Introduction to classical Latin literature . er, said I. Then the other : Well, he is handsome, surely; * so she said : And noble. See how well his hair becomes him. Happy those women are with whom he wives. Did they say so ? Why yes I Both made me swear To-day Id bring you in procession by. To be too handsome is a piteous thing ! The cowardice, brutality, and lawless desires of this herohaving been duly laid bare, we have no objections when heis cudgelled, ridiculed, even defrauded, in the finale. Hehas none of Falstaffs wit and good humor to win our likingin spite of ns. But neither is there
Introduction to classical Latin literature . er, said I. Then the other : Well, he is handsome, surely; * so she said : And noble. See how well his hair becomes him. Happy those women are with whom he wives. Did they say so ? Why yes I Both made me swear To-day Id bring you in procession by. To be too handsome is a piteous thing ! The cowardice, brutality, and lawless desires of this herohaving been duly laid bare, we have no objections when heis cudgelled, ridiculed, even defrauded, in the finale. Hehas none of Falstaffs wit and good humor to win our likingin spite of ns. But neither is there any other character inthe play who calls out our deeper sympathy. The best of the prologues, that of the Trinummus,^^ re-fusing to betray the plot, says : Trinummus,V8S. 17 ff. The old men coming yonder will make clearThe story. In Greek, Thesaurus it wascalled. Philemon wrote it. Plautus, rendering itIn barbarous speech, called it Trinummus. .Thats all. Farewell. In silence now attend. One of the *old men is coming ont of his own house-. >5 _2 a g PLAUTUS 43 door, and speaks three lines to his wife within, the fourthas he gets out of her hearing : I beg you with a garland crown our Lar,* Goodwife, and pray that this our dwelling- placeBe prosperous, happy, blest and fortunate :—And that I presently may find you dead. Such merry Jests on wedded misery, evidently brought down the house, and are as much stock material as our gibes at stepmothers or mothers-in-law. Another type still familiar is thus satirized: it is the gossips . . Who, knowing nothing, claim to knowV»i, 205-9. ., ,, it all. What each intends, or will intend, they know. What in the queens ear the king said, they know. They know what Juno chatted of with Jove. What never was or is,—they know it, though. The Trinummus is the cleanest of all the Plautine plays ;partly because no feminine characters appear at all. The best plot, however, is the Captives, already men-tioned. Two young men, master and slave, f
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