Translated (and with an introduction and notes) by Erich SegalBantam Books -- pb
New York -- 1969 --298pp
ISBN: 0-553-21169-2
Three rollicking funny plays from about 200 B.C.
The Braggart Soldier
The Brothers Menaechmus
The Haunted House
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I am so incredibly impressed with the Roman comedies. Whether Plautus or Menander, these authors knew what was funny. And in looking back on it, we learn that what is truy funny, stands the test of time. Good humor is based on the human condition, and that hasn't changed much over the centuries.
Translator, Erich Segal, does a fantastic job of keeping the meaning and style and rhythm of the lines, as well as the alliteration.
It can be a difficult trap, reading verse, but when one makes the effort to ignore the rhyme and focus on content, the results are well worth the read. I consider myself to be pretty adept at reading verse plays, but I noticed more than once that I had fallen into the trap of reading the rhyme and lost the sense of what I was reading and had to backtrack.
Of the plays themselves, The Braggart Soldier and The Brothers Menaechmus had me the most interested.
I mentioned the human condition and how it hasn't changed much. Take for example, this humorous section from The Braggart Soldier in which the slave Palaestrio talks to the old man Periplectomenus about marriage. The old man is dead set against it:
Per: Mine's the house of freedom --I am free-- I live my life for me./Thank
the gods, I'm rich enough. I could've married very well,/ Could've led a
wealthy wife of high position to the altar,/ But I wouldn't want to lead a
barking dog into my house!Pal: Yet remember -- children can be pleasant -- and it's fun to breed
'em.Per: You can breed 'em, give me freedom! That, by Hercules, is fun!
...
I'd be glad to marry someonewho would turn to me and ask me,/ "Dearest
husband, buy some wool, so I can make some clothes for you,/ First a tunic, soft
and warm, and then a cloak for winter weather,/ So you won't be
cold. " You'd never hear a wife say things like that!/ Why, before
the cock would crow, she'd shake me from my sleep and say,/ "Husband! Give
me money for a New Year's gift to give my mother!..."
And in The Brother Menaechmus, Menaechmus leaves his house and shrewish wife to hopefully visit his lover and he says:
However often I try to go out you detain me, delay me, demand such details
as/ Where I'm going, what I'm doing, what's my business all about,/ Deals I'm
making, undertaking, what I did when I was out./ I don't have a wife, I have a
customs office bureaucrat,/ For I must declare the things I've done, I'm doing,
and all that!
And even The Haunted House has a chacater make an aside: "Haven't you got smelly wives whose only perfume is their dowry?"
It would seem, from these great plays, that sex, fidelity, infidelity, and the desire to have the best of both worlds (a stable home life and the ability to sleep with anyone/anytime) is as timeless as written history.
Briefly, The Braggart Soldier is about just that... a soldier who considers himself beyond compare. He is given his one-upance by his slave who manages to trick the soldier out of the beautiful woman by convincing him that she has a twin and he drops her for her false sister.
The Brothers Menaechmus is about, as expected, a set of twins, both named Menaechmus (they were separated at birth and the caretakers for each thought that they had the chjild named Menaechmus). One is married and living in town and dallying with his girlfriend at every chance. The other just arrives in town and is confused for the local, which of course only creates more confusions.
The Haunted House is so named because the son and slave try to trick the father/master out of coming back into his house, telling him it is haunted, when in reality he is using it as a massive party house.
All fantastic and well worth reading. If only more schools and theatres would perform these hilarious classics!
