Plautus Menaechmi 2.3

Henry Thomas Riley (Translator)

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

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Current edition Perseus

Menaechmi, or The Twin Brothers (English) (Plautus. The Comedies of Plautus, Volume 1. Riley, Henry Thomas, translator. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1912.)

Editions (1)
Menaechmi Perseus (Plautus. Plauti Comoediae, Volume 1. Leo, Friedrich, editor. Berlin: Weidmann, 1895.) — 2.3 focus

Notes on the current edition

Menaechmi, or The Twin Brothers

1. Leave the door ajar: Ladies of Erotium’s character would find it more convenient to have their doors ajar, that persons might step in unperceived, besides, in the present instance, she wishes the ianitor not to shut the door, as me expects to return directly with Menaechmus.
2. Are wiped clean: Baxae or baxeae were sandals made a twigs or fibres. They were often worn on the stage by Comic actors, and probably on saying this, Menaechmus Sosicles points to his own. The Egyptians made them of palm-leaves and papyrus. They were much worn by the philosophers of ancient times. Probably the peniculi, made of the tails of oxen, were much used for the purpose of dusting shoes.
3. Manner of a gelding: He compares her to a horse, which sleeps and dreams (if it dreams at all) in a standing posture.
4. Of the furrier: The pellio, furrier or skinner, would require a great many pegs in fastening down the skins for the purpose of stretching them. Meursius thinks that Plautus intends a sly hit here at Pellio, the bad actor, who is mentioned in the Second Scene of the Second Act in the Bacchides. If so, the joke is quite lost on us.
5. After him Pintia: She is supposed, by the Commentators, to be purposely represented here as quite mistaken in her historical facts, and as making nothing but a confused jumble of them. Some think that the words Pintia and Liparo are ablative cases; but it is much more probable that they are nominatives. Gronovius thinks that one Phintias is alluded to, who, as we are told by Diodorus Siculus, assumed the government at Agrigentum after the death of Agathocles. He did not, however, reign at Syracuse . We do not learn from history that Hiero received the government from Liparo, but, on the contrary, that his virtuous character was the sole ground for his election to the sovereignty. Lipara was the name of one of the Aeolian islands (now called the Isles of Lipari ), not far from the coast of Sicily . Some think that she means to call Agathocles by the additional names of Plintias (and not Pintia) from πλιντὸς, pottery, as he had exercised the trade of a potter, and of Liparo, from the Greek λυπηρός, savage, by reason of the cruelty of which he was guilty in the latter part of his life. This notion seems, however, to be more fanciful than well-founded.
6. To the embroiderer’s: Phrygionem. As the natives of Phrygia were very dexterous at embroidering, and their services were much sought for the purposes of luxury, all embroiderers, in time came to be called phrygiones. Cotter renders ad phrygionem here to Phrygia , and so throughout the whole play!
7. Those people: By istos he probably means the sailors or perters who were carrying the luggage.
8. To an inn: The accommodation of the taberna diversoria, or diversorium, was generally of a humble kind, and these places were mostly adapted for the poorer classes only.
9. Come and meet me: That is, as his adversitor, which was the title given to the servant whose duty it was to fetch his master home in the evening.