Plautus Titus Maccius - Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi

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[Transcriber's Note:
Greek words have been transliterated and placed between +marks+.

Footnotes are collected at the end of each play. Where a footnote refers
to an omitted passage, the verses before and after the omission have been
numbered in parentheses:
(182)
(184)
All other line numbers are from the original text.]

* * * * *

P L A U T U S

With an English Translation by

PAUL NIXON
Dean of BOWDOIN COLLEGE, Maine

In Five Volumes

I

AMPHITRYON
THE COMEDY OF ASSES
THE POT OF GOLD
THE TWO BACCHISES
THE CAPTIVES

Cambridge, Massachusetts
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

London
WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD

_First printed_ 1916

* * * * *

CONTENTS

Greek Originals of the Plays........vii
Introduction.........................ix
Bibliography.......................xvii
I. Amphitruo, or Amphitryon..............1
II. Asinaria, or the Comedy of Asses....123
III. Aulularia, or the Pot of Gold.......231
IV. Bacchides, or the Two Bacchises.....325
V. Captivi, or the Captives............459
Index...............................569

[Transcriber's Note:
The Index of Proper Names is not included in this e-text.]

* * * * *

THE GREEK ORIGINALS OF THE PLAYS IN THIS VOLUME

In this and each succeeding volume a summary will be given of the
consensus of opinion[1] regarding the Greek originals of the plays in
the volume and regarding the time of presentation in Rome of Plautus's
adaptations. It may be that some general readers will be glad to have
even so condensed an account of these matters as will be offered them.

The original of the _Amphitruo_ is not now thought to have been a work
of the Middle Comedy but of the New Comedy, very possibly Philemon's
+Nyx makra+. A clue to the Greek play's date is found in the
description of Amphitryon's battle with the Teloboians,[2] a battle
fought after the manner of those of the Diadochi who came into
prominence at the death of Alexander the Great. The date of the
Plautine adaptation of this play, as in the case of the _Asinaria_,
_Aulularia_, _Bacchides_,[3] and _Captivi_, is quite uncertain, beyond
the fact that it no doubt belongs, like almost all of his extant work,
to the last two decades of his life, 204-184 B.C. The _Amphitruo_ is
one of the five[4] plays in the first two volumes whose scene is not
laid in Athens.

The +Onagos+ of a certain Demophilus,[5] otherwise unknown to us,
was the onginal of the _Asinaria._ The assertion of Libanus that he is
his master's Salus[6] is thought to be a fling at the honours decreed
certain of the Diadochi, who were called, while still alive, +So:te:res+.
This possibility, together with the fact that the Pellaean[7] merchant
and the Rhodian[8] Periphanes travel to Athens-- northern Greece and the
Aegaean therefore being pacified and Athens at peace with Macedon--would
indicate that the +Onagos+ was written while Demetrius Poliorcetes
controlled Macedon, 294-288 B.C.

Very slender evidence connects the _Aulularia_ with some unknown play
of Menander's in which a miser is represented +dedio:s me: ti to:n eidon
ho kapnos oichoito phero:n+. Euclio's distress[9] at seeing any smoke
escape from his house seems at least to suggest that Plautus may have
borrowed the _Aulularia_ from Menander. The allusion to _praefectum
mulierum_,[10] rather than _censorem_, would seem to show that in the
original +gynaikoi omon+ had been written; this would prove the Greek
play to have been presented while Demetrius of Phalerum was in power
at Athens (317-307 B.C.), where he introduced this detested office,
which was done away with by 307 B.C.

Ritschl[11] has shown clearly enough that the original of the
_Bacchides_ was Menander's +Dis exapato:n+. The fact that Athens, Samos,
and Ephesus are at peace, that the Aegaean is not swept by hostile
fleets, that one can travel freely between Athens and Phoeis, together
with the allusion to Demetrius,[12] lead one to believe that the +Dis
exapato:n+ was written either between the years 316-307 or 298-296 B.C.

The original of the _Captivi_ is quite unknown, while the war between
the Aetolians and Eleans gives the only clue to the date of this
original. Hueffner[13] considers it probable that the war was that
between Aristodemus and Alexander, and the Greek play was produced
shortly after 314 B.C. Others[14] assume that the scene of the play
would not be Aetolia unless Aetolia had become an important state,
and that the war was therefore one of the third century B.C.

[Footnote 1: See especially Hueffner, _De Plauti Comoediarum Exemplis
Atticis_, Goettingen, 1894; Legrand, _Daos_, Paris, 1910, English
translation by James Loeb under title _The New Greek Comedy_, William
Heinemann, 1916; Leo, _Plautinische Forschungen_, Berlin, 1912.]

[Footnote 2: _Amph._ 203 _seq._]

[Footnote 3: Produced later than the _Epidicus._ Cf. _Bacch._ 214.]

[Footnote 4: _Amphitruo_, Thebes, _Captivi_, Aetolia, _Cistellaria_,
Sicyon, _Curculio_, Epidaurus (the Caria first referred to in v. 67
was a Greek town, not the state in Asia Minor), _Menaechmi_,
Epidamnus.]

[Footnote 5: _Asin._ Prol. 10-11.]

[Footnote 6: _Asin._ 713.]

[Footnote 7: _Asin._ 334.]

[Footnote 8: _Asin._ 499.]

[Footnote 9: _Aulul._ 299, 301.]

[Footnote 10: _Aulul._ 504.]

[Footnote 11: Ritschl, _Parerga_, pp. 405 _seq._ Cf. Menander,
_Fragments_, 125, 126.]

[Footnote 12: _Bacch._ 912.]

[Footnote 13: Hueffner, _op. cit._ pp. 41-42.]

[Footnote 14: Cf. Legrand, _op. cit._ p. 18.]

INTRODUCTION

Little is known of the life of Titus Maccius Plautus. He was born
about 255 B.C. at Sarsina, in Umbria; it is said that he went to Rome
at an early age, worked at a theatre, saved some money, lost it in a
mercantile venture, returned to Rome penniless, got employment in a
mill and wrote, during his leisure hours, three plays. These three
plays were followed by many more than the twenty extant, most of them
written, it would seem, in the latter half of his life, and all of
them adapted from the comedies of various Greek dramatists, chiefly
of the New Comedy.[15] Adaptations rather than translations they
certainly were. Apart from the many allusions in his comedies to
customs and conditions distinctly Roman, there is evidence enough in
Plautus's language and style that he was not a close translator. Modern
translators who have struggled vainly to reproduce faithfully in their
own tongues, even in prose, the countless puns and quips, the incessant
alliteration and assonance in the Latin lines, would be the last to
admit that Plautus, writing so much, writing in verse, and writing with
such careless, jovial, exuberant ease, was nothing but a translator in
the narrow sense of the term.

Very few of his extant comedies can be dated, so far as the year
of their production in Rome is concerned, with any great degree of
certainty. _The Miles Gloriosus_ appeared about 206, the _Cistellaria_
about 202, _Stichus_ in 200, _Pseudolus_ in 191 B.C.; the _Truculentus_,
like _Pseudolus_, was composed when Plautus was an old man, not many
years before his death in 184 B.C.

Welcome as a full autobiography of Plautus would be, in place of such
scant and tasteless biographical morsels as we do have, only less
welcome, perhaps, would be his own stage directions for his plays,
supposing him to have written stage directions and to have written
them with something more than even modern fullness. We should learn
how he met the stage conventions and limitations of his day; how
successfully he could, by make-up and mannerism, bring on the boards
palpably different persons in the Scapins and Bobadils and Doll
Tear-sheets that on the printed page often seem so confusingly similar,
and most important, we should learn precisely what sort of dramatist
he was and wished to be.

If Plautus himself greatly cared or expected his restless,
uncultivated, fun-seeking audience to care, about the construction
of his plays, one must criticize him and rank him on a very different
basis than if his main, and often his sole, object was to amuse the
groundlings. If he often took himself and his art with hardly more
seriousness than does the writer of the vaudeville skit or musical
comedy of to-day, if he often wished primarily to gain the immediate
laugh, then much of Langen's long list of the playwright's dramatic
delinquencies is somewhat beside its intended point.

And in large measure this--to hold his audience by any means--does
seem to have been his ambition: if the joke mars the part, down with
the part; if the ludicrous scene interrupts the development of the
plot, down with the plot. We have plenty of verbal evidence that the
dramatist frequently chose to let his characters become caricatures;
we have some verbal evidence that their "stage business" was sometimes
made laughably extravagant; in many cases it is sufficiently obvious
that he expected his actors to indulge in grotesqueries, well or ill
timed, no matter, provided they brought guffaws. It is probable,
therefore, that in many other cases, where the tone and "stage business"
are not as obvious, where an actor's high seriousness might elicit
catcalls, and burlesque certainly would elicit chuckles, Plautus
wished his players to avoid the catcalls.

This is by no means the universal rule. In the writer of the _Captivi_,
for instance, we are dealing with a dramatist whose aims are different
and higher. Though Lessing's encomium of the play is one to which not
all of us can assent, and though even the _Captivi_ shows some technical
flaws, it is a work which must be rated according to the standards we
apply to a _Minna von Barnhelm_ rather than according to those applied
to a _Pinafore_: here, certainly, we have comedy, not farce.

But whatever standards be applied to his plays their outstanding
characters, their amusing situations, their vigour and comicality
of dialogue remain. Euclio and Pyrgopolynices, the straits of the
brothers Menaechmus and the postponement of Argyrippus's desires, the
verbal encounter of Tranio and Grumio, of Trachalio and the fishermen--
characters, situations, and dialogues such as these should survive
because of their own excellence, not because of modern imitations and
parallels such as Harpagon and Parolles, the misadventures of the
brothers Antipholus and Juliet's difficulties with her nurse, the
remarks of Petruchio to the tailor, of Touchstone to William.

Though his best drawn characters can and should stand by themselves,
it is interesting to note how many favourite personages in the modern
drama and in modern fiction Plautus at least prefigures. Long though
the list is, it does not contain a large proportion of thoroughly
respectable names: Plautus rarely introduces us to people, male or
female, whom we should care to have long in the same house with us.
A real lady seldom appears in these comedies, and--to approach a
paradox--when she does she usually comes perilously close to being no
lady; the same is usually true of the real gentleman. The generalization
in the Epilogue of _The Captives_ may well be made particular: "Plautus
finds few plays such as this which make good men better." Yet there is
little in his plays which makes men--to say nothing of good men--worse.
A bluff Shakespearean coarseness of thought and expression there often
is, together with a number of atrocious characters and scenes and
situations. But compared with the worst of a Congreve or a Wycherley,
compared with the worst of our own contemporary plays and musical
comedies, the worst of Plautus, now because of its being too revolting,
now because of its being too laughable, is innocuous. His moral land
is one of black and white, mostly black, without many of those really
dangerous half-lights and shadows in which too many of our present day
playwrights virtuously invite us to skulk and peer and speculate.

Comparatively harmless though they are, the translator has felt obliged
to dilute certain phrases and lines.

The text accompanying his version is that of Leo, published by
Weidmann, 1895-96. In the few cases where he has departed from this
text brief critical notes are given; a few changes in punctuation have
been accepted without comment. In view of the wish of the Editors of
the Library that the text pages be printed without unnecessary
defacements, it has seemed best to omit the lines that Leo brackets as
un-Plautine[16]: attention is called to the omission in each case and
the omitted lines are given in the note; the numbering, of course, is
kept unchanged. Leo's daggers and asterisks indicating corruption and
lacunae are omitted, again with brief notes in each case.

The translator gladly acknowledges his indebtedness to several of the
English editors of the plays, notably to Lindsay, and to two or three
English translators, for a number of phrases much more happily turned
by them than by himself: the difficulty of rendering verse into prose--
if one is to remain as close as may be to the spirit and letter of the
verse, and at the same time not disregard entirely the contributions
made by the metre to gaiety and gravity of tone--is sufficient to make
him wish to mitigate his failure by whatever means. He is also much
indebted to Professors Charles Knapp, K.C.M. Sills, and F.E. Woodruff
for many valuable suggestions.

Brunswick, Me.,

September, 1913.

[Footnote 15: The _Asinaria_ was adapted from the +Onagos+ of
Demophilus; the _Casina_ from the +Kle:roumenoi+, the _Rudens_ from
an unknown play, perhaps the +Pe:ra+, of Diphilus; the _Stichus_, in
part, from the +Adelphoi a'+ of Menander. Menander's +Dis exapato:n+
was probably the source of the _Bacchides_, while the _Aulularia_
and _Cistellaria_ probably were adapted from other plays (titles
unknown) by Menander. The _Mercator_ and _Trinummus_ are adaptations
of Philemon's +Emporos+ and +The:sauros+, the _Mostellaria_ very
possibly is an adaptation of his +Phasma+, the _Amphitruo_, perhaps,
an adaptation of his +Nyx makra+.]

[Footnote 16: It seemed best to make no exceptions to this rule;
even such a line as Bacchides 107 is therefore omitted. Cf. Lindsay,
_Classical Quarterly_, 1913, pp. 1, 2, Havet, _Classical Quarterly_,
1913, pp. 120, 121.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

_Principal Editions:_
Merula, Venice, 1472; the first edition.
Camerarius, Basel, 1552.
Lambinus, Paris, 1576; with a commentary.
Pareus, Frankfurt, 1619, 1623, and 1641.
Gronovius, Leyden, 1664-1684.
Bothe, Berlin, 1809-1811.
Ritschl, Bonn, 1848-1854; a most important edition; contains only
nine plays.
Goetz, Loewe, and Schoell, Leipzig, 1871-1902; begun by Ritschl,
as a revision and continuation of the previous edition.
Ussing, Copenhagen, 1875-1892; with a commentary.
Leo, Berlin, 1895-1896.
Lindsay, Oxford, 1904-1905.
Goetz and Schoell. Leipzig, 1892-1904.

_English Translations:_
Thornton, and others, London, second edition, 1769-1774; in blank
verse.
Sugden, London, 1893; the first five plays, in the original metres.

_General:_
Ritschl, _Parerga_, Leipzig, 1845; _Neue plautinische
Excurse_, Leipzig, 1869.
Mueller, _Plautinische Prosodie_, Berlin, 1869.
Reinhardstoettner (Karl von), _Spaetere Bearbeitungen
plautinischer Lustspiele_, Leipzig, 1886.
Langen, _Beitraege zur Kritik und Erklaerung des Plautus_,
Leipzig, 1880; _Plautinische Studien_, Berlin, 1886.
Sellar, _Roman Poets of the Republic_, Oxford, third edition,
1889, pp. 153-203.
Skutsch, _Forschungen zur lateinischen Grammatik und Metrik_,
Leipzig, 1892.
Leo, _Plautinische Forschungen_, Berlin, 1895; second
edition, 1912; _Die plautinischen Cantica und die
hellenistische Lyrik_, Berlin, 1897.
Lindsay, _Syntax of Plautus_, Oxford, 1907.

PRINCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS

Ambrosianus palimpsestus (A), 4th century.
Palatinus Vaticanus (B), 10th century.
Palatinus Heidelbergensis (C), 11th century.
Vaticanus Ursinianus (D), 11th century.
Leidensis Vossianus (V), 12th century.
Ambrosianus (E), 12th century.
Londinensis (J), 12th century.

P = the supposed archetype of BCDVEJ.

SOME ANNOTATED EDITIONS OF PLAYS IN THE FIRST VOLUME

_Amphitruo_, A. Palmer 1890.
_Asinaria_, Gray; Cambridge, University Press, 1894.
_Aulularia_, Wagner; London, George Bell & Sons, 1878.
_Captivi_, Brix; 6th edition, revised by Niemeyer; Leipzig,
Teubner, 1910.
_Captivi_, Sonnenschein; London, W. Swan Sonnenschein &
Allen, 1880.
_Captivi_, W.M. Lindsay 1900.

* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *

AMPHITRUO

AMPHITRYON

* * * * *

ARGVMENTVM I[1]

ARGUMENT OF THE PLAY (I)

[Footnote 1: None of the Arguments prefixed to the plays is by Plautus.
Their date is disputed, the acrostics having been written during the
first century B.C., perhaps, the non acrostics later.]

In faciem versus Amphitruonis Iuppiter,
dum bellum gereret cum Telobois hostibus,
Alcmenam uxorem cepit usurariam.
Mercurius formam Sosiae servi gerit
absentis: his Alcmena decipitur dolis.
postquam rediere veri Amphitruo et Sosia,
uterque deluduntur in mirum modum.
hinc iurgium, tumultus uxori et viro,
donec cum tonitru voce missa ex aethere
adulterum se Iuppiter confessus est. 10

While Amphitryon was engaged in a war with his foes, the
Teloboians, Jupiter assumed his appearance and took the loan
of his wife, Alcmena. Mercury takes the form of an absent
slave, Sosia, and Alcmena is deceived by the two impostors.
After the real Amphitryon and Sosia return they both are
deluded in extraordinary fashion. This leads to an
altercation and quarrel between wife and husband, until
there comes from the heavens, with a peal of thunder,
the voice of Jupiter, who owns that he has been the
guilty lover.

ARGVMENTVM II

ARGUMENT OF THE PLAY (II)

*A*more captus Alcumenas Iuppiter
*M*utavit sese in formam eius coniugis,
*P*ro patria Amphitruo dum decernit cum hostibus.
*H*abitu Mercurius ei subservit Sosiae.
*I*s advenientis servum ac dominum frustra habet.
*T*urbas uxori ciet Amphitruo, atque invicem
*R*aptant pro moechis. Blepharo captus arbiter
*V*ter sit non quit Amphitruo decernere.
*O*mnem rem noscunt. geminos Alcumena enititur.[2]

Jupiter, being seized with love for Alcmena, changed his
form to that of her husband, Amphitryon, while he was doing
battle with his enemies in defence of his country. Mercury,
in the guise of Sosia, seconds his father and dupes both
servant and master on their return. Amphitryon storms at his
wife: charges of adultery, too, are bandied back and forth
between him and Jupiter. Blepharo is appointed arbiter, but
is unable to decide which is the real Amphitryon. They
learn the whole truth at last, and Alcmena gives birth
to twin sons.

PERSONAE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

MERCVRIVS DEUS
SOSIA SERVUS
IVPPITER DEUS
ALCVMENA MATRONA
AMPHITRVO DUX
BLEPHARO GUBERNATOR
BROMIA ANCILLA

MERCURY, _a god._
SOSIA, _slave of Amphitryon._
JUPITER, _a god._
ALCMENA, _wife of Amphitryon._
AMPHITRYON, _commander-in-chief of the Theban army._
BLEPHARO, _a pilot._
BROMIA, _maid to Alcmena._

_Scaena Thebis._

_Scene:--Thebes. A street before Amphitryon's house._

PROLOGVS[3]

PROLOGUE

[Footnote 3: The genuineness of the Prologues of these plays has
long been a moot question. The tendency of the more recent
investigators has been to hold that all were, at least in part,
written by Plautus himself.]

MERCVRIVS DEVS

SPOKEN BY THE GOD MERCURY

Ut vos in vostris voltis mercimoniis
emundis vendundisque me laetum lucris
adficere atque adiuvare in rebus omnibus
et ut res rationesque vostrorum omnium
bene me expedire voltis peregrique et domi
bonoque atque amplo auctare perpetuo lucro
quasque incepistis res quasque inceptabitis,

According as ye here assembled would have me prosper you
and bring you luck in your buyings and in your sellings of
goods, yea, and forward you in all things; and according
as ye all would have me find your business affairs and
speculations happy outcome in foreign lands and here at
home, and crown your present and future undertakings with
fine, fat profits for evermore;

et uti bonis vos vostrosque omnis nuntiis
me adficere voltis, ea adferam, ea uti nuntiem
quae maxime in rem vostram communem sient-- 10
nam vos quidem id iam scitis concessum et datum
mi esse ab dis aliis, nuntiis praesim et lucro--:
haec ut me voltis adprobare adnitier,[4] (13)
ita huic facietis fabulae silentium (15)
itaque aequi et iusti his eritis omnes arbitri.

and according as ye would have me bring you and all yours
glad news, reporting and announcing matters which most
contribute to your common good (for ye doubtless are aware
ere now that 'tis to me the other gods have yielded and
granted plenipotence o'er messages and profits); according
as ye would have me bless you in these things, then in such
degree will ye (_suddenly dropping his pomposity_) keep
still while we are acting this play and all be fair and
square judges of the performance.

Nunc cuius iussu venio et quam ob rem venerim
dicam simulque ipse eloquar nomen meum.
Iovis iussu venio, nomen Mercurio est mihi.
pater huc me misit ad vos oratum meus, 20
tam etsi, pro imperio vobis quod dictum foret,
scibat facturos, quippe qui intellexerat
vereri vos se et metuere, ita ut aequom est Iovem;

Now I will tell you who bade me come, and why I came, and
likewise myself state my own name. Jupiter bade me come: my
name is Mercury (_pauses, evidently hoping he has made an
impression_). My father has sent me here to you to make a
plea, yea, albeit he knew that whatever was told you in way
of command you would do, inasmuch as he realized that you
revere and dread him as men should Jupiter.

verum profecto hoc petere me precario
a vobis iussit, leniter, dictis bonis.
etenim ille, cuius huc iussu venio, Iuppiter
non minus quam vostrum quivis formidat malum:
humana matre natus, humano patre,
mirari non est aequom, sibi si praetimet;

But the fact remains that he has bidden me make this
request in suppliant wise, with gentle, kindly words.
(_confidentially_) For you see, that Jupiter that "bade me
come here" is just like any one of you in his horror of
(_rubbing his shoulders reflectively_) trouble[A]: his
mother being human, also his father, it should not seem
strange if he does feel apprehensive regarding himself.

[Footnote A: Actors might be whipped on occasion.]

atque ego quoque etiam, qui Iovis sum filius, 30
contagione mei patris metuo malum.
propterea pace advenio et pacem ad vos affero[5]:
iustam rem et facilem esse oratam a vobis volo,
nam iusta ab iustis iustus sum orator datus.

Yes, and the same is true of me, the son of Jupiter: once my
father has some trouble I am afraid I shall catch it, too.
(_rather pompously again_) Wherefore I come in peace and
peace do I bring to you. It is a just and trifling request I
wish you to grant: for I am sent as a just pleader pleading
with the just for what is just.

nam iniusta ab iustis impetrari non decet,
iusta autem ab iniustis petere insipientia est;
quippe illi iniqui ius ignorant neque tenent.
nunc iam huc animum omnes quae loquar advortite.
debetis velle quae velimus: meruimus
et ego et pater de vobis et re publica; 40

It would be unfitting, of course, for unjust favours to be
obtained from the just, while looking for just treatment
from the unjust is folly; for unfair folk of that sort
neither know nor keep justice. Now then, pay attention all
of you to what I am about to say. Our wishes should be
yours: we deserve it of you, my father and I, of you and
of your state.

nam quid ego memorem,--ut alios in tragoediis
vidi, Neptunum Virtutem Victoriam
Martem Bellonam, commemorare quae bona
vobis fecissent,--quis bene factis meus pater,
deorum regnator[6] architectust[7] omnibus?

Ah well, why should I--after the fashion of other gods,
Neptune, Virtue, Victory, Mars, Bellona, whom I have seen
in the tragedies recounting their goodness to you--
rehearse the benefits that my father, ruler of the gods,
hath builded up for all men?

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