Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi | Page 3

avoid the catcalls.
This is by no means the universal rule. In the writer of the Captivi, for
instance, we are dealing with a dramatist whose aims are different and
higher. Though Lessing’s encomium of the play is one to which not
all of us can assent, and though even the Captivi shows some technical
flaws, it is a work which must be rated according to the standards we
apply to a Minna von Barnhelm rather than according to those applied
to a Pinafore: here, certainly, we have comedy, not farce.
But whatever standards be applied to his plays their outstanding
characters, their amusing situations, their vigour and comicality of
dialogue remain. Euclio and Pyrgopolynices, the straits of the brothers
Menaechmus and the postponement of Argyrippus’s desires, the
verbal encounter of Tranio and Grumio, of Trachalio and the
fishermen-- characters, situations, and dialogues such as these should
survive because of their own excellence, not because of modern
imitations and parallels such as Harpagon and Parolles, the
misadventures of the brothers Antipholus and Juliet’s difficulties
with her nurse, the remarks of Petruchio to the tailor, of Touchstone to
William.
Though his best drawn characters can and should stand by themselves,

it is interesting to note how many favourite personages in the modern
drama and in modern fiction Plautus at least prefigures. Long though
the list is, it does not contain a large proportion of thoroughly
respectable names: Plautus rarely introduces us to people, male or
female, whom we should care to have long in the same house with us.
A real lady seldom appears in these comedies, and--to approach a
paradox--when she does she usually comes perilously close to being no
lady; the same is usually true of the real gentleman. The generalization
in the Epilogue of The Captives may well be made particular:
“Plautus finds few plays such as this which make good men
better.†Yet there is little in his plays which makes men--to say
nothing of good men--worse. A bluff Shakespearean coarseness of
thought and expression there often is, together with a number of
atrocious characters and scenes and situations. But compared with the
worst of a Congreve or a Wycherley, compared with the worst of our
own contemporary plays and musical comedies, the worst of Plautus,
now because of its being too revolting, now because of its being too
laughable, is innocuous. His moral land is one of black and white,
mostly black, without many of those really dangerous half-lights and
shadows in which too many of our present day playwrights virtuously
invite us to skulk and peer and speculate.
Comparatively harmless though they are, the translator has felt obliged
to dilute certain phrases and lines.
The text accompanying his version is that of Leo, published by
Weidmann, 1895-96. In the few cases where he has departed from this
text brief critical notes are given; a few changes in punctuation have
been accepted without comment. In view of the wish of the Editors of
the Library that the text pages be printed without unnecessary
defacements, it has seemed best to omit the lines that Leo brackets as
un-Plautine[16]: attention is called to the omission in each case and the
omitted lines are given in the note; the numbering, of course, is kept
unchanged. Leo’s daggers and asterisks indicating corruption and
lacunae are omitted, again with brief notes in each case.
The translator gladly acknowledges his indebtedness to several of the

English editors of the plays, notably to Lindsay, and to two or three
English translators, for a number of phrases much more happily turned
by them than by himself: the difficulty of rendering verse into prose-- if
one is to remain as close as may be to the spirit and letter of the verse,
and at the same time not disregard entirely the contributions made by
the metre to gaiety and gravity of tone--is sufficient to make him wish
to mitigate his failure by whatever means. He is also much indebted to
Professors Charles Knapp, K.C.M. Sills, and F.E. Woodruff for many
valuable suggestions.
Brunswick, Me.,
September, 1913.
[Footnote 15: The Asinaria was adapted from the Ὀναγὸς of
Demophilus; the Casina from the ΚληÏούμενοι, the Rudens
from an unknown play, perhaps the Î á½µÏα, of Diphilus; the Stichus,
in part, from the Ἀδελφοί ά of Menander. Menander’s
Δὶς á¼Î¾Î±Ï€Î±Ï„ῶν was probably the source of the Bacchides,
while the Aulularia and Cistellaria probably were adapted from other
plays (titles unknown) by Menander. The Mercator and Trinummus are
adaptations of Philemon’s ἘμποÏος and ΘησαυÏός, the
Mostellaria very possibly is an adaptation of his Φάσμα, the
Amphitruo, perhaps, an adaptation of his Îὺξ μακÏá½±.]
[Footnote 16: It seemed best to make no exceptions to this rule; even
such a line as Bacchides 107 is therefore omitted. Cf. Lindsay,
Classical Quarterly, 1913, pp.