Asides in New Comedy and the Palliata - Leeds International ...

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ECKARD LEFÈVRE, ASIDES IN NEW COMEDY AND THE PALLIATA Sostratos is really moved. The asides are to intensify the action. The young man, entering the sanctuary, exclaims (type IIc): 201 leuqer…wj gš pwj ¥groikÒj stin. ð [polut…]mhtoi qeo…, t…j ¥n me sèsai d[aimÒ]nwn; (A country girl, yet there’s a kind of poise ... O [honoured] gods, what power could save me now?) In both cases the asides spring from ethical thoughts. When, on the other hand, a little later the slave Daos utters a suspicious aside about Sostratos, the function is different (type IIa): 212 t… pote boÚleq' oØtos… ¤nqrwpoj: (This fellow here—whatever does He want?) Daos’ remark is guided by the action. It is far removed from Plautine silliness. Later on, Knemon has a meaningful aside when he sees the sacrificial procession passing by the house (type IIa): 431 toutˆ tÕ kakÕn t… boãletai; Ôcloj tij: ¥pag' j kÒrakaj. (What’s the meaning of This devilry? A horde! To hell with them!) The aside serves to shed light on Knemon’s character. It emerges from ethical categories. Enough said! The principal difference between Menander and Plautus is obvious: with regard to asides there is no way leading from one to the other. 3. Improvisatory Drama W.B. Segdwick comments on the asides in Amphitruo I 3: ‘The way the tender farewells are interrupted by the sarcastic asides of Mercury reminds one of Mephistopheles in Faust.’ 26 This is an interesting characterization. One might think that an English commentator would refer to Christopher Marlowe’s brilliant drama on Faust in this context. If Segdwick had thought of that, he would probably have quoted the correct title (The tragical History of) Doctor Faustus, not just Faust. Mephistopheles does have three asides in Marlowe’s drama. In II 1, when Faust signs the contract, he says: O, what will not I do to obtain his soul? A little later he remarks: I’ll fetch him somewhat to delight his mind. 26 1960, 96. 10
ECKARD LEFÈVRE, ASIDES IN NEW COMEDY AND THE PALLIATA These two statements are both in the A-text of 1604 and the B-Text of 1616. 27 The latter even has a third aside at the end of III 1. There Mephistopheles exclaims: So, so, was never devil thus blessed before! But one has to assume that Segdwick refers to Goethe’s Faust. Goethe only got to know Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus in 1818—more than thirty years after the composition of Faust I. Therefore the manner of speaking of his Mephistopheles does not follow the ways of the English drama. In Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe himself says how he became acquainted with the Faust material, namely via the puppet theatre: ‘Die bedeutende Puppenspielfabel des andern [sc. Faust] klang und summte gar vieltönig in mir wider.’ 28 Thus it is the puppet show that Goethe had in his mind when writing the Faust. Marlowe for his part owes a lot to the ‘low’ kinds of drama. One of the characters in Doctor Faustus is Robin, the fool. During his first appearance on stage in I 4 he instantly makes use of an effective aside in his dialogue with Wagner. But on the whole Marlowe employs this technique very sparingly. In England it is common in the ‘low’ morality plays and interludes; in these kinds of plays the characters called Vice are designed to display ‘in parodistischer Weise ihre teuflische Gegenwelt zum Göttlichen’ 29 (Mephistopheles!). 30 These Vices love to get into contact with the audience by means of asides. They—metatheatrically—hold up ‘dem Publikum einen Spiegel’. 31 Right up to Shakespeare, ‘low’ characters are dominant on the stage— for example, Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 32 ‘Oral’ traditions are being continued here. It is easy to understand that in the wake of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus the touring theatre companies in Germany incorporated plays on Faust into their programme in the seventeenth century; the puppet theatres, too, took hold of this effective subject matter. In composing such a Faust, Goethe places himself in the tradition of a ‘low’ kind of drama, which also includes improvisation every now and then. It fits in well with this fact that Mephistopheles is the fool of low social status in that tragedy. Even in Goethe’s Faust II he is conscious of his literary 27 The lines as quoted follow Bevington / Rasmussen 1995. 28 Part II, book 10. 29 Thomsen 1973, 70. 30 ‘In den Interludien entwickelt sich ... der Teufel zum vice und schließlich zum clown und fool. Komische Szenen werden immer breiter ausgestaltet, beherrschen weite Teile auch der moral interludes und öffnen schauspielerischer Virtuosität, clownesker Schlagfertigkeit und der Fähigkeit zu plötzlichem Extemporieren die Bühne’ (Thomsen 1973, 92-3). 31 Thomsen 1973, 70. Cf. Riehle 1964, 33: ‘Als sich das Drama mehr und mehr mit der niederen, alltäglichen Wirklichkeit ‚auffüllte‘, die ein Gegengewicht zum dargestellten Heilsgeschehen bildete, begannen auch die Schauspieler in unmittelbaren Kontakt mit dem Publikum zu treten und oft mit komischen, derb-realistischen zur Seite gesprochenen Kommentaren den Spielzusammenhang zu unterbrechen. Es ist eine bekannte Tatsache, daß die stock-figure des seelenverführenden Vice in der Moralität seine besondere Freude daran hatte, die Zuschauer direkt auf seine schlauen Pläne und seine Verstellungskünste aufmerksam zu machen.’ This is also what slaves do in Plautus, but not in Menander. 32 Even the protagonist of Shakespeare’s early drama Richard III, who comes up with an especially large number of asides, must be considered in this context. ‘Er ist verwandt mit dem vice, der populären diabolischen Clownfigur der Moralitätenspiele des Mittelalters’ (Spinner 1973, 153). 11
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