Pseudolus

As Pseudolus, Simo’s slave, and Calidorus, Simo’s son, emerge from Simo’s house, Pseudolus asks a dreary Calidorus what’s troubling him. He wonders what Calidorus has written on his tablet and points out that he’s always been Calidorus’s “closest confidante” (17). Calidorus says Pseudolus “must find my heart in that wax” (33) and that like “the grass of summer” (38), he has been “quickly […] mowed down” (39).

Pseudolus, making fun of the handwriting, reads the tablet and learns that Calidorus’s lover, Phoenicium, has been sold by her pimp, Ballio, to a Macedonian soldier, who left partial payment before leaving. Phoenicium despairs that the man who is supposed to bring the rest of the payment, along with a seal that matches that left by the soldier, is coming today; she begs Calidorus to provide the rest of the payment himself so she can go with him instead. The letter is filled with dramatic lines about physical intimacies Phoenicium will miss; Calidorus says it’s “a woeful letter” (80), and asks why Pseudolus isn’t crying. When Calidorus laments that he has no money and asks for Pseudolus’s help, Pseudolus pretends to cry as Calidorus mourns over his troubles.

Calidorus says he’s going to buy a rope and hang himself; Pseudolus responds, “Stop crying, you fool” (96). He promises to help “[b]y some honest means, or perhaps in my usual way” (105). He tells Calidorus he will give him twenty minae by “fleecing your father” (120); Calidorus asks whether “[o]ut of full respect for family duty, could you fleece my mother too?” (122). After Pseudolus imitates a Roman magistrate speaking at a public meeting, announcing that “all my friends and all who know me” (127) should “[b]e wary of me today” (128), Calidorus shushes him, saying the door of the pimp’s house—Simo’s neighbor, Ballio—is open.

When Ballio and his slaves emerge from his house, Pseudolus and Calidorus eavesdrop. Ballio issues a long tirade berating his slaves for their laziness, cracking his whip to motivate them to “shake the sleep and sloth out of [their] eyes” (144). After a slew of angry insults, he orders the slaves to prepare the house while he’s out: it’s his birthday, and he wants the important guests he’s hosting “to think I’m loaded” (167). Before going to the market, he turns his attention to the prostitutes, insulting them as troublemakers, drunks, and “rotten meat” (197) and ordering them to lure “a whole army of gift-givers” (181) who will supply him with grain, meat, and oil. Calidorus and Pseudolus listen on in disgust, Pseudolus chiding “the young men of Athens [who] even let him live here” (202) and who will never “rise up against the master / Who keeps them enslaved to their passion” (206-07).

Calidorus continues to worry about Ballio “prostituting my prostitute” (231), and Pseudolus urges him to calm himself, saying, “In a crisis, think creative and constructive thoughts” (238). Calidorus argues, “What’s the fun of being in love if you can’t be a fool?” (239).

Pseudolus calls Ballio to speak with them; Ballio is indignant, asking, “Who dares to detain a busy man like me?” (247). When Calidorus reminds him that he used to pay when he had money, Ballio says he’s concerned only with people who can pay him now and that people whose “cash is dearly departed” (260) are “as good as dead to me” (208). When Calidorus tells him “[t]here’s cash in it for [him]” (264), however, Ballio acknowledges he’s caught his attention, for money is his “higher calling” (268): if he were performing a sacrifice to Jove, he’d stop the sacrifice if he saw an opportunity to obtain money.

After sharp back-and-forth banter between the three men, Calidorus begs Ballio to have mercy on the fact that he’s in love but has no money, but Ballio feels no pity, complaining Calidorus hasn’t paid him and that if he were really in love, he would have taken out a loan or stolen from his father. Calidorus says that “filial duty” (291) prevents him from stealing from his father and that the law prevents him from taking out a loan, since he’s not yet 25 years old. Ballio isn’t interested in his complaints. He assures them Phoenicium is not for sale; having made them excited, he then clarifies that she’s not for sale because he sold her to a Macedonian soldier. When Calidorus reminds him he’d said he wouldn’t sell her to anyone but him, Ballio says the terms were “fabricated and winding” (353). Pseudolus issues “a verbal assault” (359), throwing insults at him one by one as Ballio casually brushes them off, saying the insults are “music to my ears” (366).

Ballio says that if the soldier doesn’t pay him the balance by the end of the day, he’ll break the deal with him and sell Phoenicium to Calidorus, provided Calidorus brings him the money. After Ballio leaves, Pseudolus says to carry out his plan, they will need a reliable friend to help them. Calidorus says they “have no shortage of friends—just of reliable ones” (390). Pseudolus tells him to find the best one he can.

Alone, Pseudolus delivers a monologue in which he summarizes the situation to himself. He says he’s “laid it on thick” (395) for Calidorus but hasn’t “got the least bit of a plan” (397) and “just as / Much money” (397-98). He compares himself to a poet beginning to write, who “looks for what doesn’t exist at all” (217) and “still finds it” (217). When he sees his master, Simo, approaching with his neighbor, Callipho, he assures himself he will “dig out twenty minae from this ancient tomb” (412). He then recedes to eavesdrop on their conversation.