Menaechmi [Rev. ed. Reprint 2014] 9780674435605, 9780674435599

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T. MACCI P L A U T I MENAECHMI

T. MACCI PLAUTI

MENAECHMI EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY

NICHOLAS MOSELEY AND

MASON HAMMOND Revised by Mason Hammond

CAMBRIDGE : MASSACHUSETTS

LONDON : ENGLAND

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

COPYRIGHT, 1 9 3 3 BY THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OP HARVARD COLLEGE COPYRIGHT RENEWED 1 9 6 1 BY MASON HAMMOND

Ninth printing, with corrections, 1975 Tenth printing, 1980

L I B R A R Y OF C O N G R E S S C A T A L O G C A R D N U M B E R 3 3 - 2 2 4 0 9 ISBN 0 - 6 7 4 - 5 6 7 2 5 - 0 PRINTED IN THE

UNITED STATES OF

AMERICA

L. B. H. M. ABI A T Q U E O B S O N t U M A D F E R .

T R I B U S U I D E QUOD S I T SATIS

ÑEQUE DEFIAT ÑEQUE

SUPERSIT

FOREWORD TO THE EIGHTH PRINTING THIS edition of the Menaechmi of Plautus is intended for the use of students of Latin at the fifth-year (Advanced Placement) level in school or at the third-year level in college.

The intro-

duction gives as briefly as is consistent with clarity the background necessary for a full appreciation of the play.

It treats

of the history of Greek and Roman drama, of the production of plays in antiquity, and of Plautine forms, syntax, and prosody. In the original edition (1933), the text was based on F. Conrad's revision of the Brix-Niemeyer edition (Teubner, 1929), with some readings from W. M . Lindsay's Oxford Classical Text (1910.) For the present reprinting, Mrs. Anne M . Whitman kindly collated the text with that of the Bude edition by A. Ernout (4th ed. rev., Paris, 1956).

Some changes have in conse-

quence been made in the text and notes.

Use has also been

made of the late Professor E. K . Rand's copy of the book, with his annotations for classroom use.

The changes from

earlier printings have not ordinarily been noted since they do not alter the text or notes sufficiently to render inadvisable the use of this reprint alongside copies of earlier ones.

Nota-

tions of textual variants, of modern editors' emendations or supplements, and of places where the manuscripts or editors indicate the loss of lines are given only where these assist in understanding the text or explain changes from earlier printings. The text has been prepared eclectically, to yield sense and dramatic effectiveness, rather than on the basis of any one theory of textual criticism; the surviving text of Plautus is in any case full of uncertainties and presumed ancient editorial changes or scribal errors. Teachers who wish fuller information on the text should consult the critical apparatus of Lindsay or

viii

FOREWORD

of Ernout or the fuller reports in the editions listed in the bibliography. The spellings have on the whole been harmonized with those of Lewis and Short's dictionary except where the metre demands the older form or where the preservation of the older forms does not particularly confuse the student. Thus, while Plautus probably pronounced ps or a sound near to it in such words as apsque or opseruo, the spelling bs, found in the dictionaries, is here used. On the other hand, the alternation of i and u in the superlative suffix -ifumus, where the actual sound fell somewhere between these two vowels, has been left as the manuscripts give it. In accordance with the modern practice, consonantal i and u have been printed i and u, not j and v. Aids to scansion have been freely inserted in the text because experience has shown that undergraduates find comic prosody very difficult. The index of metres toward the end of the introduction has been somewhat revised, especially for the lyric passages. But students should be reminded that many problems of Plautine metre are still disputed, and that in particular the metres of the lyric passages are very uncertain. Quantities when marked are metrical, not "natural," and stresses represent the verse ictus, not word accent. The introduction and commentary have been planned to supply the information which the student will need to understand the text. In successive reprintings, and particularly in this, they have been revised to eliminate errors found in classroom use, to incorporate improvements proposed by colleagues, and to adapt them to recent scholarship, notably that of Duckworth and Beare. These changes have occasioned some inconsistencies in the use of abbreviations and other practices in the notes, to avoid excessive resetting of type. Specific references to other works have been avoided, but some useful works for

FOREWORD

ix

consultation will be found listed in the bibliography at the end of the introduction, which has also been revised for this printing. When the same phenomenon is commented upon more than once, the explanatory note has been repeated in full and cross references, except to the introduction, are rarely given, on the ground that the student seldom looks these up.

At the end of

the book there is a selective index, however, which brings together notes on similar phenomena and will serve for comparison or review. The original edition was somewhat corrected in reprintings of 1935, 1946, and 1953; it has been more thoroughly revised, as indicated above, by Mason Hammond for the 1968 reprinting. He has made further corrections for the 1975 reprinting. Suggestions for further corrections or improvements, addressed to Harvard University Press, will be welcomed.

CONTENTS FOREWORD INTRODUCTION GREEK DRAMA

I. Tragedy. — II—III. Origins, Attic and Dorian, of Comedy. — IV. Old Comedy. — V-VII. Middle and New Comedy. ROMAN COMEDY

VIII. Native origins. — IX. Greek influence. Early writers. — X - X I I I . Plautus. — XIV-XV. Post-Plautine writers. — XVI. Later influence. T H E STAGE AND PRODUCTION

XVII. Greek theatre. — XVIII. Roman theatre. — X I X . Stage setting. — X X - X X I I . Production. — X X I I I . Costume. — X X I V XXV. Music. — X X V I . Division into acts. — X X V I I . The Menaechmi. GRAMMAR

X X V I I I - X X I X . General remarks. — X X X . Stem variations. — X X X I . -os and -om after w. — X X X I I . Case forms of declensions. — X X X I I I . Pronouns. — XXXIV. Verb forms. — X X X V . Constructions. — XXXVI. Crasis. M E T R E S AND PROSODY

X X X V I I - X L . Definitions: rhythm, metre, foot, quantity and accent, ictus. — XLI. Accent and quantity in Latin verse. — XLII. Metrical feet. — X L I I I - X L V . Trochaic metres. — X L V I XLVIII. Iambic metres. — XLIX. Cantica and their metres. — L. Accent variations. — LI. Elision. — LII. H i a t u s . — L I I I . Synizesis. — LIV. Iambic shortening. — LV. Short final syllables ending with -s. — LVI-LVIII. Other variations. — LIX. Index of metres. MANUSCRIPTS SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

T E X T AND NOTES SELECTIVE I N D E X FOR REVIEW

PLAUTI MENAECHMI INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION GREEK DRAMA I. Greek drama was closely associated with the

Dionysia,

festivals in honor of Dionysus, the god of the vine, at which both tragedies and comedies were presented in fifth-century Athens. Though the origin of tragedy is much disputed, it may have developed from songs sung in processions which escorted the statue of the god.

Perhaps these songs told of the life of

Dionysus, and the members of the procession represented the worshippers who had followed him in his wanderings.

Even-

tually a chorus separated from the procession and performed at a special time and in a special place.

These independent choral

performances soon included verses composed in praise of other gods and heroes. Thespis (ca. 540 B . C . ) , " t h e father of tragedy," is said to have introduced between songs of the chorus dramatic recitations by its leader.

Aeschylus (525-456

B.C.),

seven of

whose plays are still extant, added a second actor and made dialogue an important feature.

His plays present the tragic

stories of gods and heroes in the toils of fate.

Sophocles (495-

405 B.C.) added a third actor, an innovation which Aeschylus accepted in his later works.

1

The seven extant plays of Sophocles

are remarkable for their dramatic force and their skillful character-drawing.

Of Euripides (480-405

B.C.),

and a satyr play, the Cyclops, survive.

eighteen tragedies

In the tragedies he

presents gods and heroes under much the same guise as common men, with all their weaknesses and passions, and thus develops a romantic element.

The situations in his plays are particularly

well constructed. II. The precise origins of comedy are more difficult to trace. Since comedies as well as tragedies were produced at the Dionysia, I t has been suggested that Aeschylus, who performed in his own plays, added a second actor, to give three performers, and that Sophocles, who did not perform himself, substituted a third actor, without increasing the number of performers. 1

4

INTRODUCTION

and since these were naturally times of merrymaking, comedy is generally thought to have developed, like tragedy, out of the worship of Dionysus.

It may have come directly from songs in

praise of him as the god of fertility (cf. the procession in his honor in the Acharnians of Aristophanes) and from the vituperation which was introduced into the ceremonies to ward off evil spirits. Such an origin would explain the choral songs, the rather vulgar and loose jests, and the flimsy plots which characterize the plays of the Old Comedy.

Moreover, when an Athenian

author produced his three tragedies in competition for the prize at one of the Dionysia, he added at the end a comic treatment of some heroic or divine figure, which was called from the members of its chorus a " s a t y r " play. Yet the name "comedy" itself suggests a connection with the "drunken revel" (/cw/xos) or the "village song "

(KW/XYJ

¿617). Athenaeus tells us that bands of revel-

lers frequently roistered through the towns uttering personal and very free remarks about other people, and Plato, in his Symposium, depicts such a band bursting in upon the company at the house of Agathon.

Furthermore, at times of public festivals,

when the long lines of carts came into Athens, or especially when the procession in honor of Demeter wound its way to Eleusis, the Greek buoyancy of spirit found expression in an exchange of chaff with the bystanders.

The Greeks found nothing incon-

gruous in the close approximation of the holy and the vulgar, any more than did the performers in mediaeval mystery plays; witness the Frogs, into whose rather rude comedy Aristophanes introduces a procession of celebrants of the mysteries. III. Parallel with these manifestations of the comic spirit which were contributing to the rise of comedy at Athens are found various Dorian elements. In fact the Dorians always claimed the invention of comedy. In their city of Megara or its colony, the

INTRODUCTION

5

Sicilian Megara, they first produced farcical scenes based on everyday experiences, and the Sicilian Epicharmus (540-450 b.c.) wrote in an artistic form comedies which caricatured the gods and heroes or represented comic scenes from daily life.

The

Dorians of Sicily also gave to literature two other forms closely associated with comedy, amoebean verses and the mime.

The

first of these imitated the coarse personal repartee of shepherds, and later was used by Theocritus (ca. 325-267 b.c.) in his pastorals.

The two principal themes of the second are said to have

been cheating and adultery.

The acting of it called for exag-

gerated gesture and mimicry.

The mime spread over the Greek

world and into Italy, and has always maintained an independent existence. IV. Presumably all of these forces helped to mold formal comedy, which was an affair of much slower growth at Athens than tragedy. Perhaps it savored too much of the country and the Dorians. Probably broad personal satire was unpopular with prominent Athenians.

Certain it is that this form of drama became impor-

tant only in the second half of the fifth century B.C.

Of the

comedy of that period, which is called Old Comedy, there survives a single representative, Aristophanes (ca. 450-ca. 385 b.c.). His eleven extant plays were written from 425 to about 388 B.C., during the years which saw the protracted struggles of the Peloponnesian War and the decline which subsequently set in at Athens. Old Comedy performed the functions of modern musical comedy, burlesque, and the political cartoon; it presented in a more virile form the spirit of Gilbert and Sullivan's operas.

The

plays of Aristophanes afford the wildest flights of fantastic imagination — the fields of Elysium and the airy kingdoms of Cloudcuckoo-land— cheek by jowl with the broadest of horseplay. They combine beautiful choral lyrics and the language of the

INTRODUCTION

6 gutter.

On the dramatic side, they are daring and unbridled.

But their whole attitude towards contemporary life, of which they supply a vivid reflection, is one of uncompromising conservatism, critical of the new and faithful to the old, with no really constructive insight into contemporary problems. The war with Sparta, the demagogues, political Utopias, sophistical freethinkers, literary innovators, advanced women, all come in for their share of biting and often unjust, if effective, criticism. When Socrates defended himself on the capital charge of impiety in 399 B.C., he recognized that the strongest prejudice with which he had to contend was that created by the Clouds of Aristophanes, though this had been produced twenty-four years before. Posterity has agreed in regarding the comedian's characterization of Socrates as superficial, unfair, and incorrect, yet the Symposium of Plato portrays the two as friends. Old Comedy has for its distinguishing features: the integral share which the chorus takes in the action; the "parabasis," a scene in which the chorus steps out of its part to address to the audience advice and comment on contemporary affairs; the fanciful setting of an extravaganza; the paucity of plot; the broad and farcical tone of much of the humor; and the direct personal satire.

V. The very elements against which Aristophanes bitterly inveighed combined to render Old Comedy outmoded.

The war

so impoverished the state that it could no longer afford the elaborate staging and costuming required by his plays. The democracy restricted free speech and direct satire.

Men's minds turned

from politics, which had lost their vitality, to social and human problems.

The new school of writers, under Euripides, had

brought tragedy down from the heroic level to that of ordinary man and introduced into the drama sentimentalism, especially with respect to women. The intellectual life of the fourth century

INTRODUCTION

7

became less full-blooded but more polished than that of the fifth. Refinement, subtlety, and finish, rather than Gargantuan boisterousness, were demanded from the playwright. And the master himself had to bow to the strength of changing fashion.

The

last surviving play of Aristophanes, the Plutus, is not some farreaching flight of fancy or bitter parody of a contemporary political figure but a study of the social effect should the blind god of wealth recover his sight and allot worldly goods according to intrinsic merit. There are no longer the choral lyrics which formerly had been an integral part of a play, and where they should occur the manuscripts are marked simply "Chorus." This suggests either that the author, without composing special songs for this play, merely employed some company of dancers to fill in between scenes, or that, if he did write lyrics, the cost of production was such that they soon fell into disuse. A t all events, Middle and even New Comedy apparently retained only a purely formal chorus, which performed independently of the plot, simply to mark the divisions and to fill in when all the characters were off stage. The fishermen of the Rudens of Plautus may be a vestige of the chorus of its Greek original; they contribute nothing to the action and could be omitted without affecting the structure of the play. VI. Some modern writers deny any distinction between what are commonly called " M i d d l e " and " N e w " Comedy, but the plays which were produced between 385 B.C., the date of the Plutus, and 330 B.C., when Philemon began to produce, seem to have differed somewhat from their successors.

The original

plays have disappeared, but the Persae and Amphitruo of Plautus, which are believed to be adaptations from two of them, indicate that they dealt largely with coarse incidents and parodies of myths and that they lacked the delicate skill of the New Comedy.

8

INTRODUCTION

VII. The chief figures of the New Comedy were three, Philemon, Diphilus, and Menander. Contemporary with the conquests of Alexander and the beginnings of that cosmopolitan culture known under the name "Hellenistic," they wrote for audiences who had lost the vivid interest in politics which had been typical of the fifth-century city-state but which could not survive under the Macedonian domination.

The expansion of the Greeks into

the East had brought much wealth and luxury to the mother country, and as a result there grew up refinement, taste, and a setting suitable to a comedy of manners. 291

B.C.),

Menander (ca. 342-

the most famous of the playwrights of the New Comedy

in later times though not the preferred among his contemporaries, brought out his first play about 322 B.C.

One complete play and

parts of others survive on papyri, and he is much quoted by later writers.

Information on New Comedy may also be derived from

the Roman writers who translated more or less directly from Greek originals, since the names of the authors and plays which they

translated are often known.

The New

Comedy

was

"comedy" in the technical sense, a presentation of contemporary life in a light and pleasing vein with a happy ending. In it drama descended from heroes' palaces to the streets of Athens and other Greek cities, peopled with characters drawn from everyday life. The well-to-do members of its society are concerned with worldly success, making money, marrying their children well, and often with dishonesty or adultery if they can conceal their misdemeanors.

The lower social levels comprise clever

slaves and parasites, braggart soldiers, pompous doctors, charming or shrewd courtesans, and innocent girls enslaved to grasping procurers.

Many of these latter characters derive in part

from the stock types of the Dorian farces of Sicily and south Italy.

The Cook, the Parasite, the Soldier recur again and

again with the same nature and sometimes the same names.

INTRODUCTION

9

The plots, too, are almost all of a p a t t e r n : the same young man in love with the same young girl who is in slavery to the wicked procurer but will eventually be found by some recognition scene or token to have been free-born and entirely respectable.

The

same slaves and parasites resort to the same sorts of trickery to get money out of old men for the pleasures of their young masters.

The same old men conduct affairs with courtesans un-

beknownst to their rich but cross wives.

It is, on the whole, not

a noble world in which one moves, despite the happy endings and the frequent reform of the wicked characters. I t is a distinctly worldly world, which is preoccupied with money, dinners, love affairs, and which acknowledges few high ideals or motives. Nevertheless, it affords instances of idyllic love, of faithful devotion and service, of honesty and generosity, of family affection, and of firm friendship.

There occur attractive elements of ro-

mance in the discoveries of long-lost sisters and in the recognition of kidnapped children.

The character-drawing is often delicate

and sympathetic, and usually true to life. The Alexandrian critic known as Aristophanes of Byzantium exclaimed, " 0 Menander, 0 Life, which of you copied the other?"

Quintilian, in the time

of Vespasian, said that from Menander's mold issued every human type.

New Comedy owes much to the innovations of

Euripides, to the sophists, and to studies of types such as those found in the mime and the Characters of Theophrastus, but, in the last analysis, the life about him was Menander's real teacher. ROMAN COMEDY

VIII. The earliest Roman drama, like the Greek, probably had its origin in religious festivals, at which pageants were presented in honor of various gods and the spectators indulged in a more or less impromptu badinage. This gave rise to dramatic verse composed in the probably accentual Saturnian metre and called uersus

IO

INTRODUCTION

Fescennini, which were sung at harvest gatherings and survived into later times as part of the merrymaking at weddings.

The

Fescennine verses contained a coarse humor which depended largely on broad jokes and personal references.

If, as some

critics hold, the satura was a slightly more formal development from the Fescennine verses, embellished by rude acting and native buffoonery, it had only a very brief stage life. Another type of drama, the Atellan farce, was introduced into Rome early in the third century B.C. from the provincial town of Atella in Campania. It exhibited the stock characters of a country village, and may be likened to the themes of the still popular Punch and Judy show. Any of these types might have grown by themselves into mature dramatic forms if Rome had not come face to face with the perfected techniques of Greek comedy and tragedy. Inevitably Roman authors and Roman audiences preferred the Greek plays, whether in the original or translated or adapted, to their own simple efforts. Driven from the public stage, Atellan farces continued to be acted and written by amateurs for their own amusement; the satura evolved under the hands of Ennius, Lucilius, and Horace into the purely literary form which we know as "satire." IX.

Rome's contacts with Greece, through commerce, through

the Greek colonies in southern Italy and Sicily, and through Greek slaves serving in Roman families, were innumerable. Many Roman traders and soldiers spoke Greek fluently and must have witnessed performances of Greek plays long before these were translated into Latin. The first recorded translator, Livius Andronicus (died in 204

B.C.),

came to Rome from his native

Tarentum before 240 B.C. but probably not as early as its capture in 272 B.C. He translated Homer's Odyssey into the accentual Saturnian metre. In 240 B.C., at the request of the aediles, who were arranging to celebrate at the Ludi Romani Rome's victory in

INTRODUCTION

n

the first Punic war, he produced translations of two Greek plays, a comedy and a tragedy.

In these versions Andronicus imitated

in Latin the quantitative metres of the originals.

T h o u g h the

plays were immediately popular, only the merest fragments survive.

Gnaeus Naevius (c. 270-199 B.C.) composed in Saturnian

metre an epic on the First Punic War, the Bellum Punicum.

He

also adapted from the Greek at least eight tragedies and thirtyfour comedies and wrote several historical plays based on legends or events of Greek and Roman history, all in Greek quantitative metres.

Of Naevius, too, only fragments have been preserved.

X . T h e most popular playwright of this period was the author of the Menaechmi,

Titus Maccius Plautus (254-184

B.C.).

Of his

names, Maccius seems to be derived from maccus, " a clown," and Plautus from ploius, " f l a t f o o t . "

These nicknames he may

have adopted and regularized as his own when he was admitted to R o m a n citizenship.

Of his life little is known.

He was born

at Sarsina, an Umbrian village in the north central part of Italy. Tradition relates that he came to Rome, found work in the theatre as a stage carpenter or an actor, and made money; that he then speculated in foreign commerce, lost his fortune, and had to support himself as a day laborer in a flour mill; and that while thus employed he turned to the writing of plays.

How

much of this is true there is no means of discovering, nor y e t how a provincial Italian obtained the education which familiarized him with Greek plays and enabled him to create a dramatic style which ranks among the best in world literature. XI.

In the first century B.C., one hundred thirty plays were

attributed to Plautus.

Of these Varro, a distinguished scholar,

listed twenty-one as probably genuine.

T w e n t y and fragments

of another survive, perhaps the very plays of Varro's list.

Names

and citations from thirty other plays have been preserved.

12

INTRODUCTION

XII. The extant plays were all translated or adapted from Greek originals, and accordingly they represent Greek scenes and were acted in Greek costumes. A play of this type was known as a comoedia palliata, "comedy in the pallium," from the name of the mantle or overgarment worn by the Greeks. A comedy whose scene was set in Rome was called a comoedia togata because the actors wore the toga, and a tragedy or historical play on Roman themes was called a fabula praetexta from the purplebordered cloak worn by actors representing Roman magistrates. X I I I . Plautus treated his sources freely. He inserted allusions to Roman history, manners, and customs, as well as occasional scenes of purely Roman content, like Menaechmus' soliloquy on clients and patrons ( 5 7 1 - 5 9 5 ) . Sometimes, but perhaps not as often as has been thought, he combined in one play scenes drawn from two Greek originals. The word contaminatio, usually applied to this practice, seems to represent disparaging criticism, not technical terminology. Plautus' lines are not mere translations; they have their own vigor and character. Despite his alien inspiration, Plautus expressed the exuberant vitality of the Rome which, triumphant over Carthage and Macedon, was emerging from a small Latin city-state into a world power. X I V . No other Roman dramatist ever attained the fame or popularity of Plautus.

Quintus Ennius (239-169 B.C.) wrote

tragedies, comedies, and saiurae, but he is best known as the "father of epic poetry," from his Annales, a history of Rome written in quantitative hexameters. M. Pacuvius (220-130 B.C.) wrote tragedies and satire, and Caecilius Statius (?-i66 B.C.) achieved considerable fame as a writer of comedy, but none of their works survive. P. Terentius Afer (195?-!59 B.C.) was next to Plautus the most important author of Roman comedy, and the six pieces which he adapted from the Greek have all sur-

INTRODUCTION vived.

13

These plays lack the dramatic qualities of Plautus but

compensate for this by their elegant Latinity and their concern for ethical values.

Except for the Eunuchus, their stage success

was doubtful even in their author's day, but they have always remained favorites with readers, and almost from the time of their composition have held a place as textbooks. X V . After Terence only one more great name figures in the surviving Roman drama.

L. Annaeus Seneca the Younger (ca. 4

B . c - 6 5 a.d.), the famous philosopher, adapted tragedies from the Greek which were perhaps recited rather than acted on the stage. These plays, written as philosophical discourses and exercises in rhetoric, indicate the condition which the theatre had reached in Seneca's day.

Terence had already complained in one of his

prologues that the audience liked exhibitions of tight-rope walking and of boxing better than his plays.

Chariot racing, gladia-

torial shows, and spectacles of various kinds left little room for the legitimate drama.

Performances, however, continued to be

given, and new plays to be written or old ones brought out again. Of the primitive dramatic forms, the Atellan farce enjoyed a brief revival under the Empire.

The mime, which had always

been extremely popular, eventually eclipsed all its rivals.

It de-

pended for its appeal more upon the mimicry of typical comic characters or of the idiosyncrasies of individuals than upon its lines, though it was rarely a mere dumb show.

Actions and lines

both were coarse, but the people liked them, and the mime had a continuous existence from the time when it was first introduced into Rome during the third century B.C. until the Elizabethan age, and survives today in the pantomime. X V I . There was a period of several hundred years during which Latin plays seem never to have been produced, although they still continued to be read.

Plautus was always a mine for gram-

14

INTRODUCTION

marians interested in archaic language and syntax, and Terence was a textbook, but so far were the readers from the spirit of the plays that they actually debated the question whether or not these were meant to be acted. Hrotswitha, " t h e learned nun of Gandersheim," who in the tenth century wrote religious dramas in an effort to rival the worldly Terence, thought of them as recitations rather than as stage plays. A comedy was defined as a narrative poem with a sad beginning and a happy ending; accordingly Dante called his great work Commedia.

Not

until the fourteenth or fifteenth century did Latin comedy reappear on the boards.

B y then England and the Continent

had rudimentary native drama, which originated in connection with the mediaeval religious festivals just as the Greek drama grew out of the worship of Dionysus.

The rebirth of classical

studies led authors to adopt Plautus, Terence, and Seneca as models for their own plays, and as the Greek drama had molded the Roman, so the Roman molded that of the Renaissance. Thus the plot of the Menaechmi, first in the Greek prototype, then in the hands of Plautus, then in Italian plays of the fifteenth century, and later in Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, has been a continuous factor in the history of the drama (cf. par. X X V I I ) . THE STAGE AND PRODUCTION X V I I . The Greek theatre had originally been a circular dancing place, or orchestra (opxyaTpa), with an altar in the middle. When first one and then several actors became distinct from the chorus, they took their position at one side of the circle, and the audience gravitated to the other. Seats, when they were built, were generally hollowed out of a hillside in a horseshoe shape, and some sort of platform was set aside for the actors across the back of the orchestra. In the Greek theatre the chord formed by the front of the stage never came as far forward as the center of the orchestra,

INTRODUCTION

15

and the oldest theatres, like that of the early fourth century at Epidaurus, preserve the complete circle. Archaeologists differ as to whether the stage of the fifth century was raised or not.

Prob-

ably it was moderately elevated, but by no means as much as in the Hellenistic period.

Behind the long narrow stage platform

was a building called the " s c e n e "

((TKTJVT),

originally meaning

" t e n t " ) , and the front of this was called the "proscenium" (irpo 9°3> » ' S ,

II

S1)-

24

INTRODUCTION

Pronouns XXXIII.

(Cf. also uostro, X X X , tuos, X X X I , uestrum, nostrum,

med, ted, X X X I I . ) -pte (mepte, 1059) and -met (memet, 1144) and similar emphatic suffixes are found more frequently in Plautus than in less colloquial writers. -ce, "here," a demonstrative suffix, was used in many cases of the demonstrative pronouns, sometimes in its full form and sometimes shortened to -c by the loss of the short final vowel. In the latter form it appears, both in Plautus and in later Latin, in the nominative, dative, accusative, and ablative singular and the neuter plural of the pronoun hie, haec, hoc.

In the Menaechmi

the following forms occur: Hasce (1053) for has. Hisce for (958) the nominative hi or (1012) the dative his. Illic (98) for ille.

Illoc (568) for the ablative illo.

Ittisce (997) for the nominative plural masculine illi as well as for illis (820). Illi (996), on the other hand, stands for the adverbial locative illic, and illim (799) occurs for Mine. Istic, nominative (146) and dative (1011, emended) singular masculine (as well as locative). Istuc (242), neuter, for islud (as well as adverbial). Istac (135) for the ablative ista. Istanc (205) for islam. Istaec may be (413) nominative feminine singular or (520) plural or (94) nominative or (719) accusative neuter plural. Is toe (168) for is to. Ecce (784), a more difficult form to explain, perhaps derived from ed (for id) and the demonstrative -ce. Eccum (109), eccam (565), and eccos (219), which appear to be combinations of ecce with either eum, earn, eos, or hum,

INTRODUCTION

25

ham (the simple forms of hunc, hanc), hos. In eapse eccam exit (180), eccam has become almost a nominative, though the force of the word is interjectional, "look, she herself is coming o u t . " Eccere (401), the interjection, better regarded as ecce re(m) than, on the analogy of ecastor (372), as ec-Ceres. Cedd (197), the isolated imperative " g i v e , " made up of reused as a prefix and an old imperative, do.

Since both

its syllables are short it may readily be distinguished from the verb cedd, " I yield." Ipsus (100) appears for ipse. Eapse (180, emended) and eampse (772) prove that ipse was originally compounded from is and -pse.

Such double declen-

sions as eapsa also occur in Plautus. Quo- for cu- is the spelling of the stem of the relative in Plautus (cf. X X X I ) .

Quoius (221), quoi (929), aliquoi (623) accordingly

stand for cuius, cui, alicui. Qui, the relative, has, as well as the regular quo, qua, quo, an old ablatival qui which is frequently used in all three genders. This "instrumental" qui (391) follows the third declension and is a survival of the mixed declension of the relative (cf. the common quibus).

It is also used adverbially to mean " h o w " (337)

or " w h y " (396). Vostrorum (1085) occurs for uestrum.

Verb Forms X X X I V . -ier is a usual termination of the present passive and deponent infinitive, e.g., flagitarier (46), moderarier (443). -ibo frequently forms the future of compounds of do, as reddibo (1038), and futures of the fourth conjugation, as scibo (386), seruibo

(1101).

26

INTRODUCTION

Face, the full form for fac, comes at the end of lines (946) and even within them (948). Cedd, the isolated imperative " g i v e , " as distinct from the verb cedd, " I yield," has already been mentioned (cf. X X X I I I ) . -i- or -ie- in subjunctive forms in Plautus represents the vanished optative, the mood of wish which Greek preserved alongside of the subjunctive. Stem (1146) and possies (1104) appear, as well as the usual sim and possis. Edis (249) shows the -i- formant (i.e., the element which forms a stem to which personal terminations are then added). Duis (267) and perduint (308), which are especially common in prayers and execrations, show not only the -i- formant but a by-stem of do with a u. -ss- in future perfects, e.g., intrassis (416), probably comes from the addition of an -s- formant to a stem formed with -5- (a sigmatic stem). Its origin is, however, obscure. Faxo (113) and faxim (faxis, 113) are subjunctive and optative from a sigmatic stem of facio, possibly originally equivalent to the Greek aorist, or tense of the single act. Faxo is employed for the future perfect (or future), and faxim for the perfect subjunctive. Faxo also developed an independent use as an interjection (cf. X X X V ) . Constructions X X X V . Partitive genitives with neuter nouns are much favored by Plautus. Not only does he use the familiar quid negoti (432), quid modi (233), and negoti nihil (458), but also tanturn operis (435) for tantum opus. Similis is usually (perhaps always) followed by the genitive in place of the later dative, e.g., lacte est lactis similius (1089). Indirect questions in Plautus are in the indicative (direct)

INTRODUCTION

mood as often as in the subjunctive (indirect).

27

Compare scin

quid uolo ego te accurate (207) with scin quid hoc sit spinier (530). It is, in fact, hard to determine how far a subjunctive in cases like the latter is dependent and how far dubitative (independent). Lindsay (Syntax of Plautus) points out that the line mihi tu ut dederis pallam et spinier? numquam factum reperies (683) may be printed as two coordinate sentences, " t h a t you gave me the cloak and bracelet? You will never find it so," or as one, " y o u will never find that it happened that . . . Faxo becomes in Plautus almost an interjection meaning " I warrant you."

The verb with it may be in the future tense, as

iam ergo haec madebunt faxo (326), or in the subjunctive, as faxo foris uidua uisas patrern (113). Though the subordinating conjunction ut may occur, it is normally omitted. tinguishes the uses oifaxo

Lindsay dis-

and fecero by stating that the former

occurs only absolutely, in answer to a question, while the latter is the customary form with another verb in either the subordinate (syntactic) or coordinate (paratactic) construction.

He adds

that faciam is employed only with a subordinate, not a coordinate, verb. Amabo, the future, similarly was used both as a pure interjection meaning "please," e.g., quin, amabo, is intro (382), and as a verb followed by ut and the subjunctive, e.g., quid te amabo ut facias (425), literally, " w h a t I shall love you that you should do." Crasis X X X V I . Sodes (545) is the most common form of the running together of two words (crasis). It stands for si audes, "if you please," wherein audes has the meaning " y o u wish" through its relation to words like auere and auidus. Sultis occurs for si uultis (350).

28

INTRODUCTION

-ne, the enclitic interrogative particle, merges with a final -is in forms like potine (466), uin (141), satin (181), scin (425) for potisne, uisne, satisne, scisne. Es and est may merge with a preceding vowel or syllable ending in -s or -m.

In such a case it is the second vowel sound, and not,

as in elision, the first, which vanishes: emortuost (36) for emortuos est, domist (Argumentum, pulchrum est, fabulatu's

3) for domi est, pulchrumst

(132) for

(176, printed with the apostrophe to dis-

tinguish it from the simple nominative) for fabulatus es. METRES AND PROSODY XXXVII.

Rhythm may be defined as a movement marked by

some regular recurrence, usually of quantity or stress.

It is

noticeable in music, dancing, and verse, and in all of these it has a psychological effect on the normal human being.

The effect of

some rhythms is sad, of others gay or exciting. As used in poetry, rhythm is the reflection of the poet's own mood and helps the listener or the reader to realize that mood. XXXVIII.

The rhythmical arrangement of syllables or words in

a verse (a line) is called metre.

When this arrangement depends

on recurring word accents we speak of accentual metre; when on quantity, of quantitative metre. is called a foot.

In both cases the recurring unit

In English, metre is ordinarily accentual,

i.e., each foot contains a certain succession of accented and unaccented syllables.

In Greek and in most Latin verses the metre

is quantitative, i.e., each foot shows a fixed succession of long and short syllables, on one of which falls a musical stress ( X L ) . XXXIX.

A long syllable is so called because the length of time

required for its utterance is longer than that required to utter a short syllable. Theoretically the former consumes approximately twice as much of the speaker's time as the latter.

In Latin a

INTRODUCTION

29

syllable which contains a long vowel or diphthong (ae, au, ei, eu, oe, ui) is said to be long by nature, and a syllable containing a short vowel followed by two consonants or a double consonant (even if these are in a following word) is said to be long by position. Consonantal i and u (except in qu) make position like the other consonants. An exception to the rule of position occurs when mutes (p, b, c, t, d, g) are followed by I and r, in which case the syllable preceding the mute and liquid may be (and in Plautus always is) short (e.g., arbitrates).

The phenomena of quantity,

conventionalized though they are in Latin, are not merely artificial; they are facts common to all languages of the IndoEuropean group, including English.

As examples of quantity

in English, one may contrast the long sound of the personal pronoun " I " and the initial short sound in the word " I t a l y , " or the long first and last syllables and the short middle syllable in the word "might-i-ness."

It follows that English admits of quanti-

tative metre, and various English poets (notably Tennyson, Swinburne, and Robert Bridges) have experimented with this form.

Conversely, Latin (which has an accent that normally

falls on a penult if this is long, or if the penult is short, on the antepenult) admits of accentual metre, which is probably found in early, and certainly in late, Latin poetry.

In each language,

the element (quantity in English, accent in Latin) which is not used in regular recurrence (rhythm) may be employed to create variety.

It is, however, doubtful whether Plautus deliberately

used an occasional clash of word accent and verse (quantitative) stress to create variety, and the whole question of their relation in Latin metrics is much disputed. XL. In both English and Latin, a reader's (or reciter's) mind quickly adjusts itself to rhythm and tends to accentuate it by stressing one syllable in each foot.

In Latin this is called a

30

INTRODUCTION

verse ictus. In English if the stress is overemphasized, the metre becomes a displeasing singsong.

In Latin an overemphasized

ictus not only produces a singsong effect but, by obscuring the regular word or sentence accent (if these do not coincide with the ictus), renders the sense of the lines unintelligible.

These facts

have made scholars doubtful as to what was the precise effect of the ictus for the Roman ear. Probably when the ictus coincides with the word, phrase, or sentence accent (as is the case perhaps half the time in Plautus), the syllable on which they fall should receive only the normal stress. When the ictus falls on a different syllable from the accent, the modern reader should, perhaps, stress the ictus slightly and at the same time attempt to preserve both the word accent and the syllabic quantities. XLI. The metre of early Latin poetry was probably accentual. If so, the shift to quantitative metre took place just before the time of Plautus under the influence of authors who were translating Greek poetry into Latin, since Greek metre was quantitative.

Moreover, many of the translators were them-

selves Greek (slaves or freedmen, or natives of the Greek colonies in southern Italy) and naturally tried to reproduce in Latin the type of metre which they knew in their native language. Plautus followed, in his translations of Greek plays, the example of the playwrights who had immediately preceded him. None the less, he was still so close to the tradition of accentual metre that it has left a strong impress on his verses, notably in the very common coincidence of ictus and accent. His verses are not monotonous, partly because long quantities frequently do not coincide with the ictus and accent, but largely because of his free use of metrical substitution (the replacement of one type of metrical foot by another). The latter makes his rhythm somewhat irregular, and permits it to reflect closely everyday speech.

INTRODUCTION

31

X L I I . The feet (all based on quantity) used by Plautus in the dialogue and recitative passages of the Menaechmi

are: the

iambus (w - ) , the trochee ( - w), the tribrach ( w w w ), the anapaest (w w - ) , the dactyl ( - w w), the spondee ( proceleusmatic (

).

), and the

The rare proceleusmatic is always

indicated in this edition by four short marks placed over successive syllables.

It might be noted that Terence never admits the

proceleusmatic as a substitute for the trochee.

These feet are

combined to create several metres in two distinct rhythms, one trochaic and the other iambic. X L I I I . In the metres in trochaic rhythm the characteristic foot is the trochee (— w), but, subject to certain restrictions, Plautus substitutes for the trochee any of the feet mentioned in paragraph X L I I except the iambus.

The iambus never occurs in

trochaic rhythm nor the trochee in iambic rhythm.

In trochaic

metres the ictus (indicated by the mark ') always falls on the first syllable of the foot. The feet used in trochaic rhythm may, then, be indicated thus: trochee _L w (safepe, 145) tribrach (facere, 164) dactyl _L w w (heus adti-, 135) anapaest 6 w - (placide, 169) spondee 1

(salve, 138)

proceleusmatic (rede(am) equi-, 617) Of these, the only true metrical equivalent of the trochee is the tribrach

w w), in which the first two shorts theoretically take

the same time to pronounce as the single long of the trochee.

(A

long syllable for which two shorts are substituted is said to be resolved, and the process is known as resolution.)

The other

feet include an additional syllable, but the rhythm is preserved by the regular recurrence of the ictus on the first syllable in each

32

INTRODUCTION

foot. T h e d a c t y l , anapaest, and spondee when substituted for the trochee are frequently called the " c y c l i c d a c t y l , "

"apparent

a n a p a e s t , " and " i r r a t i o n a l spondee " and indicated respectively b y the m a r k i n g s - u u ( o r i u u ) , i u

> , J _ > , b u t since there is

considerable dispute a b o u t the whole m a t t e r , it has been t h o u g h t simpler and more convenient for the student to preserve the ordinary markings, as a b o v e , in this edition. Greek metricians divide m a n y metres into groups of t w o feet (dipodies).

L a t i n metricians

h a v e not y e t agreed whether L a t i n authors regarded their verses as composed of dipodies or of separate feet, b u t because of the Greek practice it has become traditional to indicate only the m a j o r ictuses (the first in each dipody) and to trust the reader to supply the intervening ones.

T h u s in trochaic metres there is an

ictus m a r k (') on the first syllable of the odd feet of the line, and these metres m a y be i m m e d i a t e l y recognized b y this m a r k on the first syllable of the line, save where elision causes it to be placed on the apparent second syllable. XLIV.

In the Menaeckmi

the most frequent metre (618 verses) is

the trochaic septenarius, used for spirited dialogue and for recitative passages.

Lines in this metre occur at the end of most of

P l a u t u s ' plays.

I t contains seven complete feet, trochees or legit-

imate substitutes for the trochee, and an additional syllable (or " h a l f f o o t " ) at the end of each line.

Its name, which means

" s e v e n a p i e c e , " ignores the single syllable at the end of the line. T h e seventh foot is a l w a y s either a trochee or, m u c h less often, its metrical equivalent, the tribrach.

A diaeresis (the coinci-

dence of the end of a word w i t h the end of a foot) generally comes between the f o u r t h and

fifth

feet.

Line

190 is thus

scanned: inte|rim ne|quis quin | e i u s " | aliquid | Indu|tus si|es A and line 605:

INTRODUCTION

33

cláncü|lüm t(e) ísjtáéc flá|gítíá" | faceré | cénsé|bás pó[tis A All Latin metres allow the last syllable of a line to be either long or short (syllaba anceps); in this edition they are regularly marked long when the metre so requires.

The caret (A) is used to

indicate that the last foot is incomplete; the double line (") shows the diaeresis (or the caesura, X L V I I ) .

The Greek metre

from which the trochaic septenarius is imitated is called the trochaic tetrameter catalectic because it contains four measures of two trochaic feet each (dipodies) with the last syllable of the last foot in the verse " c u t o f f " (catalectic). X L V . The only other trochaic metre in the Menaechmi is the trochaic octonarius, and outside of the cantica it appears only in line 1007. It contains eight complete feet, and allows the same substitution as the septenarius. The eighth foot is never anything but a trochee, tribrach, or spondee.

Line 1007 is thus scanned:

míttí|t(e) ístünc ( obsé|cró t é " | quisquís ¡ es ópé|rám mí|h(i) üt des. | XLVI.

In the metres in iambic rhythm the characteristic foot

is the iambus (*_, - ) .

For the iambus Plautus substitutes all of

the feet mentioned in X L I I except the trochee. The ictus falls as follows: iambus w ± (üt hánc, 50) tribrach WWW (trimódí-, 15) dactyl - ¿ w (nam nisi, 54) anapaest w w 2. (ídéó, 78) spondee

L (omnls, 8)

proceleusmatic ^ ^ ¿ w (mód(o) hie habí-, 75) The dactyl, anapaest, and spondee, thus substituted for the iambus, are frequently called the "apparent dactyl," the "cyclic (or shortened) anapaest," and the "irrational spondee" and are

34

INTRODUCTION

indicated by the markings > w w

(or u w i ) , > j_, but, as in

the case of the trochaic substitutions, it has seemed simpler to employ only the ordinary markings in this edition. The tribrach may be regarded as a resolved iambus, the dactyl as a partially resolved spondee, and the proceleusmatic as a completely resolved spondee. In each case the ictus then falls on the first short syllable resulting from the resolution of the final long. Hence if the ictus falls on a long syllable in an iambic line, the division between feet comes immediately after it (w _L | ^ - ) , but if it falls on a short syllable, there is another short syllable before the division (w ¿> w | w - ) . I t should be remembered that in this text only the alternate ictus marks are printed, and the reader must supply the others himself. An iambic verse may be recognized by the ictus mark on the second or third syllable of the line except when elision causes this to be placed on the apparent fourth syllable. A trochaic line in which elision places the ictus mark on the apparent second syllable should not be confused with an iambic verse. X L V I I . The second most frequent metre (430 verses) in the Menaechmi is the iambic senarius ("six apiece"), composed of six complete iambic feet or their legitimate substitutes.

It is

the opening metre of this as of most plays of Plautus, and is generally used for ordinary dialogue or exposition.

The sixth

foot is always either an iambus or a pyrrhic (w ¿ ) , which in this position may be substituted for an iambus since all Latin metres allow the last syllable of a line to be either long or short (syllaba anceps).

A dactyl is rarely followed by an anapaest, as

the collocation of four short syllables might be confused with a proceleusmatic.

Caesura (the ending of a word within a foot) is

common in the third foot; when it does not occur in the third, it usually does in the fourth. Lines 79-80 are scanned as follows: hSmines | captl|uos" qui | cate|nls uin|ciunt |

35

INTRODUCTION et qui | fugiti|uls se|ruls" in|dunt com|pedes. j

The Greek metre from which this is imitated is called the iambic trimeter, and is composed of three iambic dipodies (pairs of feet, XLIV).

Though, as with trochaic metres, Latin poets probably

regarded the iambic metres as composed of single iambic feet, modern editors usually indicate the ictus only on the odd feet (first in each dipody). X L V I I I . The other iambic metres found in the Menaechmi are the quaternarius (iambic dimeter catalectic or acatalectic), the septenarius (iambic tetrameter catalectic), and the octonarius (iambic tetrameter acatalectic).

In these, the rules governing

substitution of other feet for the iambus are similar to those for the senarius.

These metres rarely occur outside of the cantica,

and where they are found, their scansion is fully indicated in this edition.

Line 134, an iambic septenarius, is thus scanned:

auor|ti prae|d(am) ab hojstibus" | nostrum | salu|te soci|um, a in which the tribrach in the seventh foot should be noted.

Line

128, an iambic octonarius, is thus scanned: ubi stint | ama|tores | marijti?" do|na quid | cessant | mihi. | In the septenarius, there is usually a diaeresis after the fourth, occasionally a caesura in the fifth, foot. In the octonarius, there is usually a caesura in the fifth, occasionally a diaeresis after the fourth, foot. X L I X . The cantica contain, besides metres composed of the feet enumerated in paragraph L X I I , others, more lyric and based on the cretic ( -

w

- ) , the bacchius

), the choriambus ( - w

w —), and on certain series of feet: the dochmius (w i . | i u i . | , an iambus and a cretic, with free resolution and substitution), the glyconic

(J_W|JLWW|-LW|_LA,

or perhaps _L

which gives a trochaic rhythm,

_L I, with a choriamb), and the

36

INTRODUCTION

"versus Reizianus" ( w ± | w - | w ± | w - | , a n iambic dimeter acatalectic, followed by W J— J W J- | W a, an iambic tripody catalectic, with free resolution and substitution).

There is consider-

able doubt about the nature of the Reizianus (which derives its name from the modern scholar Reiz) and as to whether it had any real recognition as a metrical series in antiquity.

All of these

metres are listed in the Index of Metres ( L I X ) , and their full scansion is indicated in the text. L. The conversational language of Plautus naturally differs from the literary language of authors such as Horace and Vergil, who wrote two hundred years later, not only in forms and syntax but also in pronunciation.

A key to the pronunciation is found

in Plautus' prosody (the laws of metrical composition, particularly as they relate to ictus and to quantity of syllables).

For

example, the tendency of ictus and accent to coincide allows us to deduce that certain words of more than three syllables which later Latin would have accented on the antepenult, in Plautus' time were probably accented on the syllable before the antepenult, as mutteres (321).

The ictus may also indicate the accentuation

in interrogations, notably where a strongly stressed interrogative pronoun is followed by a word which seems to lose its own accent (e.g., quis hdmost?, 137), and in questions which are indicated only by a rising inflection of the voice (e.g., iam fdres ferid?, 176).

Such a shift of accents is also common in closely

associated words, particularly possessive pronouns and the words with which they are used, e.g., med mal{o), 133, where not only does the 0 of meo bear the ictus but the following ma loses its normal word accent; the three syllables are pronounced together and the ordinary law of penultimate accent applied. L I . Latin has frequent elision, i.e., a vowel or a diphthong ending a word or followed by m at the end of a word is partially sup-

INTRODUCTION

37

pressed when the next word begins with a vowel, a diphthong, or h; e.g., quando edo (78) would be pronounced by running the 0 into the e as one syllable, and scanned quandio) edo. Line 166 is scanned: aged(um) o|dora|r(e) hanc qu(am) e|g(o) habeo | pallam | quid olet | absti|nes A In elision, the length of the merged syllable is only that of the second of the original syllables, whether this is long or short, and the syllabic or foot division is made at the beginning of the first of the original syllables even though this carries a consonant over from one word to the next. The last syllable of one character's speech may or may not be elided with the first syllable of another's.

LII. Cicero states (Orator, 44.150): quod (the sound of a phrase) quidem Latina lingua sic obseruat nemo ut tam ruslicus sit qui uocales nolit coniungere.

None the less, hiatus (a " g a p " or

"yawning," that is, the absence of elision where it would be expected) does occur.

There is always hiatus after (though not

before) the exclamation O, and generally after monosyllables which are emphatic or which would be hard to understand if elided. Often a final long syllable and a following initial short or long syllable may, without violating the metre, either suffer elision or be pronounced as two short syllables with hiatus; the latter method prevents the obscurity resulting from the total loss of the first syllable. Such hiatus, preserving the metre and the words, is called prosodic. The view that hiatus is common at the caesura in iambic senarii is no longer held but it does seem common at the diaeresis of trochaic septenarii or where there is a change of speaker within a line. A hiatus not explained by one of the foregoing reasons may be due to emphasis, as is fre-

38

INTRODUCTION

quently the case with vocatives, personal pronouns, and words or phrases isolated for effect. Or it may be explained by a pause for a gesture or stage business, e.g., Peniculus' yawn (ego dum | hieto, 449) and Matrona's sobs (709 ff.).

In fact the hiatus

serves often as an excellent stage direction.

In this edition every

necessary hiatus (and many prosodic hiatuses as well) has been indicated with the mark | between words. LIII.

Closely akin to elision is synizesis (the union of separate

vowel sounds within words to form a single long syllable).

It is

most frequent in compound words, in oblique cases of pronouns, and in some verb forms (e.g., eadem, meis, deos, praehibet, fuisse). The frequent apparent synizesis of forms of suus probably in fact perpetuates an original monosyllabic by-form in which the first u was consonantal.

Note that ei (dative of is) may occur in any

of the three forms ei, ei (18), or ei (735),

Forms in which syn-

izesis has taken place are not to be thought of as arbitrarily adapted for metrical convenience; they must have existed as parallel pronunciations in regular use by the members of the original audiences, who otherwise would not have understood them. In this edition every necessary case of synizesis is indicated by the mark ^ over the syllables affected. L I V . In spoken Latin, the combination of a long syllable preceded by an accented short syllable tended to become two short syllables. Examples of words permanently altered in Latin by this law are: ego for an original ego (quantity as in the Greek iy&), bene for bene (but contrast sdne, where the first syllable is long). The verse of Plautus shows that, even where the shortened forms did not become permanently recognized, such shortening was frequently operative in daily speech, and that the same shortening might affect a long syllable following a short syllable when

INTRODUCTION

39

the accent came upon the next subsequent syllable, whether this was short or long.

Naturally in verse the ictus performed the

function of the word accent in daily speech. may be thus illustrated:

This phenomenon

^

¿ — becomes ¿, ^ or

w

t

— — becomes

w

w ~

and is called, from the original character of the two syllables, the rule of iambic shortening. either by nature or by position. of closely associated words.

It may apply to syllables long It may also operate in groups

Examples of iambic shortening are

uo\uptd\rii (259) quid ess(e) il\li (889) / egon te (389) eg(o) et Me\naechmus (222). In this last example, the elision does not affect the application of the rule.

Frequently the original quantities were preserved,

and some words, though shortened in later Latin, show in Plautus either form, e.g., tlbi (302) or tibi (378) mihi (487) or mihi (398). Modo, the adverb, suffered shortening, while modo, the ablative of the noun, retained the long 0. Some words are shortened by analogy with similar words, as nescib (1002) parallel to scid. accented long syllable is never shortened.

An

In this edition, all

syllables which suffer iambic shortening bear the mark ^ above them. LV. Another feature of the daily speech of Plautus' time was that final s apparently was not pronounced when preceded by a short vowel and followed in the next word by a consonant. Hence such a final syllable is scanned as short, rather than as long by position.

Authorities differ as to whether or not this

was always the case.

Some editors print an apostrophe in place

4o

INTRODUCTION

of the s when it occurs under the above conditions. In this edition the i is always printed, and when the syllable must be short it is indicated by the mark LVI. Authorities also disagree about the pronunciation of the various forms of ille and is tic. Some hold that the former was pronounced ill' and the latter 'stic. The question is complicated by the fact that where they are emphatic their first syllables are given their full value (57), but in most cases, the shortening of their first syllables may be explained by the rules of iambic shortening or prosodic hiatus. LVII. The text of Plautus preserves, in certain words and forms, quantities which were common in the early stages of the Latin language side by side with the quantities which are found in authors of the time of Cicero.

This variation proves that the

language was still in a state of flux. Where the scansion requires the old quantities, these are indicated in the text of this edition by appropriate marks. The most common are the verb endings -is and -it (e.g., emeris, 1101,

uelit, 52, jactus sit, 1045). Es

(second person singular of sum, esse) is always long in Plautus. The reasons for the occasional lengthening of -ius in certain comparative adverbs (e.g., longius, 327, ampliiis, 846) is obscure. LVIII. The quantities of aio show variation: aid dis (487) ait (524), 'ait (885), or ait (480?) diebas (532) or aibds (634). In fio the i is long save in the third person singular present indicative (fit) and in the present infinitive (fieri, but contrast fieri, 923) and the imperfect subjunctive (fierem, etc.).

INTRODUCTION

41

Index of Metres The scansion of the Cantica is uncertain.

L I X . Arg.

Iambic Senarii

1-109

Iambic Senarii

110-134

Canticum I

no

4 Choriambs

hi

3 Dactyls H

112-113

4 Cretics

114

3 Dactyls H

115-118

4 Cretics

119

Trochaic Octonarius

b trochee, tribrach, and dactyl (-3 Dactyls H —

120-122

Iambic Quaternarii

123-127

Trochaic Septenarii

128-129

Iambic Octonarii

130

Trochaic Septenarius

131-132

Iambic Octonarii

133-134

Iambic Septenarii

135-225

Trochaic Septenarii

226-350

Iambic Senarii

351-368

Canticum

351

Dactylic Quaternarius

352

Iambic Senarius

353

Anapaestic Senarius

354/5

Trochaic Quaternarius H —

356

Iambic Senarius

357

Anapaestic Septenarius h —

358

Trochaic Quaternarius H —

359

Trochaic Octonarius

360

Trochaic Quaternarius H —

361-364

Anapaestic Quaternarii

365

2 Anapaests + D a c t y l + Iambus

366

Spondee + Anapaest H —

II

42

INTRODUCTION

367-368

Anapaestic Quaternarii

369-465 466-570

Trochaic Septenarii

571-603

Canticum

Iambic Senarii III

57 575

Bacchiac Quaternarii

576

3 Bacchii + Iambus

577

Cretic + Anapaest

578-579 580

Bacchiac Quaternarii

581 582

2 Bacchii + Iambus

I-

Cretic Quaternarii Bacchiac Quaternarius + 2 Trochees 2 Bacchii

583 584a

Iambic Quaternarius + 2 Bacchii

584b

2 Bacchii

585 586

Iambic Octonarius Trochaic Senarius H— 4 Bacchii

587 588

Anapaestic Octonarius Anapaestic Septenarius

589 59o-59

2

Trochaic Octonarii

593

Trochaic Septenarius

594

Trochaic Octonarius

595 596-600

Trochaic Septenarius

601

Trochaic Septenarius

602-603

Anapaestic Senarii + Dactyl H—

604-700

Trochaic Septenarii

701-752

Iambic Senarii

753-774

Canticum IV

753-76I 762a

4 Bacchii

762b

4 Bacchii

763a

2 Bacchii + 2 Iambi H—

Iambic Quaternarii

3 Bacchii + ^ w

INTRODUCTION

43

763b

2 Bacchii

764-770

4 Bacchii

771

3 Bacchii (with a spondee)

772-773

4 Bacchii

774

3 Iambi H —

775~87i

Trochaic Septenarii

872-898

Iambic Senarii

899-965

Trochaic Septenarii

Q66-Q8Q

Canticum V

966-968

4 Bacchii

969

3 Bacchii + Iambus

970

4 Bacchii

971

3 Bacchii + Iambus

972

Iambic Senarius

973

Trochaic Septenarius

974a

Dactyl + Cretic (= Dochmius)

974b

4 Bacchii

975

Iambic Quaternarius

976

2 Tribrachs + Dactyl H —

977

Trochaic Senarius H—

978

Iambic Septenarius

979

Iambic Octonarius

980

Iambic Septenarius

981

Spondee + Anapaest h —

982

Trochaic Octonarius

983a, b, c

Anapaestic Octonarii, of which a has a Tribrach in the 4th and b an Iambus in the 4th

984

Anapaestic

Septenarius

(with

Tribrach

in

the 4th) + 985

3 Trochaic Feet H

986-987

Iambic Octonarii

988-994

Trochaic Septenarii

995-1005

Iambic Octonarii

1-3 Trochaic Feet H —

44

INTRODUCTION

1006

Iambic Quaternarius

1007

Trochaic Octonarius

1008-1059 Trochaic Septenarii 1060-1062 Iambic Octonarii 1063-1162 Trochaic Septenarii MANUSCRIPTS

The principal manuscripts of Plautus are: Ambrosianus (A), a palimpsest of the 3rd or 4th century, preserved only in part; Palatinus Vaticanus (B), Palatinus Heidelbergensis (C), and and Vaticanus Ursinianus (D), all three of the 10th or n t h century and descended from the same archetype. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL

NOTE

EDITIONS

The first printed edition of Plautus was published by Merula at Venice, 1472. Important modern editions of all the plays are: G. Loewe, G. Goetz, and F. Schoell, a reedition of that by F. Ritschl (1849-1851), Leipzig, Teubner, 4 vols, in 20 parts, 1879-1902, with some parts in ed. 2 and 3 until 1922; G. Goetz and F. Schoell, Teubner stereotyped edition in 7 parts from 1893-1896, with later reprints and some parts in ed. 2, 1904; F. Leo, Berlin Weidman, 1895-1896 (photographic reprint, 1958), extreme in emendation and rearrangement of the lines; J. L. Ussing, Copenhagen, 5 vols, in 7 parts, some in ed. 2, 1875-1892, with a Latin commentary; W. M. Lindsay, in Oxford Classical Texts, 2 vols, ed. 2, 1910, based on a lifelong study of early Latin; P. Nixon, in Loeb Classical Library, 5 vols., 1916-1938 (and reprints), text and facing English translation; A. Ernout, in the Bude series, 7 vols., 1932-1940 (and corrected reprints), text and facing French translation. Some editions of the Menaechmi alone are: H. N. Fowler; Boston, 1889 (and reprints), an annotated school edition whose text is based on Leo's; P. T. Jones, Oxford, 1918, an annotated

INTRODUCTION

45

school edition whose text is based on Lindsay's; J . Brix, M. Niemeyer, and F. Conrad, Leipzig, Teubner, ed. 6, 1929, one of four plays of Plautus edited with German notes for school use and the basis of the present edition. L A N G U A G E , S T Y L E AND PROSODY

W. M. Lindsay published with the Clarendon Press (Oxford) three important books: The Latin Language, 1894 (reprint New York, Hafner, 1963); A Short Historical Latin Grammar, ed. 2 1915 (reprint 1937); and Early Latin Verse, 1922 (reprint 1968); see also his Syntax of Plautus, St. Andrew's Univ. Pubis. 4, 1907. For pronunciation see E. H. Sturtevant, The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin, ed. 2 Am. Philos. Soc. (Philadelphia), 1940; W. S. Allen, Vox Latina, Cambridge Univ. Press. 1965. For meter see J . W. Halporn, M. Ostwald, & T. G. Rosenmeyer, The Meters of Greek and Latin Poetry, Bobbs-Merrill (New York), 1963; D. S. Raven, Latin Metre: An Introduction, Faber & Faber (London), 1965. GENERAL

English histories of Latin Literature: J . W. Duff, Literary History of Rome ... to the Golden Age, ed. 3 rev. Barnes & Noble (New York), 1960; H. J . Rose, Handbook of Latin Literature, ed. 3 rev. Dutton (New York), 1966; M. Hadas, History of Latin Literature, Columbia Univ. Press, 1952; F. O. Copley, Latin Literature etc., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1969. Studies of Roman Comedy in English: G. E. Duckworth, The Nature of Roman Comedy, Princeton Univ. Press, 1952; W. Beare, The Roman Stage, ed. 3 Methuen (London), 1964; D. R. Dudley & T. A. Dorey, eds., Roman Drama, Routledge & Kegan Paul (London), 1965; Erich Segal, Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus, Harvard Univ. Press, 1968; John Wright, Dancing in Chains: The Stylistic Unity of the Comoedia Palliata, American Academy in Rome, 1974 (a study of the remains including Terence but excluding Plautus). Bibliographies: Duckworth (above) pp. 447-464; N. I. Herescu, Bibliographie de la littérature latine, Les Belles Lettres (Paris),

46

INTRODUCTION

1943, pp. 8-19; S. Lambrino, Bibliographie ... I: Auteurs et Textes, Les Belles Lettres (Paris), 1951, pp. 42 7-481; M. Hammond, A. M. Mack, & W. Moskalew, Plauti Miles Gloriosas, rev. ed. Harvard Univ. Press, 1970, pp. 60-66. Reference: P. W. Harsh, Handbook of Classical Drama, Stanford Univ. Press, 1944, pp. 333-374 (brief discussions and synopses of plots); Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. 2 Clarendon Press (Oxford), 1970 (for Plautus see pp. 843-844). English translations of classical drama are many. In the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard Univ. Press), Paul Nixon did Plautus in 5 vols., 1916-1938. Other translations will be found listed in Paperback Books in Print; here may be mentioned Erich Segal, Plautus: Three Comedies (Menaechmi, Miles, Mostellaria), Harper & Row (New York), 1969. Roman theater and theatrical production: M. Bieber. History of the Greek and Roman Theater, ed. 2 Princeton Univ. Press, 1961; P. D . Arnott, An Introduction to the Greek Theatre, Macmillan (London), 1959 (includes Roman plays). Greek New Comedy: T . B. L. Webster has two books, both Manchester Univ. Press: Studies in Menander, ed. 2 i960; Studies in Later Greek Comedy, 1953. See also K . Lever, The Art of Greek Comedy, Methuen (London), 1956; Lionel Casson, The Plays of Menander, New York Univ. Press, 1971 (translations of five plays). In preparation in the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard Univ. Press, is a new text and translation of Menander, including recently discovered papyri, by W. G. Arnott, to replace the ed. by F. G. Allinson, 1921. Later influence: J. A. K . Thompson, The Classical Background of English Literature, pb. Collier/Macmillan (New York), 1962 (reprint from 1948); G. Highet, The Classical Tradition, Oxford Univ. Press, 1949 (pb. 1957); R. R. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1958; (pb. Harper & Row, New York, 1964; see index under Plautus; a later book edited by Bolgar: Classical Influences on European Culture, A.D. 500-/500, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1971, has no discussion of Roman Comedy).

PLAUTI

MENAECHMI

ARGVMENTVM Mercàtor Siculus, quo! erant gemini filii — Ei surrupto | altero mors óptigit. Nomén surrupti | indit illi, qui domist, Auós paternus, fàcit Menaechmum e Sósicle. E t is germanum, póstquam adoleuit, quaéritat Circum ómnis oras. post Epidamnum déuenit: Hie fuerat alitus ille surrepticius. Menaéchmum | omnes ciuem credunt aduenam Eumque appellant méretrix, uxor ét socer. I sé cognoscunt fràtres postremo inuicem. 1 Similar acrostic summaries survive for all the plays except the

Bacchides.

damnum: see on Prologue, 12. 8 aduenam is the object of credunt

T h e y are the work of grammarians of

with

the E m p i r e . — Siculus, " S i c i l i a n . " —

to it.

quoi = cui;

cf. Intr., X X X I I I .

10 se

2 ei refers ungrammatically to mercator. — surrupto = subrepto,

abl.

inuicem:

this

predicate

construction

dates only from the time of Tacitus and

abs.

Pliny, and is not common until after

Intr.,

mei is archaistic, perhaps under the

with altero. 3 domist

Menaechmum ciuem

150 A.D. T h e acrostic spelling Menaech=

domi

est;

cf.

influence of the archaizers of the early

XXXVI. 4 auos = (iwus') cf. Intr., X X X I .

second century A.D., w h o revived an

6 post:

interest in Plautus.

adv.,

=

postremo. — Epi-

PERSONAE PENICVLVS PARASITVS MENAECHMVS I , V LESCENTES MENAECHMVS II (SOSICLES) ' EROTIVM MERETRIX CYLINDRVS COQVOS MESSENIO SERVOS ANCILLA MATRONA SENEX MEDICVS LORARII SCAENA EPIDAMNI Persona is probably not derived from persSnare but from an Etruscan word,