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The End of Terence's Adelphoe A Postscript

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

W. G. Arnott
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Extract

In a recent number of Greece and Rome Dr. T. A. Dorey has criticized those scholars who call the concluding scenes of the Adelphoe ‘a masterpiece of dramatic construction’. Arguing that at the end of the play the treatment of Micio is unsatisfactory or at least unsatisfying, the change in attitude of Aeschinus and Demea insufficiently motivated, and the transition from comedy to satire unnatural and excessively abrupt, Dorey seeks to explain these alleged flaws by reference to two passages of Donatus' commentary on the play: the note on v. 938, ‘apud Menandrum senex de nuptiis non gravatur: ergo Terentius ερετικ⋯ς’, and part of the praefatio (iii. 5), where Donatus observes that Demea is the means whereby ‘multa in comoedia nova’ are introduced into the final scenes of the play. Dorey's interpretation of these passages leads him to suggest that ‘the last scenes of the play were not in the original comedy of Menander, but were invented by Terence himself.’

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Type
Research Article
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Greece & Rome , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , October 1963, pp. 140 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1963

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References

page 140 note 1 Second Series, ix (1962), 37–39.

page 140 note 2 Dorey cites only Norwood, G., The Art of Terence (Oxford, 1923), 130Google Scholar; he might have added Beare, W., The Roman Stage (London, 1950), 98f.Google Scholar; Barbieri, A., La Vis Comica in Terenzio (Milan, 1951), 184 ff.Google Scholar; and Duck worth, G. E., The Nature of Roman Comedy (Princeton, 1952), 144, 287.Google Scholar

page 140 note 3 Lessing's unnamed ‘critic’ is here no figment of the German romantic imagination, but may be identified as Samuel Patrick, who published a text and translation of Terence in 1745. Lessing reproduces almost verbatim Patrick's note on v. 945 of the Adelphoe (‘si vos tantopere istoc vultis (!), fiat’); it is interesting to observe that this note itself incorporates without any acknowledgement one of Mme Dacier's very pertinent comments on this play (see her note on v. 945).

page 141 note 1 The Comedies of Terence, translated into Familiar Blank Verse (ist edition, London, 1765)Google Scholar; see his note on ‘Obliging Father’ (v. 945;—Act V, scene 5, in Colman's version). Page references are of little use for the Terence translations of Colman and Mme. Dacier, since the pagination varies from edition to edition of these popular works.

page 141 note 2 The note on v. 938, which is cited above. Lessing wants to explain gravatur as a true passive, implying that in Menander the old man was ‘not inconvenienced’ with a marriage. However, this interpretation of Donatus' words does violence to the Latin, and is today generally recognized to be erroneous; its only supporter in modern times has been Kauer, R., Wiener Studien, xxiii (1901), 98f.Google Scholar; cf. his revision of Dziatzko's edition of the Adelphoe (Leipzig, 1903), p. 16.Google Scholar Recently Büchner, K., Humanitas Romana (Heidelberg, 1957), 60Google Scholar, has made an interesting attempt to bridge the gap between the general modern view and that of Lessing.

page 141 note 3 Of the earlier literature (for a bibliography see Schanz-Hosius, , Geschichte d. röm. Literatur, i (Munich, 1927), 116)Google Scholar nothing need be mentioned here, with the possible exception of Leo, F., Geschichte d. röm. Literatur, i (Berlin, 1913), 244 f.Google Scholar, whose essay on Terence in this chapter is still unsurpassed for scholar ship and good judgement. Recent discussions focused on the end of the Adelphoe include the following (I mention only works that are reasonably accessible and that discuss the finale in some detail): Arnaldi, F., Da Plauto a Terenzio, ii (Naples, 1947), 206 ff.Google Scholar; Barbieri, A., op. cit. 184ff.Google Scholar; 208f.; Haffter, H., Museum Helveticum, x (1953), 89f.Google Scholar; Büchner, K., op. cit. 58ff.Google Scholar; Thierfeider, A., ‘Knemon, Demea, Micio’, in Menandrea, Miscellanea Philologica (Genoa, 1960), 107 ff.Google Scholar; and Wilner, Ortha L., ‘The Role of Demea in the Adelphoe’, in Studies in Honor of Ullman (St. Louis, 1960), 55 ff.Google ScholarWebster, T. B. L., in Studies in Menander (Manchester, 1950), 65 ff.Google Scholar and 205 f., has some valuable observations on the way in which Aristotelian ethical concepts influence this play; cf. also MacKendrick, P., Riv. Fil. N.s. xxxii (1954), 24ff.Google Scholar

page 142 note 1 This interpretation is grounded in Colman, 's (loc. cit. above, p. 141Google Scholar, n. i); later scholars have merely added refinements (see, for example, G. Cupaiuolo in his edition of the play (Rome & Milan, 1904), p. civ; and Siess, H., Wiener Studien, xxix (1907), 101).Google Scholar

page 142 note 2 Op. cit. (above, p. 141, n. 3).

page 143 note 1 A parallel may perhaps be drawn also between Demea's recantation at the end of the Adelphoe and two other Menandrian ‘contradictions’: (i) the out-of-character behaviour of another Demea in the Samia (see Webster, T. B. L., op. cit. 90)Google Scholar, and (2) the postulated change of heart by Euclio at the end of the Aulularia (cf. Jachmann, G., Plautinisches und Attisches (Berlin, 1931), 138Google Scholar; Minar, E. L., Classical Journal, xlii (1947), 271ff.Google Scholar; Ludwig, W., Philologus, cv (1961), 60, 250Google Scholar, citing earlier literature; and Kraus, W., ‘Menanders Dyskolos und das Original der Aulularia’, in Serta Philologica Aenipontana (Innsbruck 1962), 188).Google Scholar

page 143 note 2 We find the same apparently cavalier attitude to marriage at the end of the Heauton Timarumenos, 1055 ff., where it takes Clitipho slightly over three lines to agree to matrimony and another five and a half lines to decide on a bride. However, the explanation of this precipitateness may be of some complexity, and not afford a true analogy to the other two passages discussed above. We are unable to assess today the part played by comic tradition in motifs of this sort (pace Murray, G., C.Q. xxxvii (1943), 46ff.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; but this much at any rate can be said in favour of Clitipho's marriage here (if we leave aside the speed of its arrangement), from the viewpoint of a sympathetic spectator: Clitipho is a weak character, needing a wife to sober him, like Moschion in the Perikeiromene (cf. Webster, T. B. L., op. cit. 16).Google Scholar

page 143 note 3 Isti are the audience, according to Donatus, ad loc.; cf. Menander, , Fr. 3Google Scholar Koerte-Thierfelder. For a different interpretation, see Haffter, , op. cit. 18.Google Scholar

page 144 note 1 Cf. Howald, E., Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 26 04 1959, p. 5Google Scholar; Turner, E. G., Rylands Bulletin, xlii (1959), 254Google Scholar; Cantarella, R., Rendiconti Ist. Lombardo (Milan, 1959), 93, n. 62Google Scholar; Thierfelder, A., op. cit. 108 f.Google Scholar; and Kraus, W.'s edition of the Dyskolos, Sitzb. Wien, phil.-hist. Kl., 234/4, (1960), 20 ff.Google Scholar

page 144 note 2 J.H.S. lxxvii (1957), 247 ff.Google Scholar The point is that although consistency of characterization is the norm the poet will occasionally deviate from the norm if the circumstances demand it.

page 144 note 3 Cf. Thierfelder, A., op. cit. IIIf.Google Scholar

page 144 note 4 I should like here to express my thanks to Miss Marjorie Smith, Professor G. B. A. Fletcher, Mr. C. Garton, and Mr. E. W. Handley, who were kind enough to read this short paper before its publication.