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In each of these exchanges Alcesimarchus offers peace, or some part of a discourse supporting a peace proposal, or merely asks to be allowed to make one, and Selenium (or, in v.452, Melaenis, on her behalf) refuses to listen. |
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Then the text breaks off. What is left suggests that she is accusing him of having lied to her (verba dare . . . qui frangant foedera "empty words . . . men who break faith"). When it picks up again Selenium has left the stage and Alcesimarchus is talking with Melaenis. He will not let her go until he has had a chance to state his case (464). "I beg you" (obsecro), he says. "You beg in vain" (At frustra obsecras), she replies (467). ''I'll swear an oath" (Dabo / ius iurandum), he protests (470471). "But I'm weary now of your oath-swearing (At ego nunc <ab> illo mihi <caveo> iure iurando tuo), she retorts (472). Melaenis reproaches him for his alleged engagement to the other girl, a rich Lemnian (479, 492496), much better off than she and her "daughter". The argument continues: |
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ALC. Di me perdant MEL. Quodcumque optes, tibi velim contingere.
ALC. Si illam uxorem duxero umquam, mihi quam despondit pater.
MEL. Et me si umquam tibi uxorem filiam dedero meam.
ALC. Patierin me periurare? MEL. Pol te aliquanto facilius
quam me meamque rem perire et ludificari filiam
alibi quaere ubi iuri iurando tuo satis sit subsidi
hic apud nos iam, Alcesimarche, confregisti tesseram. |
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ALC. May the gods destroy me . . . MEL. I hope what you wish for happens to you!
ALC. . . . if I ever marry that woman my father has engaged me to.
MEL. And me, if I ever give you my daughter to wife.
ALC. Will you let me perjure myself? MEL. Yes, much rather
than let you wreck me and my affairs and make my daughter a laughing stock.
Find another place where your swearing can help you.
Here in our house, Alcesimarchus, you've shredded your ticket.
(497503) |
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In swearing that he will not marry the other girl, Alcesimarchus is in effect swearing that he intends to marry Selenium. Melaenis' counter-oath, if carried out, would make his oath false (unhappy, in Austin's terms), and he complains, but she is not moved. In telling him to look elsewhere (alibi quaere 501) for someone who will believe his oaths, she implies that she does not believe them. All these exhanges reenact the adjacency pair we are studying, yet each would appear to be a different speech-act. |
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And what would speech-act theory make of the utterance: "Here, at our house, you've broken your tessera (503)?34 Social conventions and general |
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34 A tessera is, among other things, a "(properly square or rectangular) token or voucher" and especially (tessera hospitalis) "a token divided between friends, so that by fitting the two pieces together they might recognize each other," but can also mean "a ticket qualifying the holder for some benefit" (OLD s.v.). Though OLD (s.v. confringo) glosses our phrase as "destroyed our |
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(footnote continued on next page) |
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