Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) Heautontimorumenos 2.3

Henry Thomas Riley (Translator), George Colman (Translator)

Table of Contents

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

View: By Line
← Previous Next →

Heautontimorumenos. Publius Terentius Afer (Terence). Henry Thomas Riley (Translator), George Colman (Translator). Ney York. 1874.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by NSF, NEH: Digital Libraries Initiative, Phase 2.

Current edition Perseus

Heautontimorumenos; or, The Self-Tormenter (English) (Terence. The Comedies of Terence. Riley, Henry Thomas; Colman, George, translators. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1872.)

Editions (1)
Heautontimorumenos Perseus (Terence. Publii Terentii Comoediae Sex. Parry, Edward St. John, editor. London: Whittaker and Co.; George Bell, 1857.) — 2.3 focus

Notes on the current edition

Heautontimorumenos; or, The Self-Tormenter

1. Troop of female attendants: The train and expenses of a courtesan of high station are admirably depicted in the speech of Lysiteles, in the Trinummus of Plautus, 1. 252.
2. In a mourning dress: Among the Greeks, in general, mourning for the dead seems to have lasted till the thirtieth day after the funeral, and during that period black dresses were worn. The Romans also wore mourning for the dead, which seems, in the time of the Republic, to have been black or dark blue for either sex. Under the Empire the men continued to wear black, but the women wore white. No jewels or ornaments were worn upon these occasions.
3. With no worthless woman’s trumpery: By nullâ malâ re muliebri he clearly means that they did not find her painted up with the cosmetics which some women were in the habit of using. Such preparations for the face as white-lead, wax, antimony, or vermilion, well deserve the name of mala res. A host of these cosmetics will be found described in Ovid’s Fragment On the Care of the Complexion, and much information upon this subject is given in various passages in the Art of Love. In the Remedy of Love, l. 351, Ovid speaks of these practices in the following terms:
At the moment, too, when she shall be smearing her face with the cosmetics laid up on it, you may come into the presence of your mistress, and don’t let shame prevent you. You will find there boxes, and a thousand colors of objects; and you will see oesypum, the ointment of the fleece, trickling down and flowing upon her heated bosom. These drugs, Phineus, smell like thy tables; not once alone has sickness been caused by this to my stomach.
Lucretius also, in his Fourth Book, l. 1168, speaks of a female who
covers herself with noxious odors, and whom her female attendants fly from to a distance, and chuckle by stealth.
See also the Mostellaria of Plautus, Act I., Scene 3, l. 135, where Philematium is introduced making her toilet on the stage.
4. Do hold your peace: Pax, literally peace! in the sense of Hush! Be quiet! See the Notes to the Trinummus of Plautus, ll. 889-891, in Bohn’s Translation.
5. The woof: See an interesting passage on the ancient weaving, in the Metamorphoses of Ovid, B. vi., l. 54, et seq. See also the Epistle of Penelope to Ulysses, in the Heroides of Ovid, l. 10, and the Note in Bohn’s English Translation.
6. She was weaving: This line and part of the next are supposed to have been translated almost literally from some lines, the composition of Menander, which are still extant.
7. Your Bacchis, whom we are bringing: Colman has the following remark:
Here we enter upon the other part of the table, which the Poet has most artfully complicated with the main subject by making Syrus bring Clitipho’s mistress along with Antiphila. This part of the story, we know, was not in Menander.
8. Incur this risk: As to his own mistress.
9. Upon either ear: In aurem utramvis, a proverbial expression, implying an easy and secure repose. It is also used by Plautus, and is found in a fragment of the Πλοκιὸν, or Necklace, a Comedy of Menander.
10. Still do that which I said: Perge porro, tamen istuc ago. Stallbaum observes that the meaning is: Although I’m going off, I’m still attending to what you’re saying. According to Schmieder and others, it means: Call on just as you please, I shall persist in sending Bacchis away.
11. Such great people: Quos, literally, What persons!
12. Words of double meaning: Inversa verba, eversas cervices tuas. Inversa verba clearly means, words with a double meaning, or substituted for others by previous arrangement, like correspondence by cipher. Lucretius uses the words in this sense, B. i., l. 643. A full account of the secret signs and correspondence in use among the ancients will be found in the 16th and 17th Epistles of the Heroides of Ovid, in his Amours, B. i., El. 4, and in various passages of the Art of Love. See also the Asinaria of Plautus, l. 780. It is not known for certain what eversa cervix here means; it may mean the turning of the neck in some particular manner by way of a hint or to give a side-long look, or it may allude to the act of snatching a kiss on the sly, which might lead to a discovery.