The pot of Gold/The Prisoners/The Brothers Menaechmus/The Swaggering Soldier/Pseudolus [antikvár]

INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE POT OF GOLD The character of the miserly old man must have had an ancestry in the Greek Comedy which supplied Plautus with his models; among others, Smicrines in The Arbitration of Menander is a recognizable prototype of the Euclio oi Aulularia, though Plautus's play as a whole bears no resemblance to any known Greek forerunner. A double clue to the dating, both of the original and the copy, has been detected in the references to women's extravagance and the office of 'censor of female conduct': placing the Greek comedy in the decade 317-07 b.c., when this topic engaged the attention of Demetrius of Phalerum, governor of Athens under Macedonian rule, and the Roman comedy near to 195 b.c., when relief was obtained from the restraints of the 'Oppian Law'. Neither of these ascriptions has conclusive validity. Of the numerous successors of Euclio, the Harpagon of Moli^re's L'Avare is the best known and most complete reincarnation; yet the comparison between the two plays shows a world of difference in the authors' treatment of the subject and the character. Euclio's avarice -or rather his unexpected acquisition of unearned wealth - brings only gentle ridicule upon his head and involves him in a train of inconveniences, from which he eventually escapes with his honour and good nature unimpaired. Harpagon remains a miser and a curmudgeon to the end. The end oi Aulularia is, in fact, only known to us in outline from the 'arguments' (those metrical summaries of the plot, usually in two alternative versions, added to the plays by later Roman editors). These inform us that Euclio recovered his gold and made a present of it to his daughter and son-in-law; and note may also be taken of the one significant line among a few unplaceable fragments surviving from the missing last act: nec noctu nec diu quietus unquam eram; nunc dormiam ('I have never had a moment's peace by day or night; now I am going to sleep'). From these clues I have ventured to construct a final scene, to indicate the probable denouement and to restore the completeness of this peculiarly enjoyable and genial comedy. Here