HEG. For certain? ARIST. Why, nothing, I say, will you find more certain than this certainty. Philocrates, from when a boy, has ever since that time been my friend.

HEG. But of what appearance is your friend Philocrates?

ARIST. I'll tell you: with a thin face, sharp nose, light hair, dark eyes, somewhat ruddy, with hair rather crisp and curling.

HEG. The description is like. TYND. (aside). Aye, so much so, indeed, that I've this day, much to my sorrow, got into the midst of this, i' faith. Woe to those unfortunate rods, which this day will be meeting their end upon my back.

HEG. I see that I've been imposed upon.

TYND. (aside). Why, fetters, do you delay to run towards me and to embrace my legs that I may have you in custody?

HEG. And have these two rascally captives really deceived me this day with their tricks? the other one pretended that he was the servant and this one that he himself was the master. I've lost a kernal; for a security, I've left the shell. To such a degree have they imposed upon me, {13} both on this side and that, with their trickeries. Still, this fellow shall never have the laugh against me. Colaphus, Cordalio, Corax {14} (to the SLAVES), go you away and bring out the thongs.

SLAVE. Are we to be sent to gather faggots {15}? (TheSLAVES go and bring the thongs from the house.)

{Footnote 1: Which is spit out)—Ver. 566. Some would render the words "qui sputatur," "which is spit upon," and fancy that they find authorities in the ancient writers for thinking that epilepsy was treated by spitting upon the patient. However, it seems much more probable, that the notion was that epilepsy was cured by the patient himself spitting out the noxious saliva; and that the word "sputatur" means, "is spit out," i. e. "is cured by spitting." Celsus thus describes the "comitialis morbus," "epilepsy," or "falling sickness: The person seized, suddenly falls down; foam drops from the mouth; then, after a little time, he comes to himself, and gets up again without any assistance." Pliny, in his Natural History, B. 38, c. 4, says: "Despuimus comitiales morbos, hoc est, contagia regerimus," "We spit out the epilepsy, that is, we avert the contagion." This is said, probably, in reference to a belief, that on seeing an epileptic person, if we spit, we shall avoid the contagion; but it by no means follows that the person so doing must spit upon the epileptic person. We read in the first Book of Samuel, ch. xxi., ver. 12: "And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish, the King of Gath. And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down on his beard." He probably pretended to be attacked with epileptic fits. In fact, after due examination, there seems little doubt that it was a common notion with the ancients that the distemper was discharged with the saliva.}

{Footnote 2: To be spit upon)—Ver. 569. Aristophontes has understood the words, "qua spitatur," in the sense of "which is spit upon," and asks Tyndarus if he affirms that he is afflicted with a disease which requires such treatment. Hegio, to pacify him, and to show off his medical knowledge, tells him that it has proved beneficial in some diseases to be so treated; but he does not go so far as to say what those diseases were. One malady, called "herpes," or "spreading ulcer," was said to be highly contagions, but capable of being cured by applications of saliva. Some Commentators here quote the method which our Saviour adopted in curing the blind man at Bethsaida: "And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town: and when he had spat on his eyes and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw aught." St. Mark, ch. viii., ver. 23. And again, the account given in the ninth chapter of St. John, ver. 6: "When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay." It may be possible that our Saviour thought fit to adopt these forms, in imitation of some of the methods of treating diseases in those times; though, of course, his transcendent power did not require their agency. Rost, in his Commentaries on Plautus, has very learned disquisition on the meaning of the present passage.}