Pseudolus

"As the grass of summer, so brief is my life:

Quickly did I rise, so quickly was I mowed down."

Calidorus, with great melodrama, explains to Pseudolus that his lover, the prostitute Phoenicium, is about to be sold by Ballio to a Macedonian soldier. Calidorus’s overblown language annoys Pseudolus, who tells him, “Stop crying, you fool. You’ll live” (96). When Calidorus asks Pseudolus why he himself isn’t crying, Pseudolus teases him, saying he’s “got eyes of pumice” (75) and that he “descend[s] from a long line of dry-eyes” (77). When Calidorus continues to complain, Pseudolus answers with a chorus of “Waah!” (80, 81, 82). In this scene, the lovelorn, emotional Calidorus is contrasted with the sharp-witted Pseudolus, from whom Calidorus continuously begs help. The sanctity of love, too, is questioned, for it makes Calidorus languid and ineffective.

“So this is our plan: to wear me out and the whip?

Short attention span? Maybe you’ll pay attention to THIS!”

Ballio is needlessly, excessively cruel to his slaves and prostitutes. In spectators’ first vision of him, he insults and threatens them, telling his slaves that whipping is the only way to get them to work, and telling his prostitutes that if they don’t earn enough gifts for his birthday, he’ll turn them out on the street. Ballio is, early in the play, established as a villain, making spectators root for Pseudolus to swindle him.