The Captivi is also the foundation of Les Captifs, a comedy of Rotrou, where a father, afflicted by the captivity of a son, purchases all the slaves exposed to sale in Ætolia, in the hope of recovering his child. The interest and vivacity of the play, which is one of the best of its author, are supported by the pleasantries of a parasite, and a variety of ingenious incidents. Ginguené has mentioned, in the Histoire Litteraire d’Italie, that the Captivi must also have suggested the Suppositi, a comedy by the author of the Orlando Furioso. Ariosto, however, has made the incidents of the Captivi subservient to a love intrigue, and not to the deliverance of a prisoner. Whilst Erostrato, a young gentleman, acts the part of a domestic in the house of his mistress’s father, his servant, Dulippo, personates his master, and studies in his place at the university of Ferrara. At the conclusion of the piece, Dulippo is discovered to be the son of an old and rich doctor of laws, who was the rival in love of Erostrato. There is a parasite in this play as in the Captivi, but the character of the doctor is new, and the scenes chiefly consist of the schemes which are laid by the master and servant to disappoint his views as to the lady of whom Erostrato is enamoured.
Casina. This play is so called from the name of a female slave, on whom, though she does not once appear on the stage, the whole plot of the drama hinges. It is said in the prologue to have been translated from Diphilus, a Greek writer of the new comedy, by whom it was called Κληρουμενοι, the Lot Drawers. Diphilus was a contemporary of Menander; he was distinguished by his comic wit and humour and occasionally by the moral sententious character of his dramas, of which he is said to have written a hundred, and from which larger fragments have been preserved than from any Greek plays belonging to the new comedy. Notwithstanding what is said in the Delphine Plautus, it is evident from its terms, that the prologue could not have been prefixed by the dramatist himself, but must have been written a good many years after his death, on occasion of a revival of the Casina. It would appear from it that the plays of Plautus had rather gone out of fashion immediately after his death; but the public at length, tired with the new comedies, began to call for the reproduction of those of Plautus—
“Nam, nunc novæ quæ prodeunt comœdiæ,
Multo sunt nequiores, quam nummi novi,
Nos postquam rumores populi intelleximus,
Studiose expetere vos Plautinas fabulas,
Antiquam ejus edimus comœdiam.”
From the same prologue it would seem that this play, when first represented, had surpassed in popularity all the dramatic productions of the time—
“Hæc quum primùm acta est, vicit omnes fabulas.”
It cannot, indeed, be denied, that, in the Casina, the unities of time and place are rigidly observed, and, in point of humour, it is generally accounted inferior to none of Plautus’s dramas. The nature, however, of the subject, will admit only of a very slight sketch. The female slave, who gives name to the comedy, is beloved by her master, Stalino, and by his son, Euthynicus,—the former of whom employs Olympio, his bailiff in the country, and the latter his armour-bearer, Chalinus, to marry Casina, each being in hopes, by this contrivance, to obtain possession of the object of his affections. Cleostrata, Stalino’s wife, suspecting her husband’s designs, supports the interests of her son, and, after much dispute, it is settled, that the claims of the bailiff and armour-bearer should be decided by lot. Fortune having declared in favour of the former, Stalino obtains the loan of a neighbour’s house for the occasion, and it is arranged, that its mistress should be invited for one evening by Cleostrata; but the jealous lady counteracts this plan by declining the honour of the visit. At length all concur in making a dupe of the old man. Chalinus is dressed up in wedding garments to personate Casina, and the play concludes with the mortification of Stalino, at finding he had been imposed on by a counterfeit bride.