turn out happily for you and your girl and me--to
give me your daughter in marriage. Promise you will.

_Eucl._

Heia, Megadore, haud decorum facinus tuis factis facis, 220
ut inopem atque innoxium abs te atque abs tuis me inrideas.
nam de te neque re neque verbis merui ut faceres quod facis.

(_whining_) Now, now, Megadorus! This is unlike you,
unworthy of you, making fun of a poor man like me that never
harmed you or yours. Why, I never said or did a thing to you
to deserve being treated so.

_Mega._

Neque edepol ego te derisum venio neque derideo,
neque dignum arbitror.

Good Lord, man! I didn't come here to make fun of you, and
I'm not making fun of you: I couldn't think of such a thing.

_Eucl._

Cur igitur poscis meam gnatam tibi?

Then why are you asking for my daughter?

_Mega._

Ut propter me tibi sit melius mihique propter te et tuos.

Why? So that we may all of us make life pleasanter for one
another.

_Eucl._

Venit hoc mihi, Megadore, in mentem, ted esse hominem divitem,
factiosum, me autem esse hominem pauperum pauperrimum;
nunc si filiam locassim meam tibi, in mentem venit
te bovem esse et me esse asellum: ubi tecum coniunctus siem,
ubi onus nequeam ferre pariter, iaceam ego asinus in luto, 230
tu me bos magis haud respicias, gnatus quasi numquam siem.

Now here's the way it strikes me, Megadorus,--you're a rich
man, a man of position: but as for me, I'm poor, awfully
poor, dreadfully poor. Now if I was to marry off my daughter
to you, it strikes me you'd be the ox and I'd be the donkey.
When I was hitched up with you and couldn't pull my share of
the load, down I'd drop, I, the donkey, in the mud; and you,
the ox, wouldn't pay any more attention to me than if I'd
never been born at all.

et te utar iniquiore et meus me ordo inrideat,
neutrubi habeam stabile stabulum, si quid divorti fuat:
asini me mordicibus scindant, boves incursent cornibus.
hoc magnum est periclum, ab asinis ad boves transcendere.

You would be too much for me: and my own kind would haw-haw
at me: and if there should be a falling out, neither party
would let me have stable quarters: the donkeys would chew me
up and the oxen would run me through. It is a very hazardous
business for donkeys to climb into the ox set.

_Mega._