History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Volume I Part 9

Shadwell, Fielding, and Goldoni, enjoyed the advantage of studying Moliere's Harpagon for their delineations of Goldingham, Lovegold, and Ottavio. In the miser of Shadwell there is much indecency indeed of his own invention, and some disgusting representations of city vulgarity and vice; but still he is hardly ent.i.tled to the praise of so much originality as he claims in his impudent preface.-"The foundation of this play," says he, "I took from one of Moliere's, called L'Avare, but that having too few persons, and too little action for an English theatre, I added to both so much, that I may call more than half of this play my own; and I think I may say, without vanity, that Moliere's part of it has not suffered in my hands. Nor did I ever know a French comedy made use of by the worst of our poets that was not bettered by them. It is not barrenness of art or invention makes us borrow from the French, but laziness; and _this_ was the occasion of my making use of _L'Avare_."

Fielding's _Miser_, the only one of his comedies which does him credit, is a much more agreeable play than Shadwell's. The earlier scenes are a close imitation of Moliere, but the concluding ones are somewhat different, and the _denouement_ is perhaps improved. Mariana is in a great measure a new character, and those of the servants are rendered more prominent and important than in the French original.

The miser Ottavio, in Goldoni's _Vero Amico_, is entirely copied from Plautus and Moliere. In the Italian play, however, the character is in a great measure episodical, and the princ.i.p.al plot, which gives its t.i.tle to the piece, and corresponds with that of Diderot's _Fils Naturel_, has been invented by the Italian dramatist.

On the whole, Moliere has succeeded best in rendering the pa.s.sion of avarice hateful: Plautus and Goldoni have only made it ridiculous. The profound and poetical avarice of Jaques possesses something plaintive in its tone, which almost excites our sympathy, and never our laughter; he is represented as a worshipper of gold, somewhat as an old Persian might be of the sun, and he does not raise our contempt by the absurdities of domestic economy. But Harpagon is thoroughly detestable, and is in fact detested by his neighbours, domestics, and children. All these dramatists are accused of having exhibited rather an allegorical representation of avarice, than the living likeness of a human Being influenced by that odious propensity. "Plautus," says Hurd, "and also Moliere, offended in this, that for the picture of the avaricious man they presented us with a fantastic unpleasing draught of the pa.s.sion of avarice-I call it a fantastic draught, because it hath no archetype in nature, and it is farther an unpleasing one; from being the delineation of a simple pa.s.sion, unmixed, it wants

'The lights and shades, whose well accorded strife Gives all the strength and colour of our life.'"

This may in general be true, as there are certainly few unmingled pa.s.sions; but I suspect that avarice so completely engrosses the soul, that a simple and unmixed delineation of it is not remote from nature.

"The Euclio of Plautus," says King, in his _Anecdotes_, "the Avare of Moliere, and Miser of Shadwell, have been all exceeded by persons who have existed within my own knowledge(236)."

_Bacchides_:-is so called from two sisters of the name of Bacchis, who are the courtezans in this play. In a prologue, which is supposed to be spoken by Silenus, mounted on an a.s.s, it is said to be taken from a Greek comedy by Philemon. This information, however, cannot be implicitly relied on, as the prologue was not written in the time of Plautus, and is evidently an addition of a comparatively recent date. Some indeed have supposed that it was prefixed by Petrarch; but at all events the following lines could not have been anterior to the conquest of Greece by the Romans:-

"Samos quae terra sit, nota est omnibus: Nam maria, terras, monteis, atque insulas Vostrae legiones reddidere pervias."

The leading incident in this play-a master's folly and inadvertence counteracting the deep-laid scheme of a slave to forward his interest, has been employed by many modern dramatists for the groundwork of their plots; as we find from the _Inavert.i.to_ of Nicolo Barbieri, sirnamed Beltramo, the _Amant Indiscret_ of Quinault, Moliere's _Etourdi_, and Dryden's _Sir Martin Mar-all_.

The third scene of the third act of this comedy, where the father of Pistoclerus speaks with so much indulgence of the follies of youth, has been imitated in Moliere's _Fourberies de Scapin_, and the fifth scene of the fourth act has suggested one in _Le Marriage Interrompu_(237), by Cailhava. If it could be supposed that Dante had read Plautus, the commencement of Lydus' soliloquy before the door of Bacchis, might be plausibly conjectured to have suggested that thrilling inscription over the gate of h.e.l.l, in the third Canto of the _Inferno_-

"Pandite, atque aperite propere januam hanc Orci, obsecro!

Nam equidem haud aliter esse duco; quippe cui nemo advenit, Nisi quem spes reliquere omnes --

Per me si va nella citta dolente: Per me si va nell eterno dolore: Per me si va tra la perduta gente.

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi, che entrate."

_Captivi_.-The subject and plot of the _Captivi_ are of a different description from those of Plautus' other comedies. No female characters are introduced; and, as it is said in the epilogue, or concluding address to the spectators,

-- "Ad pudicos mores facta haec fabula est: Neque in hac subagitationes sunt, ullave amatio, Nec pueri suppositio, nec argenti circ.u.mductio; Neque ubi amans adolescens scortum liberet, clam suum patrem."

Though no females are introduced in it, the _Captivi_ is the most tender and amiable of Plautus' plays, and may be regarded as of a higher description than his other comedies, since it hinges on paternal affection and the fidelity of friendship. Many of the situations are highly touching, and exhibit actions of generous magnanimity, free from any mixture of burlesque. It has indeed been considered by some critics as the origin of that cla.s.s of dramas, which, under the t.i.tle of _Comedies Larmoyantes_, was at one time so much admired and so fashionable in France(238), and in which wit and humour, the genuine offspring of Thalia, are superseded by domestic sentiment and pathos.

Hegio, an aetolian gentleman, had two sons, one of whom, when only four years old, was carried off by a slave, and sold by him in Elis. A war having subsequently broken out between the Elians and aetolians, Hegio's other son was taken captive by the Elians. The father, with a view of afterwards ransoming his son, by an exchange, purchased an Elian prisoner, called Philocrates, along with his servant Tyndarus; and the play opens with the master, Philocrates, personating his slave, while the slave, Tyndarus, a.s.sumes the character of his master. By this means Tyndarus remains a prisoner under his master's name, while Hegio is persuaded to send the true Philocrates, under the name of Tyndarus, to Elis, in order to effect the exchange of his son. The deception, however, is discovered by Hegio before the return of Philocrates; and the father, fearing that he had thus lost all hope of ransoming his child, condemns Tyndarus to labour in the mines. In these circ.u.mstances, Philocrates returns from Elis with Hegio's son, and also brings along with him the fugitive slave, who had stolen his other son in infancy. It is then discovered that Tyndarus is this child, who, having been sold to the father of Philocrates, was appointed by him to wait on his son, and had been gradually admitted to his young master's confidence and friendship.

There has been a great dispute among critics and commentators, whether the dramatic unities have been strictly observed in this comedy. M. De Coste, in the preface to his French translation of the _Captivi_, maintains, that the unities of place, and time, and action, have been closely attended to.

Lessing, who translated the play into German, adopted the opinion of De Coste with regard to the observance of the unities, and he has farther p.r.o.nounced it the most perfect comedy that, in his time, had yet been represented on the stage(239). A German critic, whose letter addressed to Lessing is published in that author's works(240), has keenly opposed these opinions, discussing at considerable length the question of the unities of action, time, and place, as also pointing out many supposed inconsistencies and improbabilities in the conduct of the drama. He objects, in point of verisimilitude, to the long and numerous _aparts_-the soliloquies of the parasite, which begin the first three acts,-the frequent mention of the market-places and streets of Rome, while the scene is laid in a town of Greece,-and the sudden as well as unaccountable appearance of Stalagmus, the fugitive slave, at the end of the drama. The most serious objection, however, is that which relates to the violation of the dramatic unity of time. The scene is laid in Calydon, the capital of aetolia; and, at the end of the second act, Philocrates proceeds from that city to Elis, transacts there a variety of affairs, and returns before the play is concluded. Between these two places the distance is fifty miles; and in going from one to the other it was necessary to cross the bay of Corinth. It is therefore impossible (contends this critic,) that De Coste can be accurate in maintaining that the duration of the drama is only seven or eight hours. Allowing the poet, however, the greatest poetical license, and giving for his play the extended period of twenty-four hours, it is scarcely possible that the previous parts of the drama could have been gone through, and the long voyage accomplished, in this s.p.a.ce of time. But it farther appears, that Plautus himself did not wish to claim this indulgence, and intended to crowd the journey and all the preceding dramatic incidents into twelve hours at most. He evidently means that the action should be understood as commencing with the morning: Hegio says, in the second scene of the first act,

"Ego ibo ad fratrem, ad alios captivos meos, Visum ne nocte hac quippiam turbaverint;"

and it is evident that the action terminates with the evening meal, the preparations for which conclude the fourth act. To all this Lessing replied, that there was no reason to suppose that the scene was laid in Calydon, or that the journey was made to the town of Elis, and that it might easily have been accomplished within the time prescribed by the dramatic rule of unities, if nearer points of the aetolian and Elian territories be taken than their capitals.

Some of the characters in the _Captivi_ are very beautifully drawn. Hegio is an excellent representation of a respectable rich old citizen: He is naturally a humane good-humoured man, but his disposition is warped by excess of paternal tenderness. There is not in any of the comedies of Plautus, a more agreeable and interesting character than Tyndarus: and no delineation can be more pleasing than that of his faithful attachment to Philocrates, by whom he was in return implicitly trusted, and considered rather in the light of a friend than a slave. In this play, as in most others of Plautus, the parasite is a character somewhat of an episodical description: He goes about prowling for a supper, and is a.s.sociated to the main subject of the piece only by the delight which he feels at the prospect of a feast, to honour the return of Hegio's son. The parasites of Plautus are almost as deserving a dissertation as Shakspeare's clowns.

Parasite, as is well known, was a name originally applied in Greece to persons devoted to the service of the G.o.ds, and who were appointed for the purpose of keeping the consecrated provisions of the temples. Diodorus of Sinope, as quoted by Athenaeus(241), after speaking of the dignity of the sacred parasites of Hercules, (who was himself a noted _gourmand_,) mentions that the rich, in emulation of this demi-G.o.d, chose as followers persons called parasites, who were not selected for their virtues or talents, but were remarkable for extravagant flattery to their superiors, and insolence to those inferiors who approached the persons of their patrons. This was the character which came to be represented on the stage.

We learn from Athenaeus(242), that a parasite was introduced in one of his plays by Epicharmus, the founder of the Greek comedy. The parasite of this ancient dramatist lay at the feet of the rich, eat the offals from their tables, and drank the dregs of their cups. He speaks of himself as of a person ever ready to dine abroad when invited, and when any one is to be married, to go to his house without an invitation-to pay for his good cheer by exciting the merriment of the company, and to retire as soon as he had eat and drunk sufficiently, without caring whether or not he was lighted out by the slaves(243). In the most ancient comedies, however, this character was not denominated parasite, and was first so called in the plays of Araros, the son of Aristophanes, and one of the earliest authors of the middle comedy. Antiphanes, a dramatist of the same cla.s.s, has given a very full description of the vocation of a parasite. The part, however, did not become extremely common till the introduction of the new comedy, when Diphilus, whose works were frequently imitated on the Roman stage, particularly distinguished himself by his delineation of the parasitical character(244). In the Greek theatre, the part was usually represented by young men, dressed in a black or brown garb, and wearing masks expressive of malignant gaiety. They carried a goblet suspended round their waists, probably lest the slaves of their patrons should fill to them in too small cups; and also a vial of oil to be used at the bath, which was a necessary preparation before sitting down to table, for which the parasite required to be always ready at a moment's warning(245).

It was thus, too, that the character was represented on the Roman stage; and it would farther appear, that the parasites, in the days of Plautus, carried with them a sort of Joe Miller, as a manual of wit, with which they occasionally refreshed their vivacity. Thus the parasite, in the _Stichus_, says,

"Ibo intro ad libros, et discam de dictis melioribus;"

and again-

"Libros inspexi, tam confido, quam potest, Me meum obtenturum ridiculis meis."

The parasite naturally became a leading character of the Roman stage. In spite of the pride and boasted national independence of its citizens, the whole system of manners at Rome was parasitical. The connection between patron and client, which was originally the cordial intercourse of reciprocal services, soon became that of haughty superiority on the one side, and sordid adulation on the other. Every client was in fact the parasite of some patrician, whose litter he often followed like a slave, conforming to all his caprices, and submitting to all his insults, for the privilege of being placed at the lowest seat of the patron's table, and there repaying this indelicate hospitality by the most servile flattery.

On the stage, the princ.i.p.al use of the parasite was to bring out the other characters from the canva.s.s. Without Gnatho, the Thraso of Terence would have possessed less confidence; and without his flatterer, Pyrgopolinices would never have recollected breaking an elephant's thigh by a blow of his fist.

The parasite, in the _Captivi_, may be considered as a fair enough representative of his brethren in the other plays of Plautus. He submits patiently to all manner of ignominious treatment(246)-his spirits rise and sink according as his prospects of a feast become bright or clouded-he speaks a great deal in soliloquies, in which he talks much of the jests by which he attempted to recommend himself as a guest at the feasts of the Great, but we are not favoured with any of these jests. In such soliloquies, too, he rather expresses what would justly be thought of him by others, than what even a parasite was likely to say of himself.

The parasite is not a character which has been very frequently represented on the modern stage. It is not one into which an Italian audience, who are indifferent to good cheer, would heartily enter. Accordingly, the parasite is not a common character in the native drama of Italy, and is chiefly exhibited in the old comedies of Ariosto and Aretine, which are directly imitated from the plays of Plautus or Terence; but even in them this character does not precisely coincide with the older and more genuine school of parasites. Ligurio, who is called the parasite in the _Mandragora_ of Machiavel, rather corresponds to the intriguing slave than to the parasite of the Roman drama; or at least he resembles the more modern parasites, who, like the Phormio of Terence, ingratiated themselves with their patrons by serviceable roguery, rather than by flattery.

Ipocrito, who, in Aretine's comedy of that name, is also styled the parasite, is a sort of Tartuffe, with charitable and religious maxims constantly in his mouth. He does not insinuate himself into the confidence of his patrons by a gaping admiration of their foolish sayings, but by extolling their virtues, and smoothing over their vices; and so far from being treated with any sort of contumely, he is held in high consideration, and interposes in all domestic arrangements.

It is still more difficult to find a true parasite on the English stage.

Sir John Falstaff, though something of a parasite, is as original as he is inimitable. Lazarillo, the hungry courtier in Beaumont and Fletcher's _Woman Hater_, and Justice Greedy, in Ma.s.singer's _New Way to Pay Old Debts_, to whom Sir Giles Overreach gives the command of the kitchen, and absolute authority there, in respect of the entertainment, are rather epicures in constant quest of delicacies, than hungry parasites, who submit to any indignity for the sake of a meal. Lazarillo's whole intrigue consists of schemes for being invited to dine where there was an umbrana's head, and we are told that

-- "He hath a courtly kind of hunger, And doth hunt more for novelty than plenty;"

and Justice Greedy's delight is placed in rich canary, a larded pheasant, or a red deer baked in puff paste. Mosca, in Ben Jonson's _Volpone_, who grasps at presents made to him by the legacy-hunters of his patron, and who at length attempts to defraud the patron himself, is a parasite of infinitely greater artifice and villainy than any of those in Plautus; and in the opinion of the late editor of Jonson, outweighs the aggregate merit of all Plautus's parasites. Colax, who, in the _Muses' Looking-Gla.s.s_ of Randolph, chimes in with the sentiments of each character, approving, by an immense variety of subtle arguments, every extreme of vice and folly, appears to flatter all those allegorical representations of the pa.s.sions exhibited in this drama, rather from courtesy than want. He tells us, indeed, that

"'Tis gold gives Flattery all her eloquence;"

but this part of his character is not brought prominently forward, nor is he represented as a glutton or epicure. Perhaps the character which comes nearest to the parasite of the _Captivi_ is in a play not very generally known, the _Canterbury Guests_, by Ravenscroft.

But although it might be difficult to find a precise copy in modern times of the parasite of the _Captivi_, its princ.i.p.al plot has been repeatedly imitated, particularly in an old English drama, _The Case is altered_, supposed to have been written by Ben Jonson, and published in some editions of his works. Count Ferneze, a n.o.bleman of Vicenza, and who corresponds to Hegio, lost a son called Camillo, when Vicenza was taken by the French. His other son, Paulo, is afterwards made prisoner by the same enemies. Chamont, the French general, and Camillo Ferneze, who, under the name of Gaspar, had entered into the French service, are taken prisoners by the Italians; and while in captivity they agree to change names, and apparent situations. Camillo, who pa.s.ses for Chamont, is carefully retained in confinement at Vicenza, while that general is despatched by the Count Ferneze to procure the ransom of his son Paulo. The Count having subsequently detected the imposture, Camillo is put in fetters and ordered for execution. Chamont, however, returns with Paulo, whom he had now redeemed, and the Count afterwards discovers, by means of a tablet hanging round his neck, that the youth Camillo, whom he was treating with such severity, was the son whom he had lost during the sack of Vicenza.

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 aetolia, 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. Ginguene 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 ??????e???, 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 novae quae prodeunt comdiae, Multo sunt nequiores, quam nummi novi, Nos postquam rumores populi intelleximus, Studiose expetere vos Plautinas fabulas, Antiquam ejus edimus comdiam."

From the same prologue it would seem that this play, when first represented, had surpa.s.sed in popularity all the dramatic productions of the time-

"Haec quum primum 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.

The plan here adopted by Stalino for securing possession of Casina, is nearly the same with that pursued by the Count Almaviva, in Beaumarchais'

prose comedy, _Le Marriage de Figaro_; where the Count, with similar intentions, plans a marriage between Suzanne and his valet-de-chambre, Figaro, but has his best-laid schemes invariably frustrated. The concluding part of the _Casina_ has probably, also, suggested the whole of the _Marescalco_, a comedy of the celebrated Aretine, which turns on the projected nuptials of the character who gives name to the piece, and whose supposed bride is discovered, during the performance of the marriage ceremony, to be a page of the Duke of Mantua, dressed up in wedding garments, in a frolic of the Duke's courtiers, in order to impose on the Marescalco. Those scenes in the _Ragazzo_ of Lodovico Dolce, where a similar deception is practised and where Giacchetto, the disguised youth, minutely details the event of the trick of which he was made the chief instrument, have also been evidently drawn from the same productive origin.(247)

The closest imitation, however, of the _Casina_, is Machiavel's comedy _c.l.i.tia_. Many of its scenes, indeed, have been literally translated from the Latin, and the incidents are altered in very few particulars. The Stalino of Plautus is called Nicomaco, and his wife Sofronia: their son is named Cleandro, and the dependents employed to court c.l.i.tia for behoof of their masters, Eustachio and Pirro. The chief difference is, that the young lover, who is supposed to be absent in the _Casina_, is introduced on the stage by the Italian author, and the object of his affections is a young lady, brought up and educated by his parents, and originally intrusted to their care by one of their friends, which makes the proposal of her marrying either of the servants offered to her choice more absurd than in the Latin original. The bridal garments, too, are not a.s.sumed by one of the rival servants, but by a third character, introduced and employed for the purpose. This comedy of Machiavel, his _Mandragola_, and the renowned tale of Belfegor, were the productions with which that profound politician and historian, who established a school of political philosophy in the Italian seat of the Muses-who applied a fine a.n.a.lysis to the Roman history, and a subtler than Aristotle to the theory of government-attempted, as he himself has so beautifully expressed it,

"Fare il suo tristo tempo piu soave; Perche altrove non have, Dove voltare il viso, Che gli e stato interciso Mostrar con altre imprese altra virtute."

_Cistellaria_, (the Casket.)-The prologue to this play is spoken by the G.o.d _Auxilium_, at the end of the first act. It explains the subject of the piece-compliments the Romans on their power and military glory-and concludes with exhorting them to overcome the Carthaginians, and punish them as they deserve. Hence it is probable, that this play was written during the second Punic war, which terminated in the year 552; and as Plautus was born in the year 525, it may be plausibly conjectured, that the _Cistellaria_ was one of his earliest productions. This also appears from its greater rudeness when compared with his other plays, and from the shortness and simplicity of the plot. But though the argument is trite and sterile, it is enlivened by a good deal of comic humour, particularly in the delineation of some of the subordinate characters. Like many others of Plautus's plays, it turns on the accidental recognition of a lost child by her parents, in consequence of the discovery of a casket, containing some toys, which had been left with her when exposed, and by means of which she is identified and acknowledged.

In ancient times these recognitions, so frequently exhibited on the stage, were not improbable. The customs of exposing children, and of reducing prisoners of war to slavery-the little connection or intercourse between different countries, from the want of inns or roads-and the consequent difficulty of tracing a lost individual-rendered such incidents, to us apparently so marvellous, of not unusual occurrence in real life. In Greece, particularly, divided as it was into a number of small states, and surrounded by a sea infested with pirates, who carried on a commerce in slaves, free-born children were frequently carried off, and sold in distant countries. By the laws of Athens, marriage with a foreigner was null; or, at least, the progeny of such nuptials were considered as illegitimate, and not ent.i.tled to the privileges of Athenian citizens.