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

LIGHT DRAMA
quae ibi aderant forte linam aspicio adulescentulam
forma — sos. B6na, fortasse? SIMO Et uoltu, Sosia,
adeo modesto, adeo uemisto, ut nil supra. uo
qufa turn mihi lamentari praeter ceteras
ufsast, et quja erat forma praeter ceteras
honesta ac liberali, accedo ad pedisequas,
quae sit rogo: sororem esse aiunt — Chrysidis 1
perciissit flico animum: attat h6c jllud est, i »5
hjnc illae lacrumae, h?ec illast mfsericrdia!
sos. Quam timeo qu6rsum euadas! SIMO funus interim
procedit; sequimur; ad sepulchrum uenimus;
in fgnem imp6sitast; fletur. interea haec sorpr. . . (Andria 101—29)
SIMO Then, my son began spending a great deal of time with those who had been
Chrysis' lovers; he organised the funeral with them. He was gloomy all the while,
and sometimes he would burst into tears. 'Good', I thought, (no) 'He's taking
the death of this slight acquaintance very personally: what if he had fallen in love
with her himself? How deeply he •will feel for me, his father. 1 ' I thought these were
all the proper manifestations of a warm disposition and a well-trained character.
Well, to be brief, I myself also went to pay my respects at her funeral, (115)
not yet suspecting any trouble.
SOSIA Trouble? What?
SIMO /'// tell you. The body was brought out, and the procession set off. As we went
along, among the women who were assisting I happened to spot a particular young
lady. Her figure —
SOSIA — was good, perhaps?
SIMO — and her features, Sosia, (120) were so classic, so lovely that it was perfection.
As her grief seemed to be deeper than the others', and as she looked more decent and
lady-like than the others, I went up to the servant-women and asked who she was.
'The sister', they said, 'cf— Chrysis!' (125) It hit me at once. Aha, that's what it
meant, this was the cause of those tears, the cause of that 'compassion'.
SOSIA / don't like the way your story is going/
SIMO Meanwhile the funeral-procession went ahead; we followed; we came to the
tomb; she was placed on the pyr e; general weeping. Meanwhile the sister. . .
Simo had thought, rightly, that there was nothing between his son Pamphilus
and the deceased Chrysis; this was the more fortunate, since Simo had plans
for a good match for his son, and these were well advanced — without
Pamphilus' knowledge. Simo claims somewhat rhetorically — note the prosopopoeia
and argument a fortiori, 11 off. — that it was a father's sympathy for his
son's feelings that brought him, an embarrassed outsider, to attend the funeral
of the socially dubious Chrysis; and so it was, but Simo does not add that he
was concealing something from Pamphilus. The sequel is described with
freshness, irony, economy, and considerable unobtrusive art. It is fresh, for
this is a real death and a real funeral such as one never finds in Plautus. It is
125
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