Tag: Theater

Frying Fish and Accepting People as they Are

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Terence, Adelphoe 420-432

“JFC, I don’t have the time to listen to you.
I have the fish I was thinking about and now
My main concern is that they don’t go bad.
That would be as big a crime on our part, Demea,
As ignoring everything you were just talking about.

As far as I can, I give my fellow enslaved friends this advice
“Too much salt or overcooked or undercleaned, ooh that’s perfect–
Remember what you did next time!
I am serious about giving them as much wisdom as I can.

Finally, I say “gaze into the saucepan as if into a mirror!”
And I tell them what they should do as practice.

I know that all these things we do are foolish—
But what would you do? You need to take each person as they are.
What else do you want?”

… non hercle otiumst
nunc mi auscultandi. piscis ex sententia
nactus sum. hi mihi ne corrumpantur cautiost.
nam id nobis tam flagitiumst quam illa, Demea,
non facere vobis quae modo dixti. et quod queo
conservis ad eundem istunc praecipio modum.
“hoc salsumst, hoc adustumst, hoc lautumst parum.
illud recte, iterum sic memento.” sedulo
moneo quae possum pro mea sapientia.
postremo tamquam in speculum in patinas, Demea,
inspicere iubeo et moneo quid facto usu’ sit.
inepta haec esse nos quae facimus sentio.
verum quid facias? ut homost, ita morem geras.
numquid vis?

The False Mask of Happiness

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Seneca, Moral Epistle 80.6-8

“The joy of the people who are called “happy” is fake but their sadness is deep and profound and that much heavier because it is not allowed for them to openly be unhappy. Instead they need to act happy even while grief consumes their hearts.

I must often use the following example and nothing else so effectively expresses the drama of human life where we are assigned roles that we play so badly. Over there is someone who takes up a lot of space on the stage and bellows with his head to the sky: “Look, I rule Argos: Pelops left the realm to me / from the Hellespont and the Ionian sea / pressing on the Isthmus…” He is a slave and he earns five measures of grain and as many denarii.

Over there is an arrogant but powerless man swollen with belief in his strengths, saying: “If you don’t quiet down, Menelaus, you’ll die by this hand.” He earns pennies a day and sleeps on trash.

You can speak the same way about all these fools riding around above the heads of other men and the whole crowd. The happiness of all these people is just a mask. Strip them of it and hold them in contempt.”

eorum, qui felices vocantur, hilaritas ficta est at gravis et subpurata tristitia, eo quidem gravior, quia interdum non licet palam esse miseros, sed inter aerumnas cor ipsum exedentes necesse est agere felicem. Saepius hoc exemplo mihi utendum est, nec enim ullo efficacius exprimitur hic humanae vitae mimus, qui nobis partes, quas male agamus, adsignat. Ille, qui in scaena latus incedit et haec resupinus dicit

En impero Argis; regna mihi liquit Pelops,
Qua ponto ab Helles atque ab Ionio mari
Urgetur Isthmos,

servus est, quinque modios accipit et quinque denarios;

ille qui superbus atque inpotens et fiducia virium tumidus ait:
Quod nisi quieris, Menelae, hac dextra occides,

diurnum accipit, in centunculo dormit. Idem de istis licet omnibus dicas, quos supra capita hominum supraque turbam delicatos lectica suspendit; omnium istorum personata felicitas est. Contemnes illos, si despoliaveris.

Wall Painting from Herculaneum. Actor with mask and Muses. Napoli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9019

Terence on His Haters

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Terence, The Woman of Andros Prologue 15-23

“These people attack the poem and deny
That it is proper to ruin stories in this way.
But aren’t they showing that they understand nothing in being so clever?
When they criticize me, they accuse Naevius, Plautus and Ennius,
Those authorities I hold as my my own,
Since it is better to take their negligence as a model
Than to copy the pedantic diligence of those fools.
I warn them to be quiet from now on and stop
Talking shit unless they want to own up to their own failings.”

id isti vituperant factum atque in eo disputant
contaminari non decere fabulas.
faciuntne intellegendo ut nil intellegant?
qui quom hunc accusant, Naevium, Plautum, Ennium
accusant, quos hic noster auctores habet,
quorum aemulari exoptat neglegentiam
potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam.
dehinc ut quiescant porro moneo et desinant
maledicere, malefacta ne noscant sua.

 

Terence on His Haters

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Terence, The Woman of Andros Prologue 15-23

“These people attack the poem and deny
That it is proper to ruin stories in this way.
But aren’t they showing that they understand nothing in being so clever?
When they criticize me, they accuse Naevius, Plautus and Ennius,
Those authorities I hold as my my own,
Since it is better to take their negligence as a model
Than to copy the pedantic diligence of those fools.
I warn them to be quiet from now on and stop
Talking shit unless they want to own up to their own failings.”

id isti vituperant factum atque in eo disputant
contaminari non decere fabulas.
faciuntne intellegendo ut nil intellegant?
qui quom hunc accusant, Naevium, Plautum, Ennium
accusant, quos hic noster auctores habet,
quorum aemulari exoptat neglegentiam
potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam.
dehinc ut quiescant porro moneo et desinant
maledicere, malefacta ne noscant sua.

 

Terence on His Haters

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Terence, The Woman of Andros Prologue 15-23

“These people attack the poem and deny
That it is proper to ruin stories in this way.
But aren’t they showing that they understand nothing in being so clever?
When they criticize me, they accuse Naevius, Plautus and Ennius,
Those authorities I hold as my my own,
Since it is better to take their negligence as a model
Than to copy the pedantic diligence of those fools.
I warn them to be quiet from now on and stop
Talking shit unless they want to own up to their own failings.”

id isti vituperant factum atque in eo disputant
contaminari non decere fabulas.
faciuntne intellegendo ut nil intellegant?
qui quom hunc accusant, Naevium, Plautum, Ennium
accusant, quos hic noster auctores habet,
quorum aemulari exoptat neglegentiam
potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam.
dehinc ut quiescant porro moneo et desinant
maledicere, malefacta ne noscant sua.

 

Terence on His Haters

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Terence, The Woman of Andros Prologue 15-23

“These people attack the poem and deny
That it is proper to ruin stories in this way.
But aren’t they showing that they understand nothing in being so clever?
When they criticize me, they accuse Naevius, Plautus and Ennius,
Those authorities I hold as my my own,
Since it is better to take their negligence as a model
Than to copy the pedantic diligence of those fools.
I warn them to be quiet from now on and stop
Talking shit unless they want to own up to their own failings.”

id isti vituperant factum atque in eo disputant
contaminari non decere fabulas.
faciuntne intellegendo ut nil intellegant?
qui quom hunc accusant, Naevium, Plautum, Ennium
accusant, quos hic noster auctores habet,
quorum aemulari exoptat neglegentiam
potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam.
dehinc ut quiescant porro moneo et desinant
maledicere, malefacta ne noscant sua.

 

Funny Fragments from Philyllius and Phrynichus (Old Comedy)

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Philyllius, fr. 20 (from “The Snail”)

“My grandfather was a dappled dogfish”

ὁ πάππος ἦν μοι γαλεὸς ἀστερίας

Philyllius, fr. 20 (from “The Snail”)

“I am neither a cicada nor a snail, woman!”

ΚΟΧΛΙΑΣ. Φιλύλλιος (I 787 K)·
οὔκ εἰμι τέττιξ οὐδὲ κοχλίας, ὦ γύναι.

Phrynichus, fr. 3 (Athenaeus 165b)

“The hardest of all modern labors is to protect ourselves from them [the youth].
For they have some kind of a goad in their fingers, this man-hating bloom of youth.
They talk sweetly enough as they circum-ambulate the marketplace with another—
But when they take their seats, they mock the men they addressed sweetly
Scratching deep furrows into them once they’ve found themselves in a group”

ἐστὶν δ’ αὐτούς γε φυλάττεσθαι τῶν νῦν χαλεπώτατον ἔργον.
ἔχουσι γάρ τι κέντρον ἐν τοῖς δακτύλοις, μισάνθρωπον ἄνθος ἥβης·
εἶθ’ ἡδυλογοῦσιν ἅπασιν ἀεὶ κατὰ τὴν ἀγορὰν περιόντες.
ἐπὶ τοῖς βάθροις ὅταν ὦσιν, ἐκεῖ τούτοις οἷς ἡδυλογοῦσι
μεγάλας ἀμυχὰς καταμύξαντες καὶ συγκύψαντες ἅπαντας γελῶσι.

As If Monday Weren’t Unfunny Enough: Four Fragments from Theopompos

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Theopompos was a minor poet composing in the later years of Attic Old Comedy (c. 410-380?). Here are four of his remaining fragments:

Fr. 16 (Diogenes Laertius 3.26)

“One thing is not even one thing,
And two are scarcely one either, according to Plato.”

ἓν γάρ ἐστιν οὐδὲ ἕν,
τὰ δὲ δύο μόλις ἕν ἐστιν, ὥς φησιν Πλάτων.

Fr. 34

“Euripides didn’t say it badly at all:
The truly happy man dines an another’s expense”

Εὐριπίδου τἄρ’ ἐστὶν οὐ κακῶς ἔχον,
τἀλλότρια δειπνεῖν τὸν καλῶς εὐδαίμονα.

Fr. 60

“Eileithuia has been pardoned by women
For being so tight-lipped about her craft.”

ἀλλ’ ἡ μὲν Εἰλείθυια συγγνώμην ἔχει
ὑπὸ τῶν γυναικῶν οὖσα καταπλὴξ τὴν τέχνην.

[Eileithuia was a goddess of childbirth]

Fr. 65

“Stretching out drinking in the three-couched room,
We took turns singing the songs of Telamon to each other”

κατακείμενοι μαλακώτατ’ ἐπὶ τρικλινίῳ
Τελαμῶνος οἰμώζοντες ἀλλήλοις μέλη.