This volume makes a fine addition to R.H. Martin's Adelphoe and J. Barsby's Eunuchus in the Cambridge ‘green and yellow’ series. G. has succeeded in shedding new light on a play that used to be denounced by many as faulty and has attracted rather diverse critical responses since antiquity, ranging from outright condemnation to exuberant praise. While giving all these voices their due, G. has prudently avoided joining sides.
G.'s introduction is concise, informative and up to date, covering all areas of interest to potential readers: (1) comedy at Rome (‘Conditions of performance’; ‘The audience’; ‘Greek models’); (2) Terence's career; (3) the Hecyra (‘Stage history’; ‘Lines of approach’, where G. combines a comprehensive doxography with a well-reasoned outline of his own focuses of interest: creation of suspense and shaping of audience response; expectations aroused by the stock characters in the play; the play's moral centre; comparison of Hecyra with other plays); (4) language and style (‘Orthography’; ‘Diction’; ‘Arrangement’ of words and phrases; ‘Aesthetic effects’); (5) metre (‘Syllables’; ‘Prosody’; ‘Verse patterns’; ‘Interpretive challenges’); (6) Donatus (highlighting the intellectual profile of this scholar, as far as it can still be discerned from his problem-ridden tradition); (7) text (emphasising the hypothetical and approximate character of all reconstructions of ancient texts and pointing out that his aim was not to produce a new critical edition; rather he follows, by and large, Kauer–Lindsay [= K.–L.]).
All this is so full of valuable observations and enlightening remarks that a short review like this cannot aspire to do justice to it. The general line of G.'s approach is pluralist and anti-reductionist. It is a pleasant and refreshing characteristic of this commentary that, as a rule, G. presents alternative avenues of interpreting a scene, a dialogue, a character, etc., but regularly refrains from reaching final verdicts, leaving his readers the opportunity to arrive at their own conclusions, while his well-written, penetrating and perceptive notes pave the way for them. A good example of this is his discussion of the character of Bacchis. Much ink has been spilled on whether she is portrayed as a meretrix bona or mala. With four contradictory perspectives on her provided in the play, it seems that Terence, just as G., is not interested in such easily attachable labels, but much rather in ‘the basic psychology of the situation, which is informed by his awareness that truth under such emotionally charged conditions can be impossible to determine’ (p. 21; cf. also 727–67n. and 752n.). Rather than trust the discordant narratives about her, G. suggests we should rely on ‘our own perception of how they act in the present’ when she and Pamphilus finally meet at 855. Yet again, our understanding of their relationship (detached or still erotically charged?) will depend on how the words of the script are acted out. Accordingly, G. emphasises the ambiguities in his notes (see especially 858n., 861n., and 869n.).
In much the same pluralist spirit, G. admits that we will have to live with uncertainties and ambiguities when analysing Terence's handling of metre and music (p. 40: ‘[w]e are in effect flying blind, but with certain safeguards in place, that is much better than not flying at all’) and when dealing with textual problems (p. 46).
In the following, I give a list of lines where I differ from G. in dealing with some metrical, textual, or interpretive problems:
1–2: G.'s defence of K.–L.'s text is unconvincing. C. Questa (= Q.), La metrica di Plauto e di Terenzio (2007) 251 argues well for Leo's haec quom data nouast, / nouae nouom.
39: G. should have noted the infringement of Meyer's Law in interea rumor uenit (B cc D / A B / c D). Such infringements demand an explanation or, where none can be provided, may point to some deep-level textual corruption.
113: Schmieder's conjecture redit (for redis) is worth a thought, as it turns Philotis’ words from a snide (and thus counter-productive) comment into a witty aside.
257: Scan meae as monosyllabic by synizesis; cf. Q. 128, 177.
258: Since etsi is retained by most editors except K.–L., its athetesis should be explained.
320: Some editors prefer celas (AD1 ) over celant, as it turns the sentence into a direct (and thus more urgent) appeal to Parmeno.
367: K.–L.'s text (ilĭc(o) ŏm-nes), printed by G., implies an infringement of Ritschl's Law and an unusual kind of iambic shortening, so it should be forcefully defended in the notes. Perhaps adopt Lindsay's atque for ilico (cf. Q. 119, 210, 212)?
531: Scanning suŏ is unconvincing; cf. Q. 296 n. 15. The metre needs discussion in the notes.
543: As Bentley's athetesis of omnibus affects meaning and metre, the text should have been printed, as in K.–L., as id [omnibus] innatumst, and its implications discussed in the notes.
Similarly at 617: The text should have been printed as concordes [magis], and reason(s) for the athetesis given in the notes.
706: If Pamphilus does not flee to his father's house, but through one of the wings, as G. suggests, why does Parmeno seem to have no problem in locating him later (841)? Is it enough to claim with G. that Bacchis’ monologue has occupied sufficient dramatic time for Parmeno to find and return with Pamphilus (p. 196)? On the problem, cf. E. Lefèvre, Terenz’ und Apollodors Hecyra (1999), p. 110.
742 post factam iniuriam se expurget: This expression has a legal ring to it. Note the parallel at Ad. 162–3 (not in OLD).
787: Instead of blunt i, J.N. Grant's politer ita (= ‘yes’) should be seriously considered; see his Studies in the Textual Tradition of Terence (1986), pp. 115–16.
830 (Myrrinā in): Metrical hiatus after the eighth element of the iambic septenarius, though rare in Terence, is legitimate (cf. Q. 342), not so the scansion modō suggested by G. as an alternative to avoid hiatus. The adverb modo is always a pyrrhic in Terence, apart from And. 630, ‘a scansion clear from the cretic metre’, as G. points out. That is exactly where the problem lies. The line is situated in a cretic environment, which remains the natural habitat for scansions like modō and ubī (631), cf. Q. 440. For that reason, they are better not invoked to justify the same scansion in an iambo-trochaic environment.
Yet these few, mostly rather technical points should by no means distract from the great merits of this commentary and its two appendices (‘Philomena's pregnancy’; ‘Greek analogues’, especially Menander's Epitrepontes). Its learned and informative, yet concise and lucid, notes are reliable on all aspects of Terentian style, rhetoric, performance and stage business, including, among other things, keen attention to psychological detail (e.g. 447n.; 634n.; 735n.), the interplay of metrical shifts and dramatic action (e.g. p. 25 n. 74; 134n.), modes of delivery (148n.), dramatic technique (e.g. 83n.; 98n.; 196n.; 274–80n.; 361–414n.), grammar (e.g. 313n.; 629n.), semantics (e.g. 321n.) and literary allusions (e.g. 620–1n.).
Apart from Q., notable omissions from the bibliography are: R. Raffaelli, Ricerche sui versi lunghi di Plauto e di Terenzio (1982) and other works by the same author, especially on the manuscript tradition of Terence; N. Strobel, Männliche Perspektive – weibliche Identität. Frauenbilder und Rollenkonzeptionen in den Komödien des Terenz (2004); J. Velaza, La historia del texto de Terencio en la antigüedad (2007). K. Büchner, Das Theater des Terenz (1974) is cited, for example p. 204 n. 3 (mistakenly as ‘Büchner 1972’), but not listed in the bibliography. G. had no chance to consult A. Augoustakis, A. Traill (edd.), A Companion to Terence (2013), which contains an interesting chapter on Hecyra by O. Knorr.
