The Project Gutenberg eBook ofAmphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, CaptiviThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, CaptiviAuthor: Titus Maccius PlautusTranslator: Paul NixonRelease date: August 20, 2005 [eBook #16564]Most recently updated: December 12, 2020Language: English, LatinCredits: Produced by Ted Garvin, Louise Hope and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMPHITRYO, ASINARIA, AULULARIA, BACCHIDES, CAPTIVI ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, CaptiviAuthor: Titus Maccius PlautusTranslator: Paul NixonRelease date: August 20, 2005 [eBook #16564]Most recently updated: December 12, 2020Language: English, LatinCredits: Produced by Ted Garvin, Louise Hope and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Title: Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi
Author: Titus Maccius PlautusTranslator: Paul Nixon
Author: Titus Maccius Plautus
Translator: Paul Nixon
Release date: August 20, 2005 [eBook #16564]Most recently updated: December 12, 2020
Language: English, Latin
Credits: Produced by Ted Garvin, Louise Hope and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMPHITRYO, ASINARIA, AULULARIA, BACCHIDES, CAPTIVI ***
A few typographical errors have been corrected. They have been marked in the text withpopups. Greek words that may not display correctly in all browsers are similarly transliterated:ὥς.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.
PLAUTUSWITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BYPAUL NIXONDEAN OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE, MAINEIN FIVE VOLUMESI
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTSHARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESSLONDONWILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD
First printed1916
The Index of Proper Names is not included in this e-text.
In this and each succeeding volume a summary will be given of the consensus of opinion1regarding 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 theAmphitruois not now thought to have been a work of the Middle Comedy but of the New Comedy, very possibly Philemon'sΝὺξ μακρά. A clue to the Greek play's date is found in the description of Amphitryon's battle with the Teloboians,2a 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 theAsinaria,Aulularia,Bacchides,3andCaptivi, is quite uncertain, beyond the fact that it no doubt belongs, like almost all of his extant work, to thelast two decades of his life, 204-184 B.C. TheAmphitruois one of the five4plays in the first two volumes whose scene is not laid in Athens.
TheὈναγόςof a certain Demophilus,5otherwise unknown to us, was the onginal of theAsinaria.The assertion of Libanus that he is his master's Salus6is thought to be a fling at the honours decreed certain of the Diadochi, who were called, while still alive,Σωτῆρες. This possibility, together with the fact that the Pellaean7merchant and the Rhodian8Periphanes travel to Athens—northern Greece and the Aegaean therefore being pacified and Athens at peace with Macedon—would indicate that theὈναγόςwas written while Demetrius Poliorcetes controlled Macedon, 294-288 B.C.
Very slender evidence connects theAululariawith some unknown play of Menander's in which a miser is representedδεδιὼς μή τι τῶν ἔιδον ὁ καπνος οἴχοιτο φερων. Euclio's distress9at seeing any smoke escape from his house seems at least to suggest that Plautus may have borrowed theAululariafrom Menander. The allusion topraefectum mulierum,10rather thancensorem, would seem to show that in the originalγυναικοι ομονhad 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.
Ritschl11has shown clearly enough that the original of theBacchideswas Menander'sΔὶς ἐξαπατῶν. 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,12lead one to believe that theΔὶς ἐξαπατῶνwas written either between the years 316-307 or 298-296 B.C.
The original of theCaptiviis quite unknown, while the war between the Aetolians and Eleans gives the only clue to the date of this original. Hueffner13considers it probable that the war was that between Aristodemus and Alexander, and the Greek play was produced shortly after 314 B.C. Others14assume 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.
1: See especially Hueffner,De Plauti Comoediarum Exemplis Atticis, Göttingen, 1894; Legrand,Daos, Paris, 1910, English translation by James Loeb under titleThe New Greek Comedy, William Heinemann, 1916; Leo,Plautinische Forschungen, Berlin, 1912.
2:Amph.203seq.
3: Produced later than theEpidicus.Cf.Bacch.214.
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.
5:Asin.Prol. 10-11.
6:Asin.713.
7:Asin.334.
8:Asin.499.
9:Aulul.299, 301.
10:Aulul.504.
11: Ritschl,Parerga, pp. 405seq.Cf. Menander,Fragments, 125, 126.
12:Bacch.912.
13: Hueffner,op. cit.pp. 41-42.
14: Cf. Legrand,op. cit.p. 18.
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.15Adaptations 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 stylethat 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 Gloriosusappeared about 206, theCistellariaabout 202,Stichusin 200,Pseudolusin 191 B.C.; theTruculentus, likePseudolus, 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 tocare, 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 theCaptivi, 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 theCaptivishows some technical flaws, it isa work which must be rated according to the standards we apply to aMinna von Barnhelmrather than according to those applied to aPinafore: 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 ofThe Captivesmay well be made particular: "Plautus finds few plays such as this which make good men better." Yet there is little in hisplays 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-Plautine16: 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 andasterisks 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.
15: TheAsinariawas adapted from theὈναγὸςof Demophilus; theCasinafrom theΚληρούμενοι, theRudensfrom an unknown play, perhaps theΠήρα, of Diphilus; theStichus, in part, from theἈδελφοί α'of Menander. Menander'sΔὶς ἐξαπατῶνwas probably the source of theBacchides, while theAululariaandCistellariaprobably were adapted from other plays (titles unknown) by Menander. TheMercatorandTrinummusare adaptations of Philemon'sἘμποροςandΘησαυρός, theMostellariavery possibly is an adaptation of hisΦάσμα, theAmphitruo, perhaps, an adaptation of hisΝὺξ μακρά.
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.
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.
Müller,Plautinische Prosodie, Berlin, 1869.
Reinhardstoettner (Karl von),Spätere Bearbeitungen plautinischer Lustspiele, Leipzig, 1886.
Langen,Beiträge zur Kritik und Erklärung 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.
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.
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.
Argument IArgument IIDramatis PersonaePrologueACT I
Scene 2Scene 3
ACT II
Scene 2
ACT III
Scene 2Scene 3Scene 4
ACT IV
Scene 2
Summary of missing textFragments
(Act IV) Scene 3
ACT V
Scene 2Scene 3
Footnotes
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
10adulterum se Iuppiter confessus est.
Amore captus Alcumenas Iuppiter
Mutavit sese in formam eius coniugis,
Pro patria Amphitruo dum decernit cum hostibus.
Habitu Mercurius ei subservit Sosiae.
Is advenientis servum ac dominum frustra habet.
Turbas uxori ciet Amphitruo, atque invicem
Raptant pro moechis. Blepharo captus arbiter
Vter sit non quit Amphitruo decernere.
Omnem rem noscunt. geminos Alcumena enititur.2
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,
et uti bonis vos vostrosque omnis nuntiis
me adficere voltis, ea adferam, ea uti nuntiem
10quae maxime in rem vostram communem sient—
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)
(15)ita huic facietis fabulae silentium
itaque aequi et iusti his eritis omnes arbitri.
Nunc cuius iussu venio et quam ob rem venerim
dicam simulque ipse eloquar nomen meum.
Iovis iussu venio, nomen Mercurio est mihi.
20pater huc me misit ad vos oratum meus,
tam etsi, pro imperio vobis quod dictum foret,
scibat facturos, quippe qui intellexerat
vereri vos se et metuere, ita ut aequom est Iovem;
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;
30atque ego quoque etiam, qui Iovis sum filius,
contagione mei patris metuo malum.
propterea pace advenio et pacem ad vos affero5:
iustam rem et facilem esse oratam a vobis volo,
nam iusta ab iustis iustus sum orator datus.
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
40et ego et pater de vobis et re publica;
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 regnator6architectust7omnibus?
sed mos numquam illi fuit patri meo,8
ut exprobraret quod bonis faceret boni;
gratum arbitratur esse id a vobis sibi
meritoque vobis bona se facere quae facit.
50Nunc quam rem oratum huc veni primum proloquar,
post argumentum huius eloquar tragoediae.
quid? contraxistis frontem, quia tragoediam
dixi futuram hanc? deus sum, commutavero.
eandem hanc, si voltis, faciam ex tragoedia
comoedia ut sit omnibus isdem vorsibus.
utrum sit an non voltis? sed ego stultior,
quasi nesciam vos velle, qui divos siem.
teneo quid animi vostri super hac re siet:
faciam ut commixta sit: sit tragicomoedia.
60nam me perpetuo facere ut sit comoedia,
reges quo veniant et di, non par arbitror.
quid igitur? quoniam his servos quoque partes habet,
faciam sit, proinde ut dixi, tragicomoedia.
nunc hoc me orare a vobis iussit Iuppiter,
ut conquaestores singula in subsellia
eant per totam caveam spectatoribus,
si cui favitores delegates viderint,
ut is in cavea pignus capiantur togae;
sive qui ambissint palmam histrionibus,
70sive cuiquam artifici, si per scriptas litteras
sive qui ipse ambissit seu per internuntium,
sive adeo aediles perfidiose cui duint,
sirempse legem iussit esse Iuppiter,
quasi magistratum sibi alterive ambiverit.
virtute dixit vos victores vivere,
non ambitione neque perfidia: qui minus
eadem histrioni sit lex quae summo viro?
virtute ambire oportet, non favitoribus.
sat habet favitorum semper qui recte facit,
80si illis fides est quibus est ea res in manu.
hoc quoque etiam mihi pater in mandatis dedit,
ut conquaestores fierent histrionibus:
qui sibi mandasset delegati ut plauderent
quive quo placeret alter fecisset minus,
eius ornamenta et corium uti conciderent.
mirari nolim vos, quapropter Iuppiter
nunc histriones curet; ne miremini:
ipse hanc acturust Iuppiter comoediam.
quid? admirati estis? quasi vero novom
90nunc proferatur, Iovem facere histrioniam;
etiam, histriones anno cum in proscaemo hic
Iovem invocarunt, venit, auxilio is fuit9(92)
(94)hanc fabulam, inquam, hic Iuppiter hodie ipse aget,
et ego una cum illo. nunc vos animum advortite,
dum huius argumentum eloquar comoediae.
Haec urbs est Thebae. in illisce habitat aedibus
Amphitruo, natus Argis ex Argo patre,
quicum Alcumena est nupta, Electri filia.
100is nunc Amphitruo praefectust legionibus,
nam cum Telobois bellum est Thebano poplo.
is prius quam hinc abut ipsemet in exercitum,
gravidam Alcumenam uxorem fecit suam.
nam ego vos novisse credo iam ut sit pater meus,
quam liber harum rerum multarum siet
quantusque amator sit quod complacitum est semel.
is amare occepit Alcumenam clam virum
usuramque eius corporis cepit sibi,
et gravidam fecit is eam compressu suo.
110nunc de Alcumena ut rem teneatis rectius,
utrimque est gravida, et ex viro et ex summo Iove.
et meus pater nunc intus hic cum illa cubat,
et haec ob eam rem nox est facta longior,
dum cum illa quacum volt voluptatem capit;
sed ita adsimulavit se, quasi Amphitruo siet.
Nunc ne hunc ornatum vos meum admiremini,
quod ego huc processi sic cum servili schema:
veterem atque antiquam rem novam ad vos proferam,
propterea ornatus in novom incessi modum.
120nam meus pater intus nunc est eccum Iuppiter;
in Amphitruonis vertit sese imaginem
omnesque eum esse censent servi qui vident:
ita versipellem se facit quando lubet.
ego servi sumpsi Sosiae mi imaginem,
qui cum Amphitruone abiit hinc in exercitum,
ut praeservire amanti meo possem patri
atque ut ne, qui essem, familiares quaererent,
versari crebro hic cum viderent me domi;
nunc, cum esse credent servom et conservom suom,
130haud quisquam quaeret qui siem aut quid venerim.
Pater nunc intus suo animo morem gerit:
cubat complexus cuius cupiens maxime est;
quae illi ad legionem facta sunt memorat pater
meus Alcumenae: illa illum censet virum
suom esse, quae cum moecho est. ibi nunc meus pater
memorat, legiones hostium ut fugaverit,
quo pacto sit donis donatus plurimis.
ea dona, quae illic Amphitruoni sunt data,
abstulimus: facile meus pater quod volt facit.
140nunc hodie Amphitruo veniet huc ab exercitu
et servos, cuius ego hanc fero imaginem.
nunc internosse ut nos possitis facilius,
ego has habebo usque in petaso pinnulas;
tum meo patri autem torulus inerit aureus
sub petaso: id signum Amphitruoni non erit.
ea signa nemo horum familiarium
videre poterit: verum vos videbitis.
sed Amphitruonis illic est servos Sosia:
a portu illic nunc cum lanterna advenit.
150abigam iam ego illum advenientem ab aedibus.
adeste: erit operae pretium hic spectantibus
Iovem et Mercurium facere histrioniam.