[NOTE 157.]
Ah! how foolishly have I relied on you, who, out of a perfect calm, have raised this storm.
Hem quo fretu siem
Qui me hodie ex tranquillissima re conjecisti in nuptias.
“My father reads this passage thus, en quo fretus sum, that is, the rascal on whom I relied,” &c.
Madame Dacier.
If an error has been insinuated into the text in this passage, it can scarcely be of sufficient importance to render an alteration essential: the correction suggested by Madame Dacier, is not so decidedly superior to the usual mode of reading the lines, as to compensate for the inconvenience which must be occasioned by a general variation of the text.
[NOTE 158.]
Pam.—What do you deserve?
This alludes to the Athenian custom of questioning supposed criminals, either before sentence was passed, or while they were under the torture, to the following effect: What have you deserved? and, according to the tenor of the reply, they augmented or diminished the punishment: vide Nonni. Miscel., B. 2. It was also customary, at Athens, when the punishment was not fixed by the laws, but was left to the discretion of the judges, that the condemned person was required to state what injury he thought his adversary had suffered from him; and the answer, when delivered upon oath, was called διαμοσία; by which the final sentence was in some measure regulated.
[NOTE 159.]
Char. (alone.) Is this credible, or to be mentioned as a truth?
“Hoccine credibile est, aut memorabile,