Τί Μοι Μέλει Μεριμνῶν.
Μέσον, ναῒ
ΦορήΜεθα σὺν Μελαίνᾳ,
ΧειΜῶνι Μοχθεῦντες Μεγάλῳ.
[NOTE 98.]
However, I’ll bring her.
Mr. Cooke makes this speech come from Archillis, and writes it thus: Tamen eam adduce, I say, fetch her. This reading is taken from Guyetus: but Dr. Bentley objects to Archillis within calling to Mysis without. But as Mysis uses the expression importunitatem SPECTATE aniculæ, see the old woman’s importunity, and not audite importunitatem, hear, &c.: we must suppose Archillis to show her impatience by gestures, as she stood at the door of Glycera’s house.
[NOTE 99.]
Mark, how importunate this old baggage is.
Importunitatem spectate aniculæ. Anicula is a word of singular derivation, and signifies literally a sorceress; being compounded of two Latin words, one signifying an old woman, and the other to howl: because sorceresses always howled when they made their incantations. We must not suppose that Mysis here meant to call Archillis a sorceress, but merely used the word above mentioned as a term of reproach. According to Antonius Magnus, the aniculæ were not a little mischievous, as he proposes to shew by the following quotation: “Retulit Leonardus Varius, lib. I. de Fascino, multas hac nostra tempestate existere aniculas, quarum impuritate non paucos effascinari pueros, illosque non modo in gravissimum incidere discrimen, verum atque acerbam sæpissime subire mortem. Pecudes insuper partu, et lacte privari, equos macrescere, et emori, segetes absque fructu colligi, arbores arescere, ac denique omnia pessum iri quandoque videri.”—Antonius Magnus. Perscrutator rerum abditarum naturæ. Norimberga, 1681, p. 39.
[NOTE 100.]
Well, may Diana grant my poor mistress, &c.
The common reading of this passage is, Di date facultatem, May the Gods grant, &c., but I should rather imagine that Terence wrote, Diana da facultatem, May Diana grant, &c., because, on these occasions, the Greeks never invoked the assistance of all the gods, but usually requested the help of Diana, as Glycera does afterwards, when she calls upon her by the name of Juno Lucina, (vide [Note 143]). Diana was supposed to preside over women in childbirth, and was called Εἰλείθυια.