Classics 351
January 18, 2022

• cast of characters: Lysidamus, Roman paterfamilias & a senex amator ("old man in love"), Cleostrata, Myrrhina; slaves Olympio, Chalinus, Pardalisca; neighbor Alcesimus, cook Citrio
  
  
  
  
• absent Casina ("Cinnamon Girl")—theme of food; son of Cleostrata & Lysidamus Euthynicus
  
  
• late play of Plautus (ca. 185 BCE) & social-historical backdrop: law of 215 BCE limited women's personal expenditures during 2nd Punic War, repealed after women's protests in 195 BCE; woman's finances/property rights at issue at time of Casina's debut
  
  
• Myrrhina & Cleostrata in Scene 3 (Song): traditional marriage cum manu (transfer of father’s power & property to husband) vs. marriage sine manu, "without [transfer of] power"
  
  
• Greek source play's title from lot-drawing Scene 7
  
  Casina 31-34 (prologue)
  In Greek this comedy’s called Klerumenoi, ["The Lot-Drawers"]
  In Latin Sortientes. Diphilus is the
  Greek author. Plautus—he of the barking name— [Titus Maccius Plautus = "Dick, Son of Clown, Flat(foot)"]
  Got hold of it and reworked it all over again.
  
  
• what has Plautus done with his Greek source play?
  

CASINA PROLOGUE

An old man lives here. He’s married and has a son                35
Who lives with him in this same house.                                               
The old guy has a slave, laid up sick now,
Or laid up in bed to be more precise.
At the very crack of dawn sixteen years ago
That same slave spotted a woman                         40
Abandoning a baby girl. He went right up to her                 
And asked if he could have the baby. [exposed baby]
His plea succeeded. He took it straight home,
And begged his mistress to raise the baby.
His mistress agreed and gave it all her care,                    45
Just as if it were her very own daughter ... [recognition play]

... Now after the old man found out that his son                 60
Was in love, and seeing an obstacle to his plan,
He had the young man sent abroad.
But the mother, clever lady that she is, has become her son’s ally.
In case you’re wondering, the son won’t return today.
Not in this comedy. That just wasn’t Plautus’ plan:                 65
He brought down a bridge on the young man’s way home. [Greek play? Plautus's plot shift?]

[EPILOGUE (delivered by Chalinus?):
Spectators, here’s what will happen inside:
It’ll be discovered that this Casina is the neighbor’s daughter
And she’ll marry our young master, Euthynicus. [recognition & wedding scenes eliminated by Plautus]]

• Romanized performance context

Now I’m sure some of you are saying to yourselves,
“What the …? How can it be? A slave wedding?
Since when do slaves propose or get married?
It’s unheard of, and doesn’t happen anywhere in the world!”             70
Ah, but it does in Greece and in Carthage,
And in Apulia right here in our own backyard!
There the weddings of slaves tend to be
Bigger affairs than those of free folks ... [suspension of disbelief]

... Now back to that abandoned girl,
The one the slaves are so eager to marry:                      80
Turns out she’s a freeborn virgin:
Yes, the daughter of an Athenian! So they’ll be no
Fooling around with her in this comedy.
But trust me, as soon as the play’s over,
I’m sure whoever counts out the cash to her                     85
Can have his honeymoon—no ceremony necessary! [status of Roman actors]


*GROUPS (pivotal scenes following the lottery)*

• Cleostrata's victory over Lysidamus ("misrule and metatheater")
  
  Casina 855-861 (Myrrhina, with Pardalisca & Cleostrata, waiting for Lysidamus and Olympio to come out of the house)
  Myr: Such fine and fitting entertainment inside!
  We’re out here on the street now to watch the wedding festival.
  My goodness, I’ve never laughed so much in my life
  And doubt I’ll ever laugh like that again!
  Par: I so want to know what the new He-bride is doing with his new husband!
  Myr: No playwright has ever devised a better
  Plot than this clever production of ours!
  
  Casina 1005-1006 (Cleostrata's metatheatrical decision to forgive Lysidamus):
  But the only reason I'm going to forgive him
  Is that this play is long and I don't want to make it any longer.
  
  
• Finale: Lysidamus's cloak and walking stick returned, all enter (his) house; family order restored?; a "proto-feminist" play?
  
  Casina 1015-1018 (epilogue)
  Now the right thing for you to do is to give us the thundering applause
  We so richly deserve. Those who do will win the whore of their dreams
  (and the wife will be none the wiser). Those who don¹t applaud as loudly as possible,
  Will take a he-goat bathed in sewer-water to bed instead!
  
  
  
  

  Lauren Dudley's Casina Puppet performance (Seattle, 2013): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsWW0ywTerE