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

ECKARD LEFÈVRE, ASIDES IN NEW COMEDY AND THE PALLIATA
On the whole, Sosia has no less than 20 asides, commenting on Mercurius’
remarks about him (292, 293b-4, 295b-9, 304b-7a, 308a, 309a, 310-11, 312b,
313b-4a, 317, 319-20, 321b, 323a, 324, 325b-6, 328a, 329-30, 331b-2, 334, 335b-
40). It goes without saying that Mercurius has 19 asides in between. Thus this way
of continuously commenting on each other is carried to extremes in a way that
cannot be surpassed.
Whereas in I 3 the comic effect on a low level is caused only by the
comments contrasting with the action on a high level, the two speakers of low
social status in I 1 create the comic effect by their comments on each other.
Type IIc: After the introductory dialogue both Sosia and Mercurius summarize
what happened. Sosia says:
455 abeo potius. di immortales, opsecro vostram fidem,
ubi ego perii? ubi immutatus sum? ubi ego formam perdidi?
an egomet me illic reliqui, si forte oblitus fui?
nam hicquidem omnem imaginem meam, quae antehac fuerat, possidet.
vivo fit quod numquam quisquam mortuo faciet mihi.
Mercurius says:
463 bene prospere hoc hodie operis processit mihi:
amovi a foribus maxumam molestiam,
465 patri ut liceret tuto illam amplexarier.
The Amphitruo owes a great deal of its effect to the comic asides. If Mercurius
were taken out of I 3, the scene would lose its comic potential. It could then rather
be part of a tragedy. Sosia’s famous battle-account in I 1 would also lack its
incomparably comic dimension without the two comments by Mercurius in 248-9
and 263-70. This section, too, would then be more appropriate in a tragedy. 6
In particular, Plautus has his favourite characters make their witty remarks in
asides—surely to the audience’s delight. An especially sophisticated example can
be found in the Epidicus: the play’s eponymous slave comments on the dialogue
between the two young men Stratippocles and Chaeribulus (type IIa), in which
the former threatens to flog the slave if he will not provide him with the money he
needs:
124 salva res est: bene promittit. spero, servabit fidem.
125 sine meo sumptu paratae iam sunt scapulis symbolae.
This aside is, of course, not to be taken seriously. 7 The joke mainly consists in the
pun on the word symbolae, as Henricus Stephanus explains very well: 8
Symbolæ erant collectæ, seu pecuniæ, quæ ab iis, qui c o m m u n i s u m p t u
erant una cœnaturi conjectabantur, ut verbo Agellii utar, quo ille quasi nativam
vim toà sumb£llein, unde sumbol», ob oculos posuit ... Ad hanc igitur
significationem Poëta igitur alludens, jocosa metaphora utitur, & sumbol¦j
vocat t¦j sumballomšnaj plhg£j. tanquam videlicet verbero iste non unius,
6 Cf. Lefèvre 1999, 12-15 (with further literary references).
7 ‘Epidicus speaks ironically’ (Duckworth 1940, 179).
8 The quotation follows Gronovius 1664, 359.
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