The chief part of the Eunuchus is taken from a play of the same title by Menander; but the characters of the parasite and captain have been transferred into it from another play of Menander, called Kolax. There was an old play, too, by Nævius, founded on the Kolax; but Terence, in his prologue, denies having been indebted to this performance.
The scenes of the Eunuchus are so arranged, that the main plot is introduced by that which is secondary, and which at first has the appearance of being the principal one. Phædria is brought on the stage venting his indignation at being excluded from the house of the courtezan Thais, for the sake of Thraso, who is the sole braggart captain exhibited in the plays of our author. Thais, however, succeeds in persuading Phædria that she would admit Thraso only for two days, in order to obtain from him the gift of a damsel who had originally belonged to the mother of Thais, but after her death had been sold to the captain. Phædria, vying in gifts with Thraso, presents his mistress with an Ethiopian eunuch. The younger brother of Phædria, who is called Chærea, having accidentally seen the maid presented to Thais by Thraso, falls in love with her, and, by a stratagem of his father’s slave Parmeno, he is introduced as the eunuch to the house of Thais, where he does not in all respects consistently support the character he had assumed. After Chærea had gone off, his adventure was discovered; and Pythias, the waiting maid of Thais, in revenge for Parmeno’s fraud, tells him that Chærea, having been detected, was about to be made precisely what he had pretended to be. Parmeno, believing this report, informs the father of Chærea, who instantly rushes into the house of Thais, (to which, by this time, his son had ventured to return,) and being there relieved from his sudden apprehension, he consents the more readily to the marriage of Chærea with the girl whom he had deluded, and who is now discovered to be an Athenian citizen, and the sister of Chremes. In this paroxysm of good humour, he also agrees that Phædria should retain Thais as his mistress. Thraso and his parasite, Gnatho, having been foiled in an attack on the house of Thais, enter into terms, and, at the persuasion of Gnatho, Thraso is admitted into the society of Phædria, and is allowed to share with him the favours of Thais.
There are thus, strictly speaking, three plots in the Eunu[pg 181]chus, but they are blended with inimitable art. The quarrel and reconciliation of Thais and Phædria promote the marriage of Chærea with Pamphila, the girl presented by Thraso to Thais. This gift again produces the dispute between Phædria and Thais, and gives room for the imposture of Chærea. It is unfortunate that the regard in which the ancient dramatists held the unity of place, interposed between the spectators and the representation of what would have been highly comical—the father discovering his son in the eunuch’s habit in the house of Thais, the account of which has been thrown into narrative. At the conclusion Thraso is permitted, with consent of Phædria, to share the good graces of Thais; but, as has been remarked by La Harpe[303] and Colman[304], and as indeed must be felt by every one who reads the play, this termination is scarcely consistent with the manners of gentlemen, and it implies the utmost meanness in Phædria to admit him into his society, or to allow him a share in the favours of his mistress, merely that he may defray part of the expense of her establishment.
The drama, however, is full of vivacity and intrigue. Through the whole piece the author amuses us with his pleasantries, and in no scene discovers that his fund of entertainment is exhausted. Most of the characters, too, are happily sketched. Under Thais, Menander is supposed to have given a representation of his own mistress Glycerium. On the general nature of the parts of the parasite and braggart captain, something has been said while treating of the dramas of Plautus; but Terence has greatly refined and improved on these favourite characters of his predecessor. Gnatho is master of a much more delicate and artful mode of adulation than former flatterers, and supports his consequence with his patron, at the same time that he laughs at him and lives on him. He boasts, in the second scene of the second act, that he is the founder of a new class of parasites, who ingratiated themselves with men of fortune and shallow understandings, solely by humouring their fancies and admiring what they said, instead of earning a livelihood by submitting to blows, the ridicule of the company, and all manner of indignities, like the antiquated race of parasites whom Plautus describes as beaten, kicked, and abused at pleasure:—
“Et hîc quidem, hercle, nisi qui colaphos perpeti
Potis parasitus, frangique aulas in caput,
Vel ire extra portam trigeminam ad saccum libet.”
The new parasite, of whom Gnatho may be considered as the representative, had been delineated in the characters of Theophrastus, and has more resemblance to Shakspeare’s Osrick, or to the class of parasites described by Juvenal as infesting the families of the Great in the latter ages of Rome[305]. Thraso, the braggart captain, in the Eunuchus, is ridiculous enough to supply the audience with mirth, without indulging in the extravagant bluster of Pyrgopolinices. A scene in the fourth act gives the most lively representation of the conceit and ridiculous vanity of this soldier, who, calling together a few slaves, pretends to marshal and draw them up as if they formed a numerous army, and assumes all the airs of a general. This part is so contrived, that nothing could have more happily tended to make him appear ridiculous though he says nothing extravagant, or beyond what might naturally be expected from the mouth of a coxcomb. One new feature in Thraso’s character is his fondness for repeating his jests, and passion for being admired as a wit no less than a warrior. There is, perhaps, nowhere to be found a truer picture of the fond and froward passion of love, than that which is given us in the character of Phædria. Horace and Persius, when they purposely set themselves to expose and exaggerate its follies, could imagine nothing beyond it. The former, indeed, in the third satire of his second book, where he has given a picture of the irresolution of lovers, has copied part of the dialogue introduced near the commencement of the Eunuchus.
The love, however, both of Phædria and Chærea is more that of temperament than sentiment: Of consequence, the Eunuchus is inferior to the Andria in delicacy and tenderness; but there are not wanting passages which excel in these higher qualities. Addison has remarked[306], that Phædria’s request to his mistress, on leaving her for a few days, is inimitably beautiful and natural—
“Egone quid velim?