action on the stage, and the scenes chiefly picture a less polished life than that which Terence depicts. The latter is more genuinely Greek: more refined, more careful of the 'golden mean', anxious that in the language and even in the vices of his characters there should be nothing bizarre or unseemly and because he is truer to his originals, he is the fitter instrument to effect a change in national taste and manners. dy. 16 Both dramatists had for their models the leading The New Come- writers in the Attic New Comedy, the most celebrated of whom were Philemon, Menander, Diphilus, and Apollodorus 1. If in considering these models we confine ourselves exclusively to Menander, it is because he was confessedly the best, and because we have from the fragments of his works preserved to us ampler opportunity of judging of the character of his comedies. In these there is little to remind us of the Old Comedy, familiar to us in the pages of Aristophanes, though the Old Comedy is often spoken of as though it were the lineal progenitor of the Comedy of manners and intrigue which finds in Menander its typical exponent. Aristophanes and the Old Comedy belonged to a period at least a century earlier, when Athens was in her full political and artistic glory. In the perfect liberty which her citizens then enjoyed there was nothing startling or alarming in the representation of living statesmen on the stage: personalities and political satire were an element in almost every comedy produced: the peculiarities of a Pericles, the very features of a Cleon were held up to popular ridicule. The chorus, too, was in full vigour and served the purpose alike of a commentary on passing events, and a vindication of the poet's claim to honour and applause. About a hundred years later Athens' sun had altogether set: she was 16 Apoll. is later than the rest. subjected to the yoke of foreign tyranny: her political life was over her citizen forces were metamorphosed into 'soldiers of fortune': nothing was left but the salt of Attic wit and the eminently Greek power of enjoying a sensuous, worldly life. To Menander, B.C. this life Menander holds up the mirror. 342-291. As we might expect, in the development of his plots love is a principal factor. Fabula iucundi nulla est sine amore Menandri17. With an iteration which to some minds 18 is almost wearying, he tells us of the sorrows and schemings of some forlorn lover, the artifices of his favourite slave, the anger or pettishness or niggardliness of his father, the wiles of his mistress and so forth. But there is more in Menander than this. A pupil of the great character-painter Theophrastus, a contemporary and intimate of Epicurus, he was well fitted to bequeath us a living picture of the manners of his age, and, better still, to give a lively embodiment to types of character which are as universal as human nature. Menander's plays are a study of the social life of his time: they tell us how his contemporaries dined, chatted, flirted: describe their piques, prejudices, little odd ways, their tastes and fashions; and the life he draws is not so remote from our own that we have any difficulty in placing ourselves en rapport with his creations. Given a western civilization of developed comfort, and Menander's favourite characters will be sure to play their part upon the stage of life. Men are at all times gourmets 20, lovers, pleasure-seekers: 17 Ovid Trist. 2, 370. Cf. Ov. Am. 1, 15, 16. 19 Ω Μένανδρε καὶ Βίε, πότερος ἄρ ̓ ὑμῶν πότερον [ἀπ]εμιunoaro; Aristoph. Gram. 20 This aspect is well brought out in the table-talk preserved to us in Athenaeus, who uses the Middle and New Comedy to illustrate his points. T. b so long as youth tries to enjoy itself, parents are anxious, old men querulous and unreasonable, women seductive, parasites fawning and servants impudent, Menander and his imitators will survive. An eye for character, the knack of life-like portraiture; these Menander had; and besides these the strain of pensiveness, the undercurrent of musing melancholy, which finds expression in terse maxims and reflections upon human life 21. guage. This is the great master whom Terence set himself Terence's lan- to reproduce for a Roman audience". In one point at least he has, by universal consent, succeeded: in charm of language he is second only to his original: he has just that restraint which most pleased a Greek: he is master of his words, even when feeling is deepest 23: his metres are carefully and skilfully handled, consonant with the sense, flowing easily in narrative, and proving no check to the appreciation of pathetic passages: so that we may safely combat the criticism of Quintilian, who seems to think that Terence transgressed the bounds of Greek severity; for he says of his writings 'plus adhuc habitura gratiae, si intra uersus trimetros stetissent '24. Further, his idiomatic Latin 25, except in the occasional use of yλwτraι (i.e. words transferred bodily from another 21 Notice especially 'life is a fair' in the 'Troßoλiuaîos: and the well-known saying, 'whom the gods love, die young'. 22 In detail, the plays are: Andria, from Menander's Andria and Perinthia. Eunuchus, from Menander's play of the same name and the Kóλağ. Adelphi, from Menander's Tewpyós and a scene from the ZuvaTo0výσкOVтes of Diphilus. Heauton timorumenos, from Menander's play of same name. Hecyra, from Apollodorus and the 'ETITρÉπоVтеs of Menander. Phormio, from Apollodorus. 23 The exception to this is a tendency to pleonasm: see notes, passim: but Plato, a master of style, is pleonastic. 24 Quint. 10, 1. 25 Terence himself (Heaut. prol. 46) claims pura oratio as a characteristic. language), and of Greek constructions argues him the best and least slavish of interpreters. The voice of antiquity is indeed all but unanimous as to his style and language. Cicero 26, Gellius 27, Ausonius 28, each brings his word of praise; but of these commendatory criticisms the most famous is that of Julius Caesar, who addresses him as 'dimidiate Menander', and deplores only his want of vigour and comic power 29. Vis comica. In this last respect we doubt whether Terence has received full justice: it is true that there is occasionally a tameness in some of his dialogues; e.g. in the opening of the Phormio; that his soliloquies are heavy, as in the Hecyra, and that there is a consequent deficiency in comic action: it is true that he was not a perfect Menander, and could not combine richness of humour with severity of language. In the former point Plautus is perhaps his superior, but his language is often extravagant: he makes continual puns (a practice rare with Terence) 30; he piles epithet upon epithet in his more animated scenes of abuse: he is full of burlesque and pantomime, repartee and buffoonery31. In these ruder elements of stage 26 Tu quoque qui solus lecto sermone, Terenti, 28 Tu quoque qui Latium lecto sermone, Terenti, ad noua uix memorem diuerbia coge senectam. 29 Tu quoque tu in summis, o dimidiate Menander, poneris, et merito puri sermonis amator; Tenibus atque utinam scriptis adiuncta foret uis comica ut aequato uirtus polleret honore cum Graecis neque in hac despectus parte iaceres. 30 But see Heaut. 356 Verba-uerbera; Phorm. 500, ducesductes, id. 374, bonorum extortor, legum contortor. 31 Comedies are divided into motoriae and statoriae: Terence's are of the latter kind. effect Terence is undoubtedly wanting: on the other hand he fairly fulfils the definition of wit 'chastened insolence', as given by Aristotle 32: his humour consists in contrast of character rather than in exuberant fun such as characterises the farcical imitation of Molière 33. There is however plenty of briskness and life in the Eunuchus (what can be more entertaining than the parasite's account of his method of gaining a livelihood ?); in the closing scene of the Phormio and in the third act of the Adelphi, where Demea's sententious remarks and righteous maxims are echoed and parodied by the slave Syrus; while the dry humour of the scene in the Phormio with the foolish advisers is of no ordinary quality. If tragedy and comedy are to be defined by the dénouement, then Terence is undoubtedly a comedian; but his comedies are mainly of the sentimental kind: they belong to what the French call 'genre sérieux' and 'comédie larmoyante': there is a want of mirth (especially in the Hecyra and Heautontimorumenos) and the pathos is at times almost painful: witness particularly the touching opening of the Andria. Plots. We turn next to the handling of the plot. Here Terence exhibits considerable skill, except that his trick of making the heroine almost invariably turn out to be an Athenian citizeness becomes a little worn by frequent use. He is hampered too in point of simplicity by the custom of contaminatio already alluded to. The use of two or more plays to construct one produces a want of unity in the plot: and this is objectionable, because if the principal plot is first evolved, the rest of the play is uninteresting; if the 32 Arist. Rhet. 2, 12, 16: ἡ γὰρ εὐτραπελία πεπαιδευμένη ὕβρις ἔστιν. Cf. Afranius' judgment, ut quicquid loquitur sal |