Plautus Casina 5.4

Henry Thomas Riley (Translator)

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Casina. Plautus. Henry Thomas Riley (Translator). London. 1913.

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Current edition Perseus

Casina, or The Stratagem Defeated (English) (Plautus. The Comedies of Plautus, Volume 2. Riley, Henry Thomas, translator. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1913.)

Editions (1)
Casina Perseus (Plautus. Plauti Comoediae, Volume 1. Leo, Friedrich, editor. Berlin: Weidmann, 1895.) — 5.4 focus

Notes on the current edition

Casina, or The Stratagem Defeated

1. Of the Massilians: It is not at all settled by Commentators what is the meaning of this line. Massilia, now Marseilles, was a colony of the Phocaeans. Cicero, in his Speech for L. Flaccus, particularly alludes to the strictness of their morals. It is possible that this good character may have passed into a proverb, and that Chalinus banteringly calls Stalino one who cultivates Massilian or the strictest morals. Schmieder, however, thinks that a pun on the word Massilienses is intended, and that as Stalino has met with a mas, or male, where he had hoped to find a female, Chalinus comes forward and asks him what he thinks of the Mas-silians; just as we in a similar case might say (though perhaps rather tamely) the Man-chester people.
2. Will prove the better: It is somewhat difficult to say exactly what he means. In l. 927, he seems to be anneyed at being called back as he is running (probably down one of the streets that debouched on the stage). Revocamen, being called back, was particularly considered as a bad omen among the Romans. He, perhaps, now changes his mind, and says to himself, This is a bad omen; I’ll turn back; and bad as it is, the barking of my wife may prove a better one.
3. Bacchantes! Bacchantes!: He tries to make an excuse by implication: pretending to be in a fright, he shouts out, wishing them to believe that he has met a gang of Bacchanalian votaries (who were not very particular as to doing mischief to any one they met). Unfortunately for him, a servant-maid suggests that no feast of Bacchus is going on at that time of the year, and that consequently the Bacchantes are not out.
4. Added by Perseus.
5. Part of line 1009 in the Latin.
6. Of this person next door: Schmieder suggests that Myrrhina has not hitherto seen Casina, but now, on hearing so much of her, enquires into her history, on which Chalinus explains how he begged her of the woman who was going to expose her, and Myrrhina then recognizes in her her own child, whom she had ordered to be exposed. This practice, especially with regard to female children, was by no means uncommon among the ancients, and even with the more respectable classes. We must remember, however, that in the Prologue it is stated that the servant who found her is ill in bed.
7. Palmed off upon him: Warner, in his concluding Note to this Play, informs us that Machiavel had undoubtedly this Comedy of Plautus his eye when he wrote his Clinia.