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

DRAMA
heroine in Amphitruo, the matrona in her housewifely setting is kept behind
doors as much as possible, and appears only in plays where her husband is
unfaithful (Men., Asin., Cos.) and is severely restricted in her musical presentation.
The virgo is the opposite of the amans, being self-consistent, modesta, and
given to docta dicta. 1 The meretrix is exotic, extravagant, and amoral rather
than immoral. She is presented as the intellectual equal of the clever slave, being
docta, astuta, callida, faceta, mala, nequam, and taking the same detached view
of love as he. He never aims his tricks at her, and she sometimes helps or herself
sustains deceptions (Mil., Tru.).
'When Plautus had to deal with complex characters in his models, he thought
in terms of this simple Atellane-style typology, and mixed traits which are
strikingly incompatible by Menander's or Terence's standards. Hanno in the
Poenulus is perhaps the most extreme case, in whom are the violently disparate
elements of pater pius, senex lepidus, and servus callidus. In the same play
Adelphasium is dressed as a meretrix but is in fact a virgo; in her first appearance,
the mere fact that she is dressed as a meretrix is exploited by Plautus in his
episodic expansion of the scene to allow her to behave as a meretrix, even
though this is incompatible with her role as a whole and involves contradictions
and loose ends. 2 Euclio in Aidularia, Therapontigonus in Curculio,
Truculentus in his eponymous play, and many others have had their roles
simplified in this way. A character will sometimes explicitly adopt another's
characteristic role, e.g. Mercury's inept imitation of the parasitus at Amph.
ji5ff.
So much for Plautus' treatment of plot and typology. As we have seen
(pp. 85f.) there is a particularly violent contrast between the musical and metrical
forms of New Comedy and Plautus. Each of the three modes, speech, recitative,
and opera affects the presentation of character. The scale of time and space in
the spoken parts (iambic senarii) is closest to the audience's real world.
Addresses 'on the doorstep', remarks 'aside', and meetings here are usually
reasonably brief; but even in this mode Plautus happily offends against plausibility
when telescoping acts (Cist. 630/1, Men. 880/1) or recasting the dramaturgy
(Poen. J07S.) or preparing an episodic insertion (Poen. 975 ff.). The worlds
of recitative (trochaic septenarii) and of song (all the other metres) are much
more spacious and elastic. A character on stage will fail to notice a lengthy
canticum sung by someone entering (Bac. 925ff., Men. 966ff.). Running
slaves deliver long harangues out of all proportion to the size of the stage. 3
1 Persa 336—89, Poen. 284—312.
1 Poen. 210—329 is integral to the action of the play and based on an episode of the original, but
the sequel 330—409 is formless Plautine farce intended to promote Milphio's role. Fraenkel (i960)
2$3fF. wrongly regarded the •whole of 210—409 as lifted from another play.
3 Bac. 832 trls unos passus implies a stage about fifty feet wide, if we assume three doors and
symmetrical arrangement. Vitruvius, the size of theatres of the imperial era, and the lengths of many
harangues by running slaves are misleading evidence.
IIO
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008