Why not home-sickness at once! Knave! Wait and I will teach you to think differently.
PARMENIO.
By Heavens you must not! My dear youthful hero, let me tell you, you are still a child! Do not let the rough soldier so soon stifle in you the loving child! Or else one might not put the best construction on your heart; one might take your valour for inborn ferocity. I also am a father, father of an only son, who is but a little older than you, who with equal ardour--But you know him!
PHILOTAS.
I know him. He promises everything that his father has accomplished.
PARMENIO.
But if I knew that the young rogue did not long for his father at every moment when service leaves him free, and did not long for him as the lamb longs for its dam, I should wish--you see--that I had not begotten him. At present he must love more than respect me. I shall soon enough have to content myself with the respect, when nature guides the stream of his affection in another channel; when he himself becomes a father. Do not grow angry, prince!
PHILOTAS.
Who can grow angry with you? You are right! Tell my father everything which you think a loving son should say to him at such a time. Excuse my youthful rashness, which has almost brought him and his empire to destruction. Beg him to forgive my fault. Assure him that I shall never again remind him of it by a similar fault; that I will do everything that he too may be able to forget it. Entreat him----