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The Construction of Terence's Heautontimorumenos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. J. Brothers
A. J. Brothers
Affiliation:
St. David's University College, Lampeter
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Extract

In the twentieth century the question of the relationship of Terence's Heautontimorumenos to its Greek original has been largely neglected or else dismissed on the grounds that it presents no major problem. It is true that, because of the new light which the discovery of the Cairo codex of Menander shed on the nature and role of the chorus in Greek new comedy, there was a flurry of activity concerning the difficult passage 167 ff.; but the far more fundamental problem of contaminatio in general and of the meaning and interpretation of lines 4 to 6 of the play's prologue has attracted comparatively little attention. H. Marti produced a two-part survey of work done on Terence in the years 1909 to 1959; in it he says that in the period under review the question of contaminatio in Heauton–in the sense of the fusion of two originals –has been totally abandoned, with the exception of one article by F. Skutsch in which he holds to his earlier views on the subject. Marti also refers to Kohler's earlier work on the same problem, and to the discussion to be found in Kuiper's more comprehensive work on Roman comedy, but that is all.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , May 1980 , pp. 94 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1980

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References

1 See especially Flickinger, R. C., ‘ in Terence's Heauton’, CPh 7 (1912), 24 ff.;Google ScholarSkutsch, F., ‘bei Terenz’, Hermes 47 (1912), 141 ff.Google Scholar; Jachmann, G., Plautinisches und Attisches (Berlin, 1931), pp. 245 ff.Google Scholar; Drexler, H., ‘Terentiana 4: Zum Hautontimorumenos: ‘ bei Terenz'?’, Hermes 73 (1938), 65 ff.Google Scholar; and Beare, W., ‘in the Heautontimorumenos and the Plutus’, Hermathena 74 (1949), 26 ff.Google Scholar

2 Notable exceptions are Flickinger, R. C., ‘A study of Terence's prologues’, PbQ 6 (1927), 235 ff.Google Scholar, esp. 241–58, and Castiglioni, B., ‘Il prologo dell' Heautontimorumenos e la commedia duplex’, Athenaeum 35 (1957), 257 ff.Google ScholarSee also Gelhaus, H., Die Prologe des Terenz (Heidelberg, 1972), pp. 70–80.Google Scholar

3 Lustrum 6 (1961), 114 ff., and 8 (1963), 5 ff.Google Scholar

4 Lustrum 8 (1963), 45–6.Google Scholar The article to which Marti refers is that cited in n. 1 above; for Skutsch's earlier article, see Philologus 59 (1900), 1 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar All other articles, including those mentioned in n.2 above, while discussing lines 4–6 of the prologue, reject any possibility of contaminatio.

5 Köhler, O., De Hautontimorumeni Terentianae compositione (Leipzig, 1908),Google Scholar and Kuiper, W. E. J., Grieksche origineelen en latijnsche navolgingen, Zes komodies van Menander bij Terentius en Plautus (Amsterdam, 1936), in which our play is discussed on pp. 52–90, with an English summary on pp. 254–6.Google Scholar

6 A full bibliography is given in M. Schanz and Hosius, C., Geschichte der römischen Literatur i. Die Zeit der Republik 4 (Munich, 1927), pp.107–8Google Scholar (the prologues) and p.112 (Heauton); for later work, see Marti, , Lustrum 8 (1963), 15–16, 19, and 45–9Google Scholar and Arnott, W. G., Menander, Plautus, Terence (G & R New Surveys in the Classics 9) (Oxford, 1975), pp.45 ff.Google Scholar

7 Cf. Arnott, , op. cit., p.4: ‘… research could be more profitably directed into what the comedies of Plautus and Terence have themselves to offer than into their uncertain relationships with lost sources.’Google Scholar

8 Ad Andr. 301, cf. 977.

9 His second successful production, that is; I omit the first unsuccessful attempt to put on Hecyra. But the failure of Hecyra may have made Terence even more determined to have a play with a double intrigue in Heauton, since Hecyra is his only play with a single plot, and he may have felt that this fact had contributed to its failure. (I do not accept the arguments of those who would place Eunuchus before Heauton; but, even if this were the case, it would not materially affect any of the discussion in this article.)

10 See n.4 above.

11 Besides Dziatzko and Karsten, quoted below, see among others Ihne, G., Quaestiones Terentianae (Bonn, 1843), p.42;Google ScholarRitschl, F. W., Parergon Plautinorum Terentianorumque i (Leipzig, 1845), 381n.;Google ScholarFleckeisen, A., P. Terenti Afri Comoediae 2 (Leipzig, 1898), p.53;Google Scholar and Fabia, Ph., Les prologues de Térence (Paris, 1888), p.18, who claims: ‘C'est, en effet, le seul vers des prologues qu'on ne puisse déffendre.’Google Scholar

12 Dziatzko, K., P. Terenti Afri Comoediae (Leipzig, 1884), p.xxiii;Google Scholar he had first supported this view in his earlier work De prologis Plautinis et Terentianis quaestiones selectae (Bonn, 1863), pp.10–11. It is interesting to see that Dziatzko's interpretation of the meaning of the line here is the same as Leo's earlier one–see p.107 below; but Leo did not regard that meaning as ground for deletion. (‘Fl.’ at the end of the quotation means ‘Fleckeisen’.)Google Scholar

13 Karsten, H. T., ‘Terentiani prologi’, Mnemosyne N.S. 22 (1894), 197. It will soon become clear that I accept some of Karsten's reasoning, such as ‘vitiosum in metro’, but only as argument against acceptance of the reading duplici, not as argument for denying Terentian authorship of the line as a whole.Google Scholar

Several of these scholars also deleted other lines of the prologue (particularly 7–9), indicated lacunae and indulged in wholescale transposition of lines, some even regarding its present form as a combination of two prologues written for two different productions of the play. All this was done in an effort to bring the prologue into a form which it was felt would be more in line with the statement of intention in 1–3. This problem has caused almost as much trouble as has the interpretation of 4–6, but is outside the scope of this article. It is sufficient to say now that I consider that our present text can be maintained without any of these Draconian measures.

14 For contrasting words, see Andr. 20–1: neglegentiam … diligentiam; Eun. 8: bonis … non bonas; Eun. 43: veteres … novi; Hec. 17: incerta … certum etc. For repetition of words, Heaut. 20: exemplum … exemplo; Hec. 39–40: auctoritas … auctoritati; Hec. 55: causa … causam; and, of course, the integra … integrant of Heaut. 4; there are many more.

15 See Oxford Latin Dictionary fasc. IV, 934, integer 1 and 5 respectively. Leo, F. (Analecta Plautina de figuris sermonis ii (Göttingen, 1898), 22Google Scholar) differentiated by using the words (tota) and (intacta), but both these words seem to me to apply to our second group of meanings.

16 Philologus 59 (1900), 4.Google Scholar

17 Shuckburgh, E. S. (ed.), The Heauton Timorumenos of Terence (London, 1887), p.64.Google Scholar

18 De prologis Plautinis et Terentianis quaestiones selectae, p.8.Google Scholar

19 Gray, J. H. (ed.), P. Terenti Afri Hauton Timorumenos (Cambridge, 1895), p.64.Google Scholar

20 Mountford, J. F., The Scholia Bembina (London, 1934), p.50.Google Scholar The supplementation of the second scholion is due to Studemund, W., ‘Über die editio princeps der Terenz-scholien des codex Bembinus’, Neue Jahrbücher für Philol. und Paed. 97 (1868), 555.Google Scholar

21 Schlee, F., Scholia Terentiana (Leipzig, 1893), p.113.Google Scholar

22 Ad. 9–11: ‘eum Plautus locum / reliquit integrum, eum hie locum sumpsit sibi / in Adelphos’. Martin, R. H., in his edition of Adelphoe (Cambridge, 1976), p.101, says ‘as Ht. 4–5 … shows, integer may also be applied … to the new, hitherto unattempted play’.Google Scholar

23 Terence was fond of insisting on the ‘newness’ of his plays, cf. Phorm. 24; Hec. 2, 5; Ad. 12. We might, in passing, notice the use of novus and integer together in Plautus, Cas. 626, ‘novam at que integram audaciam’. My argument here would not, of course, be accepted by those scholars who reject the authenticity of 7-see n.2 above.

24 In saying this, I am aware that Terence did not actually use the noun-form contaminatio (though Luscius may have done); but he did employ the verb contaminare at e.g. Heaut. 17.

25 ‘A study of Terence's prologues’, PhQ 6 (1927), 249.Google Scholar

26 See n.14 above.

27 Bendey, R. (ed.), Publii Terentii Afri comoediae (Cambridge, 1726), pp.162–3.Google Scholar

28 In Chambry's, E. French edition of Terence (Paris, 1932), ii. 9.Google Scholar

29 See, e.g., Meyer, W., Quaestiones Terentianae (Leipzig, 1902), pp.60–1.Google Scholar

30 See Flickinger, , ‘A study of Terence's prologues’, 252n.: ‘It is unnecessary to comment upon the variant reading duplici or upon Bentley's conjecture, simplex … duplici.’Google Scholar

31 Prete, S. (ed.), P. Terenti Afri comediae (Heidelberg, 1954), p.117: ‘lectionem Bembini defendit Petrus Ferrarino qui privatis ad me litteris ostendit hunc versum magni esse momenti ad contaminationem apud Terentium intellegendam.’Google Scholar

32 Op. cit. n.2 above. For Ferrarino see especially pp.262 n., 265 n., p.Google Scholar

33 Op. cit., p.262.Google Scholar

34 See, e.g., Skutsch's, O. review of Prete's edition in CR N.S. 6 (1956), 129: ‘… neither Prete nor his unfortunate friend [Ferrarino] … seems to be aware that duplici does not scan.’ We have seen (n.13 above) that this was one of Karsten's reasons for deleting the line.Google Scholar

35 Raven, D. S., Latin Metre (London, 1965), p.25.Google Scholar

36 Lindsay, W. M., Early Latin Verse (Oxford, 1922), pp.255–6.Google Scholar

37 Op. cit., pp.262–7.Google Scholar

38 At loc. cit. in n.ll above.

39 Keil, H. (ed.), Grammatici Latini vi (Leipzig, 1874), 561.Google Scholar

40 ‘quam pars lenonum, libertos qui habent et eos deserunt’ (Troch. sept.). Most modern editors, however, retain lenonum, despite the difficulty in meaning, because of the arbitrary nature of the emendation (first suggested by Dousa in 1587) and because of the metrical problem. Fleckeisen suggested the equally arbitrary but metrically acceptable latronum pars, which would entail that Sisenna was not after all referring to Curculio; lenonum is ingeniously defended by Paratore, E. in his edition of Curculio (Florence, 1958), p.85. (One wonders, incidentally, whether Dousa, if he had had our knowledge of early metre, would ever have suggested latronum, and, likewise, whether Ritschl, if Dousa had not suggested latronum, would ever have suggested that Sisenna might be referring to Curculio.)Google Scholar

41 Cf. Lindsay, , op. cit., p.256: ‘Sisenna, we feel, must have erred when he ascribed ‘latronem' to Plautus.’Google Scholar

42 In Terence it is short in Phorm. 603 and anceps at the start of Heaut. 6. In Plautus it is short in As. 695, Cas. 722, Men. 546, Poen. 15, Pseud. 580 and Truc. 781, and anceps twice in Bacch. 641 (but see below) and once in M.G. 295 and 296.

43 Vergil, Aen. 2.663: ‘gnatum ante ora patris, pat rem qui obtruncat ad aras.’ For further examples, also late, see Austin's, R. D. edition of Aen. 2 (Oxford, 1964), p.250.Google Scholar

44 Castiglioni tactfully omits to mention that, on his own views about the scansion of duplex, its first occurrence in Heaut. 6 could also have a long first syllable.

45 Rötter, E., De Heautontimorumeno Terentiana (Bayreuth, 1892), esp. pp.17–18.Google Scholar It must be admitted that one of the seeming inconsistencies which upset Rotter does appear serious. It is that the long and intimate friendship between the two sons, Clinia and Clitipho (183–4) contrasts strangely with the fact that the two fathers, Menedemus and Chremes, had until very recently been complete strangers to one another (53 ff.). As a way out of this difficulty, it has been suggested that in writing 183–4 Terence was merely making a clumsy mistranslation of the word which appeared in the Greek at the corre sponding point; but this would still not account for the fact that Clitipho obviously knew Clinia well enough to invite him to dinner (182–3). Rötter's explanation is that Clitipho did not appear in the Greek original, and that the inconsistency is one of Terence's own making, introduced when he inserted the character of Chremes' son from another play. But perhaps there is no inconsistency here; after all, many sons do not reveal to their fathers the identity of all their friends, particularly if they suspect that their fathers may not approve of the company they keep. Though would they then invite them home for a meal? (Legrand, Ph. E., ‘La composition et la date de 1’ ‘ de Ménandre’, REG 16 (1903), 349 ff., thinks that this and the other awkwardnesses in Terence's play are not his fault but Menander's, and indicate that it was a very early work by the still inexperienced Greek dramatist which was faithfully adapted ‘warts and all’ into Latin.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 Venediger, C., ‘Zum Heautontimorumenos des Terentius’, Neue Jahrbücher fur Philol. und Paed. 109 (1874), 129–36.Google Scholar This theory has been given further publicity much more recently by Taladoire, B. A., Térence, un théatre de la jeunesse (Paris, 1972), pp.50–1, as part of a brief survey of some suggestions about the play. Taladoire admits that Venediger's views are attractive (though without acknowledging their origin), but cannot pronounce himself unreservedly in their favour; he airs the possibility that Terence may have been attracted to Menander's precisely because it was rather thin and gave him scope to give it more body by doubling the plot. (It is often felt that the characters of Charinus and Byrria in Andr. were similarly added out of Terence's own head, though they may have come from a third Greek play-other than Menander's that is.)Google Scholar

47 For the bearing which Terence's defence of his contaminatio (16–21) may have on the likelihood of his having indulged in it in this play, see p.105 below.

48 Venediger's views on the title, and on the Terentian origin of Chremes, are shared by Betty Radice; see her introductory note on The Self-Tormentor in her translation, Terence, Pbormio and other plays (Harmondsworth, 1967), p.78.Google Scholar

49 Op. cit. in n.5 above, pp.53–4.Google Scholar

50 See, e.g., Kohler, , op. cit., p.31.Google Scholar

51 In the two articles cited in nn.l and 4 above. The representation of Skutsch's views which follows is mainly based on the lengthy final footnote in the later of the two.

52 He compares A. Körte's views on the alteration of the midwife's character in Andr. 228 ff. (Hermes 44 (1909), 309 ff.)

53 The main difficulties in discussing the whole contaminatio issue are the impossibility of ascertaining precisely what Luscius had in mind when he accused Terence of it and the impossibility of knowing whether Terence was accurately representing the charges instead of twisting, exaggerating or even belittling them. Nobody would surely have expected Terence to be an absolutely literal translator of his originals, so how major (or minor) did an alteration have to be before it merited the charge? Did the use in Ad. of the discarded Diphilus scene class as contaminatio as well as furtum? And was adding material of one's own invention as serious as introducing material from another Greek original, and was that contaminatio or not? To the last question the answer is presumably ‘no’, but one would wish to be absolutely certain about the answers to these questions and to several others like them.

54 Köhler, , op. cit., p.37,Google Scholar cf. Flickinger, , ‘A study of Terence's prologues’, p.251.Google Scholar

55 See Schöll, F., ‘Zwei alte Terenzprobleme’, RbM N.F. 37 (1902), 49 n.2,Google Scholar and Flickinger, , ‘A study in Terence's prologues’, pp.236 and esp. 243. Flickinger points out that some scholars have also (or alternatively) seen in this phrase evidence for the fact that Eun., also using two originals, was produced before Heaut. –see n.9 above. But die counter-argument about exaggeration will be equally forceful here too.Google Scholar

56 Scholl, , op. cit., pp.48–9.Google Scholar

57 Leo, F., Geschichte der römiscben Literatur i: Die archaische Literatur (Berlin, 1913), 242 n.,Google Scholar supported later by Haffter, H.MH 10 (1953), 80.Google Scholar Much earlier Bentley (loc. cit. in n.27 above) reported that Scaliger even believed that the first per formance of the play was similarly divided into two, with the first two acts in the evening and the rest the following morning; his scornful comments on this extraordinary idea are in the best Bentleian tradition. Castiglioni (op. cit., p. 268 and n.37Google Scholar) seems to think that Leo was of the same mind as Scaliger, but Leo was thinking of the action of the play, Scaliger of its performance.

58 See Körte, A., Menander: Reliquiae ii (Leipzig, 1959), 58Google Scholar on fr. 133. T. Webster, B. L., Studies in Menander 2 (Manchester, 1960), p.85, thinks that the night-interval occurred in Menander also.Google Scholar

59 ‘A study of Terence's prologues’, p.254.

60 Eugr. in Wessner, P.Aeli Donati Commentum Terenti iii. i (Leipzig, 1908), 154:Google Scholar ‘ut argumentum sit duplex, dum et Latina eadem et Graeca est.’; schol. Bemb. in Mountford, , loc. cit. in n.20 above: ‘duplex: Graeca et Latina.’;Google ScholarSchlee, , loc. cit. in n.21 above: ‘Graeca Menandri et latina mea’. Eugraphius' eadem may be intendedGoogle Scholar to imply something about non-contamination and the faithful nature of Terence's adaptation.

61 ‘A study of Terence's prologues’, pp.252 ff.,Google Scholar cf. ‘Terence and Menander’, CJ 26 (1931), 676 ff., esp. 688–9.Google Scholar

62 Op. cit., p.267 n.36.Google Scholar

63 Analecta Plautina de figuris sermonis ii. 22–3.Google Scholar Since this work appeared fifteen years before Leo published his Geschichte der römischen Literatur i (where he supported the two-day action idea) it seems that in those fifteen years he had abandoned this earlier attractive idea. One would like to know his reasons.

64 ‘Der Prolog zum Hautontimorumenos des Terenz’, pp.5–6.

65 Skutsch's arguments are supported by Castiglioni, , op. cit., p.273, and it is obvious that Flickinger, Haffter, and Schöll also found Leo unconvincing here.Google Scholar

66 Of course, the preceding action has also been looking forward to the arrival of Bacchis, but not quite in the same way. She is not stated to be definitely coming as well until 311, and thereafter interest shifts to getting Clitipho to Agree to her arrival and to the mounting of the plan to pretend that she is Clinia's not Clitipho's-a plan which Clinia finally joins in advocating. The audience already knows Bacchis to be a typical mala meretrix, and therefore has not the same amount of sympathy for her, (nor, for that matter, for Clitipho either) as it has for Antiphila and Clitipho. A meeting between Bacchis, a mere meretrix, and Clitipho, a typically wild young man, has not the same romantic appeal as the reunion of a long-separated pair of genuine young lovers; accordingly Clitipho is made to leave before Bacchis' arrival.

67 By contrast, Marouzeau, J., in the Budé edn. of Terence, ii (Paris, 1956), 43 n.l, says of 381–95: ‘Le verbiage pretentieux et moralisateut convient assez bien au portrait sommaire qui nous est tracé de Bacchis, v. 227.’ But it seems to me to do exactly the opposite.Google Scholar

68 Mountford, , op. cit., p.65.Google Scholar

69 Meineke, A., Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum iv (Berlin, 1841), 111;Google ScholarIhne, , loc. cit. in n.11Google Scholar above: Kock, T., Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta iii (Leipzig, 1888), 42.Google Scholar

70 Op. cit. in n.58 above p.36 on fr. 66;Google Scholar cf. his article ‘', Hermes 64 (1929), 69 ff., esp. 79 and n.l.Google Scholar

71 Korte, , op. cit., pp.33–6, frs. 59–65 and 67.Google Scholar

72 Contrast the change from octonarii to senarii within the iambics of the second part of the scene at 404–5, where the shorter lines indicate the climax as Clinia and Antiphila finally meet.

73 It might seem that the questions are rather peculiar ones for Bacchis to as anyway, since it would be reasonable suppose that she would have learned Antiphila about Clinia and ought to 1 to deduce who he is and why the sigl him affects Antiphila so strongly. Bu would not wish to press this point.

74 See Gomme, A. W. and Sandbach, F. H., Menander, a Commentary (Oxford, 1980), pp.16–19;Google Scholar contrast Webster, T. B. L., An Introduction to Menander (Manchester, 1974), pp.82–3.Google Scholar

75 It is also one of only five such scenes in the whole of Terence, the others being Andr. 459–80, Eun. 454–506 and 771–816 and Phorm. 441–64. The first and last of these constitute special cases, since in Andr. 459–80 the fifth voice is that of Glycerium as she makes her one cry of pain from within the house at the moment of childbirth (473), while the scene in Phorm. contains Demipho's three advocati, Hegio, Cratinus, and Crito.

76 In his edition of 1884 cited in n.12 above, p.xxv.

77 Oddly enough, there is disagreement among the manuscripts even about the small part which Dromo does play at this point. Only E attributes the words ‘verum interea, dum sermones caedimus, illae sunt relictae’ (242–3) to him, and only the second hand in P gives him ‘minime minim: adeo inpeditae sunt: ancillarum gregem ducunt secum’ (245–6); in both instances all the rest give the words to Syrus. This means that the manuscripts agree only in ascribing to Dromo the two words ‘sic est’ (242). But I think that this is a coincidence, and cannot be used to support any arguments about the origin of Dromo's contribution to the scene. (See, however, Andrieu, J., ‘Les sigles de personnages dans la comédie (a propos de Térence, Heaut. 242–50Google Scholar)’, REL 16 (1938), 53–4, who gives ‘ain tu?’ and ‘sic est’ in 242 to an unconvinced Clinia and a soothing Clitipho respectively, thereby reducing Dromo to a non-speaking role in this scene in the Latin version too. He argues that this gives real meaning to the words instead of leaving us to suppose that they are the tail-end of an unspecified conversation between the two slaves.)Google Scholar

78 Studies in Menander 2, pp.84–5 on 242 ff., and p.86 on 723 ff.Google Scholar

79 Vita Terenti 4 in Wessner, P., Aeli Donati Commentum Terenti i (Leipzig, 1902), 6.Google Scholar

80 Loc. cit. in n.48.

81 The soldier may or may not be the same as the miles mentioned in 365 as being found by Syrus entreating Bacchis' attentions. Most probably he is, and the writer (be he Menander or Terence) had the earlier passage in mind when composing these lines.

82 See n.l above; Flickinger, , op. cit., p.27,Google Scholar and Beare, , op. cit., p.30.Google Scholar

85 Possibly they both retired into Chremes' house, in which case Clinia would have to be thought of as transferring at the same time as the women. But this is unlikely, since the audience must see him entering his father's house and it would be unusual for an actor to be seen transferring with the chorus. In either case there is some awk-wardness in that he enters the house for the first time since his return without ceremony or advance notice–though, admittedly, now that he knows that Antiphila is Chremes' daughter, he has much less reason to shrink from meeting his father.

84 Arnott, , op. cit. in n.6 above, p.9;Google Scholar contrast Webster, , An Introduction to Menander, pp.71–2.Google Scholar

85 Studies in Menander 2, p.84.Google Scholar

86 Based on Studies in Menander 2, pp.84–6;Google Scholar in An Introduction to Menander, pp.144–6 he alters his scheme to divisions corresponding to 177, 180, 258, 206, and 194 lines.Google Scholar

87 It might be felt that the small extent and self-contained nature of these additions is evidence of a certain lack of enterprise and inventiveness on the part of Terence or else of a desire to keep his alterations small and restricted to choric interludes through fear of further attacks from his opponents– particularly after the attacks on Andria and the failure of Hecyra.