actress. So, too, when she requests to know the nature of Hanno's claim to her, and the lover, eager to put an end to the equivoque, says that all shall be told if she will but accompany the stranger, she scornfully replies—
"What! does my own dog bark at me?"
it is not difficult to sympathise with the young Carthaginian's intense admiration of her as she stands there defying him. He vows that for her sake Jupiter would soon "send Juno packing;" and when at last she throws her arms round her father's neck, he laments that Apelles and Zeuxis died too soon—they had never such a subject for their pencil. These are by far the most life-like pair of lovers in any comedy of either Plautus or Terence. Granted that he is a little foolish, and she something of a coquette,—that does not make the characters either less natural or less entertaining.
Nevertheless, all this absurd mystification on the part of the father does make this scene tedious, as are some others in the play. Hanno carries on his heavy joke so long, that at last his young cousin, who is impatient for the recognition of his dear Adelphasium, appeals to him by pointing to the audience:—
"Sir, cut it short—these gentlemen are thirsty."
There is no symptom of relenting disclosed on the part of Adelphasium towards her suitor, even after her true position as a free-woman has been secured; but, as Hanno unhesitatingly promises her hand in marriage to her new-found cousin, and daughters in the comic
