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The Beginning of Menander, ΑΔΕΛΦΟΙ B

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

John N. Grant
John N. Grant
Affiliation:
Scarborough College, Toronto
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Extract

Eventually and inevitably the study of a Roman comedy leads to the question of its relationship to the Greek model and to the nature of the original play. In recent years Terence's Adelphoe has stimulated numerous publications on the Menandrian comedy and on the changes which were made by the Latin dramatist. Greatest attention has been paid to the ending of the Greek play. This article, however, will examine the first two ‘acts’ of the Terentian comedy and will offer a reconstruction of its primary model that differs from those that have been proposed in the major studies on this problem.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , December 1980 , pp. 341 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1980

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References

1 The most important studies on this topic are H. Drexler, ‘Die Komposition von Terenz’ Adelphen and Plautus' Rudens, ', Philologus Suppl. Bd. 26.2 (1934), 1–40Google Scholar; Rieth, O., Die Kunst Menanders in den Hildesheim, 1964), edited (with a postscript) by K. Gaiser. Reference will also be made to E. Fantham, ‘Terence, Diphilus and Menander. A re-examination of Terence, Adelphoe, Act II,’ Philologus 112 (1968), 196–216, who exposes some of the weaknesses in Rieth's and Gaiser's reconstructions. Other and earlier works some times make good isolated points but do not treat the matter systematically.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Rieth, p. 48: ‘Als Basis [i.e. for the reconstruction] kann die Rolle des Syrus dienen.’; Drexler, p. 33 n. 40; Fantham, p. 205. An exception is Nencini, F., De Terentio eiusque fontibus (Livorno, 1891), p. 133: ‘eum [Syrum raptioni interfuisse yeti est simillimum’. Other aspects of Nencini's reconstruction are very unconvincing. He thought, for example, that II. 2 was also derived from Diphilus.Google Scholar

3 This is implied, if not stated in most reconstructions.

4 It has been suggested that the wording of the scholion does not necessarily mean that Donatus was referring to Menander's Ade1phoi but that he was citing a Menandrian tag which the Latin of this context brought to mind; see Drexler, p. 7 n. 7.

5 On this see Gomme, A. W. - Sandbach, F. H., Menander. A commentary (Oxford, 1973), pp. 16–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Sandbach, F. H., ‘Menander and the three-actor rule’, in Le Monde grec. Hommages à Claire Préaux (Brussels, 1975), pp. 197–204, where the Roman plays based on Menandrian models are discussed.Google Scholar

6 So Drexler, pp. 34 ff.; Gaiser in Rieth, p. 139; R. H. Martin in his recent edition of the play (p. 134).

7 Büchner, Karl, Das Theater des Terenz (Heidelberg, 1974), p. 380, points out how poorly informed the audience is about the prehistory of the play.Google Scholar

8 On Ad. 275 Donatus notes a differenc between the Greek and Roman plays: ‘Menander mori ilium [Ctesiphonem] voluisse fingit, Terentius profugere.’ It is possible that the Donatus commentary is not correct on this point: see Grant, J. N., GRBS 12 (1971), 201Google Scholar ff. Even if it is, there is no need to change the time of the brother meeting from the early morning. It must be admitted that a meeting at the cena cannot be excluded but it seems less likely than a chance meeting in the early morning, with which other evidence is consistent. For an attempt to place Ctesipho at the cena see Havet, L., ‘La nuit de l'enlèvement dans l'original grec des Adelphes’, Mélanges du cinquantennaire de l'école pratique des Hautes Études (Paris, 1921), pp. 1–11.Google Scholar

9 Cf. Men. Kolax 122 ff. See KoerteThiefelder on fr. 4 and Martin on verses 199–200, who suggests (= ‘abduxit meam’). The paradosis, however, if Wessner is to be believed, is clearly .

10 Syrus is described as impulsor at 215 and 560.

11 Cf. Rieth, p. 32 n. 61.

12 See, e.g., Fantham, pp. 209 ff., for criticism of the chronological difficulties in the reconstruction of Rieth-Gaiser.

13 One expects the addition of salve or ‘te advenire gaudeo’ or some such phrase by Syrus. I punctuate therefore with a dash after Ctesipho.

14 Drexler, pp. 23 f., aceriheri 260–1 to Terence. I agree with this, as will become apparent, but Drexler exaggerated the difficulties involved in the form of the greeting and in the presence of hem.

15 In this view I agree in general with Drexler, pp. 24 ff., who pointed out the similarities between 256–9 and 268–70. He also dismissed 254–5 as Terentian invention because of their intolerable triteness. With this latter point I disagree. Rieth, , Gnomon 10 (1934), 645, rather strangely argued that the gnomic nature of 254–5 showed that they must have begun a monologue in Menander as in Terence.Google Scholar

16 Cf. Büchner, p. 379: ‘Hier erreicht die Rede letzte Intimität, Sannios and Syrus’ Anwesenheit ist fast vergessen, die Stimmung fast tragisch⃜'

17 It is interesting to note that Achilles says at I.A. 973, just before the speech of Clytemnestra quoted above.

18 I have not specifically argued this, but it follows from the prehistory of the play as reconstructed.

19 On 276 ff. see Drexler, pp. 13 ff.; Fantham, pp. 208 ff.

20 It must be said that the awkwardness is more apparent to a reader than it was to the audience. A producer could create stage business for comic effect at the pimp's expense.

21 Rieth, pp. 44 ff., thought that the entrance monologue in Menander was very much the same as it is in Terence. He believed that Menander deliberately made the pornoboskos forget his journey in the monologue in order to increase the dramatic effect of the succeeding scene when Syrus o reveals his knowledge of the journey to Cyprus.

22 Terence's procedure here would be similar to what he did at 278–9 when he reverted to the context at which he broke off the ‘Syrus’-‘Sannio’ scene (248 ff.). This is a well-known technique of Plautus; see Fraenkel, E., Elementi Plautini in Plauto (Florence, 1960), pp. 105 ff.Google Scholar

23 Fragment 13 (K.-Th.) may be relevant here: , . Gaiser (in Rieth, pp. 138, 140 n. 7) thought that these words may have been part of the prologue spoken by Syrus. But in a play where a central theme is the intellectual basis (or the lack of it) for bringing up children it is possible that itself was the speaker of the prologue.

24 Lefèvre, E., Die Expositionstechnik in den Komödien des Terenz (Darmstadt, 1969), pp. 45 ff.Google Scholar

25 Webster, T. B. L., An Introduction to Menander (Manchester, 1974), p. 115; cf. Sandbach, art. cit., p. 202. I have suggested, on other grounds, that Canthara may have been an invention of the Latin dramatist in Philologus 117 (1973),.70–5.Google Scholar

26 Geta says that he saw the raptio with his own eyes (332). One may wonder therefore why his entrance has been so long delayed. The simplest solution to this is to suppose that in the Greek original the slave has only heard of the raptio (so Webster, loc. cit.)

27 Act-divisions seem to be required before 516, 713, and 855. Webster, loc. cit., saw no need for a choral interlude between 854 and 855 and postulated the first act division immediately before the entry of the pornoboskos at 196, the second occurring before 355.