ERG. A happy walk there to you, and a happy walk back.
(Exit HEGIO.
{Footnote 1: To be picking up their teeth)—Ver. 803. "Dentilegos." He says that he will knock their teeth out, and so make them pick them up from the ground. We must suppose that while he is thus hurrying on, he is walking up one of the long streets which were represented as emerging on the Roman stage, opposite to the audience.}
{Footnote 2: Galling pace)—Ver. 819. "Crucianti" may mean either "tormenting" the spectator by reason of the slowness of its pace, or galling to the rider. "Quadrupedanti crucianti cauterio" is a phrase, both in sound and meaning, much resembling what our song-books call the "galloping dreary dun."}
{Footnote 3: In the Basilica)—Ver. 820. The "Basilica" was a building which served as a court of law, and a place of meeting for merchants and men of business. The name was perhaps derived from the Greek word Basileus, as the title of the second Athenian Archon, who had his tribunal or court of justice. The building was probably, in its original form, an insulated portico. The first edifice of this kind at Rome was erected B.C. 184; probably about the period when this Play was composed. It was situate in the Forum, and was built by Porcius Cato, from whom it was called the "Porcian Basilica." Twenty others were afterwards erected at different periods in the city. The loungers here mentioned, in the present instance, were probably sauntering about under the porticos of the Basilica, when their olfactory nerves were offended by the unsavoury smell of the fishermen's baskets.}
{Footnote 4: About killing lamb)—Ver. 824. In these lines he seems to accuse the butchers of three faults—cruelty, knavery, and extortion. The general reading is "duplam," but Rost suggests "dupla," "at double the price." If "duplam" is retained, might it not possibly mean that the butchers agree to kill lamb for you, and bring to you "duplam agninam," "double lamb," or, in other words, lamb twice as old as it ought to be? No doubt there was some particular age at which lamb, in the estimation of Ergasilus and his brother-epicures, was considered to be in its greatest perfection.}
{Footnote 5: Inspector of markets)—Ver. 829. "Agoranomum." The Aediles were the inspectors of markets at Rome, while the "Agoranomi" had a similar office in the Grecian cities.}
{Footnote 6: Both these doors)—Ver. 836. The street-doors of the ancients were generally "bivalve," or "folding-doors."}
{Footnote 7: Every spot of sorrow )—Ver. 846. He alludes, figuratively, to the art of the fuller or scourer, in taking the spots out of soiled garments.}
{Footnote 8: In a quickset hedge)—Ver. 865. Here is a most wretched attempt at wit, which cannot be expressed in a literal translation. Hegio says, "Nihil sentio," "I don't feel it." Ergasilus plays upon the resemblance of the verb "sentio" to "sentis" and "senticetum," a "bramble-bush" or "quickset hedge;" and says, 'You don't feel it so," "non sentis," "because you are not in a quickset hedge,' "in senticeto." }