In Cas. 229 ff. there is developed a piece of faithful and entertaining character-drawing, as the old roué Lysidamus fawns upon his militant spouse Cleostrata, with the following as its climax:
"CLE. (Sniffling.) Ha! Whence that odor of perfumes, eh?
LYS. The jig's up."
In the whole panorama of Plautine personae the portrayal of Alcmena in the Amph. is unique, for she is drawn with absolute sincerity and speaks nothing out of character. Certainly no parody can be made out of the nobly spoken lines 633-52, which lend a genuine air of tragedy to the professed tragi(co)comoedia (59, 63); unless we think of the lady's unwitting compromising condition (surely too subtle a thought for the original audience). Note also the exalted tone of 831-4, 839-42. But all through this scene Sosia is prancing around, prating nonsense, and playing the buffoon, so that perchance even here the nobility becomes but a foil for the revelry. And in 882-955 his royal godship Jove clowns it to the lady's truly minted sentiments.
No, we are far from attempting to deny to Plautus all dramatic technique, skill in character painting and cleverness of situation, but he was never hide-bound by any technical considerations. He felt free to break through the formal bonds of his selected medium at will. He had wit, esprit and above all a knowledge of his audience; and of human nature generally, or else he could not have had such a trenchant effect on the literature of all time.
At any rate, the above lonely landmarks cannot affect our comprehensive estimate of the mise-en-scène. Enough has been said, we believe, in our discussion of the criticism and acting and in our analysis of his dramatic values, to show that the aberrations of Plautus' commentators have been due to their failure to reach the crucial point: the absolute license with which his plays were acted and intended to be acted is at once the explanation of their absurdities and deficiencies. This was true in a far less degree of Terence, who dealt in plots more stataria and less motoria.[190] Though using the same store of models, he endeavored to produce an artistically constructed play, which should make some honest effort to "hold the mirror up to nature." We are convinced that even his extensive use of contaminatio was designed to evolve a better plot. The extravagance of Plautus is toned down in Terence to a reasonable verisimilitude and a far more "gentlemanly" mode of fun-making that was appropriate to one in the confidence of the aristocratic Scipionic circle. But when all is said and done, Terence lacks the vivid primeval "Volkswitz" of Plautus. We dare only skirt the edges of this extensive subject.[191]
Above all, our noble jester succeeds in his mission of laugh-producing. But his methods are not possessed in the main of dramatic respectability. And it must be apparent that our analysis and citations have covered the bulk of the plays.
We conclude then that the prevalence of inherent defects of composition and the lack of serious motive, coupled with the author's constant and conscious employment of the implements of broad farce and extravagant burlesque, impel us inevitably to the conclusion that we have before us a species of composition which, while following a dramatic form, is not inherently drama, but a variety of entertainment that may be described as a compound of comedy, farce and burlesque; while the accompanying music, which would lend dignity to tragedy or grand opera, merely heightens the humorous effect and lends the color of musical comedy or opera bouffe.[192] Körting is right in calling it mere entertainment, Mommsen is right in calling it caricature, but we maintain that it is professedly mere entertainment, that it is consciously caricature and if it fulfills these functions we have no right to criticise it on other grounds. If we attempt a serious critique of it as drama, we have at once on our hands a capricious mass of dramatic unrealities and absurdities: bombast, burlesque, extravagance, horse-play, soliloquies, asides, direct address of the audience, pointless quips, and so on. The minute we accept it as a consciously conceived medium for amusement only, we have a highly effective theatrical mechanism for the unlimited production of laughter. And, in fact, every shred of evidence, however scant, goes to show that the histrionism must have been conceived in a spirit of extreme liveliness, abandon and extravagance in gesture and declamation, that would not confine the actor to faithful portrayal in character, but would allow him scope and license to resort to any means whatsoever to bestir laughter amongst a not over-stolid audience.
Footnotes
1. E.g., Casina in the Cas., Silenium in the Cis., Planesium in the Cur., Adelphasium and Anterastylis in the Poen., Palaestra in the Rud.