Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

DRAMA
slave might suggest at the place equivalent to 964 in the original would be not
'assert their rights at law', but simply 'seize them'. For it was the dramatic,
not the legal situation, that was changed in Alexis. Agorastocles is now
required by a well-known convention of New Comedy to marry his beloved,
not simply have her as his concubine; that implies finding her family — and,
ironically, Father has just arrived and is listening. Secondly, and more urgently,
it is now vital to prevent either of the girls from returning to Lycus' house.
Earlier in the play we saw them depart for the festival of Venus at which they
are to dedicate themselves before beginning their professions as meretrices. At
the festival an unpleasant soldier has seen and taken a fancy to the younger
Anterastilis; he is now in Lycus' house waiting for her to return, and he is an
immediate threat to her chastity. As long as Agorastocles and Milphio had
thought that the girls were mere slaves, this had not mattered; the truth has
changed that. This is the organic reason for the soldier's role in Alexis' play:
Plautus' adjustments incidentally render the soldier all but irrelevant.
The denouement which Alexis had in mind seems clear. First, a recognitionscene
between Hanno and Agorastocles; next, as in Plautus, the return of the
daughters; then, the emergence and pacification of the disgruntled soldier;
finally, the return of Lycus, who capitulates not simply because Father has come
offering a ransom, still less threatening a lawsuit, but in virtue of the threat
posed by the first trick. This is a well-balanced and unitary action, and its
emotional interest lies precisely in the absence of any simple legal remedy.
There is no room for the proposal of a second trick such as Plautus includes as
an elaboration of the recognition and which will only work on premisses which
ruin the point of Alexis' play.
On this view, the whole episode in which the 'second trick' occurs must be
a Plautine addition, substituting for and expanding on a very brief transition
by Hanno to the subject of his daughters after the recognition of Agorastocles:
' What were you saying just now about two Carthaginian girls who have been
kidnapped? How old are they? Have they a nurse?' The passage in question is
1086-1110, and examination shows that it presents a number of dramatic and
dramaturgic flaws. Most strikingly, Agorastocles has nothing to say or do
from 1086 on, and is only brought back at 1136, with what in the circumstances
is an ineptly surprised question. In the closely-knit recognition which
ends at 1085, Agorastocles has been an excited protagonist: Plautus has simply
omitted him in his insertion, the purpose of which is to enhance the dwindling
role of Milphio. This alone is insupportable as homogeneous dramatic composition.
Next the transitions to and from the inserted episode are abrupt and
illogical. The change of subject at 1085/6 from Hanno's liberality and Agorastocles'
inheritance to Milphio's 'clever idea' is arbitrary; at n 10/11, Hanno has
not been told that the supposititious Carthaginian girls have a nurse, and there-
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