[Dis Exapaton]
and
[Bacchides, 494–561]
This important fragment of a play, once known only by some six single lines (including ‘whom the gods love dies young’), was first revealed and discussed by Professor E. W. Handley in his Inaugural Lecture at University College, London.1 Any fragment of New Comedy that is restored to us is valuable and important, But the unique importance of this fragment is that it allows us for the first time to place part of a Roman comedy against a reasonable portion of its Greek source. For Menander’s The Double Deceiver is the original of Plautus’s The Two Bacchises, and a comparison of the two plays illuminates both Menander and Plautus for us. Plautus’s play provides the basic plot which enables us to make sense of the Menander fragment, and the possession of even some fifty lines of Menander’s play gives us valuable information about Plautus’s originality and dramatic art.
Plautus alters the title of the play. This was not unusual: Plautus’s Boastful Soldier, Rope and Trinummus (Three–bob Bit), as well as Terence’s Phormio, all indicate a change from the original title. The reason here was probably to provide a more attractive title for the rather less sophisticated Roman audience. Bacchis would be recognized as the name of a hetaira (prostitute), and Two Bacchises would give promise of confusion and intrigue connected with love affairs. Plautus also alters some of the names. Moschos becomes Pistoclerus, Sostratos becomes Mnesilochus, and Syrus is transformed into Chrysalus. The names are still Greek, But they belong less to ordinary life, and are more obviously ‘comic’ in sound and meaning. He alters some of the metre, too. Only Mnesilochus’s monologue (11. 500–525) stays in the original iambics: all the rest of the passage is presented by him in the longer, more elaborate trochaic lines. Finally, he alters the structure of the play. Roman comedy, performed in a different context and a different tradition, made no use of the Chorus which for Menander provided a kind of living curtain between the acts of his play. Menander presents the episode of the handing over of the money and the explanation of the slave’s trick, in two dramatic and realistic dialogues between father and son, the dialogues being separated by a choral interlude during which the transaction takes place off stage. Plautus cuts the dialogue scenes and the choral interlude, and replaces them with one long and one short monologue by Mnesilochus (the long one full of particularly Plautine jokes), between which Mnesilochus makes a purely conventional withdrawal lasting for four lines of the text, to hand over the money and to plead for Chrysalus. Some of the dialogue is elaborated, too, notably in the scene between the two young men, where there is much more ‘moralizing’ in Plautus than there is in the text of Menander.
All these changes combine to produce a difference in tone. Plautus is broader, more emphatic and elaborate in his comedy and his comic effects, playing for a laugh rather than an appreciative smile. Menander is more naturalistic in his characterization and dramatic action, and his effects are more subtle and economical. This we had expected, but it is agreeable to have it confirmed by the possession of a portion of parallel texts.
From a comparison of these parallel texts, we can produce the following summary of the action of the play. A young man (Sostratos in Menander/Mnesilochus in Plautus) is sent by his father (Unknown/Nicobulus) from Athens to Ephesus, to collect some money that is due to be paid. There he falls in love with a girl (Unknown/Bacchis), who is ‘contracted’ to an army officer and soon has to leave with him for Athens. Sostratos writes to a friend (Moschos/Pistoclerus), asking him to find the girl in Athens. Moschos finds her with her sister (also called Bacchis in Plautus), with whom he falls in love. His tutor (Lydos in both plays) strongly disapproves of Moschos’s behaviour, and brings Moschos’s father (Unknown/Philoxenus) to remonstrate with him.
At this point, Sostratos and his servant return with the money, which the servant manages to keep for the purchasing of the first girl’s ‘contract’ by telling the father that they had been unable to collect it in Ephesus. The young man meets the father and tutor of his friend Moschos and, hearing their story, naturally assumes that his friend is deceiving him and decides to tell his father the truth and hand over the money. The father and tutor ask for his help in rescuing Moschos, and it is in the middle of this scene that our fragment of Menander’s play begins.
It is clear from the Plautine play that the confusion between the two friends is quickly sorted out. But the problem of getting the money back remains, and it is for this purpose that the second deception of the father by the slave is required. All is eventually revealed, and the fathers are beguiled by the girls into allowing a happy ending for the two pairs of lovers.
SOSTRATOS, a young Athenian gentleman
HIS FATHER
SYROS, his servant
MOSCHOS, another young Athenian gentleman
HIS FATHER
LYDOS, Moschos’s tutor
TWO SISTERS, both called by the same name
The text begins towards the end of Act Two of the play.
SCENE: a street in Athens, with at least two houses, one probably the home of the girls, the other that of Sostratos’s father.
MOSCHOS’S FATHER [to SOSTRATOS]: Get him out, tell him off to his face, save him and our whole family, for we are your friends. Come on, Lydos, let’s go.
LYDOS: Suppose you leave me here too –
FATHER: Let’s go, I said. He can cope.
LYDOS: Go for him properly, Sostratos, keep at him. He’s lost all control, he’s a disgrace to all who love him. [They go off, right.]
SOSTRATOS: Well, that does for Moschos. She’ll hold on to him. (But you got your claws into Sostratos first, my lady.) She’s a fighter, and I know she’ll deny it – and bring all the hosts of heaven [20] into the act to back her. I only hope… oh, to hell with her. Moves towards the door.] Wait a bit; perhaps she’ll beguile you, Sostratos. I’m completely her slave, but just let her try her wiles on a man with empty pockets! I’ll give the money to my father. She’ll soon stop making up to me when she finds that she’s conversing, as they say, with a corpse.2 Well, I must go and find him. [As he moves [30] towards the house, his father emerges from it.]
Some badly damaged lines indicate that they converse about the money, and that Sostratos contradicts the story previously told by Syros.
SOSTRATOS: Don’t for a minute blame your good friend. I’ve [50] brought it here for you.
FATHER: Then give me the money, boy, quickly.
SOSTRATOS: You’ll get it. Take no notice of that silly story. No one did any close–anchoring or plotting,3 no one at all.
FATHER: Then the money wasn’t deposited with Theotimos?
SOSTRATOS: What do you mean ‘with Theotimos’? Your friend took the money and managed it himself, and his investments always pay well, Father.
FATHER: Yes, he’s a good chap, he always did use his head. So what was Syros up to?
SOSTRATOS: Forget it. Come with me and get the money.
FATHER: Are you serious?
SOSTRATOS: Come and get it. [60]
FATHER: All right, I’m coming. Just hand it over, and you’ll have behaved properly, just as you should. I’m not going to quarrel with you before I get it. That matters to me more than anything. [They go into the house.]
SECOND CHORAL INTERLUDE
[Enter SUSTRATOS and his FATHER.]
The beginning of the act is damaged, and the subject of their conversation is not clear until:
FATHER: I’m off to town, I’ll deal with that. You’ve got something else to do. [Hegoes off, right.] [90]
SOSTRATOS: And now that my pockets are empty, I think I’d like to see my fine lady–love making up to me, and expecting – ‘this instant’, she says to herself– all the cash I’m carrying. ‘For he’s got it all right, and he’s certainly generous – the very best – and I’ve earned it. ‘With her fine foot–work, she’s certainly turned out to be just what I once thought she was. But Moschos is a fool, and I’m sorry for him; I’m furious with him, and yet I don’t altogether blame him for letting me down; it’s her, the bold piece. [100]
MOSCHOS [entering from the girls’ house, and speaking back over his shoulder]: Then if he knows I’m here, where is he? Oh, hello, Sostratos!
SOSTRATOS [curtly]: Hello.
MOSCHOS: Why so glum and gloomy, for goodness’ sake? There are even tears in your eyes. Has something else gone wrong?
SOSTRATOS: Yes.
MOSCHOS: Then tell me about it.
SOSTRATOS [pointing]: Inside there, of course.
MOSCHOS: What do you mean?
SOSTRATOS: You’ve always claimed to be my friend, but now… This is the first time you’ve ever let me down.
MOSCHOS: Let you down, Sostratos? God forbid! [110]
SOSTRATOS: No, I didn’t think you would have, either.
MOSCHOS: What can you mean?
PHILOXENUS: Mnesilochus, please try and bring his passionate temper under control. Save yourself a friend, and me a son.
MNESILOCHUS: Yes, of course.
PHILOXENUS: Then I’m leaving the whole business in your hands. Lydus, come with me.
LYDUS: I’m coming. But much better leave me here with him too.
PHILOXENUS: He can cope.
LYDUS: Mnesilochus, take over, go and dress him down properly. He’s a perfect disgrace to you, to me and to all his friends, with his dissolute behaviour. [They go off, right.]
MNESILOCHUS: I simply don’t know which of them to think is now [500] my worse enemy, my old friend or Bacchis. Wanted him instead of me, did she? She can have him! That’s fine. But I tell you this, she’ll certainly pay for what she’s done. Heaven help me, if I don’t absolutely and completely – love her. I’ll make sure she won’t say she’s found someone to laugh at: I’ll go straight home and – rob my father. What I steal, I’ll – give to her. Oh, I’ll get my own back on her in all sorts of ways. I’ll press her so hard that there’ll be beggary – for my father. But I must be clean out of my mind, maundering [510] on here like this about what’s going to happen. God! I’m in love, I think – as if I didn’t know. But she’ll never be a fraction of a feather’s weight heavier from my money. I’d be the most beggarly beggar before that. Never, I assure you, never in her life will she make a fool of me. I’ve made up my mind: I’ll pay over every penny of the money to my father, this minute. So she’ll be making up to me when my pockets are empty and I haven’t a penny, when it’ll have no more effect than if she were prattling away at a dead man’s grave. I’ve quite made up my mind to hand the money over [520] to my father: that’s final. When I do, I’ll ask him, as a favour to me, to let Chrysalus off, and not to be angry with him for fooling him over the money. He did it for me, and it’s only fair that I should look after him, when it was to help me that he made up the story. [To servants] Come with me. [They go into Philoxenus’s house as PISTO CLERUS emerges from Bacchis’s house.]
PISTOCLERUS [speaking back over his shoulder]: I’ll give your instructions top priority, Bacchis. I’m to find Mnesilochus and bring him to you immediately. In fact, I can’t imagine what’s keeping him, if he got my message. I’ll call at his house here, and see if he’s at home.
MNESILOCHUS [emerging from the house]: I’ve handed over all the [530] money to my father. Now that my pockets are empty, now’s the moment I should like her to approach me – my saucy Miss. Gosh, how reluctant my father was to let Chrysalus off when–1 asked him. But I finally persuaded him to keep his temper.
PISTOCLERUS: Isn’t this my friend?
MNESILOCHUS: Isn’t this my enemy that I see?
PISTOCLERUS: Yes, it is.
MNESILOCHUS: It is. I’ll go and meet him.
PISTOCLERUS: Hello, Mnesilochus, glad to see you.
MNESILOCHUS: Hello.
PISTOCLERUS: We must have dinner, to celebrate your safe return from abroad.
MNESILOCHUS: I’ve no desire for a dinner that makes me sick.
PISTOCLERUS: You surely haven’t caught some complaint as you arrive home?
MNESILOCHUS: I have indeed, a very severe one.
PISTOCLERUS: Where from?
MNESILOCHUS: From a man I thought was my friend, until now.
PISTOCLERUS: There are plenty of people like that. You think [540] they’re your friends, But they turn out to be false friends, unreliable. They’re active talkers, but poor performers, and they’re very likely to leave you high and dry. They envy everyone who’s lucky and prosperous. They’re never envied, their own indolence takes good care of that.
MNESILOCHUS: You certainly seem to have a very good idea of those gentry and their ways. But there’s one thing you could add: their harmful nature brings harm upon themselves. They’re friends to no one, but every man’s hand is against them. They’re really deceiving themselves, the fools, though they think they’re deceiving others. Just like this man that I thought was as fond of me as I am of myself. He bent all his efforts and took [550] great pains to do me all the harm he could, and to cheat me out of all I had.
PISTOCLERUS: He must be a perfect villain.
MNESILOCHUS: Exactly my own opinion.
PISTOCLERUS: For goodness’ sake, tell me, who is he?
MNESILOCHUS: Oh, a friend of yours. Otherwise I’d be asking you to do him what damage you could.
PISTOCLERUS: Just tell me who the fellow is. If I don’t rough him up somehow, you may dub me an arrant coward.
MNESILOCHUS: He is a villain, but I assure you he’s a friend of yours.
PISTOCLERUS: All the more reason for telling me who he is. I do not care for a villain’s favour.
MNESILOCHUS: I see I’ll have to tell you his name. You, Pistoclerus, you’ve ruined me utterly, though I was your friend. [560]
PISTOCLERUS: What?