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The Stichïïs Op Plautus 1 ‘'THE STICHÏÏS OP PLAUTUS: An Introduction and Elementary Commentary" A LISSERTATIOU Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the University of London by JEANETTE DEIRDRE COOK Bedford College, December, 1965 ProQuest Number: 10097283 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10097283 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT This dissertation is composed of two parts» The Introduction comprises sections on Comedy in general, on Plautus's life, on the metres and the manuscripts of his plays » With the exception of the section on the structure of the Stichus, it is a restatement of the situation as generally accepted by scholars today. The question of the structure of the Stichus is still a matter of contention, and the leading views on this subject have been discussed critically in this section» The Commentary is intended for the level of an undergraduate reader and comprises notes on grammar, syntax and general interpretation» The more detailed points concerning the metre are also discussed in the notes. The text used is Wc Mo Lindsay’s edition (Oxford Classical Text), though in a few instances (notably at lines 63 , 121, 365 , 529, 617) readings and emendations other than those which appear in the Oxford Classical Text have seemed preferable » ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my supervisor, Professor R.B» Onians, and other members of the staff at Bedford College, especially Mrs» G. Wilkinson and Mr» J. Lowe, for their help and guidance » I should also like to express my gratitude to the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom, who have enabled me to complete the necessary research and study for this degree. 4 TABLE OE CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION 5 Origins and Development of Comedy 6 in Italy and Greece Life of Plautus 10 Structure of the Stichus 13 Metres of the Stichus 19 Manuscripts of Plautus 30 APPENDICES 166 Metrical Notes 167 The Stage 176 BIBLIOGRAPHY 179 ABBREVIATIONS 184 INTRODUCTION 6 ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OE COMEDY IN ITALY AND GREECE Harvest is a time when people turn their thoughts and offer thanks to the gods of fertility » It is a religious time and a time for rejoicing. In an agricultural community, it was the most important time of the year, v/hen the storing of the harvest marked the culmination of the year’s hard labours. An air of abandon prevailed and celebrations often took a licentious turn.^ in Italy it was o at this time that ’ Eescennine ’ verses were sung, a form of licentious banter, responsive and improvised, and composed probably in the native Saturnian metre (see p. ID).3 In 364 B C., according to Livy, dancers were brought from Etruria to rid the city of a plague. The satura, which later evolved into a purely literary form known by us as ’satire’, was probably originally a combination of Eescennine verses and an accompaniment of music and dancing, which, if we are to follow Livy’s account, had been learned from Etruria. In Campania, the native form of drama was the Atellan farce, which must have been composed originally in Saturnians or possibly trochaic septenarii, but later in the regular metres of comedy. 1. Wo Beare, The Roman Stage, 2nd ed., London Methuen, 1955 , p. 9° 2. The origin of the word was uncertain in ancient as well as modern times. It may be from Eescennium, a town on the confines of Etruria, or from fascinum meaning ’phallus’. Both interpretations are possible As has been seen, scenic performances in Italy were influenced by Etruria at least at a later stage, and the phallic element of Greek Old Comedy is well known 3. W. Beare, loc. cit. 4 o G.E. Duckworth, The Nature of Roman Comedy, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1952. 7 Fragments of some later farces survive, but the earlier ones were probably even cruder, and were characterized by general tomfoolery and farcical situations involving stock characters (the fool, the glutton, the foolish old man, the sly hunchback). The Atellan farces, too, contained a large element of song and dance. They were influenced by the Greek farces of Southern Italy, the ’Phlyakes’, much akin to mime. Actors in Atellan farces, unlike the ordinary run of actors,^ appear to have been quite respectable. Livy states (Vll, ii) that they kept p their citizen rights and also served in the army. The performances were always masked.^ The pre-literary Italian mimes were probably native to Italy, but later were influenced to a large extent by the Greek mimes. They were farces in which mimetic action played a great part and they seem to have contained a great deal of indecency and buffoonery. The word ’ comedy ' originates from the Greek a ’ drunken revelIn Greece, the comic chorus seems to have originated from the songs sung in 1. Through the ages, there has always been a stigma attached to the acting profession. But in Ancient Rome, as today, famous actors, such as Roscius, of the time of Cicero, seem to have been held in the utmost esteem. 2, Livy also mentions that actors (in all but Atellan farces) could not serve in the army. Tenney! Prank, (Life and Literature in the Roman Republic, Bather Classical Lectures vol. 7, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1930, p.9l), suggests that originally actors were exempt from army service for practical purposes because of the dearth of actors in the early days, but that- later, as the profession fell more and more into disrepute, it was considered morally appropriate to refuse them entrance into the army. 3c See Appendix on the Stage, p.177. 4c A.V/. Pickard - Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy 2nd ed., rev, by T.B.L. Webster, Oxford : Clarendon ]p]?eE3E3, . :L!3:2 . 8 honour of the god Dionysus, the god of fertility, and this would explain the obscenities apparent especially in Old Comedy. The introduction of actors originated probably from Doric Comedy. The first known writer of comedies was Epicharmus of Sicily, who composed short comedies in simple dialogue metre in the Doric dialect. They represented scenes from everyday life or were burlesques of mythology, and had no chorus. It was the Dorians of Sicily also who first gave rise to the form of drama known as the mime, which was very popular in Italy. Knowledge today of Old Comedy rests to a large extent on the surviving plays of Aristophanes. His plays are remarkable for their exuberant farce, their brilliant political and personal invective, their rich polymetry and their wild fantasy. In many of his plays, the chorus was dressed as animals, after which the play took its name (The Birds, The Erogs etc.) The humour was often very coarse, unlike the refined and sophisticated tones which the New Comedy was to adopt o Erom 404 B.C. on, after the Eall of Athens, Greek Comedy became more universal in its appeal. Political invective was outlawed, and in the days of the Middle Comedy, about which little is known, the emphasis switched to more everyday concerns, and mythological travesties were also popular themes.- Menander (ca. 342 - 291 B.C.) is the poet through whose works most is known about New Comedy. Only one of his plays (the Dyskolos) survives in full, but, apart from the great number of minor quotations which have survived (many of them are m a x i m s )b, there are also a few substantial fragments extant. It is the plays of New Comedy which the Roman playwrights used, to a greater or lesser extent, as models for their plays. 1 . See notes, 1.139f» 9 The drama of Plautus's native Italy, at the time when he began composing,^ had not undergone the refinements and sophistications which influenced Greek Comedy,in the fourth century, And partly because of the influence which these native forms of drama exercised on him, partly because of his own nature, the spirit of Plautus's plays is often far more akin to that of Aristophanes' than to that of Menander's The elements which typified Latin drama before Plautus were above all the song and dance and the buffoonery; and there is plenty of all this in Plautus ' 3 plays .. ^ lo Of the work of his literary predecessors, Andronicus and Naevius, only fragments survive. Livius Andronicus, a freedman, Greek by birth, translated the 'Odyssey' from the Greek into Saturnians and several tragedies and fewer comedies, imitating the quantitative metres of his originals. Naevius composed an epic, also in Saturnians, as well as adapting Greek tragedies and comedies for Roman audiences. His forte appears to have been comedy, into which he introduced personal invective, for which he was eventually imprisoned. 2c On Plautine cantica, see p . 27 . There is little horseplay in the Stichus until the final act, but a great deal of fooling, largely at the expense of the parasite. 10 LIEE OE PLAUTUS Cicero tells us (Pr. XV, 60) that Plautus died in 184 B.C. and was an old ipan when the Pseudolus was produced in 191»^ It is generally accepted, then, that he was born in or around 254 B.C.
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