Classics 351
January 25, 2022

Sperlonga Odysseus/Ulysses, Grotto of Tiberius, 1st century CE
[Pseudolus the comic hero: “he's got it all over Ulysses and the Trojan Horse!,” 1244; cf. "my Ulysses," 1063]

*No Class: Thursday, February 17*

*My Monday Office Hour is now 12:30pm-2:00pm*

Pseudolus 694-1335

• Pseudolus & Plautus's comic program ("metapoetics"): the Cook & Simia (+ Pseudolus the playwright-figure)
  
  
• Scene 11: the boastful & verbose Cook as spokesperson for Plautine comedy (fresh, innovative, distinctly Plautine)
  
  Pseudolus 810ff. (originality of the ingredients of his cuisine/comic banquet)
  I don't season my meals the way the other cooks do
  They proudly present their guests grasslands
  peppered on plates, and pile on even more greens
  As if they were feeding cows, not guests ...
  
  Pseudolus 829-836 (demonstration of his linguistic skills)
  Someone who dines on my spicy concoctions
  Can expect to live for two hundred years!
  When I’ve sprinkled on some cookidrum
  Or onionmeg or clownonia or headwoundorim, [“clownonia”= maccidem; cf. Plautus's name, Titus Maccius Plautus]
  The plates themselves instantly feel the heat.
  Such are my spices for Neptune’s flocks;
  On creatures of the Earth I sprinkle castoroilium
  Or mushmeatsis or sluiceia.
  
  
  
  ABOVE: Greek athletes sacrificing, Attic hydria, ca. 500-475 BCE
  
  Pseudolus 840-846 (his fantastical imaginative powers)
  Cook
  When everything’s ready I remove the lids:
  The scent flies to the sky with outstretched hands.
  Ballio
  “A scent with outstretched hands?”
  Cook
                    Oh, my mistake.
  Ballio
  Huh?
  Cook
     I meant to say “with a scent out of hams.”
  Jupiter feasts daily on that scent.
  Ballio
  Really? What does he eat on the days you’re not cooking?            
  Cook
  He goes to bed hungry.
  
  
• Cook played by same actor as Pseudolus? Pseudolus onstage except Scene 10 (Slave Boy's monologue) and Scenes 16-18 (Simo, Ballio, Harpax); Ballio links Cook and Pseudolus together as "thieves" at end of Scene 11 (894ff.)
  
  
• Scenes 12-15: Simia, "Monkeyman" (cf. mimesis), Pseudolus's comic double; resists Pseudolus's direction in first appearance, 905ff.
  
  Pseudolus 925-929 (stealing Harpax's identity in theater of deception)
  You can be damn sure I’ll be a better Harpax than he is! So stay calm!                    
                    I’ll work all the kinks out of this plan for you nicely.
                    My tricks and lies will so terrify our visiting soldier
                    That he himself will deny that he is who he is,
                    And solemnly swear that I’m him!
  
  Pseudolus 983-988 (improvising)
  Ballio
  And your master’s name is?
  Pseudolus (aside)
               Damn! That muddies up the water!
  He doesn’t know the name! Now we’re stuck!
  Ballio
                        So what do you say his name is?         
  Simia
  Check out the seal: you tell me his name,           
  So I can be sure you’re really Ballio.
  Ballio
  Give me the letter.
  Simia
           Okay. Now identify the seal.
  Ballio
  Oh, it’s Polymachaeroplagides!
  
  Pseudolus 1017-1022 (outricking the trickster?)
  Never, ever have I seen a worse human being,
  A more deviously wicked fellow than this Simia!
  He so awfully damn good he scares me!
  What if, just when things are going well,                                                   
  He turns his wily weapons against me
  As soon as he gets the chance?
  
  
  
• Simia: metacomedy, nested china-box effect, mise en abîme, "place(d) into abyss"
  
  
  
  *GROUPS*
  
  
  
• Scene 20: drunken comic hero settles his bet with Simo; the clever slave's creative defiance
  
  *PERFORMANCE: Finn (Simo) & Jackson (Pseudolus)*
  
  Pseudolus 1320-1325 (master's vs. slave's pain; their post-play future?)
  Simo
  Oh, Oh, Oh! [Simo cries heu, heu; cf. eheu, "waah," joke, 79ff.]
  Pseudolus
       Now stop that!
  Simo
            It hurts.
  Pseudolus
               One of us has to be hurting.   
  Simo
  You’re really going to take this from your master, Pseudolus?
  Pseudolus
                            With absolute pleasure.
  Simo
  You won’t give me back just a part of the money?
  Pseudolus
  No. Call me greedy if you want, but you’ll never be a penny richer for that.
  How much pity would you have given my back if I had failed today?
  Simo
  I swear I’ll have my revenge.
  Pseudolus
              Swear all you want. I’ve got a strong back.  
  

• Pseudolus: play about making a Plautine comedy; breaking free of the restraints of Greek New Comedy; injecting musicality, freshness, boisterousness, improvisation, messiness, etc.; Pseudolus's soiling his cloak (pallium, 1280) as symbolic act (cf. fabula palliata, "play in Greek dress")?
  
  
  
  University of North Carolina National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute performance of Pseudolus, Scene 2:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiFOTA3Rn08