THE PROLOGUE.

Prologus

In the first¹ place now, Spectators, at the commencement, do I wish health and happiness² to myself and to you. I bring you Plautus, with my tongue, not with my hand: I beg that you will receive him with favouring ears.
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Now learn the argument, and give your attention; in as few words as possible will I be brief.
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And, in fact, this subject is a Greek one; still, it is not an Attic³, but a Sicilian one.

But in their Comedies the poets do this; they feign that all the business takes place at Athens ⁴, in order that it may appear the more Grecian to you.

I will not tell you that this matter happened anywhere except where it is said to have happened.
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This has been my preface to the subject of this play. Now will I give the subject, meted out to you,

not in a measure, nor yet in a threefold measure⁵, but in the granary itself; so great is my heartiness in telling you the plot.
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There was a certain aged man, a merchant at Syracuse ⁶; to him two sons were born, twins, children so like in appearance that their own foster-mother⁷,

who gave the breast, was not able to distinguish them, nor even the mother herself who had given them birth; as a person, indeed, informed me who had seen the children; I never saw them, let no one of you fancy so. After the children were now seven years old, the father
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freighted a large ship with much merchandize. The father put one of the twins on board the ship, and took him away, together with himself, to traffic at Tarentum ⁸; the other one he left with his mother at home. By accident, there were games at Tarentum when he came there:
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many persons, as generally happens at the games, had met together; the child strayed away there from his father among the people. A certain merchant of Epidamnus was there; he picked up the child, and carried it away to Epidamnus ⁹. But its father, after he had lost the child,
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took it heavily to heart, and through grief at it he died a few days after at Tarentum . Now, after news reached the grandfather of the children at home about this matter, how that one of the children had been stolen,
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the grandfather changed the name of that other twin. So much did he love that one which had been stolen, that he gave his name to the one that was at home. That you may not mistake hereafter, I tell you then this beforehand; the name of both the twin-brothers is the same. He gave the same name of Menaechmus to this one as the other had; and by the same name the grandfather himself was called.
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I remember his name the more easily for the reason that I saw him cried with much noise¹⁰.
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Now must I speed back on foot to Epidamnus ,

that I may exactly disclose this matter to you. If any one of you¹¹ wishes anything to be transacted for him at Epidamnus , command me boldly and speak out; but on these terms, that he give me the means by which it may be transacted for him. For unless a person gives the money, he will be mistaken;
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(in a lower tone) except that he who does give it will be very much more mistaken¹². But I have returned to that place whence I set forth, and yet I am standing in the self-same spot. This person of Epidamnus, whom I mentioned just now, that stole that other twin child, had no children, except his wealth.
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He adopted as his son the child so carried off, and gave him a well-portioned wife, and made him his heir when he himself died. For as, by chance, he was going into the country, when it had rained heavily, entering, not far from the city, a rapid stream,
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in its rapidity¹³ it threw the ravisher of the child off his legs; and hurried the man away to great and grievous destruction. And so a very large fortune fell to that youth. Here (pointing to the house) does the stolen twin now dwell. Now that twin, who dwells at Syracuse ,
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has come this day to Epidamnus with his servant to make enquiry for this own twin-brother of his. This is the city of Epidamnus while this play is acting; when another shall be acted, it will become another town; just as our companies, too, are wont to be shifted about.
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The same person now acts the procurer, now the youth, now the old man, the pauper, the beggar, the king, the parasite, the soothsayer
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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.) — prologue.pr focus

PROLOGVS

PROLOGVS

Salutem primum iam a principio propitiam
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mihi atque vobis, spectatores, nuntio.

apporto vobis Plautum, lingua non manu,

quaeso ut benignis accipiatis auribus.

nunc argumentum accipite atque animum advortite;
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quam potero in verba conferam paucissuma.

atque hoc poetae faciunt in comoediis:

omnis res gestas esse Athenis autumant,

quo íllud vobis graecum videatur magis;

ego nusquam dicam nisi ubi factum dicitur.
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atque adeo hoc argumentum graecissat, tamen

non atticissat, verum sicilicissitat.

huic argumento antelogium hoc fuit;

nunc argumentum vobis demensum dabo,

non modio, neque trimodio, verum ipso horreo:
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tantum ad narrandum argumentum ádest benignitas.

mercator quidam fuit Syracusis senex,

eí sunt nati filii gemini duo,

ita forma simili pueri, út mater sua

non internosse posset quae mammam dabat,
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neque adeo mater ipsa quae illos pepererat,

ut quidem ille dixit mihi, qui pueros viderat:

ego illós non vidi, ne quis vostrum censeat.

postquam iam pueri septuennes sunt, pater

oneravit navem magnam multis mercibus;
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imponit geminum álterum in navem pater,

Tarentum avexit secum ad mercatum simul,

illum reliquit alterum ápud matrem domi.

Tarenti ludi forte erant, cum illuc venit.

mortales multi, ut ad ludos, convenerant:
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puér aberravit inter homines a patre.

Epidamniensis quidam ibi mercator fuit,

is puerum tollit avehitque Epidamnium.

pater eius autem postquam puerum perdidit,

animum despondit, eaque is aegritudine
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paucis diebus post Tarenti emortuost.

postquam Syracusas de ea re rediit nuntius

ad avom puerorum, puerum surruptum alterum

patremque pueri Tarenti esse emortuom,

immutat nomen avos huic gemino alteri;
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ita illum dilexit, qui subruptust, alterum:

illius nomen indit illi qui domi est,

Menaechmo, idem quod alteri nomen fuit;

et ipsus eodem est avos vocatus nomine

(propterea illius nomen memini facilius,
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quia illúm clamore vidi flagitarier).

ne mox erretis, iam nunc praedico prius:

idem est ambobus nomen geminis fratribus.

nunc in Epidamnum pedibus redeundum est mihi,

ut hanc rem vobis examussim disputem.
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si quis quid vestrum Epidamnum curari sibi

velit, audacter imperato et dicito,

sed ita ut det unde curari id possit sibi.

nam nisi qui argentum dederit, nugas egerit;

qui dederit, magis maiores nugas egerit.
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verum illuc redeo unde abii, atque uno asto in loco.

Epidamniensis ille, quem dúdum dixeram,

geminum illum puerum qui surrupuit alterum,

ei liberorum, nisi divitiae, nil erat:

adoptat illum puerum surrupticium
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sibi filium eique uxorem dotatam dedit,

eumque heredem fecit, quom ipse obiit diem.

nam rus ut ibat forte, ut multum pluerat,

ingressus fluvium rapidum ab urbe haud longule,

rapidus raptori pueri subduxit pedes
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abstraxitque hominem in maximam malam crucem.

illi divitiae evenerunt maximae.

is illic habitat geminus surrupticius.

nunc ille geminus, qui Syracusis habet,

hodie in Epidamnum veniet cum servo suo
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hunc quaeritatum geminum germanum suom.

haec urbs Epidamnus est, dum haec agitur fabula:

quando alia agetur, aliud fiet oppidum;

sicut familiae quoque solent mutarier:

modo †ni caditat leno, modo adulescens, modo senex,
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pauper, mendicus, rex, parasitus, hariolus

Notes on the current edition

Menaechmi, or The Twin Brothers

1. In the first: This Play was the foundation of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors. See the Note at the end of the Play.

2. Health and happiness: Salutem propitiam. Literally, propitious health.

3. It is not an Attic: Graecissat, Atticissat, Sicelissat. Perhaps these words might be more literally translated, Graecize, Atticize, and Sicilicize.

4. At Athens : As the majority of the Greek Comic Poets were either natives of, or residents at, Athens , they would naturally take that extensive, opulent, and bustling city as the scene of many of their Comedies. In the time of Plautus, Greek was yet the language of the Sicilians. In Cicero’s time the language of the Sicilians was a mixture, partly Greek and partly Latin. Apuleius informs us that in his day they spoke Greek, Latin, and a language peculiar to themselves, called the Sicilian.

5. A threefold measure: Trimodius. This was a measure for corn, consisting of three modii, which last contained about a peck of English measure.

6. At Syracuse : Syracuse was the principal city of Sicily famed for its commerce and opulence.

7. Foster-mother: Mater. Literally, mother.

8. At Tarentum : Tarentum was a city of Calabria , in the south of Italy . It was said to have been founded by the Lacedaemonians.

9. To Epidamnus : Epidamnus , or Epidamnum, was a town of Macedonia , situate on the Adriatic Sea. It was much resorted to for the purpose of transit to the opposite shores of Italy . It received its original name from Epidamnus, one of its kings but on falling into the possession of the Romans, they changed its name, as we are informed by Pliny the Elder, into Dyrrachium , from a superstitious notion that when hey were going to Epidamnum, they were going to their loss, as damnum is the Latin for loss or destruction, and ἐπί is the Greek preposition signifying to. Cicero was banished to this place.

10. Cried with much noise: Probably the word flagitarier means that the lost child was cried publicly by the praeco, or crier.

11. If any one of you: This is said facetiously to the Audience for the purpose of catching a laugh.

12. Very much more mistaken: Because he will keep the money and not execute the commission.

13. In its rapidity: He means to pun upon the words rapidus, rapid or carrying away, and raptor, the carrier away or ravisher. The stream carried away the carrier away.

Plautus Menaechmi prologue.pr

Henry Thomas Riley (Translator)

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