Plautus Captivi 4.2

Henry Thomas Riley (Translator)

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Captivi. Plautus. Henry Thomas Riley (Translator). London. 1912.

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Current edition Perseus

Captivi: The Captives (English) (Plautus. The Comedies of Plautus, Volume 1. Riley, Henry Thomas, translator. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1912.)

Editions (1)
Captivi Perseus (Plautus. Plauti Comoediae, Volume 1. Leo, Friedrich, editor. Berlin: Weidmann, 1895.) — 4.2 focus

Notes on the current edition

Captivi: The Captives

1. To be picking up their teeth: Dentilegos. He says that he will knock their teeth out, and so make them pick them up from the ground. We must suppose that while he is thus hurrying on, he is walking up one of the long streets which were represented as emerging on the Roman stage, opposite to the audience.
2. Galling pace: Crucianti may mean either tormenting the spectator by reason of the slowness of its pace, or galling to the rider. Quadrupedanti crucianti canterio is a phrase, both in sound and meaning, much resembling what our song-books call the galloping dreary dun.
3. In the Basilica: The Basilica was a building which served as a court of law, and a place of meeting for merchants and men of business. The name was perhaps derived from the Greek word βασιλεὺς, as the title of the second Athenian Archon, who had his tribunal or court of justice. The building was probably, in its original form, an insulated portico. The first edifice of this kind at Rome was erected B.C. 184; probably about the period when this Play was composed. It was situate in the Forum, and was built by Porcius Cato, from whom it was called the Porcian Basilica. Twenty others were afterwards erected at different periods in the city. The loungers here mentioned, in the present instance, were probably sauntering about under the porticos of the Basilica, when their olfactory nerves were offended by the unsavoury smell of the fishermen’s baskets.
4. About klling lamb: In these lines he seems to accuse the butchers of three faults—cruelty, knavery, and extortion. The general reading is duplam, but Rost suggests duplâ, at double the price. If duplam is retained, might it not possibly mean that the butchers agree to kill lamb for you, and bring to you duplam agninam, double lamb, or, in other words, lamb twice as old as it ought to be? No doubt there was some particular age at which lamb, in the estimation of Ergasilus and his brother-epicures, was considered to be in its greatest perfection.
5. Inspector of markets: Agoranomum. The Aediles were the inspectors of markets at Rome, while the ‘Agoranomi’ had a similar office in the Grecian cities
6. Both these doors: The street-doors of the ancients were generally bivalve, or folding-doors.
7. Every spot of sorrow: He alludes, figuratively, to the art of the fuller or scourer, in taking the spots out of soiled garments.
8. In a quickset hedge: Here is a most wretched attempt at wit, which cannot be expressed in a literal translation. Hegio says, Nihil sentio, I don’t feel it. Ergasilus plays upon the resemblance of the verb sentio to sentis and senticetum, a bramble-bush or quickset hedge; and says You don’t feel it so non senis. because you are not in a quickset hedge, in senticeto.
9. From a boy: An indelicate allusion is covertly intended in this line.
10. So may holy Gluttony: The Parasite very appropriately deifies Gluttony: as the Goddess of Bellyful would, of course, merit his constant worship.
11. Yes, by Apollo: In the exuberance of his joy at his prospects of good eating, the Parasite gives this, and his next five replies, in the Greek language; just as the diner-out, and the man of bon-mots and repartee, might in our day couch his replies in French, with the shrug of the shoulder and the becoming grimace. He first swears by Apollo, and then by Cora, which may mean either a city of Campania so called, or the Goddess Proserpine, who was called by the Greeks, Κορὴ, the maiden. He then swears by four places in Campania—Praeneste, Signia, Phrysinone, and Alatrium. As the scene is in Greece, Hegio asks him why he swears by these foreign places; to which he gives answer merely because they are as disagreable as the unsavoury dinner of vegetables which he had some time since promised him. This is, probably, merely an excuse for obtruding a slighting remark upon these places, which would meet with a ready response from a Roman audience, as the Campanians had sided with Hannibal against Rome in the second Punic war. They were probably miserable places besides, on which the more refined Romans looked with supreme contempt.
12. Got a Boian woman: There is an indelicate meaning in the expression Boiam terere. The whole line is intended as a play upon words. Boia means either a collar, which was placed round a prisoner’s neck, or a female of the nation of the Boii in Gaul. Boiam terere may mean either to have the prisoner’s collar on, or, paraphrastically, to be coupled with a Boian woman. Ergasilus having seen Stalagmus in the packet-boat with this collar on, declares that Stalagmus is a Sicilian no longer, for he has turned Boian having a Boian helpmate.
13. I, in return, promise: Ergasilus says, Do you really promise me this fine entertainment? To which, Hegio answers, Spondeo, I do promise. On this, Ergasilus replies, that your son really has returned, I answer you, respondeo, or, as he intends it to be meant, I promise you once again, or in return for your promise.