Classics 351
February 15, 2022

Alkmene on altar, Paestan vase, ca. 360-320 BCE

Examination #1 "Key"

*No class on Thursday (2/17)*

Plautus's Amphitryon ("Identity Crisis")

• late play in Plautus’s career, ca. 190-185 BCE; our only surviving ancient "tragicomedy" (59) = mythical travesty or burlesque
  
  
  Birth of Herakles, Athenian vase, 480-470 BCE
  
  
• Zeus (Jupiter) ~ Alkmene (Alcmena) story developed in 6th-5th century BCE Greek myth: Amphitryon on campaign against Taphians & Teleboans (killed Alkmene's brothers); Zeus sleeps with Alkmene the night Amphitryon is to return home; Amphitryon returns and also impregnates Alkmene (superfetation!); Herakles & Iphicles born 9-10 months later (other motifs of story include lengthened night of conception, snakes sent by Hera/Juno, drinking cup of King Pterelas ("One their king used to get drunk with", 261))
  
  
• Plautus's Greek source unknown; mythical travesty/burlesque not a feature of Greek New Comedy, but found in 5th century BCE Greek Old Comedy (e.g., Aristophanes's Birds) and mostly lost Middle Comedy of 4th century BCE
  
  
• Plautine original? (lost tragic plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides > adultery: see Alkmene vase above)
  

• Plautus telescopes mythic events into single night & next morning (546-550)
  
  
• setting of Amphitryon: mythic Thebes, two-tiered palace of Amphitryon
  
  
• prologue's concerns: play's genre, divine characters (vs. prologue speaker or deus ex machina), dual paternity, possible audience confusion; captatio benevolentiae ("seizing of (audience's) goodwill") > controlling audience’s reception of the play in advance (152 lines!); cf. gods' monologues to audience (Mercury, 464-498; Jupiter, 861-881)
  
  
  Hermes, Death & Sleep carry Sarpedon, Euphronius krater, ca. 515 BCE
  
  
• Mercury's playful, legalistic opening: (1-16, longest sentence in Plautus, "Inasmuch as you want me to aid and assist you ... I request that you keep quiet for the sake of this play / And act as just and fair critics today!"); cf. do ut des ("I give so that you give") in Roman contractual-style religion
  
  
• play with gods' vs. actors' status/identity: "... the Jove who sent me / Fears a flogging as much as you or yours truly" (26-7)
  
  Amphitryon 50-63 (the play's genre)
  Now first listen up to what I've come to ask,
  And then I'll reveal the plot of this tragedy—
  Did I say tragedy? Are you frowning at that word tragedy?
  Okay, I'll change it, seeing as I'm a god:
  I'll make this same play a comedy instead of a tragedy,
  Without changing any of the lines.
  Comedy or not? What do you want?
  Silly me! As if I didn't know what you wanted!
  I can read your minds exactly, seeing as I'm a god!
  I'll just mix it up: let's call it "tragicomedy" [tragicomoedia].
  It's not right to call it straight comedy
  When you've got important people and gods onstage.
  And so, seeing there's a slave's part,
  Let's call it, just as I said, a tragicomedy.
  
  
• do unusual characters (gods, mythic figures) fit character schemes of Roman New Comedy?
  
  
• Romanization of Amphitryon's situation: Sosia's messenger's speech (186-262)
  
  
• folktale doubles motif = Doppelgänger: comedy of errors, appearance vs. reality (ontology), issues of identity, e.g. Scene 1 "contest" between Sosia and Mercury; structure of a comedy with doubles?
  
  *PERFORMANCE OF SCENE 1, 388-460: Mercury (Julia) & Sosia (Patricia)*
  
  
  EID MAR coin minted by Brutus in 43/2 BCE
  
  Amphitryon 456-462 (Sosia makes the best of his identity crisis)
  Where did I die? How was I changed? How'd I lose my appearance?
  Or did I forget who I was and left the real me at that harbor?
  Why's this guy got my likeness, which used to be exclusively mine? [imago, "death-mask"]
  What's happening to me now will never happen when I'm dead!
  I'm off to the port to tell master what's happened here,
  Unless he claims not to know me either—and, by Jove,
  If he does, I'll shave my head and slap on a freedman's cap. [pileus]
  
  
• the character of Jupiter (departure scene with Alcmena, 499-550)? mask & costume of Jupiter & Amphitryon?
  
  
• Scene 5 (633-860): Sosia & Amphitryon arrive home, confrontation with Alcmena > charge of adultery; Sosia as comic diversion
  
  Amphitryon 642-653 (Alcmena's patriotic matrona's song in praise of Roman virtus)
  He’s beaten the enemy host and come home in full glory!
                                      This is my solace.
                          If he must leave me, let him always return home                                 
  A hero. I’ll endure, yes I’ll endure
  His departure with a heart of steel, if only it’s my reward
              To hear my husband hailed a champion!
                                      That would be enough for me.
                          Manhood is the finest prize,
              Manhood is the greatest thing alive on earth:
  Through it health, liberty, loved ones, life, and fatherland
                                                Are kept safe and sound.
              Manhood encompasses all, and all that is odd
  Falls to the man with manhood.
  
  Amphitryon 825-829 (Sosia's comic flexibility vs. Amphitryon's rationality)
  I'm at a loss to explain all this, unless maybe there's
  Another Amphitryon who fills in when you're away,
  And does all your duties for you here at home.
  That second Sosia was shocking enough,
  But the other Amphitryon's even more astounding!
  
  Amphitryon 839-842 (Alcmena's "dowry")
  My idea of a dowry differs from what people generally think:
  I also brought you chastity, purity, and a modest passion, plus
  Fear of the gods, love of parents, harmony at home,
  And I'm a dutiful wife to you, a servant of all your needs, and a doer of good deeds.
  
  
• prospect of divorce (end of Scene 5): Amphitryon exits to find Alcmena's Uncle Naucrates; comedy?
  
  Amphitryon 929-930 (Alcmena utters divorce formula to Jupiter before they reconcile)
  Goodbye. Keep your property, return mine.
  Will you be sending my attendants?
  
  
• Amphitryon's befuddlement (Scene 10): wild goose chase offstage, Naucrates not found; Mercury's roof-top abuse (Scene 11); at least two lost scenes (Amphitryon & Alcmena meet) culminating in Amphitryon's confrontation with Jupiter (fragmentary Scene 14)
  
  Amphitryon 1046-1052 (Amphitryon's rush toward his house & assault on pietas)
  Whose life in all Thebes is more wretched than mine? What should I do
  When no one in the world knows me, and I'm the butt of every joke?
  Here's my plan: I'm breaking into the house and the first person I see,
  Maid, slave, my wife, her lover, my father, my grandfather—
  It makes no difference to me—is dead right there on the spot!
  No one can stop me, not Jove or all the gods united together!
  Yes, my mind's made up! I'm going right into the house—
  
  
  Baby Hercules Fresco, House of the Vettii, Pompeii, 60-79 CE
  
  
• resolution: Bromia's messenger's speech (Scene 15): "Who's this old man lying in front of the house? / Zapped by Jove perhaps?" (1072-3); her supernatural story?
  
  
• Why is Tiresias summoned by Amphitryon & then dismissed in the end?
  
  
• Wake Forest University's Amphitryon (17 mins.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwBxqv6i9Gc