This is the final degeneration into the realm of pure foolery. It is a patent declaration: "This is only a play; laugh and we are content." Once more we venture to point a parallel on the modern stage, in the vaudeville comedian who interlards his dancing with comments such as: "I hate to do this, but it's the only way I can earn a living."
6. Use of stock plots and characters.
We must touch finally, but very lightly, on the commonplaces of stock plots and characters. The whole array of puppets is familiar to us all: the cunning slave, the fond or licentious papa, the spendthrift son and their inevitable confrères appear in play after play with relentless regularity. The close correspondence of many plots is also too familiar to need discussion.[187] The glimmering of originality in the plot of the Cap. called for special advertisement.[188] In the light of the foregoing evidence, the pertinence of these facts for us, we reiterate, is that Plautus merely adopted the New Comedy form as his comic medium, and, while leaving his originals in the main untouched, took what liberties he desired with them, with the single-minded purpose of making his public laugh.[189]
In Conclusion
In contrast to these grotesqueries certain individual scenes and plays stand out with startling distinctness as possessed of wit and humor of high order. The description by Cleaereta of the relations of lover, mistress and lena is replete with biting satire (As. 177 ff., 215 ff.). The finale of the same play is irresistibly comic. In Aul. 731 ff. real sparks issue from the verbal cross-purposes of Euclio and Lyconides over the words "pot" and "daughter." The Bac. is an excellent play, marred by padding. When the sisters chaff the old men as "sheep" (1120 ff.), the humor is naturalistic and human. The Cas., uproarious and lewd as it is, becomes excruciatingly amusing if the mind is open to appreciating humor in the broadest spirit. The discourse of Periplecomenus (Mil. 637 ff.) is marked by homely satirical wisdom. In the Ps. the badinage of the name-character is appreciably superior to most of the incidental quips. Pseudolus generously compliments Charinus on beating him at his own game of repartee (743). When Weise (Die Komodien des Plautus, p. 181) describes Ps. IV. 7 as "eine der ausgezeichnetsten Scenen, die es irgend giebt," his superlative finds a better justification than usual.
When Menaechmus Sosicles sees fit "to put an antic disposition on," we have a scene which, while eminently farcical, is signally clever and dramatically effective. Witness the imitation by Shakespeare in The Comedy of Errors, IV. 4, and in spirit by modern farce; for instance, in A Night Off, when the staid old Professor feels the recrudescence of his youthful aspirations to attend a prize-fight, he simulates madness as a prelude to dashing wildly away.
The following from Rud. (160 ff.) is theatrical but tremendously effective and worthy of the highest type of drama. Sceparnio, looking off-stage, spies Ampelisca and Palaestra tossed about in a boat. He addresses Daemones: "SC. But O Palaemon! Hallowed comrade of Neptune ... what scene meets my eye?
DAE. What do you see?
SC. I see two poor lone women sitting in a bit of a boat. How the poor creatures are being tossed about! Hoorah! Hoorah! Fine! The waves are whirling their boat past the rocks into the shallows. A pilot couldn't have steered straighter. I swear I never saw waves more high. They're safe if they escape those breakers. Now, now, danger! One is overboard! Ah, the water's not deep: she'll swim out in a minute. Hooray! See the other one, how the wave tossed her out! She is up, she's on her way shoreward; she's safe!"
Sceparnio clasps his hands, jumps up and down, grasps the shaking Daemones convulsively and communicates his excitement to the audience. It is a piece of thrilling theatrical declamation and must have wrought the spectators up to a high pitch. In general, the Rud. is a superior play.