Asinaria
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Dramatis Personae DEMAENETUS, an aged Athenian. ARGYRIPPUS, his son, in love with Philenium. LIBANUS, Servants of Demaenetus. LEONIDA, THE ASS-DEALER DIABOLUS, an Athenian Captain, the rival of Argyripps. A PARASITE, a dependant of Diabolus. A BOY. ARTEMONA, wife of Demaeenetus. CLEAERETA, a procuress. PHILENIUM, daughter of Cleaereta.
scene
Athens, before the house of CLEAERETA; the house of DEMAENETUS is a little way down another street, and in view of the audience.)
subject
THE SUBJECT ARGYRIPPUS, the son of Demaenetus, is violently in love with Philenium, a young woman, who is living with her mother, Cleaereta, a procuress. The latter has made an agreement with a Captain, of the name of Diabolus, to transfer Philenium to him for twenty minae, on condition, however, that if Argyrippus shall first pay that sum, he shall have her. Argyrippus, having exhausted all his own resources, applies to his father, Demaenetus, an over-indulgent and immoral old man, and requests him to furnish him with twenty minae. Demaenetus is married to Artemona, a rich woman, and is totally dependant on the will of herself and her favourite slave, the chamberlain Saurea. Being destitute of money, Demaenetus orders his servant, Libanus, by some means or other to cheat his mistress or the chamberlain out of that sum. Just then an ass-dealer arrives, to pay to Saurea twenty minae, the price of some asses which he has previously purchased. Libanus then arranges with his fellow-servant, Leonida, that the latter shall personate Saurea, and so receive the money from the ass-dealer. This is done, and the money is paid to Leonida, in the presence of Demaenetus, who assures the dealer that Leonida really is the person to whom the money is payable. This sum is then given to Argyrippus, but with the disgraceful stipulation that for one day his father shall enjoy the company of Philenium. This he submits to, and the three sit down to a banquet. The Captain discovers this, and sends his Parasite to inform Artemona of her husband’s conduct. She accordingly accompanies the Parasite, and discovers her husband in the company of his son and the young woman; after soundly rating him, she leads him off; while Argyrippus remains in possession of Philenium.
argument
THE ACROSTIC ARGUMENT. [Supposed to have been written by Priscian the Grammarian.] THE ASS-DEALER son in love (Amanti), the old man, who lives under (Sub) his wife’s control, wishes to help him with money; therefore (Itaque), some money that has been brought in payment for the asses for Saurea he orders to be paid (Nulerari) to his servant Leonida. This is carried to (Ad) his mistress, and the son yields her favours to his father. His rival (Rivinus) is furious an account of the woman thus taken from him: he (Is) tells all the matter, through the Parasite, to the wife. The wife rushes (Adcurrit) to the place, and drags her husband from the den.
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PROLOGUS
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Attend now, Spectators, if you please, forthwith to this, and may this matter turn out fortunately for me and for yourselves, and for this company, and for our employersFor our employers: By dominis he probably means the Aediles by whom the actors were engaged for the public entertainment., and for our managersAnd for our managers: The conductores were probably the leaders or managers of the company, who made the contract with the Aediles.. Now, crier, do you at once make all the people give attentive ear.
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Come, be seated now, only be careful that ’tis not for nought. Now I will tell you why I have come forward here, and what my intention is, that you may know the name of this play. For, so far as relates to the plot, it really is a short one. Now I will tell you what I said I was wishful to inform you upon.
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The name of this play in Greek is OnagosIs Onagos: Onagos. The Greek name for an ass-driver.— DemophilusDemophilus: No particulars are known of Demophilus the Comic Writer. Some would suggest Diphilus as the reading here: he is mentioned in the Adelphi of Terence, and was a Comic Poet, contemporary with Menander. composed it—MarcusMarcus: Marcus is the word used here. It is supposed to be a corruption of, or an abbreviation for, Maccius or M. Accius, whichever was the praenomen of the poet.Plautus turned it into Latin. He wishes it to be called AsinariaAsinaria: Asinaria seems to be the nominative feminine singular or neuter plural of the adjective asinarius, of or relating to asses. if by your leaves it may be so. In this play there is both pleasantry and fun. ’Tis a droll story; kindly lend me your attention;
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may Mars, too, as, full oft at other times he has done, so give you now his aid.
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LIBANUS
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As you desire your own only son to survive your own existence, prosperous, and living on; so by your lengthened years, and by that wife of yours of whom you stand in awe,
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do I conjure you, that if this day you have said anything that’s false against myself, your wife may then survive your own existence, and that, she living, you, still alive, may come to utter destructionCome to utter destruction: Pestem obpetas. Literally, meet with a plague. This expression held a somewhat similar rank with our uncourteous invitation, Go to the devil..
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DEMAENETUS
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By the Gods aboveBy the Gods above: Per Deum Fidium. Literally, by the God Fidius. This God had a Temple in the Capitol at Rome. He was represented as having Honor on his right hand, and Truth on the left. He is mentioned by Ovid, in the Sixth Book of the Fasti, as having the names also of Sancus and Semo. He was also called Sangus and Sanctus, and is generally supposed to have been the Sabine Hercules. Saint Augustine says that he was a king of the Sabines, whom they had deified. as to what you seek to know, I see that I must, perforce, speak out, whatever you question me upon, being thus conjured;
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so determinedly have you accosted me, that I really do not dare otherwise than to disclose everything to you making all these enquiries. Say then at once what it is that you desire so much to know; as I myself shall know, so will I let you know.
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LIBANUS
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Troth now, prithee answer me seriously what I ask you;
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take care that you tell me no falsehood.
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DEMAENETUS
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Why, then, don’t you ask?
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LIBANUS
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Will you, then, be sending me there, where stone grinds stoneStone grinds stone: He alludes to the pistrinum, or hand-mill, where refractory slaves were often sent and set to grind the corn, which was a very laborious employment.?
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DEMAENETUS
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What place is that? Or where in the world is that place?
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LIBANUS
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Where worthless men are weeping, who breakfast upon pearled barleyPearled barley: Polenta. This was barley-meal, dried before the fire, soaked in water for a night, and then baked..
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DEMAENETUS
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What that place is, or where it is, I cannot understand, where worthless men are weeping, who breakfast upon pearled barley.
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LIBANUS
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Why, in the islands of club-land and rattle- chainsClub-land and rattle-chain: Fustitudinas, ferricrepinas. These are words coined by the author for the occasion. In the next line he alludes to flogging with thongs of hide.,
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where dead oxen attack living men.
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DEMAENETUS
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I’ faith, I now understand, Libanus, what place it is; that perhaps you mean, where the pearled barley is prepared.
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LIBANUS
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O dear: I’m not speaking of that, i’ faith, nor do I wish to speak of it. Troth now, prithee, do spit outDo spit out: The ancients signified extreme disgust by spitting. Libanus is so frightened at the bare idea of the pistrinum, or mill, that he deems the attempt to mention it as of bad omen, and begs that his master will spit away from him the very notion of it. the words that you have spoken.
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DEMAENETUS
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Be it so; you shall be indulged.
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LIBANUS
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Come, come—hawk away.
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DEMAENETUS
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What, still more?
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LIBANUS
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Troth now; prithee, do go on—still more.
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DEMAENETUS
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Part of line 41b in the Latin. What—from the very bottom of my throat?
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LIBANUS
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Even more still.
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DEMAENETUS
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Why, how long?
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LIBANUS
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I want you, even to the death—
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DEMAENETUS
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Take you care of a woful mishap, if you please.
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LIBANUS
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Of your wife, I mean, not of yourself.
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DEMAENETUS
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For that speech, I give you leave to be free from apprehension.
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LIBANUS
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May the Gods grant you whatever you desire.
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DEMAENETUS
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In return, give me your attention. Why should I ask this of you? Or why should I threaten you, because you have not made me acquainted with it? Or why, in fine, should I censure my son
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as other fathers do?
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LIBANUS
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What new affair is this? (Aside.) I wonder much what it is, and I’m in dread what the upshot of it may be.
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DEMAENETUS
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In fact, I’m now aware that my son’s in love with that Courtesan Philenium, that lives close by. Is not this as I say, Libanus?
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LIBANUS
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You are upon the right track; such is the fact. But a dreadful malady has overtaken him.
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DEMAENETUS
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What is the malady?
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LIBANUS
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Why, that his presents don’t equal his promises.
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DEMAENETUS
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Are you, then, one who assists my son in his amours?
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LIBANUS
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I really am, and our Leonida is another.
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DEMAENETUS
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I’ faith, you do kindly, and you gain thanks from me. But this wife of mine, Libanus, don’t you know what sort of a person she is?
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LIBANUS
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You are the first to experience it, but we give a guess beforehand.
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DEMAENETUS
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I confess that she is troublesome and not to be pleased.
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LIBANUS
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You say that later than I believed you in it.
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DEMAENETUS
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All parents, Libanus, who listen to me, will show indulgence to their children,
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inasmuch as they will find their sons more kindly disposed and more affectionate; and that do I desire to do myself. I wish to be loved by mine; I wish myself to be like my father, who, for my sake, himself in the disguise of a ship-master, carried off from a procurer a female with whom I was in love;
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nor was he ashamed, at that time of life, to devise stratagems, and to purchase with good turns me, his son, for himself. These ways of my father have I resolved to imitate. For to-day my son Argyrippus has entreated me
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to give him a supply of money for his amours; and I very much wish in that to oblige my son. I wish to forward his amours; I wish him to be fond of myself, his father. Although his mother keeps him strictly, and with a tight rein, as fathers have been in the habit of doing, all that I dismiss.
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Especially as he has deemed me deserving, for him to entrust it to ire, I ought to pay all due regard to his feelings. Inasmuch as he has applied to me, as it is right that a respectful son should do, I wish him to have some money for him to give to his mistress
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LIBANUS
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You are desiring that which I find you are do siring to no purpose.
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Your wife brought her servant Saurea with her on her marriageWith her on her marriage: Dotalem. The husband was master of the other slaves in the household; but the dotalis was under the sole control of the mistress. Aulus Gellius, in his Seventeenth Book, calls him servus recepticius, probably, either because it was his business to receive whatever was due to his mistress, or from his being received into the house in preference to all other slaves., who has more in his control than you have.
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DEMAENETUS
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I received money with her, and for the portion I sold my authority. Now I’ll compress into a few words what I want of you; my son is now in need of twenty silver minae:
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do you manage that it may be forthwith found for him.
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LIBANUS
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From what place in the world?
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DEMAENETUS
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Cheat me of them.
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LIBANUS
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You are talking downright nonsense. You are bidding me take the clothes from off a naked man. I, cheat you?—come now, fly you without wings, please. What, am I to cheat you who have nothing in your power for your own self?
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Unless you have first cheated your wife out of something.
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DEMAENETUS
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Impose upon or rob myself in any way you can, my wife in any way, my servant Saurea in any way. I promise you that it shall not prove to your detriment, if you effect it to-day.
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LIBANUS
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On the same principle you might bid me to fish in the air,
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and to hunt with a javelin in the midst of the sea.
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DEMAENETUS
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Take Leonida as your coadjutorYour coadjutor: Optio was originally the name of the lientenant, or adjutant, who was chosen by the centurion in the Roman armies to assist him in the discharge of his duties.; devise some plan or other, think of some expedient: bring it about that my son this day gets some money to give his mistress.
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LIBANUS
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What say you, Demaenetus
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if the foe should intercept me, will you ransom me?
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DEMAENETUS
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I will ransom you.
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LIBANUS
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Then do you attend to something else, whatever you please.
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DEMAENETUS
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I’m off to the Forum, unless you wish for anything.
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LIBANUS
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Be off—why are you not walkingWhy are you not walking: Etiamne ambulas. Thornton, quoting from Limiers, says, in reference to this passage, This is a banter of the slave’s, who is rallying his master on the pain he is in, in walking supported by his crutch-stick. There is a distinction made between ire, which, the grammarians tell us, is used to express walking fast, and ambulare, to walk slowly, or step by step.?
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DEMAENETUS
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And do you hear, too—?
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LIBANUS
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Well now.
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DEMAENETUS
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If I want you for anything, where will you be?
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LIBANUS
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Wherever it shall be agreable to my feelings. Really, there’s not a person that I shall stand in dread of from this time forward, for fear he might be able to do me an injury, since in your discourse you have disclosed to me all your sentiments. Why, your own self even I don’t stand much in awe of, if I carry this out. I’ll go where I intended, and there I’ll commune upon my plans.
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DEMAENETUS
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Do you hear me? I shall be with Archibulus, the banker.
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LIBANUS
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In the Forum, you mean?
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DEMAENETUS
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There, if there shall be any occasion for meAny occasion for me: Si quid opus fuerit. This expression equivalent to ours, if I am wanted, was made use of by the Romans when they had the intention of engaging in some occupation of importance..
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LIBANUS
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I’ll remember it.
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DEMAENETUS
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Not any servant can there be more artful than this fellow, nor yet more crafty, nor one that it is more difficult for you to be on your guard against.
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If you want anything well managed, entrust it to this same fellow; he’d rather he should die in wretchedness, than not have that quite completed which he has promised. For I know that this money is as surely forthcoming for my son, as that I look upon this same walking-stick.
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But why am I delaying to go to the Forum where I had intended
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ARGYRIPPUS
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Is’t thus it is,—me to be shut out of doors? Is this the reward that’s given to me who deserve so highly of you? To him who deserves well you are unkind, to him who deserves ill you are indulgent.
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But to your own misfortune, for now from this spot will I go to the TriumvirsTo the Triumvirs: The Tresviri, or Triumviri, were in duty bound to receive informations relative to public morals, and were empowered to inflict summary punishment on persons of the rank and occupation of Cleaereta. They have been more fully referred to in a previous Note. It will not be forgotten that, though the scene is in Athens, Plautus is making reference to Roman customs., and there I’ll take care your names shall be. I’ll punish capitally yourself and your daughter, you enticers, pests, and destruction of young men! For, compared with you, the sea is not the sea; you are a most dangerous sea.
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For on the sea did I find it, here have I been cleaned out of my wealth. What I have given, and what kindnesses I have done, I find them all valueless for good, and thrown away. But from hence-forth, whatever harm I shall be able to do you, I will do it, and do it at your deserts. I’ faith, I’ll reduce you to the verge of poverty, that state from which you have risen.
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By my troth, I’ll make you to know what you now are, and what you once were; what you were before I visited that daughter of yours, and, in my passion, bestowed upon her my affection; on coarse breadOn coarse bread: Sordido—pane. According to the Commentators, this means brown bread with the bran in it. Terence, in his Eunuchus, calls it panis ater, black bread Juvenal calls it dog’s bread. you were enjoying your life, in rags, and in want. And if these you had, especial thanks did you return to all the Divinities. Now, bad woman, you the same person, when ’tis better with you, don’t know me through whose means it is so.
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From a wild beast, I’ll make you tame through hunger, only trust me for thatTrust me for that: Me specta modo. Literally, only look to me.. But I have no reason to blame your daughter herself; she does not deserve it in the least. She acts by your command; she obeys your bidding; you are her mother, you too her mistress. I’ll revenge myself on you; I’ll ruin you; as you are deserving, and as you merit at my hands. But look now, the hag, how she really doesn’t think me worthy
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for her to come to and address and deprecate my resentment. But, see, the enticer’s coming out at last, I think. Here. before the door, I’ll address her in my own fashion, as I please, since I’m not allowed to do so within.
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CLEAERETA
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If any purchaser should come, he could not carry him away from me each single word of those for gold Philippean pieces.
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What you say wrongfully against us is good gold and silver. Your heart is locked up here with us, at the helm of Cupid. With oars and with sails make haste and fly as fast as you can; the further you betake yourself to sea, the more the tide will bring you back to harbour.
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ARGYRIPPUS
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I faith, I’ll be depriving this custom-house officerThis custom-house officer: Istum portitorem privabo portitorio. Cleaereta has just mentioned portus, the harbour, meaning her own house, to which, despite of himself, Argyrippus will, by his own passion, be brought back at last. He takes up the metaphor, and says that she, the landing-waiter (portitor), or custom-house officer, shall not, however, get her dues; meaning, that he is determined not to let her have any more of his money. of his dues.
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From henceforth I’ll persist in treating you as you have deserved of me and mine, since you have treated me not as I deserve, in excluding me from your house.
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CLEAERETA
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I know that that is rather said with the tongue, than that it will happen in deed.
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ARGYRIPPUS
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I alone have brought you from obscurity and from want; if I alone patronize you, you can never return sufficient thanks.
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CLEAERETA
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Do you still be the only one to patronize me, if you alone will always give me what I ask. Do you always keep what has been promised you, on this condition, that you surpass others in your presents.
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ARGYRIPPUS
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What limit is there to be to giving? For really you can never be satisfied; the moment that you’ve received something, not very long after, you are devising something for you to be asking for.
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CLEAERETA
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What limit is there to be to your enjoying yourself, and to your indulging your amour? Can you never be satisfied?
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The moment that you have sent her home, that instant, you are directly asking me to send her back to you.
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ARGYRIPPUS
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In fact, I have given whatever you have demanded of me.
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CLEAERETA
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And I have sent the damsel to you. A requital has been given, like for like; a return for the money.