in order that
you might not come to know of it.

CHREM. Very good.

SYR. Tell me, please, {what you think of it}.

CHREM. Extremely {good}, I declare.

SYR. Why yes, pretty fair. But listen, what a piece of policy still
remains. He is then to say that he has seen your daughter-- that her
beauty charmed him as soon as he beheld her; {and} that he desires her
for a wife.

CHREM. What, her that has just been discovered?

SYR. The same; and, in fact, he'll request that she may be asked for.

CHREM. For what purpose, Syrus? For I don't altogether comprehend it.

SYR. O dear, you are {so} dull.

CHREM. Perhaps so.

SYR. Money will be given him for the wedding-- with which golden
trinkets and clothes---- do you understand me?

CHREM. To buy {them}----?

SYR. Just so.

CHREM. But I neither give nor betroth my daughter {to him}.

SYR. But why?

CHREM. Why, do you ask me? To a fellow----

SYR. Just as you please. I don't mean that in reality you should give
her to him, but that you should pretend it.

CHREM. Pretending is not in my way; do you mix up these {plots} of
yours, so as not to mix me up {in them}. Do you think that I'll
betroth my daughter to a person to whom I will not marry her?

SYR. I imagined {so}.

CHREM. By no means.

SYR. It might have been cleverly managed; and I undertook this affair
for the very reason, that a short time since you so urgently requested
it.

CHREM. I believe you.

SYR. But for my part, Chremes, I take it well and good, {either way}.

CHREM. But still, I especially wish you to do your best for it to be
brought about; but in some other way.

SYR. It shall be done: some other {method} must be thought of; but as
to what I was telling you of,-- about the money which she owes to
Bacchis,-- that must now be repaid her. And you will not, of course,
now be having recourse to this method; "What have I to do with it? Was
it lent to me? Did I give any orders? Had she the power to pawn my
daughter without my consent?" They quote that saying, Chremes, with
good reason, "Rigorous law[88] is often rigorous injustice."

CHREM. I will not do {so}.

SYR. On the contrary, though others were at liberty, you are not at
liberty; all think that you are in good and very easy circumstances.

CHREM. Nay rather, I'll at once carry it to her myself.

SYR. Why no; request your son in preference.

CHREM. For what reason?

SYR. Why, because the suspicion of being in love with her has