Classics 351
March 22, 2022

Spotted Trunkfish (Lactophrys bicaudalis)

Plautus's Rudens (cont.): quasi-tragic elements?

• Daemones's portentous & metatheatrical dream ("The gods sure do put on a strange show [ludi] for us mortals", 593-4), monkey & nest of swallows ("The swallows are descended from Philomela and Procne ... my compatriots", 604-5; myth of Tereus/Procne/Philomela)
  
  Rubens, Tereus Confronted with the Head of his Son Itys (1636)
  
  
• Trachalio's quasi-messenger's speech (Scene 14) to Daemones: pimp dragging women from temple ("Both are actually free persons", 649), abusing priestess
  
  
• Palaestra and Ampelisca appear on stage, singing & cling to onstage altar of Venus as suppliants (Scene 15), "It's better just to die" (676)
  
  
• Labrax threatens to burn women (Scene 16, Daemones partially understands dream of monkey & swallows; Trachalio again announces girls are free ("They're real Greeks. / This one here is descended from free-born Athenians", 737-8); Daemones ironically reminded of his lost daughter ("Oh my daughter, / The sight of the this girl here reminds me of you and all my miseries! / I lost her when she was three. She'd be about your size now if she's alive", 742-4)
  
  
• Daemones's monologue (Scene 19): sexual quid pro quo from Palaestra & Amplelisca; incest averted!
  
  Rudens 892-896
  My helping out these little ladies today
  Has turned out to be a mighty sweet deal.
  I've picked up some fans, both of them pretty fine and in their prime.
  If only my damn wife weren't eyeballing me all the time,
  So I could give these little ladies some sort of sign ...
  
  Rudens 1045-1048
  Ladies, I really am sympathetic and want to help you,
  But I'm afraid of my wife. She'd say I held my mistresses right under her nose,
  And then kick me right out of the house.
  Better for you to take refuge at the altar than with me.
  
  
• comedy vs. tragedy: can comedy address serious, moral & philosophical matters, e.g. possiblility of justice among human beings, identity, etc.?
  
  Rudens 1227-1255 (cf. Daemones's name & Greek daimon, "supernatural power")
  Gripus
  Is it okay for me to speak with you now, Daemones?
  Daemones
  What’s the problem, Gripus?
  Gripus
                                                  It’s about that trunk:
  If you were smart, really smart, you’d keep what the gods have given you.
  Daemones
  So you think it’s right to claim what belongs to someone else           
  As my own?
  Gripus
                          But it’s something I found in the sea!
  Daemones
  All the better for the owner who lost it.
  The fact that you found it doesn’t make it any more yours.
  Gripus
  You are so damned righteous! No wonder you’re so poor.
  Daemones
  O Gripus, Gripus! The human condition is fraught                                                             
  With so many traps to fool and out-fox us,
  And more often than not these traps are baited. 
  If we greedily grasp at that bait,
  We’re grabbed, trapped, and ensnared by our very own greed.
  But if a person’s careful and cautious, cagey and wary,                                                           
  He harvests long-lasting gain from what he’s honestly obtained.
  To my way of thinking, lucre such as yours is never lucrative:
  It leaves a marriage with a larger dowry than it brought.
  You really think I’d knowingly accept and conceal plunder taken from another?
  That’s absolutely not the way of this Daemones!            
  Masters who are smart are wise to take the utmost caution
  Against becoming willful accomplices to the crimes of their slaves.
  I don’t care for any lucre landed in unlawful collusion. [or, "When I've acted in a play, I don't care for any lucre" (reading cum lusi for collusim)]
  Gripus
  I’ve seen comic actors speak words of wisdom like that
  And win all sorts of applause for it.           
  But when the show was over and people made their way home,
  To judge by their behavior anyway, they all forgot those lines.
  Daemones
  Stop bothering me and go inside! And watch your tongue!
  And just so you know: you’re not getting anything from me.
  
  
  Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1486
  
  
• theme of water: ritual associations (bathing, baptism, purification), Venus's birth (702-705) & the womb-like sea as (re-)birthing agent (cf. Ino & Melicertes > Leucothea & Palaemon); land ownership & identity re-established because of storm & rope-rescue (Palaestra, Ampelisca, Gripus, Trachalio?)
  
  
• Scene 22: recognition scene (chest & toys retrieved from sea)
  
  
  **GROUPS**
  
  
  
• final rewards & punishments: universal/cosmic justice, as suggested by Arcturus (Prologue) or flawed human justice?
  
  -Daemones’s family reunited (Daedalis, Palaestra's mother)
  
  -marriage of Palaestra & Plesidippus ("a young man / Of the Athenian nobility who's a relative of mine", 1197-1198)
  
  -Gripus freed for role re Palaestra (half of pimp's fortune given to Daemones)
  
  -Trachalio to be freed (1260-1220), will marry Ampelisca (freed at Labrax’s expense)
  
  -Labrax's "redemption" (loses court case, money & two women; final settlement)? dinner invitation (cf. Ballio)?
  
  -other characters? [Sceparnio, Ptolemacratia, Piscatores, Charmides, Sparax & Turbalio?]