Plautus Trinummus 4.2

Henry Thomas Riley (Translator)

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

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Current edition Perseus

Trinummus: The Three Pieces of Money (English) (Plautus. The Comedies of Plautus, Volume 1. Riley, Henry Thomas, translator. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1912.)

Editions (1)
Trinummus Perseus (Plautus. Plauti Comoediae, Volume 2. Leo, Friedrich, editor. Berlin: Weidmann, 1896.) — 4.2 focus

Notes on the current edition

Trinummus: The Three Pieces of Money

1. With his top: The Sharper, as personating a foreigner, has on a petasus, or hat with very wide brims, extending straight out on each side. For this reason Charmides wittily compares him to a mushroom—all head. The causia was a similar hat worn by the Macedonians, with the brims turned up at the sides.
2. The theatrical wardrobe: Chorego—literally, from the Choregus. It was the duty of this person at Athens to provide the Choruses for tragedies and comedies, the Lyric Choruses of men and boys, the dancers for the Pyrrhic dance, the Cyclic Choruses, and the Choruses of flute-players for the religious festivals of Athens. He also had to provide the Chorus with the requisite dresses, wreaths, and masks—whence the application to him on the present occasion.
3. A night-robber: Dormitator seems to mean a thief, who slept during the day and pursued his avocations by night. Sector zonarius is a cutter of girdles, similar to our cutpurse. It was the custom of persons of the middle and lower classes to wear their purses suspended from the zona, or girdle, round the waist; and sometimes they used the folds of the girdle itself for the purpose of depositing their money therein.
4. Care of this door: It was not the usage to enter a house without giving notice to those within. This was done among the Spartans by shouting, while the Athenians, and other nations, either used the knocker of the door or rapped with the knuckles or a stick. In the houses of the rich a porter was always in attendance to open the door. He was commonly a slave or eunuch, and was, among the Romans, chained to his post. A dog was also in general chained near the entrance, and the warning, Cave canem, Beware of the dog, was sometimes written near the door.
5. Respected sir: Pater, literally. father.
6. To the Censor: Juratori. It was the duty of the Censor, among the Romans, to make these inquiries of every person when taking the Census. As the Censors were bound by an oath to the faithful discharge of their duties they were, in common with all persons so bound, called juratores, oathsmen. The Sharper gives Charmides an impudent answer, saying that he has answered the Censor on these points, and that is enough.
7. Beginning of my name: He probably alludes to his varied calling, commensurate with everything in the line of roguery. See the Note to line 815.
8. Size of a wine cask: He alludes, probably, to the amphora, or large earthen jar, in which wine was kept. This was, perhaps, a cant saying, just as if we should say, As little as a hogshead.
9. Hush, that is my name: Pax. This word was used to enjoin silence, like our word Hush, or Whist. He seems to allude to his own thieving avocation, which often required him to be as mute as a mouse. Some of the editions nave tax, as though from tango, to prig, or steal. This, Thornton renders Touchit.
10. Just as though: This passage is of obscure signification. A note of exclamation ought to be inserted after pax, and then the meaning of the old man seems to be, that, as in conversation a stop is instantly put to the discourse on saying hush! so, if anything is entrusted to him, it is as easily done for (periisse), and that it vanishes the instant you call him by his name. Thin is the explanation given by Lindemann. Ritschel reads pax, but most of the old Commentators have tax, which seems the more probable reading. The passage is thus rendered in Thornton’s translation:
SHARP. ’Tis Touchit;—that, sir, is my name.
A common one.
CHARM. A very knavish name:
As though you meant to say if anything
Was trusted to you, touch it, and ’tis gone.
11. Isn’t it the fact: He alludes to his having forgotten the confounded name, which was on the very tip of his tongue.
12. At Rhadama: Rhadama is a fictitious name—pure gibberish. Cercopia is a preferable reading to Cecropia, which was an epithet of Athens, itself supposed to be the scene of the Comedy. The other word would imply some unknown region, called Apeland, as the Sharper’s only aim is to impose upon the credulity of Charmides, and to hinder him from asking unseasonable questions. He coins the word upon the spur of the moment, though there really were the Ape Islands, or the isles of Pithecusae, off the coast of Campania. They are mentioned by Ovid, in the 14th book of the Metamorphoses, l. 291: For the father of the Gods, once abhorring the frauds and perjuries of the Cercropians, and the crimes of the fraudulent race, changed these men into ugly animals; that these same beings might be able to appear unlike men and yet like them. He both contracted their limbs and flattened their noses, bent back from their foreheads; and he furrowed their faces with the wrinkles of old age; and he sent them into this spot with the whole of their bodies covered with long yellow hair. Moreover, he first took away from them the use of language and of their tongues, made for dreadful perjury; he only allowed them to be able to complain with a harsh jabbering.
13. Part of line 930 in the Latin.
14. Land of Arabia: He gets out of depth directly he leaves imaginary places and touches on real countries. He makes Arabia to be in Pontus, while they were realy about two thousand miles asunder
15. Wormwood grows: If he really refers here to Pontus. he accidentally hits upon the truth. Ovid, when in banishment there, says, in the Tristia, B. v. El. 13, l. 21, Let the white wormwood first be wanting in the freezing Pontus. The Sharper tries to correct himself by saying he means another Arabia, and not the one generally known, where the frankincense grows.
16. In a little skiff: Horiola, or horia, was a small skiff or smack used by fishermen.
17. No decent person: He is supposed covertly to allude to the disgraceful story at Ganymede being carried off by the eagle to minister to the lust of Jupiter.
18. For I carry: He takes the other to be as great a rogue as himself and means, that his being Charmides only depended on whether he himself admitted that he was in possession of the gold of Charmides.
19. Yes, in writing: This, of course, was the fact, as Megaronides and Callicles would know better than entrust the fellow with any money. It probably means that he was entrusted with a letter to Callicles, enclosing a counterfeit bill at sight, or order on the Athenian bankers for payment of a thousand Philippeans to Callicles. This, Callicles was to show to Lesbonicus, to put him off the scent as to the treasure whence the money really was taken. The Sharper has told Charmides that he has the money with him, merely by way of boasting of his trustworthy character.
20. At my own award: He means to tell Charmides, that by delaying his return thus late, he has spoilt his prospect of a lucrative job; and he then adds, that he deserves a thrashing, equally with the actor who came on the stage too late. The actors in early times, being often slaves, were liable to punishment if they offended the audience. The Aediles were the officers under whose superintendence the plays were performed; and probably with them lay the decision whether the actor should be punished for coming late on the stage, after he had been pronounced deserving of it in the opinion (arbitratus) of the spectators. See the Note to l. 707.
21. Have arrived in safety: Advenis. After this word, Callicles might suppose that the Sharper is going to congratulate him in the usual terms on his safe arrival; but, instead of that, the fellow pauses, and then finishes with a malediction.
22. Go and carry word: To tell him that he has given the three pieces to no purpose, for the real Charmides has made his appearance, and has completely spoiled the plot.
23. From abroad: This scene is replete with true comic spirst It has been supposed by some that the disgrace of the pedant in Shakspeare’s Taming of the Shrew, and his assuming the name and character of Vincentio, were suggested by this scene. A similar incident is met with in the old play of Albumazar act iv., sc. 3. and most probably it was borrowed from the present passage.
24. I’ faith, a bell: He aptly compares the worthless fellow to a bell, and then shrewdly judges that a bell cannot ring unless it is put in motion by somebody.