ALB. My son seems to be afraid of matrimony; whenever I propose a match to him, he seems indifferent, and draws back.
MET. Perhaps he is of the temper of Mark Tully's brother, whom he writes about to Atticus. This is what the Greeks call athanaton….
[Footnote: Immortal.]
ALB. For Heaven's sake! you ceaseless teacher, I pray you have done with the Greeks, the Albanians, the Sclavonians, and all the other nations you have mentioned; they have nothing to do with my son.
MET. Well then, your son…?
ALB. I do not know whether a secret love does not burn within him. Something disturbs him, or I am much deceived; for I saw him yesterday, when he did not see me, in a corner of the wood, where no person ever goes.
MET. In a recess of a grove, you mean, a remote spot, in Latin secessus. Virgil says, est in secessu locus…
[Footnote: "There is a remote spot">[
ALB. How could Virgil say that, since I am certain that there was not a soul in that quiet spot except us two?
MET. I quote Virgil as a famous author, who employed a more correct expression than the word you used, and not as a witness of what you saw yesterday.