ome {home}?

CHREM. I say {so}.

MEN. Let us go. Lead me to him, I beg of you.

CHREM. He does not wish you yet to know of his return, and he shuns
your presence; he's afraid that, on account of that fault, your former
severity may even be increased.

MEN. Did you not tell him how I was affected?[51]

CHREM. No--

MEN. For what reason, Chremes?

CHREM. Because there you would judge extremely ill both for yourself
and for him, if you were to show yourself of a spirit so weak and
irresolute.

MEN. I can not {help it}: enough already, enough, have I proved a
rigorous father.

CHREM. Ah Menedemus! you are too precipitate in either extreme, either
with profuseness or with parsimony too great. Into the same error will
you fall from the one side as from the other. In the first place,
formerly, rather than allow your son to visit a young woman, who was
then content with a very little, and to whom any thing was acceptable,
you frightened him away from here. After that, she began, quite
against her inclination, to seek a subsistence upon the town. Now,
when she can not be supported without a great expense, you are ready
to give any thing. For, that you may know how perfectly she is trained
to extravagance, in the first place, she has already brought with her
more than ten female attendants, {all} laden with clothes and jewels
of gold; if a satrap[52] had been her admirer, he never could support
her expenses, much less can you.

MEN. Is she at your house?

CHREM. Is she, do you ask? I have felt it; for I have given her and
her retinue one dinner; had I to give them another such, it would be
all over {with me}; for, to pass by other matters, what a quantity of
wine she did consume for me in tasting only,[53] saying thus, "This
{wine} is {too} acid,[54] respected sir,[55] do please look for
something more mellow." I opened all the casks, all the vessels;[56]
she kept all on the stir: and this {but} a single night. What do you
suppose will become of you when they are constantly preying upon you?
So may the Gods prosper me, Menedemus, I do pity your lot.

MEN. Let him do what he will; let him take, waste, {and} squander; I'm
determined to endure it, so long as I only have him with me.

CHREM. If it is your determination thus to act, I hold it to be of
very great moment that he should not be aware that with a full
knowledge you grant him this.

MEN. What shall I do?

CHREM. Any thing, rather than what you are think