Enter Philotis[26] and Syra.
Phil. I’faith, Syra, you can find but very few lovers who prove constant to their mistresses. For instance, how often did this Pamphilus swear to Bacchis—how solemnly, so that any one might have readily believed him—that he never would take home a wife so long as she lived. Well now, he is married.
Syr. Therefore, for that very reason, I earnestly both advise and entreat you to take pity upon no one, but plunder, fleece, and rend every man you lay hold of.
Phil. What! Hold no one exempt?
Syr. No one; for not a single one of them, rest assured, comes to you without making up his mind, by means of his flatteries, to gratify his passion with you at the least possible expense. Will you not, pray, plot against them in return?
Phil. And yet, upon my faith, it is unfair to be the same to all.
Syr. What! unfair to take revenge on your enemies? or, for them to be caught in the very way they try to catch you? Alas! wretched me! why do not your age and beauty belong to me, or else these sentiments of mine to you?
[ Scene II.]
Enter Parmeno from the house of Laches.
Par. (at the door, speaking to Scirtus within.) If the old man should be asking for me, do you say that I have just gone to the harbor to inquire about the arrival of Pamphilus. Do you hear what I say, Scirtus? If he asks for me, then you are to say so; if he does not, why, say nothing at all; so that at another time I may be able to employ that excuse as a new one. (Comes forward, and looking around.)—But is it my dear Philotis that I see? How has she come here? (Accosting her.) Philotis heartily good-morrow.