30
summoque genere captum esse equitem Aleum,
nil pretio parsit, filio dum parceret:
reconciliare ut facilius posset domum,
emit hosce e praeda ambos de quaestoribus.

And inasmuch as he heard it rumoured yesterday that an Elean
knight of the very highest rank and family connections had
been captured, he had no thought of saving money if only he
could save his son. So in the hope of getting that son back
home more readily he bought both of these prisoners from the
commissioners who were disposing of the spoils.

hisce autem inter sese hunc confinxerunt dolum.
quo pacto hic servos suom erum hinc amittat domum.
itaque inter se commutant vestem et nomina;
illic vocatur Philocrates, hic Tyndarus:
huius illic, hic illius hodie fert imaginem.

These same prisoners, however, have got together and laid
a scheme, as you can see, to the end that the slave here
(_indicating Tyndarus_) may send his master off home.
Accordingly, they have exchanged clothes and names with each
other. That one (_indicating Tyndarus_) is calling himself
Philocrates, and this one (_indicating Philocrates_)
Tyndarus: each is posing as the other for the time being.

et hic hodie expediet hanc docte fallaciam, 40
et suom erum faciet libertatis compotem,
eodemque pacto fratrem servabit suom
reducemque faciet liberum in patriam ad patrem,
imprudens: itidem ut saepe iam in multis locis
plus insciens quis fecit quam prudens boni.

And Tyndarus here is going to work out this trick to-day
like an artist, and set his master at liberty. By so
doing he will rescue his own brother, too, and enable
him to return home to his father a free man, all quite
unwittingly,--as in so many cases before now a man has
often done more good unconsciously than wittingly.

sed inscientes sua sibi fallacia
ita compararunt et confinxerunt dolum
itaque hi commenti, de sua sententia
ut in servitute hic ad suom maneat patrem:
ita nunc ignorans suo sibi servit patri; 50
homunculi quanti sunt, quom recogito!
haec res agetur nobis, vobis fabula.

But all unconsciously, in their trickery, they have so
planned and contrived and schemed, acting upon their own
ideas, that Tyndarus will stay here as his own father's
slave. So now it is his father he is ser