Nugo. But whence his love?
Turd. As far as I could gather from the speech of the letter-carrier he had given up solid and serious studies and had devoted himself entirely to the looser Latin poets—those of the vernacular; thence he got the first preparation of his mind. So that if by any means any spark of fire, however slight it might be, should fall on him he was as kindling-wood ready for it and would flare up suddenly like lit flax. So he gave himself up to sleep and idleness.
Nugo. What need is there further to relate more or greater causes of his falling in love?
Turd. Now he is beside himself, going about here, there, and everywhere alone, but always either silent, or singing something and dancing, and writing verses in the vernacular.
Nugo. Which, forsooth, his Lycoris herself may read.
Grac. O Christ, preserve our hearts from so pernicious a disease!
Turd. Unless I am deceived as to the character of Clodius, he will return some time to a better and more fruitful life. His mind wanders into the foreign lands of evil; it does not take up its residence in them.
XIII. Lusco the Merchant
Grac. And that other one—what is the kind of commerce in which he engages?
Turd. He has sent his father a letter written in a weeping strain concerning the sad state of his studies. The letter-carrier himself read the letter since it was left open. The father, a man impervious to culture (crassae Minervae), has handed him over from MSS. to wools, cloths, dyes, pepper, ginger, and cinnamon. Now girt as to his arms, wonderfully diligent and sedulous in his odorous shop, he invites his customers, receives them blandly, climbs up and comes down most unsafe ladders, produces his goods, shows them this way and that, tells lies, perjures himself. Everything is easier to him than studying.