassumes his role as man of the house, giving one order after another, and each of them could be called a speech-act. Whatever the function of each, these are moves in a new game and so mark the end in this scene of the complex Sprachspiel we are studying. |
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In the next scene (III,3), Sosia questions Juppiter (whom he takes to be Amphitruo) about what has happened in the meantime: I am pax est inter vos duos? / nam quia vos tranquillos video, gaudeo et volup est mihi ("Is there peace now between you two? For since I see you both calmed down, I'm glad and it's a joy for me too" 957958). Explaining that, like a good slave, he's sad when his master is sad, happy when he is happy (959961), he asks again: sed age responde: iam vos rediistis in concordiam? ("But come on, answer, have you already made up?" 962). Juppiter, although Sosia saw Amphitruo in a real rage, sticks to the story he has used with Alcumena: Derides, qui scis haec dudum me dixisse per iocum ("You're kidding, you know I said those things before as a joke" 963). Sosia is incredulous: An id ioco dixisti? equidem serio ac vero ratus ("You said it as a joke? I sure thought it was in earnest and serious" 964). Juppiter sidesteps the problem, pragmatically tricky, and merely says: Habui expurigationem; pax facta est (''I've apologized; we've made peace" 965). |
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Here we find some more metalanguage describing erotic reconciliation: pacem inter vos esse (957), redire in concordiam (963), expurigationem habere (965, corresponding to purgare, used by Alcumena in v.945), and pacem fieri (965). These, together with redire/revenire in gratiam (940, 942) provide us with a small lexicon of words and phrases referring to apologizing, making peace, being in a state of peace, and so on. |
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28 Cf. Levinson (1983) 368 and the references given there. |
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