in detail in the original, but not worth analysis. It is very long before Chremes can be brought to believe that it is his own son, and not Clinia, who is the real lover of the dashing young lady whom he has been entertaining out of complaisance, as he considered, to his son's friend. Menedemus, no longer a "self-tormentor," is equally gratified to find that, after all, he is to have such a modest and highly respectable daughter-in-law, and amused at the collapse of his scheming friend.
Menedemus (solus, laughing to himself).
I don't profess myself to be a genius—
I'm not so sharp as some folk—that I know:
But this same Chremes—this my monitor,
My would-be guide, philosopher, and friend,—
He beats me hollow. Blockhead, donkey, dolt,
Fool, leaden-brains, and all those pretty names—
They might suit me; to him they don't apply:
His monstrous folly wants a name to itself.
Poor Chremes grows very crestfallen in the closing scenes, when he looks forward to the ruin which his son's extravagant tastes, with the fair Bacchis's assistance, will bring upon him. Menedemus retorts upon him his own advice,—not to be too hard upon his son—young men will be young men: but Chremes fails to take the same philosophical view of his own case as he had done of his friend's. He vows at first that he will disinherit his young prodigal, and settle all his property upon his new-found daughter and her husband; but he is persuaded at last to alter this determination,
