Tranio

“ PEDANT.
Swear if thou darest.
GREMIO.
Nay, I dare not swear it.
TRANIO.
Then thou wert best say that I am not Lucentio.
GREMIO.
Yes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio.
BAPTISTA.
Away with the dotard! to the gaol with him!
VINCENTIO.
Thus strangers may be haled and abus’d: O monstrous villain!
Re-enter Biondello, with Lucentio and Bianca.
BIONDELLO.
O! we are spoiled; and yonder he is: deny him, forswear him, or else we are all undone.
LUCENTIO.
[Kneeling.] Pardon, sweet father.
VINCENTIO.
Lives my sweetest son?
[Biondello, Tranio and Pedant run out.] ”

“ And give assurance to Baptista Minola
As if he were the right Vincentio.
Take in your love, and then let me alone.
Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA
Enter a PEDANT
PEDANT. God save you, sir!
TRANIO. And you, sir; you are welcome.
Travel you far on, or are you at the farthest?
PEDANT. Sir, at the farthest for a week or two;
But then up farther, and as far as Rome;
And so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.
TRANIO. What countryman, I pray?
PEDANT. Of Mantua.
TRANIO. Of Mantua, sir? Marry, God forbid,
And come to Padua, careless of your life!
PEDANT. My life, sir! How, I pray? ”

“ Another variation on this theme is the futile effort of the plotter to get rid of a character armed with incriminating evidence. Again we quote Most. (573 ff.) , where Tranio is conversing with Theopropides. The money-lender from whom young Philolaches has borrowed appears on the other side of the stage. Tranio espies him. He must keep him away from the old man. ”

“ TRANIO. Is this your speeding? Nay, then good-night our part! PETRUCHIO. Be patient, gentlemen. I choose her for myself; If she and I be pleas'd, what's that to you? 'Tis bargain'd 'twixt us twain, being alone, That she shall still be curst in company. I tell you 'tis incredible to believe. How much she loves me- O, the kindest Kate! She hung about my neck, and kiss on kiss She vied so fast, protesting oath on oath, That in a twink she won me to her love. O, you are novices! 'Tis a world to see, How tame, when men and women are alone, A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew. ”

“ VINCENTIO.
Is’t so, indeed?
[He beats Biondello.]
BIONDELLO.
Help, help, help! here’s a madman will murder me.
[Exit.]
PEDANT.
Help, son! help, Signior Baptista!
[Exit from the window.]
PETRUCHIO.
Prithee, Kate, let’s stand aside and see the end of this controversy.
[They retire.]
Re-enter Pedant, below; Baptista, Tranio and Servants.
TRANIO.
Sir, what are you that offer to beat my servant?
VINCENTIO.
What am I, sir! nay, what are you, sir? O immortal gods! O fine villain! A silken doublet, a velvet hose, a scarlet cloak, and a copatain hat! O, I am undone! I am undone! ”

“ Supreme Jove, with all his might and resources, is seeking for me and Philolaches, my master's son, to be undone. Our hopes are destroyed; nowhere is there any hold for courage; not even Salvation {1} now could save us if she wished. Such an immense mountain of woe have I just now seen at the harbour: my master has arrived from abroad; Tranio is undone! (To the AUDIENCE.) Is there any person who'd like to make gain of a little money, who could this day endure to take my place in being tortured? ”

“ Tranio in the 'Mostellaria' is, in readiness of resource and resolute mendacity, a not unworthy member of the fraternity to which Pseudolus, Chrysalus, and Palaestrio belong. He is, besides something of a fop and a fine gentleman, and all his relations with his young and old master, with Simo and the Banker, are conducted with perfect urbanity. Yet the 'Mostellaria' is certainly one of those plays to which the criticism of Horace ”

“ How now! what’s the matter?
BAPTISTA.
What, is the man lunatic?
TRANIO.
Sir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your habit, but your words show you a madman. Why, sir, what ’cerns it you if I wear pearl and gold? I thank my good father, I am able to maintain it.
VINCENTIO.
Thy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo.
BAPTISTA.
You mistake, sir; you mistake, sir. Pray, what do you think is his name?
VINCENTIO.
His name! As if I knew not his name! I have brought him up ever since he was three years old, and his name is Tranio.
PEDANT.
Away, away, mad ass! His name is Lucentio ”

“ Ver. 756. This is a poor pun upon the different acceptations of the word "umbra," which may signify, according to the context, "shade," or "a woman of Umbria." Simo means it in the former, while Tranio chooses to take it in the latter sense. Simo does not like this attempt at wit, and tells him not to be impertinent. ”

“ Upon my faith, you do pronounce him to be a wretched father.
PHA. Why really, this is nothing at all—thirty minae, in comparison with the other expenses he has incurred in good living. He has ruined his father. There's one servant there, a very great scoundrel, Tranio by name; he could even waste the revenue of a Hercules {4}. On my word, I'm sadly distrest for his father; for when he comes to know that things have gone on thus, a hot coal will be scorching his breast, poor man. ”

“ PHILOLACHES has given liberty to (Manumisit) his mistress who has been bought by him, and he consumes all (Omnem) his substance in the absence of his father. When he returns, Tranio deceives the old man (Senem) ; he says that frightful (Terrifica) apparitions have been seen in the house, and (Et) that at once they had removed from it. A Usurer, greedy of gain (Lucripeta) , comes up in the meantime, asking for the interest of some money, and again the old man is made sport of (Lusus) for the servant says that a deposit for a house which has been bought has been taken up (Acceptum) on loan. ”

“ Touch you the ground) —Ver. 457. The ancients were in the habit of reverentially touching the earth, when engaged in any affairs that related to the dead or the infernal Deities.}
{Footnote 2: Guilty of a capital offence) —Ver. 464. "Capitalis aedes facta est;" meaning that a murder had been committed in it.}
{Footnote 3: Hallo! Tranio) —Ver. 502. Weise's Edition gives these words to Theuropides. Rost, no doubt rightly, suggests that these words are spoken by Philolaches from inside (perhaps in a low voice, to ask Tranio how matters are going on) . ”

“ On hearing of the death of Nerva, Trajan prepared to come to Rome from Germany, where he was governor. He received upon his arrival a letter from Plu'tarch, the philosopher, who had the honour of being his master, to the following purport:—"Since your merits and not your importunities, have advanced you to the empire, permit me to congratulate you on your virtues, and my own good fortune. If your future government [Pg. 319] proves answerable to your former worth, I shall be happy; but if you become worse for power, yours will be the danger, and mine the ignominy of your conduct. ”

“ Thus Turnus: “Then begin, and try thy fate:
My message to the ghost of Priam bear;
Tell him a new Achilles sent thee there.”
A lance of tough ground ash the Trojan threw,
Rough in the rind, and knotted as it grew:
With his full force he whirl’d it first around;
But the soft yielding air receiv’d the wound:
Imperial Juno turn’d the course before,
And fix’d the wand’ring weapon in the door.
“But hope not thou,” said Turnus, “when I strike,
To shun thy fate: our force is not alike,
Nor thy steel temper’d by the Lemnian god.” ”

“ But the most striking evidence of Trajan's solicitude for his people's welfare is found in his institution of the alimenta, whereby means were provided for the rearing of poor and orphan children in Italy. The method had been sketched out by Nerva, but its great development was due to Trajan. The moneys allotted by the emperor were in many cases supplemented by private benevolence. As a soldier, Trajan realized the need of men for the maintenance of the empire against the outer barbarians, and he preferred that these men should be of Italian birth. ”

“ The five succeeding emperors,—Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines,—Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius,—governed the world during the eighty years which are said, but questionably I think, to have been the happiest years of the human race. There is little on record as to how these potentates disported themselves at table. Trajan, indeed, is known to have been a fearful drinker; but he loved a quiet, unceremonious dinner at the house of a friend of modest degree,—for there he tippled and talked to his heart’s content, and willingly forgot that he was Cæsar. ”

“ I am nothing to Raniero! He seeks his pleasures elsewhere! The lure of the body drove him to me,—it has vanished,—thank God even for that! I should die in his embrace. He knows that I loathe him, that my soul spurns him! And he knows that I love you! Yet, though he has forfeited every right, human and divine, he grudges my love to another. For days and days he left me alone within the gray walls of Astura, until in a fit of desperation I left one night, and came here, to forget. His insults began in Rome. He went so far as to bring his mistress to the Frangipani palace. ”

“ But though we may find at Trani bits of work which might have stood in Venice, it is only as they might have stood in any other city of Italy. There is nothing in Trani, besides the memorial of Gradenigo, which brings the Serene Republic specially before the mind. The great church, the glory of Trani, bears the impress of that mixed style of art which is characteristic of Norman rule in Apulia, but which is quite different from anything to be found in Norman Sicily. It has some points in common with its neighbours at Bitonto and Bari, and some points very distinctive of itself. ”

“ The younger Trajan was rigorously trained by him, and imbued with the same principles and tastes. He was a soldier born and bred. No better representative of the true old hardy Roman type, little softened by either luxury or education, had come to the head of affairs since the days of Marius. His training was almost exclusively military, but his experience as an officer gave him an acquaintance with almost every important province of the empire, which was of priceless value to him when he came to the throne. ”

“ Anchises, lit with an unearthly light:
“My Son,” he said, “here am I by Jove’s grace;
He pities, late, the sorrows of our race,
And has sent me to comfort and advise.
Let a new Troy in Sicily arise,
Peopled by many who would stay behind.
With the young and bravest, sail thou, and find
A realm in Latium; make its rude tribes feel
The temper of their Trojan Master’s steel.
But, first, thou to the Nether World descend,
And traverse from the threshold to the end
In search of me; not that I dwell in Dis,
With the curst, but the pleasant fields of bliss. ”

“ Whoever sits upon that, by whatever title, or however acquired, is the legitimate and unquestioned king. No rival, therefore, started up to contest the position either of Nerva himself, or of the stranger he nominated to succeed him. |A.D. 102.|Men bent in humble acquiescence when they knew, in the third year of this century, that their master was named Trajan,—that he was a Spaniard by birth, and the best general of Rome. For eighty years after that date the empire had rest. Life and property were comparatively secure, and society flowed on peaceably in deep and well-ascertained channels. ”

“ On the accession of Trajan he seems to have left Rome for Spain, it is said because the emperor refused to recognise his genius; but as he had been a prominent author for upwards of thirty years, it is likely that his character, not his talent, was what Trajan looked coldly on. A poet who had prostituted his pen in a way unexampled even among the needy and immoral pickers-up of chance crumbs that crowded the avenues of the palace, could hardly be acceptable to a prince of manly character. At the same time there is this excuse for Martial, that he did not belong to the old families of Rome. ”

“ With the death of Turnus the catastrophe is complete. The princess of Latium is the prize of the victor; and the loves of Æneas and Lavinia are certainly not of that romantic character that we need care to follow them. The Trojans are settled in Italy—two races under one name. For so has Jupiter promised, as some indulgence to the feelings of his queen, that the old Latin name shall at least not be merged in the detested name of Trojan, and on such terms has the goddess reluctantly acquiesced in the settlement of the wanderers on Italian ground. Latins, not Trojans, are to rule the world. ”

“ It would be unjust to the memory of a great man if we were to think of Trajan as a soldier only. He was a strenuous man, unsparing of himself in any part of his duty. He pursued a policy of public benefit in Italy, striving, like Augustus, to encourage agriculture and population, and carrying out a plan of his predecessor Nerva for providing a fund for the education of poor children. This last institution became an important one, and shows well how really benevolent—perhaps even to excess—how anxious for the well-being of Italy, were the Cæsars of the second century. ”

“ It was to Dacia then that Trajan turned his thoughts when he found himself seated on the imperial throne. Trajan had many reasons for undertaking the enterprise. It was much to his taste. He was a soldier, who had already distinguished himself in the field. And he had to justify his elevation to the throne. The Empire really rested on the swords of the [Pg 339] soldiers, and no man who could not count on the respect of the army could feel himself safe. ”