by Terence
et quae tibi putaris primat in experiundo ut repudies.
quod nunc mi euenit: nam ego uitam duram, quam uixi usque adhuc,
prope iam excurso spatio omitto. id quam ob rem? re eapse repperi
facilitate nihil esse homini melius neque clementia.
id esse uerum ex me atque ex fratre quoiuis facilest noscere.
suam ille semper egit uitam in otio, in conuiuiis,
clemens, placidus, nulli laedere os, adridere omnibus:
sibi uixit, sibi sumptum fecit: omnes bene dicunt, amant.
ego ille agrestis saeuos tristis parcus truculentus tenax
duxi uxorem: quam ibi miseriam uidi! nati filii:
alia cura heia autem, dum studeo illis ut quam plurumum
facerem, contriui in quaerundo uitam atque aetatem meam:
nunc exacta aetate hoc fructi pro labore ab eis fero,
odium; ille alter sine labore patria potitur commoda.
illum amant, me fugitant; illi credunt consilia omnia,
illum diligunt, apud illum sunt ambo, ego desertus sum;
illum ut uiuat optant, meam autem mortem exspectant scilicet.
ita eos meo labore eductos maxumo hic fecit suos
paulo sumptu: ego miseriam omnem capio, hic potitur gaudia.
age age nunc porro experiamur contra ecquid ego possiem
blande dicere aut benigne facere, quando hoc prouocat.
ego quoque a meis me amari et magni pendi postulo.
si id fit dando atque obsequendo, non posteriores feram.
derit? id mea minume re fert, qui sum natu maxumus.
SYRVS DEMEA
SERVOS SENEX
SY. Heus Demea, rogat pater ne abeas longius.
DE. Quis homo? o Syre noster, salue: quid fit? quid agitur?
SY. Recte. DE. Optumest: iam nunc haec tria primum addidi
praeter naturam: `o noster, quid fit? quid agitur?’
seruom haud inliberalem praebes te, et tibi
iubens bene faxim. SY. Gratiam habeo. DE. Atqui, Syre,
hoc uerumst, et re eapse experiere propediem.
GETA DEMEA
SERVOS SENEX
GE. Era, ego huc ad hos prouiso, quam mox uirginem
arcessant. sed eccum Demeam. saluos sies.
DE. O — qui uocare? GE. Geta. DE. Geta, hominem maxumi
preti te esse hodie iudicaui animo meo:
nam is mihi profectost seruos spectatus satis,
quoi dominus curaest, ita uti tibi sensi, Geta,
et tibi ob eam rem, siquid usus uenerit,
lubens bene faxim. meditor esse adfabilis,
et bene procedit. GE. Bonus es, quom haec existumas.
DE. Paulatim plebem primulum facio meam.
AESCHINUS DEMEA SYRVS GETA
ADVLESCENS SENEX SERVI DVO
AE. Occidunt mequidem, dum nimis sanctas nuptias
student facere: in adparando consumunt diem.
DE. Quid agitur, Aeschine? AE. Ehem, pater mi, tu hic eras?
DE. Tuos hercle uero et animo et natura pater
qui te amat plus quam hosce oculos. sed quor non domum
uxorem arcessis? AE. Cupio; uerum hoc mihi moraest:
tibicina et hymenaeum qui cantent. DE. Eho,
uin tu huic seni auscultare? AE. Quid? DE. Missa haec face
hymenaeum turbam lampadas tibicinas,
atque hanc in horto maceriam iube dirui
quantum potest: hac transfer, unam fac domum:
transduc et matrem et familiam omnem ad nos. AE. Placet,
pater lepidissume. DE. Euge, iam lepidus uocor.
fratri aedes fient peruiae, turbam domum
adducet, sumptu amittet multa: quid mea?
ego lepidus ineo gratiam. iube nunciam
dinumeret ille Babylo uiginti minas.
Syre, cessas ire ac facere? SY. Quid eoo? DE. Dirue.
tu illas abi ac transduce. — GE. Di tibi, Demea,
bene faciant, quom te uideo nostrae familiae
tam ex animo factum uelle. DE. Dignos arbitror.
quid tu ais? AE. Sic opinor. DE. Multo rectiust
quam illam puerperam huc nunc duci per uiam
aegrotam. AE. Nil enim uidi melius, mi pater.
DE. Sic soleo. sed eccum Micio egreditur foras.
MICIO DEMEA AESCHINVS
SENES DVO ADVLESCENS
MI. Iubet frater? ubi is est? tun iubes hoc, Demea?
DE. Ego uero iubeo et hac re et aliis omnibus
quam maxume unam facere nos hanc familiam,
colere adiuuare adiungere. AE. Ita quaeso, pater.
MI. Haud aliter censeo. DE. Immo hercle ita nobis decet:
primum huius uxori est mater. MI. Est. quid postea?
DE. Proba et modesta. MI. Ita; aiunt. DE. Natu grandior.
MI. Scio. DE. Parere iam diu haec per annos non potest:
nec qui eam respiciat quisquam est: solast. MI. Quam hic rem agit?
D:E. Hanc te aequomst ducere, et te operam ut fiat dare.
MI. Me ducere autem? DE. Te. MI. Me? DE. Te inquam. MI. Ineptis. DE. Si tu sis homo,
hic faciat. AE. Mi pater! MI. Quid tu autem huic, asine, auscultas? DE. Nihil agis:
fieri aliter non potest. MI. Deliras. AE. Sine te exorem, mi pater.
MI. Insanis: aufer te. DE. Age, da ueniam filio. MI. Satin sanus es?
ego nouos maritus anno demum quinto et sexagensumo
fiam atque anum decrepitam ducam? idne estis auctores mihi?
AE. Fac: promisi ego illis. MI. Promisti autem? de te largitor, puer.
DE. Age, quid siquid te maius oret? MI. Quasi non hoc sit maxumum.
DE. Da ueniam. AE. Ne grauare. DE. Fac, promitte. MI. Non omittitis?
AE. Non, nisi te exorem. MI. Vis est haec quidem. Age prolixe, Micio.
MI. Etsi hoc mihi prauom ineptum absurdum atque alienum a uita mea
uidetur, si uos tanto opere istuc uoltis, fiat. AE. Bene facis.
DE. Merito te amo. uerum quid ego dicam, hoc quom confit quod uolo?
MI. Quid? numquid restat? DE. Hegio cognatus his est proxumus,
adfinis nobis, pauper: bene nos aliquid facere illi decet.
MI. Quid facere? DE. Agelli est hic sub urbe paulum quod locitas foras:
huic demus qui fruatur. MI. Paulum id autemst? DE. Si multumst, tamen
faciundumst: pro patre huic est, bonus est, noster est, recte datur.
postremo nunc meum illud uerbum facio, quod tu, Micio,
bene et sapienter dixti dudum: `uitium commune omniumst,
quod nimium ad rem in senecta attenti sumus’. hanc maculam nos decet
ecfugere: et dictumst uere et re eapse fieri oportet. AE. Mi pater!
MI. Quid istic? ager dabitur Hegioni, quandoquidem hic uolt. AE. Gaudeo.
DE. Nunc tu mihi es germanus frater pariter animo et corpore.
suo sibi gladio hunc iugulo.
SYRVS DEMEA MICIO AESCHINVS
SERVOS SENES DVO ADULESCENS
SY. Factumst quod iussisti, Demea.
DE. Frugi homo’s. ergo edepol hodie mea quidem sententia
iudico Syrum fieri esse aequom liberum. MI. Istunc liberum?
quodnam ob factum? DE. Multa. SY. o noster Demea, edepol uir bonus:
ego istos uobis usque a pueris curaui ambos sedulo;
docui, monui, bene praecepi semper quae potui omnia.
DE. Res apparet: et quidem porro haec, opsonare cum fide,
scortum adducere, adparare de die conuiuium:
non mediocris hominis haec sunt officia. SY. O lepidum caput!
DE. Postremo hodie in psaltria ista emunda hic adiutor fuit,
hic curauit: prodesse aequomst. alii meliores erunt.
denique hic uolt fieri. MI. Vin tu hoc fieri? AE. Cupio. MI. Si quidem
tu uis: Syre, eho accede huc ad me: liber esto. SY. Bene facis;
omnibus gratiam habeo, et seorsum tibi praeterea, Demea.
DE. Gaudeo. AE. Et ego. SY. Credo: utinam hoc perpetuom fiat gaudium,
DE. Optumam istam mulierem. SY. Et quidem tuo nepoti huius filio
hodie prima mammam dedit haec. DE. Hercle uero serio,
siquidem prima dedit, hau dubiumst quin emitti aequom siet.
MI. Ob eam rem? DE. Ob eam: postremo a me argentum quantist sumito.
SY. Di tibi, Demea, omnia omnes semper optata offerant!
MI. Syre, processisti hodie pulcre. DE. Siquidem porro, Micio,
hi tuom officium facies, atque huic aliquid paulum prae manu
dederis, unde utatur: reddet tibi cito. MI. Istoc uilius.
AE. Frugi homost. SY. Reddam hercle, da modo. AE. Age, pater! MI. Post consulam.
DE. Faciet. SY. O uir optume! AE. O pater mi festiuissume!
MI. Quid istuc? quae res tam repente mores mutauit tuos
quod prolubium? quae istaec subitast largitas? DE. Dicam tibi:
ut id ostenderem, quod te isti facilem et festiuom putant,
id non fieri ex uera uita neque adeo ex aequo et bono,
sed ex adsentando indulgendo et largiendo, Micio.
nunc adeo si ob eam rem uobis mea uita inuisa, Aeschine, est,
quia non iusta iniusta prorsus omnia omnino obsequor,
missam facio: ecfundite, emite, facite quod uobis lubet.
sed si id uoltis potius, quae uos propter adulescentiam
minus uidetis, magis inpense cupitis, consulitis parum,
haec reprehendere et corrigere quem, obsecundare in loco:
ecce me qui id faciam uobis. AE. Tibi, pater, permittimus:
plus scis quod opus factost. sed de fratre quid fiet? DE. Sino:
habeat; in istac finem faciat. MI. Istuc recte. CANTOR. Plaudite.
The Biographies
A portrait of Terence from the Codex Vaticanus Latinus
THE LIFE OF TERENCE by Suetonius
De Vita Terenti
Translated by J. C. Rolfe.
I. Publius Terentius Afer, born at Carthage, was the slave at Rome of Terentius Lucanus, a senator, who, because of the young man’s talent and good looks, not only gave him a liberal education, but soon set him free. Some think that he was taken in war, but Fenestella shows that that could not possibly be, since Terentius was born and died between the end of the second Punic war and the beginning of the third [201-149 B.C.E.]; and even if he had been taken by the Numidians and Gaetulians, he could not have come into the hands of a Roman general, since commerce between the Italic and the African races did not begin until after the destruction of Carthage [146 B.C.E.]. He lived on intimate terms with many men of high rank, in particular with Scipio Africanus and Gaius Laelius. It is even thought that he won the favor of these two men by his youthful beauty, but Fenestella denies this too, maintaining that he was older than either of them. Nepos, however, writes that they were all three of an age, and Porcius rouses a suspicion of too great intimacy in the following words: “Though he courted the wantonness of great men and their counterfeit [vocem divinam inhiat, Muretus; voce dum et inhuius et, A; the other manuscripts have voce divina inhiat] praise, though with greedy ears he drank in the divine voice of Africanus, though he thought it fine to frequent the tables of Philus and Laelius, though he was often taken to the Alban villa because of his youthful charms, he later found himself stripped of his all and reduced to utmost want. So he withdrew from the sight of men to a remote part of Greece and died at Stymphalus, a town of Arcadia. Naught availed him Publius Scipio, naught Laelius, naught Furius, the three wealthiest nobles of that time. Their help did not give him even a rented house, to provide at least a place where his slave might announce his master’s death.”
II. He wrote six comedies, and when he offered the first of these, the “Andria,” to the aediles, they bade him first read it to Caecilius. Having come to the poet’s house when he was dining, and being meanly clad, Terentius is said to have read the beginning of his play sitting on a bench near the great man’s couch. But after a few lines he was invited to take his place at table, and after dining with Caecilius, he ran through the rest to his host’s great admiration. Moreover, this play and the five others were equally pleasing to the people, although Vulcatius in enumerating them all, writes thus:
“The sixth play, the ‘Hecyra,’ will not be included” [text and meaning are uncertain; Dziatzko suggested “submaeret poeta Hecyra sextaa exclusa fabula”]. The “Eunuch” was even acted twice in the same day and earned more money than any previous comedy of any writer, namely eight thousand sesterces; and for this reason the sum is included in the title-page [the didascalia]. Indeed Varro rates the beginning of the “Adelphoe” above that of Menander [that is, presumably, the beginning of the play of Menander on which the Adelphoe is based].
III. It is common gossip that Scipio and Laelius aided Terentius in his writings, and he himself lent color to this by never attempting to refute it, except in a half-hearted way, as in the prologue to the “Adelphoe”: “For as to what those malicious critics say, that men of rank aid your poet and constantly write in concert with him; what they regard as a grievous slander he considers the highest praise, to please those who please you all and all the people, whose timely help everyone has used without shame in war, in leisure, in business.” Now he seems to have made but a lame defense, because he knew that the report did not displease Laelius and Scipio; and it gained ground in spite of all and came down even to later times. Gaius Memmius in a speech in his own defense says: “Publius Africanus, who borrowed a mask from Terentius, and put upon the stage under his name what he had written himself for his own amusement at home.” Nepos says that he learned from a trustworthy source that once at his villa at Puteoli Gaius Laelius was urged by his wife to come to dinner at an earlier hour than common on the Kalends of March, but begged her not to interrupt him. When he at last entered the dining-room at a late hour, he said that he had seldom written more to his own satisfaction; and on being asked to read what he had written, he declaimed the lines of the “Heautontimorumenos,” beginning: “Impudently enough, by Heaven, has Syrus lured me here by promises.”
IV. Santra thinks that if Terentius had really needed help in his writing, he would not have been so likely to resort to Scipio and Laelius, who were then mere youths, as to Gaius Sulpicius Gallus, a scholarly man, at whose consular games he brought out his first play, or to Quintus Fabius Labeo and Marcus Popillius, both of whom were ex-consuls and poets; and that it was for that reason that he spoke, not of “young men” who were said to help him, but “men whose mettle the people had tried in war, in leisure, in business.” After publishing these comedies before he had passed his twenty-fifth year, either to escape from the gossip about publishing the work of others as his own, or else to become versed in Greek manners and customs, which he felt that he had not been wholly successful in depicting in his plays, he left Rome and never returned. Of his death Vulcatius writes in these words: “But when Afer had presented six comedies to the people, he journeyed from here to Asia, but from the time he embarked was never seen again; thus he vanished from life.”
V. Quintus Cosconius writes that he was lost at sea as he was returning from Greece with one hundred and eight plays adapted from Menander; the rest of our authorities declare that he died at Stymphalus in Arcadia, or at Leucadia, in the consulship of Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella and Marcus Fulvius Nobilior [159 B.C.E.], having fallen ill from grief and annoyance at the loss of his baggage, which he had sent on to the ship, and with it of the new plays which he had written. He is said to have been of moderate height, slender and of dark complexion. He left a daughter, who afterwards became the wife of a Roman eques; also gardens twenty acres in extent on the Appian Way, near the villa of Mars. This makes me feel the more surprised that Porcius should write: “Naught availed him Scipio, naught Laelius, naught Furius, the three wealthiest nobles of that time. Their aid did not even give him a rented house, to provide at least a place where his slave might announce his master’s death.” Afranius ranks Terent
ius above all other writers of comedy, writing in his “Compitalia”: “Declaring that no one is the equal of Terentius.” But Vulcatius a puts him not only below Naevius Plautus, and Caecilius, but even below Licinius and Atilius. Cicero in his “Limo” [“Meadow”, a fanciful title for a book of miscellaneous contents, like the “Sylvae” of Statius, the “Pratum” of Suetonius, and the like] gives him this much praise: “You, Terentius, who alone do reclothe Menander in choice speech, and rendering him into the Latin tongue, do present him with your quiet utterance on our public stage, speaking with a certain graciousness and with sweetness in every word.” Also Gaius Caesar: “You too, even you, are ranked among the highest, you half-Menander, and justly, you lover of language undefiled. But would that your graceful verses had force as well, so that your comic power might have equal honor with that of the Greeks, and you might not be scorned in this regard and neglected. It hurts and pains me, my Terentius, that you lacked this one quality.”
ROMAN COMEDY AND TERENCE by C. E. Freeman
First beginnings of Dramatic Representations at Rome.
The natural bent of the Roman character was too serious and too prosaic to favour the growth of a national drama. More than five hundred years had elapsed since the foundation of the city, before a play of any kind was produced on the Roman stage, and even then it was but a rude adaptation by a foreign author of a foreign work.
Fescennine Verses.
Yet there had long existed the germs whence a drama might, under other circumstances, have sprung. The unrestrained merriment of the harvest-home at time of vintage found expression, in Latium as in Greece, in extemporised dialogues more or less metrical in character, and much more than less coarse in expression. The lively genius of the Greeks had from such rude beginnings developed a regular Comedy as early as the sixth century B. C. But, among the Romans, although these rustic effusions were at a very early date sufficiently well established to receive a definite name, Carmina Fescennina, from Fescennia, a town in Etruria; yet they never rose above gross personalities and outrageous scurrility. When this license was checked by a stringent clause in the Laws of the Twelve Tables, the Fescennine verses became merely a generic name for improvised songs, not always very refined, at weddings, triumphs, or other festal occasions.