Commentary (Christenson), Pseudolus 394-414 394-414 (Scene 4) Left alone onstage, Pseudolus, in what is a kind of set-piece for clever slaves in P., contemplates the apparent powerlessness of his situation. Cf. As. 249-66, Capt. 516-32, Epid. 81-103, Mos. 348-62, Trin. 717-28; for a Greek precedent for the transition between dialogue and monologue here see Bain 1977: 155-6. The seruos callidus in these monologues typically seeks to augment his theatrical power by both drawing the audience into his confidence/conspiratorial net, and also further glorifying his future success through the magnification of present obstacles. Pseudolus here announces that he will assume the role of a playwright engaged in seemingly improvisatory scripting of the play (401-5); as Barsby 1995: 62-3 writes, they [i.e. the audience] are being invited to share in a make-believe world where the actor is making up the script, or, to put it another way, they are being invited back to the world of the pre-literary drama, where the actors did improvise (for improvisation in P. see further pp. xx-xx). Marshall 2006: 101 reasonably assumes that the actors playing Ballio and his slave in Scene 3 play Simo and Callipho in Scene 5; the former had exited for the forum in 380, and, as the latter pair enter via the forum wing in 415, Pseudolus monologue allows for a change of mask and costume. METRE: iambic senarii (pp. xx- xx). 394 illic: Calidorus. illic scans as a single longum here (by syncope of the ultima: cf. Questa 1967: 105) and the line scans A B C d d A / B C D A B c D. Pseudole: self-address in monologues is attested in Menander (cf. Blundell 1980: 65-71), and is a regular means of transition to a Plautine clever slave s helpless monologue
(394-414n: cf. As. 249, Epid. 82, 161). For the schizophrenic internal dialogue in such monologues see further Slater 2000: 21-4, 126-7. 395 quid nunc acturu s: P. uses the present and future indicative or subjunctive in deliberative questions. For the regular use of deliberative questions in monologues of this type (394-414n.) cf. As. 258, Epid. 97, Capt. 535-6, Trin. 718. acturu s: for the prodelision of es here see p. x. erili: this cognate adjective and the genitive of the noun erus/era are used indifferently (i.e. out of metrical convenience) to denote a master s possession of something/someone in P. 396 largitu s dictis dapsilis you laid it on thick with your talk. dapsilis is a Greek word (δαψιλής, abundant ); for Greek in P. see pp. xx-xx, and for Pseudolus pronounced Greekness as a character see pp. xx-xx. largitu s: p. x. dapsilis: nominative here. For adjectives in agreement with the subject and bearing adverbial force see Allen & Greenough 290. ubi sunt ea?: the implied answer to this question, nowhere (cf. nusquam in 402 and 405), anticipates the conceit of the poet/playwright in 401-5. ea: sc. dicta, or, more generally, all the things you promised him. 397-400 neque neque neque: the anaphora emphasizes Pseudolus apparent resourcelessness (394-414n.). 397 quoi = cui (for the archaic spelling see p. x). paratast: p. x. gutta certi consili [not so much as] a drop of a definite plan.
gutta: for the proverbial use to describe an extremely small quantity see Otto 1890: 156-7. certi: cf. 400 certos. [398] Editors generally bracket the line because of the abrupt shift from the 2 nd person perspective of 394-400 to the first person here (quid faciam scio); cf. Zwierlein 1991: 128. quid faciam: representing a deliberative subjunctive in direct speech. 399-400 A polar expression (or universalizing doublet), i.e. you have neither a beginning nor an end = you ve got absolutely nothing, as is very common in Greek (cf. Barrett 1964 on E. Hipp. 441-2). The metaphor here is from weaving (cf. 399, 400nn.), and anticipates Pseudolus identification of himself with a poet/playwright (401-5). Weaving is a commonplace and seemingly Indo-European metaphor for poetry (West 2007: 36-8), and the correlation between weaving and deceit is likewise very ancient (cf. the notion of weaving (ὑφαίνω) deceit(s) used extensively in Homer). Cf. also the later identification of Pseudolus with Odysseus (1063n.), and for comic heroism in P. see pp. xx-xx. It is easy to imagine an actor miming some of the motions used in weaving at a loom here. For non-verbal expression in Roman comedy see Panayotakis 2005. 399 neque unde occipias habes and you lack the wherewithal to begin For the pleonasm here see pp. xx-xx and LHS II.796. exordiri to lay the warp of, begin (a web) (OLD 1), the technical term for starting a project on a loom.
400 detexundam: the technical term for completing and removing the finished cloth from the loom. telam: properly the cloth as it is worked on the loom (it may also refer to the loom itself). 401 quasi poeta: Pseudolus appropriately uses a poetic figure to signal his selfcomparison to a poeta. His simile here will soon transform into a metaphor (404n.), at first glance a figurative identification between slave and poeta, though the metaphor will be literally realized when Pseudolus successfully directs Simia through the play-withinthe-play he engineers (Scenes 12-13). For Plautine metatheater see further pp. xx-xx. poeta: in early Latin the word can refer to poets in general or playwrights in particular (Capt. 1033 huius modi paucas poetae reperiunt comoedias, Cas. 18 ea tempestate flos poetarum fuit, Curc. 591 antiquom poetam audiui scripsisse in tragoedia, Men. 7 atque hoc poetae faciunt in comoediis, and Terence s prologues passim). tabulas: i.e. a wooden tablet with an easily erasable wax surface that was written on with a stylus. Pseudolus imagines a perfect medium for quasi-improvisational scripting that is subject to sudden and frequent change (cf. 394-414n.). 402-5 quod nusquam gentiumst, reperit tamen quae nusquam nunc sunt gentium, inueniam tamen: this sort of ring composition is pervasive in P. s colloquial Latin (cf. pp. xx-xx). 402 quod nusquam gentiumst what is nowhere in the world (gentes is the usual way to designate the world in early Latin; cf. OLD 4a). gentiumst: p. x. For the partitive genitive with adverbs see Allen & Greenough 346.4.
403 facit illud ueri simile quod mendacium est he makes fiction seem like truth. The idea that poetry, as a species of rhetoric, can create plausible sounding fictions is at least as old as Hesiod s Muses, who boast, ἴδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα ( we know how to say many false things that are similar to the truth, Th. 27; cf. West 1966 ad loc., Callim. Hymn 1.64, and Sharrock 1996: 154). Cf. also Odysseus, the archetypal orator who is a master of the art of plausibility: 1063n. and pp. xx-xx. Fontaine 2010: 197-200 unconvincingly argues for intertextual play with Callimachus Hymn to Zeus here and throughout 401-4. ueri simile: for discussion of possible broader implications of this phrase for Plautine dramaturgy see Sharrock 2009: 156-62. 404 nunc ego poeta fiam: editors generally overlook the anacoluthon here (cf. 401: but just as a poet I ll now become a poet ); thus the need for a dash after est (403). Pseudolus brazenly declares that he is taking over the play (cf. 401n.). No other Plautine character makes the identification of comic playwright and devisor of the play-withinthe-play quite this explicitly: closest is Cas. 860-1, where Myrrhina, following Cleostrata s successful ludus against her husband, asserts, No playwright [poeta] has ever devised a better plot than this clever production of ours! On the basis of this and other passages in Ps., some critics posit the identification of Pseudolus and his creator P.: Wright 1975, Slater 2000: 143-6, Hallet 1993. Cf. pp. xx-xx. uiginti minas: i.e. the twenty minae Pseudolus has promised to purloin (112-20; cf. 279-80, 371-76 and 406-8n. below) for the purchase of Phoenicium. 405 nusquam gentium: cf. 402n. For the pronounced assonance of n and m in the line see p. x.
406-8: the genuineness of these lines is well defended by Lefèvre 1997: 56 and Lowe 1999: 5-6. We must assume that Pseudolus has been attempting to swindle Simo out of the twenty minae required to purchase Phoenicium (cf. 404n.) for some time before the play, but has been unsuccessful because of the old man s vigilance (as Simo himself claims shortly at 421-2). Such a detail serves to further magnify Pseudolus ultimate success (cf. 394-414n.). 406 The line scans A b b C D A / B c D A B c d+. ego: pyrrhic, as usual in P. (by iambic shortening: pp. xx-xx). dixeram: in early Latin, the pluperfect often has a perfect sense (here dixeram, which is parallel with 407 uolui and 408 praesensit is aorist); cf. Bennett I.50. huic: Calidorus (cf. 394 illic). huic scans as a single longum here (by synizesis, as often in P. in the case of demonstratives: p. x). 407 inicere tragulam: a tragula is a spear with a throwing thong (amentum) used for military purposes. The figurative expression here is also used at Epid. 690 (cf. Cas. 297 istam iam aliquouorsum tragulam decidero, I ll dodge that bullet one way or another ). For the clever slave s propensity to appropriate (Roman) military language to describe his schemes see 574-93 and pp. xx-xx. nostrum senem: in the corporate idiom of household slaves (cf. Christenson 2000 on Am. 362), our old man = paterfamilias. 408 The line scans A B C d d A / B C D A B c D. nescioquo pacto praesensit prius: for the assonance and homoioteleuton of o and the alliteration of p here see pp. x. For the common pleonasm of verb and adverb (praesensit prius) see LHS II.798.
409 comprimundast uox mihi atque oratio I need to muzzle my voice and my talk (or my talking voice, a hendiadys?), a formulaic way of signaling the approach of (an)other character(s), often accompanied by the creaking of the stage-house doors, though not here, as Simo and Callipho enter from the forum wing (cf. 418-20). Cf. 788, Am. 496, Cur. 486. 410-14 Having established a solid rapport with the audience in his monologue, Pseudolus prepares them for his forthcoming role as eavesdropper in the scene to follow, where he will punctuate and interpret the exchange of Simo and Callipho for them through his asides until Simo notices him speaking in 445. For the much-exploited conventions of the aside and eavesdropping in P. see pp. xx-xx and Moore 1998: 34-44. 410 eccum right here (with accompanying gesture), <*ec + -ce (deitic particle as in cedo, hic etc.) + *hom (= hunc); cf. Hofmann 1951: 33-4 and Sihler 1995: 376.4. uideo huc: unquestionably legitimate A / B hiatus at the main break in the senarius (pp. xx-xx). The line scans a B C dd A / B C D A B c D. huc indicates either a space in front of Simo s house (the focus of Scene 1) or Ballio s (the focus of Scenes 2 and 3). Simonem: his name means snub-nosed in Greek, but a Roman audience will also think of simia, monkey. Simian figures in P. typically exhibit a propensity for deception and metatheater (cf. Simia in Ps. and Connors 2004), though Simo s belief that he is one step ahead of Pseudolus (cf. 418-22) proves to be self-delusional. una simul: for the typically Plautine abundantia see p. x. There is also word-play (p. x) with Simonem and simul here. 411 suo: a single longum, as is usual in the case of the personal pronouns (by synizesis: p. x).
Calliphone: his name means beautiful sounding in Greek, and lends him a generically aristocratic aura. 412 ex hoc sepulchro uetere from this old bag of bones. Phrases equating old men with tombs are attested in Greek drama (cf. Mastronarde 2002 on Eur. Med. 1209), though nowhere there is the metaphor extended with a verb such as 413 ecfodiam (the realization of this metaphor would make Pseudolus a bustirapus: cf. 361). uiginti minas: cf. 404n. 413 The line scans A b b c d d A / B c D A B c D. ecfodiam dig up (or out) (cf. 412n.). For the characteristically Plautine use of verbs of force, violence, et sim. in a mostly figurative sense see Corbett 1964. hodie: this typically means within the time-frame of the play (e.g. Am. 94, 480, Capt. 70), vs. cras after the play (e.g. Poen. 1364, 1417). quas dem: relative clause of purpose. erili filio master s son, i.e. his younger master. Cf. 395n. 414 huc concedam: huc must indicate somewhere near Simo s or Ballio s house (cf. 410n.), but it is impossible to identify precisely to where Pseudolus withdraws onstage in order to eavesdrop. Later representations of Roman theaters show partially enclosed porches that could be used for this purpose, but the specific layout of early temporary theaters is not known (pp. xx-xx). Pseudolus must of course remain at least partially visible to the audience. unde legam from where I can pick up (cf. OLD 5).