Now as for these rotters, I'll plant a crop of
fists on their faces. (_Lays about._) By Heaven, you'll be everlastingly
sorry for the day you tried to carry my master off. Let go!
MEN. (_Joining in with a will._) I've got this fellow by the eye!
MES. Bore it out! A hole's good enough for his face! You villians, you
thieves, you robbers! (_General melee. Lorarii weaken._)
LOR. We're done for! Oh Lord, please!
MES. Let go then!
MEN. What right had you to lay hands on me? Give them a good beating up!
(_Lorarii break and scatter wildly under the ferocious onslaught._)
MES. Come, clear out! To the devil with you all! That for _you_!
(_Strikes._) You're the last; here's _your_ reward! (_Strikes again._)"
The lines themselves are sufficiently graphic and need but little
annotation. Other pugilistic activities crop up at not infrequent
intervals in the text,[113] and in _Ps._ 135 ff. Ballio generously plies
the whip. In the lacuna of the _Amph._ after line 1034, Mercury probably
bestows a drenching on Amphitruo.[114] In _As._ III. 3, especially 697
ff., Libanus makes his master Argyrippus "play horsey" with him, doubtless
with indelicate buffonery. With invariable energy, even so simple a matter
as knocking on doors is made the excuse for raising a violent disturbance,
as in _Amph._ 1019 f. and 1025: Paene effregisti, fatue, foribus
cardines.[115] And this idea is actually parodied in _As.
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