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• The Haunted House Plautus Summary

Click here to download a slideshow from the 2008 production of Plautus' Mostellaria. Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254-184 B.C.) wrote over 100 comedies, of which. The Asinaria (Comedy of the Asses) deserves to be better known than it is.While it cannot claim to be Plautus’ greatest work, it displays a number of interesting features, particularly in its treatment of stock scenes and characters (Slater), and offers some truly hilarious moments.

Plautus (ca. 254-ca. 184 B.C.) was a Roman writer. His theatrical genius, vitality, farcical humor, and control of the Latin language rank him as Rome's greatest comic playwright.

During the 3d century B.C., Roman writers began to imitate the forms and contents of Greek literature. Unlike the early poets, Plautus confined himself to one area: translation and adaptation of Greek New Comedy (ca. 336-ca. 250 B.C.).

Knowledge of the life of Plautus, whose full name was Titus Maccius Plautus, is scant. Random remarks by later Roman writers and others furnish the questionable details. From Cicero the date of Plautus's birth can be placed about 254 B.C. and his death about 184 B.C. Festus, scholar of the 2d century A.D., gives Plautus's birthplace as the small town of Sarsina in Umbria, Italy. From Aulus Gellius, a grammarian from the 2d century, comes the traditional and fascinating, if brief, account of Plautus's life in Rome.

Plautus earned money by working in the theater but promptly lost it in trade. He returned to Rome penniless and for a time supported himself by working as a laborer in a flour mill. During this period he wrote three plays (not extant). Scholars who accept this romantic career suggest that it may have been reported in Plautine prologues now lost.

That Plautus earned money by theatrical work is generally accepted and may mean that he was a stagehand, carpenter, playwright, or actor. His mastery of stagecraft and comic effect suggests long experience as an actor prior to writing plays. Most intriguing is precisely how Plautus, an Umbrian from rural Sarsina, managed to acquire both a knowledge of Greek and the superb control of Latin displayed in his dramas.

His Works

The total of Plautus's plays is probably close to 50. Twenty plays are extant more or less in their entirety: Amphitruo (Amphitryon), Asinaria (The Comedy of Asses), Aulularia (The Pot of Gold), Bacchides (The Two Bacchides), Captivi (The Captives), Casina (Casina), Cistellaria (The Casket), Curculio (Curculio), Epidicus (Epidicus), Menaechmi (The Twin Menaechmi), Mercator (The Merchant), Miles Gloriosus (The Braggart Warrior), Mostellaria (The Haunted House), Persa (The Girl from Persia), Poenulus (The Carthaginian), Pseudolus (Pseudolus), Rudens (The Rope), Stichus (Stichus), Trinummus (The Three Penny Day), and Truculentus (Truculentus). Fewerthan 100 lines survive from the Vidularia (The Traveling Bag).

All the plays are based on Greek originals, especially those by the 3d-and 2d-century B.C. comic playwrights Menander, Diphilus, and Philemon. Dates for the production of only two plays are known: Stichus (200 B.C.) and the Pseudolus (191 B.C.). Approximate dates for some plays are derived from reference to contemporary persons and events, amount of sung verses, and various criteria of style and technique. Modern chronological studies suggest the following relative datings—early period: Asinaria, Mercator, Miles Gloriosus (ca. 205 B.C.), Cistellaria (before 201 B.C.); middle period: Stichus (200 B.C.), Aulularia, Curculio; late period: Pseudolus (191 B.C.), Bacchides, Casina (185/184 B.C.).

Plautus's Style

The middle of the 1st century B.C. witnessed a revival of interest in Plautus and the restaging of many of his plays with consequent altering of original prologues. Some plays have no prologue; others have deferred prologues; and still others have authentic prologues or prologues based on those composed by Plautus. Often the prologue furnishes the audience with details necessary to understanding the opening of a complicated plot, or it may even explain in advance the outcome of the play with a consequent loss of suspense and surprise but a gain of irony. As a rule, the Plautine play presents one plot with one problem and one set of characters; these simple plots of Plautus allow comic digression and repetition. Humorous passages loosely connected with the plot and violation of dramatic illusion are clear evidence of Plautus's concern for entertaining his audience with a good laugh even at the expense of careful workmanship and finish.

Themes display considerable variety. There are plays of subdued comedy (Captivi), sentimental comedy (Cistellaria), romance (Rudens), mythological travesty (Amphitruo), and coarse farce (Asinaria). Mistaken identity and deception, either individually or jointly, give rise to the misunderstandings and complications on which the plays turn. Plautus appears to rely on earlier native Italian farces for the devices of trickery and impersonation.

Plautus's Characterization

Roman comedy for the most part paid careful attention to delineation of character but within a framework of types in which subtlety, complexity, and individuality were severely restricted. The Plautine cast of characters often includes the traditional figures: the young man (adulescens) hopelessly in love but lacking the courage and resourcefulness to achieve his desires; the aged parent (senex) who must be deceived and won over; the slave (servus) whose cunning and bustling create humor and intrigue; the young girl (virgo) of acknowledged free birth or to be rescued from shame; the courtesan (meretrix) who may be mercenary or noble; the hungry but shrewd parasite (parasitus); the despised slave dealer (leno); and the soldier (miles) whose boasting is equaled only by his stupidity.

But Plautus's originality and desire to entertain his audience have particularized many stock characters by exaggerated and imaginative portrayal. Characters especially suited to farce (Euclio and Pyrgopolynices) are among Plautus's most memorable creations of imagination and fantasy.

Command of Language and His Influence

Plautus captures the language of ordinary life, and to it he contributes novelty, vitality, and spontaneity. At a time when the Latin language was still quite fluid in inflection, syntax, and vocabulary, Plautine selection, combination, and invention set a high standard. Dialogue is rapid, racy, and filled with assonance, alliteration, and picturesque expressions. The vocabulary exploits and augments the available supply of terms of affection and abuse. Often tautology catches the carelessness or garrulity of ordinary speech. Plautus has no rival in ability to coin comic terms and names, for instance, Bumbomachides Clutomestoridysarchides, 'Battlebomski Mighty-adviser-of-wretched-strategy.'

The plays of Plautus enjoyed immediate success during his lifetime and were restaged and read by Romans after his death. The Middle Ages found his language difficult and his morality objectionable. During and after the Renaissance in Italy and other European countries, Plautine comedies were staged, translated, and imitated in vernacular compositions. Lodovico Ariosto (1474-1533), called the true founder of the modern European stage, reproduced in an Italian setting, in his La cassaria and I suppositi, the form and spirit of Plautine models.

William Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors (1592) reflects the Menaechmi and the Amphitruo; and Ben Jonson's The Case is Altered (1597) blends the Aulularia and the Captivi. The esteem Plautus enjoyed among 16th-century dramatists is clear when Shakespeare has Polonius in Hamlet say, 'Seneca cannot be too heavy nor Plautus too light.'

Further Reading

Paul Nixon, Plautus (5 vols., 1916-1938), provides both text and translation of Plautus's works; translations are also given in G. E. Duckworth, The Complete Roman Drama (2 vols., 1942). For excellent treatment of almost every aspect of Plautus see Duckworth's The Nature of Roman Comedy (1952). Critical studies are Gilbert Norwood, Plautus and Terence (1932), and Erich Segal, Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus (1968). The Greek sources of Plautus's work are considered in Philippe E. Legrand, The New Greek Comedy (1917). Margaret Bieber, The History of the Greek and Roman Theatre (1939; 2d ed. 1961), includes discussion and illustrations of archeological remains. See also W. Beare, The Roman Stage (1950; 3d ed. 1965). □

Menaechmi, a Latin-language play, is often considered Plautus' greatest play. The title is sometimes translated as The Brothers Menaechmus or The Two Menaechmuses.

The Menaechmi is a comedy about mistaken identity, involving a set of twins, Menaechmus of Epidamnus and Menaechmus of Syracuse. It incorporates various Romanstock characters including the parasite, the comic courtesan, the comic servant, the domineering wife, the doddering father-in-law and the quack doctor. As with most of Plautus' plays, much of the dialogue was sung.^[1]

Plot[edit]

Moschus has twin sons, Menaechmus and Sosicles. Moschus decides to take only one of the twins, Menaechmus, with him on a business trip, while the twins are still young. During the trip, Menaechmus is abducted and adopted by a businessman who lives in Epidamnus, separating the twins. Their father dies of sorrow and their grandfather changes Sosicles' name to Menaechmus (i.e., Menaechmus of Syracuse). When the twins are grown to manhood, Menaechmus of Syracuse sets out in search of his brother. He arrives in Epidamnus, unaware that his twin brother is there also.

Here, the brother is first shown to be, with good cause, the despair of his jealous wife. He is seen leaving his house, berating his spouse as a shrew and a harpy, promising that she shall have good cause for her jealousy. He confides to Peniculus, a professional parasite, that he has stolen his wife's mantle and is going to give it to Erotium, a prostitute who lives next door.

The two go to Erotium's door, and the husband presents the mantle with many blandishments. He suggests that a fitting return would include a dinner for himself and Peniculus. Erotium agrees, and the two men go to the Forum for preliminary drinks while the meal is being prepared.

Meanwhile, the twin from Syracuse has arrived with Messenio, his slave. The latter warns him of the depravity of Epidamnus, urging an end to the search for his missing brother since their money is nearly gone. His master gives his purse for safekeeping to the slave who continues his warning against the cunning people of Epidamnus 'who think nothing of accosting a stranger' and bilking him of his money, when Erotium steps out of her house and endearingly accosts the Syracuse Menaechmus, thinking him to be his brother.

She asks why he hesitates to enter when dinner is ready, and the confused twin asks her, quite formally, what business he has with her. Why, the business of Venus, Erotium replies coyly. Messenio whispers to his master that the lady undoubtedly is a schemer for his money, and asks her if she knows his master. He is Menaechmus, of course, replies Erotium. This amazes the twin, but Messenio explains that spies of the city's thieves probably have learned his name.

Erotium, tiring of what she considers foolery, tells Menaechmus to come in to dinner and bring Peniculus. Peniculus, he answers, is in his baggage—and what dinner is she talking about? The dinner he ordered when he presented his wife's mantle, she replies. He first protests vainly that he hasn't any wife and has just arrived in the city, then begins to realize the possibilities of a dinner and a pretty girl. He sends Messenio to the inn, giving him orders to return for his master at sunset.

After the meal, he leaves his house with a garland on his head and the mantle over his arm; Erotium has told him to have it re-trimmed. He is chuckling over his luck—dinner, kisses and an expensive mantle—all for nothing, when the irate Peniculus, who has lost the Epidamnus twin in the Forum crowd, meets him and berates him for dining before he could arrive. Quite naturally treated as a stranger, Peniculus angrily rushes to tell the other twin's wife of the stolen mantle.

The Syracuse brother, further baffled because the unknown Peniculus addressed him by his name, is pinching his ear to make sure that he is awake when Erotium's maid comes out and hands him a bracelet to be taken to a goldsmith for repair. He suspects that something is amiss, and hurries off to the inn to tell Messenio of the happy shower of valuables that has been raining upon him.

Now the furious wife, told by Peniculus of her man's trick, rushes out of her house just in time to meet her husband returning from the Forum, expecting Erotium's banquet. She tells him to return the mantle or stay out of her house, and the husband goes to Erotium to get it, resolving to buy his sweetheart a better one. He is stupefied when she declares him a liar and a cheat, and tells him that she has already given him both the mantle and her bracelet. So the Epidamnus twin finds the doors of both his wife and mistress slammed in his puzzled face, and goes off to get the counsel of his friends.

The Syracuse Menaechmus returns, the mantle still over his arm, in search of Messenio, who has left the inn. His brother's wife sees him, and assuming him to be her husband, demands that he confess his shame. He asks her of what he should be ashamed—and, furthermore, why she should address a total stranger so. He adds that he didn't steal her mantle, that a lady gave it to him. This is too much for the wife, who calls her father from the house. The father, also assuming that he is the husband, tells him that he must be crazy. This idea seems an excellent means of escape for Menaechmus: he feigns insanity so violently that the father rushes off for a physician, the wife seeks safety in the house, and Menaechmus goes off to resume his hunt for Messenio.

As the father comes back with a doctor, the real husband returns. He flies into a rage when his wife and father-in-law add to his troubles by implying that he is quite mad. His anger convinces the doctor of his insanity, and he summons slaves to bind him and take him to an asylum. Just then, Messenio appears, and, thinking the struggling husband his master, overpowers the slave. As a reward he asks for his own freedom. The husband tells Messenio that he doesn't know him, but by all means to consider himself freed; then he begins to suspect he may really be a bit crazy when Messenio tells him that he will return shortly to give him the money he has been safeguarding. Husband Menaechmus is not too addled, however, to profess his ownership of the purse.

The husband goes to Erotium's house in further search of the mantle. The Syracuse twin returns, in his quest of Messenio, at the moment when the servant hurries back with his purse. His master upbraids him for having been gone so long, but the slave protests that he has just saved his owner from ruffians and has been set free. The master is pondering this new muddle when his twin appears from Erotium's house.

The two brothers rub their eyes in bewilderment on seeing each other, but explanations quickly bring recognition. They embrace. The happy master truly sets the slave free, and the brothers decide that the first Menaechmus shall go to live with his twin in Syracuse. Messenio announces an auction in the morning of the husband's goods, everything to go to the block—even the wife, if there be a buyer.

Adaptations and influences[edit]

This play was the major source for William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors.^[2] Shakespeare's work was in turn adapted for the musical theatre by Rodgers and Hart in The Boys from Syracuse and as the 1954 opera Double-Trouble by Richard Mohaupt (Libretto: Roger Maren).^[3].

A similar line of influence was Carlo Goldoni's 1747 play I due gemelli veneziani ('The two Venetian twins') (also adapted as The Venetian Twins in 1979). Shakespeare's Twelfth Night also features mistaken twins, the sister dressed as a boy.

Translations[edit]

• William Warner, 1595 [2] and [3]
• Henry Thomas Riley, 1912: Menaechmi (full text)
• Paul Nixon, 1916–38
• Edward C. Weist and Richard W. Hyde, 1942
• Palmer Bovie, 1962
• E. F. Watling, 1965
• Erich Segal, 1996
• Deena Berg and Douglass Parker, 1999
• David M. Christenson, 2010 [4]
• Dr. Richard E. Prior, Furman University, Classics
• Lionel Casson, 1960–63
• Wolfang de Melo, 2011 ^[4]

References[edit]

1. ^Paul L. MacKendrick, Herbert M. Howe, Classics in Translation, Volume II,1959, '[1]' May 11, 2011
2. ^Olive Classe, editor, Encyclopedia of Literary Translation, 2000, p. 1266
3. ^http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/work/30834
4. ^Plautus; Translated by Wolfgang de Melo (2011). Plautus, Vol II: Casina; The Casket Comedy; Curculio; Epidicus; The Two Menaechmuses. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN067499678X.

External links[edit]

• Menaechmi: full text in Latin and full text in English at Perseus.

The Haunted House Plautus Summary