laboured in conjunction, like our Beaumont and Fletcher, and who have made
such alterations on the Latin drama as they thought advisable in their age
and country. In this play, which was first acted in 1691, a young man, who
feigns to be dumb, is introduced as a page in a house where his mistress
resided. But although an Ethiopian eunuch, which was an article of state
among the ancients, may have attracted the fancy of Thais, it is not
probable that the French countess should have been so desirous to receive
a present of a dumb page. Those scenes in which the credulous father is
made to believe that his son had lost the power of speech, from the
effects of love and sorcery, and is persuaded, by a valet disguised as a
doctor, that the only remedy for his dumbness is an immediate union with
the object of his passion, are improbable and overcharged. The character
of the parasite is omitted, and instead of Thraso we have a rough blunt
sea captain, who had protected Zayde when lost by her parents.
The only English imitation of the _Eunuchus_ is _Bellamira, or the
Mistress_, an unsuccessful comedy by Sir Charles Sedley, first printed in
1687. In this play the scene lies in London, but there is otherwise hardly
any variation in the incidents; and there is no novelty introduced, except
Bellamira and Merryman’s plot of robbing Dangerfield, the braggart captain
of the piece, an incident evidently borrowed from Shakspeare’s Henry IV.
_Heautontimorumenos_. The chief plot of this play, which I think on the
whole the least happy effort of Terence’s imitation, and which, of all his
plays, is the most foreign from our manners, is taken, like the
last-mentioned drama, from Menander. It derives its Greek appellation from
the voluntary punishment inflicted on himself by a father, who, having
driven his son into banishment by excess of severity, avenges him, by
retiring to the country, where he partakes only of the hardest fare, and
labours the ground with his own hands. The deep parental distress,
however, of Menedemus, with which the play opens, forms but an
inconsiderable part of it, as the son, Clinia, returns in the second act,
and other incidents of a comic cast are then interwoven with the drama.
The plan of Clitopho’s mistress being brought to the house both of
Menedemus and his neighbour Chremes, in the character of Clinia’s
mistress, has given rise to some amusing situations: but the devices
adopted by the slave Syrus, to deceive and cheat the two old men, are too
intricate, and much less ingenious than those of a similar description in
most other Latin plays. One of his artifices, however, in order to melt
the heart of Chremes, by persuading him that Clitopho thinks he is not his
son, has been much applauded; particularly the preparation for this
stratagem, where, wisely concluding that one would best contribute to the
imposition who was himself deceived, he, in the first place, makes
Clitopho believe that he is not the son of his reputed father.
Terence himself, in his prologue, has called this play _double_, probably
in allusion to the two plots which it contains. Julius Scaliger absurdly
supposes that it was so termed because one half of the play was
represented in the evening, and the other half on the following
morning(307). It has been more plausibly conjectured, that the original
plot of the Greek play was simple, consisting merely of the character of
the Self-tormentor Menedemus, the love of his son Clinia for Antiphila,
and the discovery of the real condition of his mistress; but that Terence
had added to this single fable, either from his own invention, or from
some other Greek play, the passion of Clitopho for Bacchis, and the
devices of the slave in order to extract money from old Chremes(308).
These two fables are connected by the poet with much art, and form a
double intrigue, instead of the simple argument of the Greek original.
Diderot has objected strongly to the principal subject which gives name to
this play, and to the character of the self-tormenting father. Tragedy, he
says, represents individual characters, like those of Regulus, Orestes,
and Cato; but the chief characters in comedy should represent a class or
species, and if they only resemble individuals, the comic drama would
revert to what it was in its infancy.—“Mais on peut dire,” continues he,
“que ce pere là n’est pas dans la nature. Une grande ville fourniroit a
peine dans un siecle l’example d’une affliction aussi bizarre.” It is
observed in the _Spectator_(309), on the other hand, that though there is
not in the whole drama one passage that could raise a laugh, it is from
beginning to end the most perfect picture of human life that ever was
exhibited.
There has been a great contest, particularly among the French critics,
whether the unities of time and place be preserved in
_Heautontimorumenos_. In the year 1640, Menage had a conversational
dispute, on this subject, with the Abbé D’Aubignac, with whom he at that
period lived on terms of the most intimate friendship. The latter, who
contended for the strictest interpretation of the unities, first put his
arguments in writing, but without his name, in his “Discours sur la
troisieme comedie de Terence; contre ceux qui pensent qu’elle n’est pas
dans les regles anciennes du poeme dramatique.” Menage answered him in his
“Reponse au discours,” &c.; and, in 1650, he published both in his
_Miscellanea_, without leave of the author of the _Discours_. This, and
some disrespectful expressions employed in the _Reponse_, gave mortal
offence to the Abbé, who, in 1655, wrote a reply to the answer, entitled
“Terence Justifié, &c. contre les Erreurs de Maistre Gilles Menage, Avocat
en Parlement.” This designation of _Maistre_, proved intolerable to the
feelings of Menage. Hearing that the tract was full of injurious
expressions, he declared publicly and solemnly, that he never would read
it; but being afterwards urged to peruse it by some good-natured friends,
he consulted the casuists of the Sorbonne, and the College of Jesuits, on
the point of conscience; and having at last read it with their approval,
he wrote a full reply, which was not published till after the death of his
opponent.
In these various tracts, it was maintained by the Abbé, that unity of time
was most strictly preserved in the _Heautontimorumenos_, as a less period
than twelve hours was supposed to pass during the representation, the
longest space to which, by the rules of the drama, it could be
legitimately prolonged. Of course he adduces arguments and citations,
tending to restrict, as far as possible, the period of the dramatic
action. In the third scene of the second act, it is said _vesperascit_,
and in the first scene of the third act, _Luciscit hoc jam_. Now the Abbé,
giving to the term _vesperascit_ the signification, “It is already night,”
was of opinion, that the action commenced as late as seven or eight in the
evening, when Menedemus returned to Athens from his farm; that the scene
of the drama is supposed to pass during the Pithœgia, or festivals of
Bacchus, held in April, at which season not more than nine hours
intervened between twilight and dawn; that the festival continued the
whole night, and that none of the characters went to bed, so that the
continuity of action was no more broken than the unity of time. Menage, on
the other hand, contended that at least fifteen hours must be granted to
the dramatic action, but that this extension implied no violation of the
dramatic unities, which, according to the precepts of Aristotle, would not
have been broken, even if twenty-four hours had been allotted. He
successfully shews, however, that fifteen hours, at least, must be
allowed. According to him, the play opens early in the evening, while
Menedemus is yet labouring in his field. The festivals were in February;
and he proves, from a minute examination, that the incidents which follow
after it is declared that _luciscit_, must have occupied fully three
hours. Some of the characters, he thinks, retired to rest, but no void was
thereby left in the action, as the two lovers, Bacchis, and the slaves,
sat up arranging their amorous stratagems. Madame Dacier adopted the
opinion of Aubignac, which she fortified by reference to a wood engraving
in a very ancient MS. in the Royal Library, which represents Menedemus as
having quitted his work in the fields, and as bearing away his implements
of husbandry.
The poet being perhaps aware that the action of this comedy was
exceptionable, and that the dramatic unities were not preserved in the
most rigid sense of the term, has apparently exerted himself to compensate
for these deficiencies by the introduction of many beautiful moral maxims:
and by that purity of style, which distinguishes all his productions, but
which shines, perhaps, most brightly in the _Heautontimorumenos_.
That part of the plot of this comedy, where Clitopho’s mistress is
introduced as Clinia’s mistress, into the house of both the old men, has
given rise to Chapman’s comedy, _All Fooles_, which was first printed in
1605, 4to., and was a favourite production in its day. In this play, by
the contrivance of Rynaldo, the younger son of Marc Antonio, a lady called
Gratiana, privately married to his elder brother Fortunio, is introduced,
and allowed to remain for some time at the house of their father, by
persuading him that she is the wife of Valerio, the son of one of his
neighbours, who had married her against his parent’s inclination, and that
it would be an act of kindness to give her shelter, till a reconciliation
could be effected. By this means Fortunio enjoys the society of his bride,
and Valerio, her pretended husband, has, at the same time, an admirable
opportunity of continuing his courtship of Bellonora, the daughter of Marc
Antonio.
_Adelphi_.—The principal subject of this drama is usually supposed to have
been taken from Menander’s _Adelphoi_; but it appears that Alexis, the
uncle of Menander, also wrote a comedy, entitled _Adelphoi_; so that
perhaps the elegant Latin copy may have been as much indebted to the
uncle’s as to the nephew’s performance, for the delicacy of its characters
and the charms of its dialogue. We are informed, however, in the prologue,
that the part of the drama in which the music girl is carried off from the
pander, has been taken from the _Synapothnescontes_ of Diphilus. That
comedy, though the version is now lost, had been translated by Plautus,
under the title of _Commorientes_. He had left out the incidents, however,
concerning the music girl, and Terence availed himself of this omission to
interweave them with the principal plot of his delightful drama—“Minus
existimans laudis proprias scribere quam Græcas transferre.”
The title, which is supposed to be imperfect, is derived from two
brothers, on whose contrasted characters the chief subject and amusement
of the piece depend. Demea, the elder, who lived in the country, had past
his days in thrift and labour, and was remarkable for his severe penurious
disposition. Micio, the younger brother, was, on the contrary,
distinguished by his indulgent and generous temper. Being a bachelor, he
had adopted Æschinus, his brother’s eldest son, whom he brought up without
laying much restraint on his conduct. Ctesipho, the other son of Demea,
was educated with great strictness by his father, who boasted of the
regular and moral behaviour of this child, which, as he thought, was so
strongly contrasted with the excesses of him who had been reared under the
charge of his brother. Æschinus at length carries off a music girl from
the slave-merchant, in whose possession she was. Hence fresh indignation
on the part of Demea, and new self-congratulation on the system of
education he had pursued with Ctesipho: Hence, too, the deepest distress
on the part of an unfortunate girl, to whom Æschinus had promised
marriage; and also of her relations, at this proof of his alienated
affections. At last, however, it is discovered that Æschinus had run off
with the music girl, for the sake, and at the instigation, of his brother
Ctesipho. The play accordingly concludes with the union of Æschinus and
the girl to whom he was betrothed, and the total change of disposition on
the part of Demea, who now becomes so complete a convert to the system of
Micio, that he allows his son to retain the music girl as his mistress.
The plot of the _Adelphi_ may thus be perhaps considered as double; but
the interest which Æschinus takes in Ctesipho’s amour, combines their
loves so naturally, that they can hardly be considered as distinct or
separate; and the details by which the plot is carried on, are managed
with such infinite skill, that the intrigue of at least four acts of the
_Adelphi_ is more artfully conducted than that of any other piece of
Terence. At the commencement of the play, Micio summons his servant
Storax, whom he had sent to find out Æschinus; but as the servant does not
appear, Micio concludes that the youth had not yet returned from the place
where he had supped on the preceding evening, and is in consequence
overwhelmed with all the tender anxiety of a father concerning an absent
son. This alarm gives us some insight into the character of the young man,
and explains the interest Micio takes in his welfare, without shewing too
plainly the art and design of the author. His uneasiness, by naturally
leading him to reflect on the situation of the family, and the doubtful
part he had himself acted, brings in less awkwardly than usual one of
those long soliloquies, in which the domestic affairs of the speaker are
explained by him for the sake of the audience. Demea is then introduced,
having just learned, on his arrival in the city, that Æschinus had carried
off the music girl. His character and predominant feelings are finely
marked in the account which he gives of this outrage, dwelling on every
minute particular, and exaggerating the offences of Æschinus. This
passage, too, acquires additional zest and relish, on a second perusal of
the play, when it is known that the son so much commended is chiefly in
fault. The grief of the mother of the girl, who was betrothed to Æschinus,
and the honest indignation of her faithful old servant Geta, are highly
interesting. The interview of Micio with his adopted son, after he had
discovered the circumstances of this connection, is eminently beautiful.
His delicate reproof for the young man’s want of confidence, in not
communicating to him the state of his heart—the touches of good humour,
mildness, and affection, which may be traced in every line of Micio’s part
of the dialogue, as well as the natural bursts of passion, and ingenuous
shame, in Æschinus, are perhaps more characteristic of the tender and
elegant genius of Terence, than any other scene in his dramas. But the
triumph of comic art, is the gradation of Demea’s anger and distresses—his
perfect conviction of the sobriety of his son, who, he is persuaded by
Syrus, had shewn the utmost indignation at the conduct of Æschinus, and
had gone to the country in disgust, when in fact he was at that moment
seated at a feast—then his perplexity on not finding him at the farm, and
his learning that Æschinus, having violated a free citizen, was about to
be married to her, though she had no portion. Even his meeting Syrus
intoxicated augments his rage, at the general libertinism and extravagance
of the family. At length the climax of events is finally completed, by
discovering that the music girl had been carried off for the sake of his
favourite son, and by finding him at a carousal with his brother’s
dissolute family.
With this incident the fable naturally concludes, and it is perhaps to be
regretted that Terence had not also ended the drama with the third scene
of the fifth act, where Demea breaks in upon the entertainment. The
conversion of Demea, indeed, with which the remaining scenes are occupied,
grows out of the preceding events. He had met, during the course of the
play, with many mortifications—his anger, complaints, and advice, had been
all neglected and slighted—he had seen his brother loved and followed, and
found himself shunned; but such a change in long-confirmed habits could
hardly have been effected in so short a period, or by a single lesson,
however striking and important. His complaisance, too, is awkward, and his
generosity is evidently about to run into profusion.
But if all this be an impropriety, what shall we say of the gross
absurdity of Micio, a bachelor of sixty-five, marrying an old woman, the
mother of Æschinus’ bride, (and whom he had never seen but once,) merely
out of complaisance to his friends, who seemed to have no motive in making
the request, except that she was quite solitary, had nobody to care for
her, and was long past child-bearing—
—— “Parere jam diu hæc per annos non potest:
Nec, qui eam respiciat, quisquam est; sola est.”
Micio had all along been represented as possessed of so much judgment,
good sense, and knowledge of the world, that this last piece of
extravagance destroys the interest we had previously felt in the
character. Donatus, who has given us some curious information in his
excellent commentary on Terence, with regard to the manner in which he had
altered his comedies from the original Greek, says, that in the play of
Menander, the old Bachelor has no reluctance at entering into a state of
matrimony.—“Apud Menandrum, Senex de nuptiis non gravatur.” The English
translator of Terence thinks, that the Latin poet, by making Micio at
first express a repugnance to the proposed match, has improved on his
model; but it appears to me, that this only makes his unbounded
complaisance more improbable and ridiculous. Indeed the incongruity and
inconsistence of the concluding scenes of the _Adelphi_, have been
considered so great, that a late German translator of Terence has supposed
that they did not form a component part of the regular comedy, but were in
fact the _Exodium_, a sort of afterpiece, in which the characters of the
preceding play were usually represented in grotesque situations, and with
overcharged colours(310).
So much for the plot of the _Adelphi_, and the incidents by which the
conclusion is brought about. With regard to the characters of the piece,
Æschinus is an excellent delineation of the elegant ease and indifference
of a fine gentleman. In one scene, however, he is represented as a lover,
full of tenderness, and keenly alive to all the anxieties, fears, and
emotions of the passion by which he is affected. In the parts of Demea and
Micio, the author has violated the precept of Horace with regard to a
dramatic character:
—— “Servetur ad imum
Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.”
During four acts, however, the churlishness of Demea is well contrasted
with the mildness of Micio, whose fondness and partiality for his adopted
son are extremely pleasing. “One great theatrical resource,” says Gibbon,
“is the opposition and contrast of characters which thus display each
other. The severity of Demea, and easiness of Micio, throw mutual light;
and we could not be so well acquainted with the misanthropy of Alceste,
were it not for the fashionable complaisant character of Philinte(311).”
Accordingly, in the modern drama, we often find, that if one of the lovers
be a gay companion, the other is grave and serious; like Frankly and
Bellamy, in the _Suspicious Husband_, or Absolute and Faulkland in the
_Rivals_. Yet in the _Adelphi_, the contrast, perhaps, is too direct, and
too constantly obtruded on the attention of the audience. It has the
appearance of what is called antithesis in writing, and, in the conduct of
the drama, has the same effect as that figure in composition. Diderot, in
his _Essay on Dramatic Poetry_, also objects to these two contrasted
characters, that, being drawn with equal force, the moral intention of the
drama is rendered equivocal; and that we have something of the same
feeling which every one has experienced while reading the _Misanthrope_ of
Moliere, in which we can never tell whether Alceste or Philinte is most in
the right, or, more properly speaking, farthest in the wrong.—“On diroit,”
continues he, “au commencement du cinquieme acte des _Adelphes_, que
l’auteur, embarassé du contraste qu’il avoit etabli, a été contraint
d’abandonner son but et de renverser l’interet de sa piece. Mais qu’est il
arrivé: c’est qu’on ne scait plus a qui s’interesser; et qu’apres avoit
eté pour Micion contre Demea, on finit sans savoir pour qui l’on est. On
desireroit presque un troisieme pere qui tint le milieu entre ces deux
personnages, et qui en fit connoitre le vice.”
It is not unlikely, however, that this sort of uncertainty was just the
intention of Terence, or rather of Menander. It was probably their design
to show the disadvantages resulting from each mode of education pursued,
and hence, by an easy inference, to point out the golden mean which ought
to be preserved by fathers; for, if Demea be unreasonably severe, the
indulgence of Micio is excessive, and his connivance at the disorders of
Ctesipho, which he even assisted him to support, is as reprehensible, as
the extraordinary sentiment which he utters at the commencement of the
comedy:—
“Non est flagitium, mihi crede, adolescentulum
Scortari, neque potare; non est: neque fores effringere.”
This, though the breaking doors was an ordinary piece of gallantry, is, it
must be confessed, rather loose morality. But some of the sentiments in
the drama are equally remarkable for their propriety, and the knowledge
they discover of the feelings and circumstances of mankind; as,
“Omnes, quibus res sunt minus secundæ, magis sunt, nescio quomodo,
Suspiciosi: ad contumeliam omnia accipiunt magis;
Propter suam impotentiam se semper credunt negligi.”
And afterwards,—
“Ita vita ’st hominum, quasi, quum ludas tesseris;
Si illud, quod maxime opus est jactu, non cadit,
Illud, quod cecidit forte, id arte ut corrigas.
* * * * *
Nunquam ita quisquam bene subducta ratione ad vitam fuit,
Quin res, ætas, usus, semper aliquid adportet novi,
Aliquid moneat, ut illa, quæ te scire credas, nescias;
Et quæ tibi putâris prima, in experiundo repudies.”
A play possessing so many excellencies as the _Adelphi_, could scarcely
fail to be frequently imitated by modern dramatists. It has generally been
said, that Moliere borrowed from the _Adelphi_ his comedy _L’Ecole des
Maris_, where the brothers Sganarelle and Ariste, persons of very opposite
dispositions, bring up two young ladies intrusted to their care on
different systems; the one allowing a proper liberty—the other, who wished
to marry his ward, employing a constant restraint, which, however, did not
prevent her from contriving to elope with a favoured lover. The chief
resemblance consists in the characters of the two guardians—in some of the
discussions, which they hold together on their opposite systems of
management—and some observations in soliloquy on each other’s folly. Thus,
for example, Demea, the severe brother in Terence, exclaims:
—— “O Jupiter,
Hanccine vitam! hoscine mores! hanc dementiam!
Uxor sine dote veniet: intus Psaltria est:
Domus sumptuosa: adolescens luxu perditus:
Senex delirans. Ipsa, si cupiat, Salus,
Servare prorsus non potest hanc familiam(312).”
In like manner, Sganarelle, the corresponding character in Moliere:—
“Quelle belle famille! un vieillard insensé!
Une fille maitresse et coquette suprême!
Des valets impudents! Non, la Sagesse même
N’en viendroit pas à bout, perdroit sens et raison,
A vouloir corriger une telle maison(313).”
Indeed, were it not for the minute resemblance of particular passages, I
would think it as likely, that Moliere had been indebted for the leading
idea of his comedy to the second tale of the eighth night of Straparola,
an Italian novelist of the sixteenth century, from whom he unquestionably
borrowed the plot of his admirable comedy, _L’Ecole des Femmes_. The
principal amusement, however, in the _Ecole des Maris_, which consists of
Isabelle complaining to her guardian, Sganarelle, of her lover, Valere,
has been suggested by the third novel, in the third day of Boccaccio’s
_Decameron_.