1Take, for instance, this whole little play by a poetess who is old and the author of very many plays: how lacking it is in plot, how it can find no ending! 1What then? 1those many men — for there must have been not a few, so that Licinius might easily be seized and the affair be better attested by many eyes — why did they let Licinius slip from their hands? 1For how was Licinius any less able to be seized when he drew back so as not to hand over the box than if he had handed it over? 1For they had been posted to seize Licinius, so that Licinius might be caught red-handed either while he was holding on to the poison or when he had handed it over.
1This was the woman's whole plan, this the assignment of those who were asked; 1and why you say they leapt out rashly and before time, I cannot discover. 1They had been asked for this, they had been posted for this purpose, so that the poison, the plot, in short, the crime itself, might be caught red-handed. 65Could they have leapt out at a better time than when Licinius had come, when he was holding the box of poison in his hand? 65If, once it had already been handed to the slaves, the woman's friends had suddenly burst out of the baths and seized Licinius, he would have appealed to the protection of the people and flatly denied that the box had been handed over by him.
65How would they have refuted him? 65would they say that they had seen it? 65First, they would bring upon themselves the charge of a very great crime; 65secondly, they would say that they had seen what they could not have seen from the place where they had been posted. 65So they showed themselves at the very moment when Licinius had come, was getting out the box, stretching out his hand, handing over the poison. 65This, then, is the ending of a farce, not of a play; 65in which, when no proper close can be found, someone escapes from somebody's hands, then the clappers sound, and the curtain is raised.