Dramatis PersonaeLACHES, From λαγχύνω, to obtain by lot or heirship. an aged Athenian. PHAEDRIA, From φαιδρὸς, cheerful. his sons. CHAEREAFrom χαίρων, rejoicing. ANTIPHO, From ἀντὶ, opposite to, and φῶς, light, or φῆμι, to speak. a young man, friend of Chaerea. CHREMES, From χρεμίζω, to neigh; delighting in horses. a young man, brother of Pamphila. THRASO, From θρασὸς, boldness. a boastful Captain. GNATHO, From γναθὸς, the jawbone; a glutton. a Parasite. PARMENO, From παρὰ, by, and μένω, to remain. servant of Phldria. SANGA, From Sangia in Phrygia, his native country. cook to Thraso. DONAX, From δόνὺξ, a reed. servants of Thraso. SIMALIOFrom σιμὸς, flat-nosed. SYRISCUSFrom Syria, his country; or from συρίσκος, a basket of figs. DORUS, a Eunuch slave. THAIS, From θεύομαι, to look at. a Courtesan. PYTHIAS,From πυθομένη, asking questions. her attendants. DORIASFrom Doris, their country, a part of Caria. SOPHRONA, From σώφρων, prudent. a nurse. PAMPHILA, From πᾶν, all and φιλὸς, a friend. a female slave. (Scene.—Athens; before the houses of LACHES and THAIS. )THE SUBJECT. A CERTAIN citizen of Athens had a daughter named Pamphila, and a son called Chremes. The former was stolen while an infant, and sold to a Rhodian merchant, who having made a present of her to a Courtesan of Rhodes, she brought her up with her own daughter Thais, who was somewhat older. In the course of years, Thais following her mother’s way of life, removes to Athens. Her mother dying, her property is put up for sale, and Pamphila is purchased as a slave by Thraso, an officer and an admirer of Thais, who happens just then to be visiting Rhodes. During the absence of Thraso, Thais becomes acquainted with Phaedria, an Athenian youth, the son of Laches; she also discovers from Chremes, who lives near Athens, that Pamphila, her former companion, is his sister. Thraso returns, intending to present to her the girl he has bought, but determines not to do so until she has discarded Phaedria. Finding that the girl is no other than Pamphila, Thais is at a loss what to do, as she both loves Phaedria, and is extremely anxious to recover Pamphila. At length, to please the Captain, she excludes Phaedria, but next day sends for him, and explains to him her reasons, at the same time begging of him to allow Thraso the sole right of admission to her house for the next two days, and assuring him that as soon as she shall have gained possession of the girl, she will entirely throw him off. Phaedria consents, and resolves to spend these two days in the country; at the same time he orders Parmeno to take to Thais a Eunuch and an Aethiopian girl, whom he has purchased for her. The Captain also sends Pamphila, who is accidentally seen by Chaerea, the younger brother of Phaedria; he, being smitten with her beauty, prevails upon Parmeno to introduce him into the house of Thais, in the Eunuch’s dress. Being admitted there, in the absence of Thais, he ravishes the damsel. Shortly afterward Thraso quarrels with Thais, and comes with all his attendants to her house to demand the return of Pamphila, but is disappointed. In conclusion, Pamphila is recognized by her brother Chremes, and is promised in marriage to Chaerea; while Thraso becomes reconciled to Phaedria, through the mediation of Gnatho, his Parasite. THE TITLEColman has the following remark on this Play: This seems to have been the most popular of all the Comedies of Terence. Suetonius and Donatus both inform us that it was acted with the greatest applause, and that the Poet received a larger price for it from the Aediles than had ever been paid for any before, namely, 8000 sesterces, which is about equal to 200 crowns, which in those times was a considerable sum. OF THE PLAY. PERFORMED at the Megalensian Games; L. Posthumius Albinus and L. Cornelius Merula being Curule Aediles. L. Ambivius Turpio and L. Atilius Praenestinus performed it. Flaccus, the freedman of Claudius, composed the music to two treble flutes. From the Greek of Menander. It was acted twice,Acted twice This probably means twice in one day. As it is generally supposed that something is wanting after the figures II, this is presumed to be die, in one day, in confirmation of which Suetonius informs us that it really was performed twice in one day. Donatus says it was performed three times, by which he may probably mean, twice on one day and once on another. M. Valerius and C. Fannius being Consuls.Being Consuls M. Valerius Messala and C. Fannius Strabo were Consuls in the year from the building of the City 591, or B.C. 162. THE SUMMARY OF C. SULPITIUS APOLLINARIS. THE Captain, Thraso, being ignorant of the same, has brought from abroad a girl who used wrongly to be called the sister of Thais, and presents her to Thais herself: she in reality is a citizen of Attica. To the same woman, Phaedria, an admirer of Thais, orders a Eunuch whom he has purchased, to be taken, and he himself goes away into the country, having been entreated to give up two days to Thraso. A youth, the brother of Phaedria, having fallen in love with the damsel sent to the house of Thais, is dressed up in the clothes of the Eunuch. Parmeno prompts him; he goes in; he ravishes the maiden; but at length her brother being discovered, a citizen of Attica, betroths her who has been ravished, to the youth, and Thraso prevails upon Phaedria by his entreaties.

THE PROLOGUEIF there is any one who desires to please as many good men as possible, and to give offense to extremely few, among those does our Poet enroll his name.Next, if there is one who thinksIf there is one who thinks: He alludes to his old enemy, Luscus Lavinius, the Comic Poet, who is alluded to in the Prologue to the , and has since continued his attacks upon him. that language too harsh is here applied to him, let him bear this in mind—that it is an answer, not an attack; inasmuch as he has himself been the first aggressor; who, by translating plays verbally,By translating literally: Bene vertendo, at eosdem scribendo male. This passage has greatly puzzled some of the Commentators. Bentley has, however, it appears, come to the most reasonable conclusion; who supposes that Terence means by bene vertere, a literal translation, word for word, from the Greek, by which a servile adherence to the idiom of that language was preserved to the neglect of the Latin idiom; in consequence of which the Plays of Luscus Lavinius were, as he remarks, male scriptae, written in bad Latin. and writing them in bad Latin, has made out of good Greek Plays Latin ones by no means good. Just as of late he has published the PhasmaHas published the Phasma: The , or Apparition, was a play of Menander, so called, in which a young man looking through a hole in the wall between his father’s house and that next door, sees a young woman of marvelous beauty, and is struck with awe at the sight, as though by an apparition; in the Play, the girl’s mother is represented as having made this hole in the wall, and having decked it with garlands and branches that it may resemble a consecrated place; where she daily performs her devotions in company with her daughter, who has been privately brought up, and whose existence is unknown to the neighbors. On the youth coming by degrees to the knowledge that the object of his admiration is but a mortal, his passion becomes so violent that it will admit of no cure but marriage, with the celebration of which the Play concludes. Bentley gives us the above information from an ancient Scholiast, whose name is unknown, unless it is Donatus himself, which is doubtful. It would appear that Luscus Lavinius had lately made a translation of this Play, which, from its servile adherence to the language of the original, had been couched in ungrammatical language, and probably not approved of by the Audience. Donatus thinks that this is the meaning of the passage, and that, content with this slight reference to a well-known fact, the author passes it by in contemptuous silence. [the Apparition] of Menander;and in the Thesaurus [the Treasure] has describedAnd in the Thesaurus has described Cook has the following appropriate remark upon this passage: In the Thesaurus, or Treasure of Luscus Lavinius, a young fellow, having wasted his estate by his extravagance, sends a servant to search his father’s monument: but he had before sold the ground on which the monument was, to a covetous old man; to whom the servant applies to help him open the monument; in which they discover a hoard and a letter. The old fellow sees the treasure and keeps it; the young one goes to law with him, and the old man is represented as opening his cause first before the judge, which he begins with these words:— Athenienses, bellum cum Rhodiensibus, Quod fuerit, quid ego praedicem? Athenians, why should I relate the war with the Rhodians? And lie goes on in a manner contrary to the rules of court; which Terence objects to, because the young man, who was the plaintiff, should open his cause first. Thus far Bentley, from the same Scholiast [as referred to in the last Note]. This Note is a clear explanation of the four verses to which it belongs. Hare concurs with Madame Dacier in her opinion de Thesauro, that it is only a part of the Phasma of Menander, and not a distinct Play; but were I not determined by the more learned Bentley, the text itself would not permit me to be of their opinion; for the words atque in Thesauro scripsit seem plainly to me to be a transition to another Play. The subject of the Thesaurus is related by Eugraphius, though not with all the circumstances mentioned in my Note from Bentlev. Colman also remarks here: Menander and his contemporary Philemon, each of them wrote a Comedy under this title. We have in the above Note the story of Menander’s; and we know that of Philemon’s from the Trinummus of Plautus, which was a Translation of it. him from whom the gold is demanded, as pleading his cause why it should be deemed his own, before the person who demands it has stated how this treasure belongs to him, or how it came into the tomb of his father. Henceforward, let him not deceive himself, or fancy thus,I have now done with it; there’s nothing that he can say to me. I recommend him not to be mistaken, and to refrain from provoking me. I have many other points, as to which for the present he shall be pardoned, which, however, shall be brought forward hereafter, if he persists in attacking me, as he has begun to do. After the Aediles had purchased the Eunuch of Menander, the Play which we are about to perform, he managed to get an opportunity of viewing it.Opportunity of viewing it Colman thinks that this means something stronger than merely being present at the representation, and he takes the meaning to be, that having obtained leave to peruse the MS., he furnished himself with objections against the piece, which he threw out when it came to be represented before the magistrates. Cooke thinks that the passage only means, that he bustled and took pains to be near enough at the representation to see and hear plainly. The truth seems to be that Lavinius managed to obtain admission at the rehearsal or trial of the merits of the piece before the magistrates, and that he then behaved himself in the unseemly manner mentioned in the text. When the magistrates were present it began to be performed. He exclaimed that a thief, no Poet, had produced the piece, but still had not deceivedProduced the piece, but still had not deceived him There is a pun here upon the resemblance in meaning of the words verba dare and fabulam dare. The first expression means to deceive or impose upon; the latter phrase has also the same meaning, but it may signify as well to represent or produce a Play. Thus the exclamation in its ambiguity may mean, he has produced a Play, and has not succeeded in deceiving us, or he has deceived us, and yet has not deceived us. This is the interpretation which Donatus puts upon the passage. him;that, in fact, it was the Colax, an old Play of Plautus;Colax, an old Play of Plautus Although Nonius Marcellus professes to quote from the Colax of Plautus (so called from the Greek Κολὺξ, a flatterer or parasite), some scholars have disbelieved in the existence of any Play of Plautus known by that name. Cooke says: If Plautus had wrote a Play under the title of Colax, I should think it very unlikely that it should have escaped Terence’s eye, considering how soon he flourished after Plautus, his being engaged in the same studies, and his having such opportunities to consult the libraries of the great; for though all learning was then confined to Manuscripts, Terence could have no difficulty in coming at the best copies. The character of the Miles Gloriosus [Braggart Captain] here mentioned, I am inclined to think the same with that which is the hero of Plautus’s Comedy, now extant, and called Miles Gloriosus, from which Terence could not take his Thraso. Pyrgopolinices and Thraso are both full of themselves, both boast of their valor and their intimacy with princes, and both fancy themselves beloved by all the women who see them; and they are both played off by their Parasites, but they differ in their manner and their speech: Plautus’s Pyrgopolinices is always in the clouds, and talking big, and of blood and wounds—Terence’s Thraso never says too little nor much, but is an easy ridiculous character, continually supplying the Audience with mirth without the wild extravagant bluster of Pyrgopolinices; Plautus and Terence both took their soldiers and Parasites from Menander, but gave them different dresses. Upon this Note Colman remarks: Though there is much good criticism in the above Note, it is certain that Plautus did not take his Miles Gloriosus from the Colax of Menander, as he himself informs us it was translated from a Greek play called Αλάζων, the Boaster, and the Parasite is but a trifling character in that play, never appearing after the first Scene. and that from it were taken the characters of the Parasite and the Captain. If this is a fault, the fault is the ignorance of the Poet; not that he intended to be guilty of theft. That so it is, you will now be enabled to judge.The Colax is a Play of Meander’s; in it there is Colax, a Parasite, and a braggart Captain: he does not deny that he has transferred these characters into his Eunuch from the Greek; but assuredly he does deny this, that he was aware that those pieces had been already translated into Latin.But if it is not permitted us to use the same characters as others, how can it any more be allowed to represent hurrying servants,Hurrying servants On the currentes servi, see the Prologue to the Heautontimorumenos, l. 31. Ovid, in the Amores, B. i., El. 15, l. 17, 18, mentions a very similar combination of the characters of Menander’s Comedy: So long as the deceitful slave, the harsh father, the roguish procuress, and the cozening courtesan shall endure, Menander will exist. to describe virtuous matrons, artful courtesans, the gluttonous parasite, the braggart captain, the infant palmed off, the old man cajoled by the servant,about love, hatred, suspicion? In fine, nothing is said now that has not been said before. Wherefore it is but just that you should know this, and make allowance, if the moderns do what the ancients used to do. Grant me your attention, and give heed in silence,that you may understand what the Eunuch means.

(Enter PHAEDRIA and PARMENO.)PHAEDRIA What then, shall I do?What, then, shall I do? Phaedria, on being sent for by Thais, breaks out into these words as he enters, after having deliberated upon his parting with her. Both Horace and Persius have imitated this passage in their Satires. Ought I not to go, not now even, when I am sent for of her own accord? Or ought I rather so to behave myself as not to put up with affronts from Courtesans? She shut her door against me; she now invites me back. Ought I to return? No; though she should implore me.PARMENO l’faith, if indeed you only can, there’s nothing better or more spirited; but if you begin, and can not hold out stoutly, and if, when you can not endure it, while no one asks you, peace being not made, you come to her of your own accord, showing that you love her, and can not endure it, you are done for; it’s all over with you;you are ruined outright. She’ll be jilting you, when she finds you overcome. Do you then, while there’s time, again and again reflect upon this, master, that a matter, which in itself admits of neither prudence nor moderation, you are unable to manage with prudence. In love there are all these evils; wrongs,suspicions, enmities reconcilements, war, then peace; if you expect to render these things, naturally uncertain, certain by dint of reason, you wouldn’t effect it a bit the more than if you were to use your endeavors to be mad with reason. And, what you are now, in anger, meditating to yourself,What! I to her?What! I to her? Donatus remarks that this is an abrupt manner of speaking familiarly to persons in anger; and that the sentences are thus to be understood, I, go to her? Her, who has received him! Who has excluded me!—inasmuch as indignation loves to deal in Ellipsis and Aposiopesis. Who—him! Who—me! Who wouldn’t? Only let me alone; I had rather die; she shall find out what sort of a person I am; these expressions, upon my faith, by a single false tiny tear, which, by rubbing her eyes, poor thing, she can hardly squeeze out perforce, she will put an end to; and she’ll be the first to accuse you; and you will betoo ready to give satisfaction to her.PHAEDRIA O disgraceful conduct! I now perceive, both that she is perfidious, and that I am a wretched man. I am both weary of her, and burn with passion; knowing and fully sensible, alive and seeing it, I am going to ruin; nor do I know what I am to do.PARMENO What you are to do? Why, only to redeem yourself, thus captivated,at the smallest price you can; if you can not at a very small, rate, still for as little as you can; and do not afflict yourself.PHAEDRIA Do you persuade me to this?PARMENO If you are wise. And don’t be adding to the troubles which love itself produces; those which it does produce, bear patiently. But see, here she is coming herself, the downfall of our fortunes,The downfall of our fortunes. Colman observes, There is an extreme elegance in this passage in the original; and the figurative expression is beautifully employed. Calamitas was originally a word used in husbandry, which signified the destruction of growing corn; because, as Donatus says, Comminuit calamum et segetem;—it strikes down the blades and standing corn.—for that which we ought ourselves to enjoy she intercepts.

(Enter THAIS from her house.)THAIS(to herself, not seeing them.)Ah wretched me! I fear lest Phaedria should take it amiss or otherwise than I intended it, that he was not admitted yesterday. PHAEDRIA(aside to PARMENO.)I’m trembling and shivering all over, Parmeno, at the sight of her.