Dramatis Personae ARCTURUS, who speaks the Prologue. DAEMONES, an aged Athenian, now living at . PLESIDIPPUS, a young Athenian, in love with Palaestra. SCEPARNIO, Servants of Daemones. GRIPUS, TURBALIO, SPARAX, TRACHALIO, the servant of Plesidippus. LABRAX, a Procurer. CHARMIDES, a Sicilian, his guest. FISHERMEN of Cyrene. PTOLEMOCRATIA, Priestess of Venus. PALAESTRA, Young women in the possession of Labrax. AMPELISCA, (Scene.—Near Cyrene, in Africa ; not far from the sea-shore, and before the cottage of DAEMONES and the Temple of Venus, which has, probably, a small court before it, surrounded with a low wall.) THE SUBJECT
 DAEMONES, an aged Athenian, having lost his property, goes to live in retirement near the sea-shore of Cyrene , in the vicinity of the Temple of Venus. It so happens that Labrax, a Procurer, makes purchase of two damsels, Palaestra and Ampelisca, and comes to reside at Cyrene . Plesidippus, a young Athenian, sees Palaestra there, and falls in love with her; and making an arrangement with the Procurer, gives him a sum in part payment for her, on which occasion, Labrax invites him to a sacrifice in the Temple of Venus. A Sicilian guest of his, however, named Charmides, persuades him to carry the young women over to Sicily , where he is sure to make a greater profit by them. On this, the Procurer, accompanied by his guest, sets sail with them. A tempest arises, and they are shipwrecked. The young women escape in a boat, and arriving ashore, are hospitably received by the Priestess of Venus. Labrax and Charmides also escape, and on discovering where the women are, the former attempts to drag them by force from the Temple. On this they are protected by Daemones and Plesidippus, who, through Trachalio, finds out where they are. In the wreck a wallet has been lost, which belongs to Labrax, and in which is a casket enclosing some trinkets belonging to Palaestra. Gripus, a servant of Daemones, draws this up with the rope attached to his net; and by means of these trinkets it is discovered that Palaestra is the daughter of Daemones, whom he had lost in her infancy; on which she is given in marriage to Plesidippus by her father, who becomes reconciled to Labrax. THE ACROSTIC ARGUMENT. [Supposed to have been written by Priscian the Grammarian.] A FISHERMAN draws a wallet out of the sea in his net ( Reti ), in which ( Ubi ) are the trinkets of his master’s daughter, who, having been stolen, had come into the possession of a Procurer as her owner ( Dominum ). She ( Ea ), having suffered shipwreck ( Naufragio ), without knowing it comes under the protection of her own father; she is recognized, and is married to her ( Suo ) lover Plesidippus. ARCTURUS Arcturus : This is a star near the tail of the Great Bear, whose rising and setting was supposed to be productive of great tempests. The name is derived from its situation, from the Greek words αρκτὸς and οὐρὰ, the Bear’s tail. It rises in the beginning of October. Pliny mentions it as rising on the 12th, and Columella on the 5th of that month. We may here remark, that the Play is called the Fisherman’s Rope in consequence of the important part which, towards the close, the rope acts in bringing the wallet to shore in the net. The scenery of this Play must have been much more picturesque than that of those of Plautus in general. At the end of the stage is a prospect of the sea, interspersed with rocks in the distance, while others project upon the front of the stage. The City of Cyrene is also seen in the distance; while nearer to the Audience is the Temple of Venus, with an altar in front of it; and adjoining the Temple is the cottage of Daemones. Some other cottages are also seen at a distance. If the comparison may be made, it bears some slight resemblance to the Tempest of Shakspeare. WITH him who sways all nations, seas, and lands, I am a fellow-citizen in the realms of the Gods. I am, as you see As you see : The actor is supposed here to point to a star placed on his forehead, or on the head-dress which he wears. , a bright and shining star, a Constellation that ever in its season rises here on earth and in the heavens. Arcturus is my name. By night, I am glittering in the heavens and amid the Gods, passing among mortals in the day. Other Constellations, too, descend from the heavens upon the earth; Jove, who is the ruler of Gods and men— he disperses us here in various directions among the nations, to observe the actions, manners, piety, and faith of men, just as the means of each avail him. Those who commence villanous suits at law upon false testimony, and those who, in court, upon false oath deny a debt, their names written down, do we return to Jove. Each day does he learn who here is calling for vengeance. Whatever wicked men seek here to gain their cause through perjury, who succeed before the judge in their unjust demands, the same case adjudged does he judge over again, and he fines them in a penalty much greater than the results of the judgment they have gained. The good men written down on other tablets Written down on other tablets : This is not unlike the words of the Psalmist, Psalm lvi., 8: Thou tellest my wanderings; put thou my tears into thy bottle. Are they not in thy book? does he keep. And still these wicked persons entertain a notion of theirs, that they are able to appease Jupiter with gifts, with sacrifice; both their labour and their cost they lose. This, for this reason, is so, because no petition of the perjured is acceptable to Him. If any person that is supplicating the Deities is pious, he will more easily procure pardon for himself than he that is wicked. Therefore I do advise you this, you who are good and who pass your lives in piety and in virtue— still persevere, that one day you may rejoice that so you did. Now, the reason for which I’ve come hither, I will disclose to you. First, then, Diphilus Diphilus : He was a Greek Comic Poet, from whom Plautus is supposed to have borrowed the plot of several of his Plays. has willed the name of this city to be Cyrene Cyrene : This was a famous city of Libya , said to have been founded by Aristaeus, the son of the Nymph Cyrene. It was situate in a fertile plain, about eleven miles from the Mediterranean, and was the capital of a district called Pentapolis , from the five cities which it contained. . There (pointing to the cottage) dwells Daemones, in the country and in a cottage very close adjoining to the sea, an old gentleman who has come hither in exile from Athens , no unworthy man. And still, not for his bad deserts has he left his country, but while he was aiding others, meanwhile himself he embarrassed: a property honorably acquired he lost by his kindly ways. Long since, his daughter, then a little child, was lost; a most villanous fellow bought her of the thief, and this Procurer This Procurer : Leno. The calling of the lenones was to traffic in young female slaves, to whom they gave an accomplished education, and then sold them or let them out for the purposes of prostitution. The lenones were deservedly reckoned infamous. brought the maiden hither to Cyrene . A certain Athenian youth, a citizen of this city, beheld her as she was going home from the music-school. He begins to love her; to the Procurer he comes; he purchases the damsel for himself at the price of thirty minae, and gives him earnest, and binds the Procurer with an oath. This Procurer, just as befitted him, did not value at one straw his word, or what, on oath, he had said to the young man. He had a guest, a fit match for himself, an old man of Sicily , a rascal from Agrigentum Agrigentum : This was a town of Sicily , on Mount Acragas, about two miles from the sea. Its inhabitants were famed for their luxurious mode of living. , a traitor to his native city; this fellow began to extol the beauty of that maiden, and of the other damsels, too, that were belonging to him. On this he began to persuade the Procurer to go together with himself to Sicily ; he said that there the men were given to pleasure; that there he might be enabled to become a wealthy man; that there was the greatest profit from courtesans. He prevails. A ship is hired by stealth. Whatever he has, by night the Procurer carries it on board ship from his house; the young man who purchased the damsel of him he has told that he is desirous of performing a vow to Venus. This is the Temple of Venus, here (pointing at it) , and here, for that reason, has he invited the youth hither to a breakfast To a breakfast : — This probably refers to the meal which took place after the sacrifice, for which certain portions of the victim, particularly the entrails, were reserved. See the Miles Gloriosus, l. 712. . From there at once did he embark on board ship, and he carried off the courtesans. Some other persons informed the young man what things were going on, how that the Procurer had departed. When the young man came to the harbour, their ship had got a great way out to sea. When I beheld how that the maiden was being carried off, I brought at the same instant both relief to her and destruction to the Procurer; the storm I rebuked, and the waves of the sea I aroused. For the most violent Constellation of them all am I, Arcturus; turbulent I am when rising, when I set, more turbulent still. Now, cast ashore there, both the Procurer and his guest are sitting upon a rock; their ship is dashed to pieces. But this maiden, and another as well, her attendant, affrighted, have leaped from the ship into a boat. At this moment the waves are bringing them from the rocks to land, to the cottage of this old man, who is living here in exile, whose roof and tiles the storm has stript off. And this is his servant who is coming out of doors. The youth will be here just now, and you shall see him, who purchased the maiden of the Procurer. Now, fare ye well, and may your foes May your foes : The Carthaginians are alluded to; this Play having been written during the second Punic war. distrust themselves. (Exit.) (Enter SCEPARNIO, with a spade on his shoulder.) SCEPARNIO (to himself.) O ye immortal Gods, what a dreadful tempest has Neptune sent us this last night! The storm has unroofed the cottage. What need of words is there? It was no storm, but what Alcmena met with in Euripides In Euridpides : He alludes to a Tragedy of Euripides so named, where a dreadful storm was so accurately represented that at length the Play became a proverbial expression for tempestuous weather. Madame Dacier observes, that it was not strange for Sceparnio to mention this, as he might often have seen it represented at Athens upon the stage. This notion is somewhat far-fetched, as it is not likely that Plautns troubled himself about such a fine point, or that the Audience was gifted with any such nicety of perception as to note his accuracy, even if he had. It has been suggested, and not at all improbably, that Plautus borrowed the Scene of the thunder and lightning in his Amphitryon from this Play of Euripides. ; it has so knocked all the tiles from off the roof; more light has it given us, and has added to our windows. (Enter PLESIDIPPUS, at a distance, talking with three CITIZENS.) PLESIDIPPUS I have both withdrawn you from your avocations, and that has not succeeded on account of which I’ve brought you; I could not catch the Procurer down at the harbour. But I have been unwilling to abandon all hope by reason of my remissness; on that account, my friends, have I the longer detained you. Now hither to the Temple of Venus am I come to see, where he was saying that he was about to perform a sacrifice. SCEPARNIO (aloud to himself, at a distance.) If I am wise, I shall be getting ready this clay that is awaiting me. (Falls to work digging.) PLESIDIPPUS (looking round.) Some one, I know not who, is speaking near to me. (Enter DAEMONES, from his house.) DAEMONES Hallo! Sceparnio! SCEPARNIO Who’s calling me by name?