These three characters all occur in this comedy; and Dacier maintains that they are very poorly supported by the poet.—Calidorus is a young lover, but his character (says the critic,) is so cold and lifeless, that he hardly deserves the name. His father, Simo, corresponds as little to the part of the Patris attenti; for he encourages the slave to deceive himself, and promises him a recompense if he succeed in over-reaching the slave-merchant, and placing in the hands of his son the girl on whom he doated. Ballio, the slave-dealer, so far from sustaining the character lenonis insidiosi, who should deceive every one, very foolishly becomes the dupe of a lying valet[261].
The scene between Calidorus and the pander, from which some lines are extracted above, and that by which it is preceded, where Ballio gives directions to his slaves, seem to have suggested two scenes in Sir Richard Steele’s comedy of the Funeral. The play has been more closely imitated by Baptista Porta, the celebrated author of the Magia Naturalis in La Trappolaria, one of the numerous plays with the com[pg 150]position of which he amused his leisure, after the mysteries and chimeras of his chief work had excited the suspicion of the court of Rome, and he was in consequence prohibited from holding those assemblies of learned men, who repaired to his house with their newly discovered secrets in medicine and other arts. His play, which was first printed at Bergamo in 1596, is much more complicated in its incidents than the Latin original. Trappola, the Pseudolus of the piece, feigns himself, as in Plautus, to be the pander’s slave, and persuades a parasite to act the part of the pander himself: By this stratagem, the parasite receives from the captain’s servant the stipulated money and tokens, but delivers to him in return his ugly wife Gabrina, as the Beauty he was to receive; and there follows a comical scene, produced by the consequent amazement and disappointment of the captain. The parasite then personates the captain’s servant, and, by means of the credentials of which he had possessed himself, obtains the damsel Filesia, whom he carries to her lover. With this plot, chiefly taken from Plautus, another series of incidents, invented by the Italian dramatist, is closely connected. The father of the young lover, Arsenio, had left his wife in Spain; and also another son, who had married there, and exactly resembled his brother in personal appearance. Arsenio being ordered by his father to sail from Naples, where the scene is laid, for Spain, in order to convey home his relatives in that country, and being in despair at the prospect of this separation from his mistress, the father is persuaded, by a device of the cheat Trappola, that he had not proceeded on the voyage, as his brother had already arrived. Availing himself of his resemblance, Arsenio personates his Spanish brother, and brings his mistress as his wife to his father’s house, where she remains protected, in spite of the claims of the captain and pander, till the whole artifice is discovered by the actual arrival of the old lady from Spain. Arsenio’s mistress being then strictly questioned, proves to be a near connection of the family, who had been carried off in childhood by corsairs, and she is now, with the consent of all, united to her lover.
There is also a close imitation of the incidents of the Pseudolus in Moliere’s Etourdi, which turns on the stratagems of a valet to place a girl in possession of his master Lelie. His first device, as already mentioned, was suggested by the Epidicus[262]; but this having failed, he afterwards contrives to get into the service of his master’s rival, Leander, who, having purchased the girl from the proprietor, had agreed to send a [pg 151]ring as a token, at sight of which she was to be delivered up. The valet receives the ring for this very purpose, carries it to the owner, and by such means is just on the point of obtaining possession of the girl, when his stratagem, as usual, is defeated by the etourderie of his master. This notion of the valet’s best-laid plans being always counteracted, was probably suggested by the Bacchides of Plautus, where Mnesilochus repeatedly frustrates the well-contrived schemes of his slave Chrysalus; though, perhaps through the medium of the Inavertito of the Italian dramatist, Nicolo Barbieri, printed in 1629, or Quinault’s Amant Indiscret, which was acted four years before Moliere’s Etourdi, and is founded on the same plan with that drama. In the particular incidents the Etourdi is compounded of the tricks of Plautus’ slaves; but Moliere has shown little judgment in thus heaping them on each other in one piece. Such events might occur once, but not six or seven times, to the same person. In fact, the valet is more of an Etourdi than his master, as he never forewarns him of his plans; and we feel as we advance, that the play could not be carried on without a previous concert among the characters to connive at impossibilities, and to act in defiance of all common sense or discretion.
Rudens.—This play, which is taken from a Greek comedy of Diphilus, has been called Rudens by Plautus, from the rope or cable whereby a fisherman drags to shore a casket which chiefly contributes to the solution of the fable. In the prologue, which is spoken by Arcturus, we are informed of the circumstances which preceded the opening of the drama, and the situation in which the characters were placed at its commencement. Plautus has been frequently blamed by the critics for the fulness of his preliminary expositions, as tending to destroy the surprise and interest of the succeeding scenes. But I think he has been unjustly censured, even with regard to those prologues, where, as in that of the Pœnulus, he has anticipated the incidents, and revealed the issue of the plot. The comedies of Plautus were intended entirely for exhibition on the public stage, and not for perusal in the closet. The great mass of the Roman people in his age was somewhat rude: They had not been long accustomed to dramatic representations, and would have found it difficult to follow an intricate plot without a previous exposition. This, indeed, was not necessary in tragedies. The stories of Agamemnon and Œdipus, with other mythical subjects, so frequently dramatized by Ennius and Livius Andronicus, were sufficiently known; and, as Dryden has remarked, “the people, as soon as they heard the name of Œdipus, knew as well as [pg 152]the poet that he had killed his father by mistake, and committed incest with his mother; that they were now to hear of a great plague, an oracle, and the ghost of Laius[263].” It was quite different, however, in those new inventions which formed the subjects of comedies, and in which the incidents would have been lost or misunderstood without some introductory explanation. The attention necessary to unravel a plot prevents us from remarking the beauties of sentiment or poetry, and draws off our attention from humour or character, the chief objects of legitimate comedy. We often read a new play, or one with which we are not acquainted, before going to see it acted. Surprise, which is everything in romance, is the least part of the drama. Our horror at the midnight murders of Macbeth, and our laughter at the falsehoods and facetiousness of Falstaff, are not diminished, but increased, by knowing the issue of the crimes of the one, and the genial festivity of the other. In fact, the sympathy and pleasure so often derived from our knowledge outweighs the gratification of surprise. The Athenians were well aware that Jocasta, in the celebrated drama of Sophocles, was the mother of Œdipus; but the knowledge of this fact, so far from abating the concern of the spectators, as Dryden supposes[264], must have greatly contributed to increase the horror and interest excited by the representation of that amazing tragedy. The celebrated scene of Iphigenia in Tauris, between Electra and Orestes, the masterpiece of poetic art and tragic pathos, would lose half its effect if we were not aware that Orestes was the brother of Electra, and if this were reserved as a discovery to surprise the spectators. Indeed, so convinced of all this were the Greek dramatists, that, in many of their plays, as the Hecuba and Hippolytus of Euripides, the issue of the drama is announced at its commencement.
But, be this as it may, the prologue itself, which is prefixed to the Rudens, is eminently beautiful. Arcturus descends as a star from heaven, and opens the piece, somewhat in the manner of the Angel who usually delivers the prologue in the ancient Italian mysteries—of the Mercury who frequently recites it in the early secular dramas, and the Attendant Spirit in the Masque of Comus, who, by way of prologue, declares his office, and the mission which called him to earth. In a manner more consistent with oriental than with either Greek or Roman mythology, Arcturus represents himself as mingling with mankind during day, in order to observe their actions, [pg 153]and as presenting a record of their good and evil deeds to Jupiter, whom the wicked in vain attempt to appease by sacrifice—
“Atque hoc scelesti in animum inducunt suum,
Jovem se placare posse donis, hostiis:
Et operam et sumptum perdunt.” ——
Arcturus having thus satisfactorily accounted for his knowledge of the incidents of the drama, proceeds to unfold the situation of the principal characters. Dæmones, before whose house in Cyrene the scene is laid, had formerly resided at Athens, where his infant daughter had been kidnapped, and had been afterwards purchased by a slave merchant, who brought her to Cyrene. A Greek youth, then living in that town, had become enamoured of her, and having agreed to purchase her, the merchant had consented to meet him and fulfil the bargain at an adjacent temple. But being afterwards persuaded that he could procure a higher price for her in Sicily, the slave-dealer secretly hired a vessel, and set sail, carrying the girl along with him. The ship had scarcely got out to sea when it was overtaken by a dreadful tempest over which Arcturus is figured as presiding. The play opens during the storm, in a manner eminently beautiful and romantic—an excellence which none of the other plays of Plautus possess. Dæmones and his servant are represented as viewing the tempest from land, and pointing out to each other the dangers and various vicissitudes of a boat, in which were seated two damsels who had escaped from the ship, and were trying to gain the shore, which, after many perils, they at length reached. The decorations of this scene are said to have been splendid, and disposed in a very picturesque manner. Madame Dacier conjectures, “that at the farther end of the stage was a prospect of the sea, intersected by many rocks and cliffs, which projected considerably forward on the stage. On one side the city of Cyrene was represented as at a distance; on the other, the temple of Venus, with a court before it, in the centre of which stood an altar. Adjacent to the temple, and on the same side, was the house of Dæmones, with some scattered cottages in the back ground.” Pleusidippus, the lover, comes forward to the temple during the storm, and then goes off in search of Labrax, the slave-merchant, who had likewise escaped from the shipwreck. The damsels, whose situation is highly interesting, having now got on shore, appear among the cliffs, and after having deplored their misfortunes, they are received into the temple by the [pg 154]priestess of Venus, who reminds them, however, that they should have come clothed in white garments and bringing victims! Here they are discovered by the slave of Pleusidippus, who goes to inform his master. Labrax then approaches to the vicinity of the temple of Venus, and having discovered that the damsels who had saved themselves from the wreck were secreted there, he rushes in to claim and seize them. Thus far the play is lively and well conducted, but the subsequent scenes are too long protracted. They are full of trifling, and are more loaded than those of any other comedy of Plautus, with quaint conceits, the quibbling witticisms, and the scurrilities of slaves. The scene in which Labrax attempts to seize the damsels at the altar, and Dæmones protects them, is insufferably tedious, but terminates at length with the pander being dragged to prison. After this, the fisherman of Dæmones is introduced, congratulating himself on having found a wallet which had been lost from the pander’s ship, and contained his money, as well as some effects belonging to the damsels. The ridiculous schemes which he proposes, and the future grandeur he anticipates in consequence of his good fortune, is an excellent satire on the fantastic projects of those who are elevated with a sudden success. Having been observed, however, by the servant of Pleusidippus, who suspected that this wallet contained articles by which Palæstra might discover her parents, a long contest for its possession ensues between them, which might be amusing in the representation, but is excessively tiresome in perusal. This may be also remarked of the scene where their dispute is referred to the arbitration of Dæmones, who apparently is chosen umpire for no other reason than because this was necessary to unravel the plot. Dæmones discovers, from the contents of the wallet, that Palæstra is his daughter. The principal interest being thus exhausted, the remaining scenes become more and more tedious. We feel no great sympathy with the disappointment of the fisherman, and take little amusement in the bargain which he drives with the pander for the restoration of the gold, or his stipulation with his master for a reward, on account of the important service he had been instrumental in rendering him.
This play has been imitated by Ludovico Dolce, in his comedy Il Ruffiano, which was published in 1560, and which, the author says in his prologue, was “vestita di habito antico, e ridrizzato alla forma moderna.” The Ruffiano is not a mere translation from the Latin: the language and names are altered, and the scenes frequently transposed. There is likewise introduced the additional character of the old man Lucretio, [pg 155]father to the lover; also his lying valet Tagliacozzo, and his jealous wife Simona. Lucretio comes from Venice to the town where the scene of the play is laid, to recover a son who had left home in quest of a girl in the possession of Secco the Ruffiano. The first act is occupied with the details of Lucretio’s family misfortunes, and it is only in the commencement of the second act that the shipwreck and escape of the damsels are introduced, so that the play opens in a way by no means so interesting and picturesque as the Rudens of Plautus. The women having taken refuge in a church, Lucretio offers them shelter in his own house, which exposes them to the rage of his jealous wife Simona. By the assistance, however, of one of these girls, he discovers his lost son, who was her lover; and the recognition of the damsel herself as daughter of Isidoro, who corresponds to the Dæmones of Plautus, is then brought about in the same manner as in the Latin original, and gives rise to the same tedious and selfish disputes among the inferior characters. Madame Riccoboni has also employed the Rudens in her comedy Le Naufrage.