An old man says he has begun to go to school again, and learn his letters. "I know three already," he continues, "What three?" is asked, "A M O."
While we are glad to mark an advancement in less pleasures being derived from personal threats and conflicts on the stage, we are pained to find such an entire want of sympathy with the sufferings of those in a servile condition. The severity with which slaves were treated in previous times was not mitigated under the Roman rule, and at the present day it is difficult to realise the moral state of those who could derive amusement from hearing men threatened with bull-hidings, and flogged on the stage. Such terms as "whip-knave" became stale from repetition, and so many jokes were made even about crucifixion, that we might suppose it to be a very trifling punishment. Chrysalus, a slave, facetiously observes, that when his master discovers he has spent his gold, he will make him "cruscisalus" i.e. "cross jumper." In "The Haunted House," Tranio, who, certainly seems to have been a great scamp, soliloquises as follows on hearing of his master's return:—
"Is there any one, who would like to gain a little money, who could endure this day to take my place in being tortured? Who are those fellows hardened to a flogging, who wear out iron chains, or those who for three didrachmas[19] would get beneath besieging towers, where they might have their bodies pierced with fifteen spears? I'll give a talent to that man who shall be the first to run to the cross for me, but on condition that his feet and arms are doubly fastened there. When that is done, then ask the money of me."
Acoustic humour appears not only in puns, but under the form of long names of which Plautus was especially fond, Periplecomenus, Polymacharoplagides, and Thesaurochrysonicocræ are specimens of his inventive genius in this direction.
In the "Three Coins," Charmides asks the sharper's name.
Sh. You demand an arduous task.
Charmides. How so?
Sh. Because if you were to begin before daylight at the first part of my name 'twould be dead of night before you could reach the end of it. I have another somewhat less, about the size of a wine cask.
In the "Persian," Toxilus gives his name as follows,
"Vaniloquidorus Virginisvendonides
Nugipolyloquides Argentiexterebronides
Tedigniloquides Nummorumexpalponides
Quodsemelarripides
Nunquamposteareddides."
There are a few other cases in which there is a playing upon sound, as where Demipho remarks that if he had such a good-looking girl as Pasicompsa for a servant, all the people would be "staring, gazing, nodding, winking, hissing, twitching, crying, annoying, and serenading."
The failings of the fair seems always to have been a favourite subject for men's attack, but reflections of this kind have decreased in number and acerbity since the days of Aristophanes. We find, however, some in Plautus, such as the following:—
"Love is a fawning flatterer. For he that is in love, soon as ever he has been smitten with the kisses of the object he loves, forthwith his substance vanishes out of doors, and melts away. 'Give me this, my honey, if you love me.' And then Gudgeon says, 'Oh apple of my eye, both that and still more, if you wish.' He who plunges into love perishes more dreadfully than if he leapt from a rock. Away with you, Love, if you please."
He is fully alive to the power of this destructive passion. In one place Philolaches half mad with love and jealousy sees his mistress looking into a mirror. "Ah, wretched me," he exclaims passionately, "she gave the mirror a kiss. I wish I had a stone to break the head of that mirror."[20]
The love of money has always been a stock subject with humorists. This common weakness of human nature can be played upon even by those who can produce no other wit, and many worse jokes have been made on it than the following—
Calidorus asks his servant, Pseudolus, to lend him a drachma.
P. What for?
C. To buy a rope to hang myself.
P. Who then will pay me back? Do you wish to hang yourself to cheat me out of my drachma?
The "Concealed Treasure" turns on an old man having found a pot of gold. He conceals it, and his nervousness lest some one should discover it is brought out with excellent humour. He drives the cooks out of the place with his stick. He has a battle-royal with a dunghill cock, who, he imagines is trying to scratch for it, then thinks Strobilus has stolen it, and calls on him to show one hand, and the other, and then the third.
We are the more inclined to lament the utter destruction of ancient African literature on finding that the most refined Roman dramas were placed upon the stage by a Carthaginian, when Plautus, whose enterprize and perseverance had given the great impetus to Latin comedy, was approaching the end of his long life. Terence was born the last, and as some think the greatest master in this branch of Art. He was at one time a slave, but his literary talent was so remarkable that his master set him free, and he became the friend of distinguished men, especially of Scipio the younger. It must seem strange that this brilliancy should have flashed up for a moment, and then been for ever quenched, but it was derived from Greece and not in its nature enduring. The genius of Menander fed the flame of Terence, as that of Diphilus and others gave power to Plautus, and it may well be supposed that men of their talent appropriated all that was most excellent, and left their successors to draw from inferior sources. It may, moreover, be doubted, whether the regular drama was ever popular among the lower classes in Rome, who preferred the more exciting scenes of the circus. Such plays as were intended for them were coarser and more sensational.
Terence has not the rough power and drollery of Plautus; his whole attraction lies in the subtlety of his amorous intrigues. Steele, speaking of one of the plays, "The Self-Tormentor," observes, "It is from the beginning to the end a perfect picture of human life, but I did not observe in the whole one passage that could possibly raise a laugh." It was for this reason, no doubt, that Cæsar spoke of him as only "half a Menander," and as deficient in comic force. Ingenious complexity is so exclusively his aim, that we have neither the coarseness nor the sparkle of earlier writers. He was the first to introduce Comedies, which were not comic, and whatever humour he introduces is that of situation.
We now come to consider a kind of humour of which the Romans claim to have been the originators, and which they certainly developed into a branch of literature. Satire first signified a basket of first fruits offered to Ceres; then a hotchpot or olla podrida, then a medley; and so the name was given to poems written without any definite design. We might therefore conclude that they possessed no uniform character, but merely contained a mixture of miscellaneous matter. But we find in them no allusions to politics or war, and but few to the literature and philosophy of the day—their variety being due to their social complexion. One feeling and character pervades them all—they were called forth by a scornful indignation at the degeneracy of the age as represented by the rich and powerful, or even by certain leading individuals. The appearance of such a kind of literature denoted greater activity in society, an increase of profligacy among some, and of moral sensibility among others. Satire was a social scourge. It was not a philosophical investigation into the nature and origin of vice, but a denunciation of it as inimical to the interests of society. It was practical not theoretical—and sought to bring vice into contempt, by making it both odious and ridiculous. In the latter attempt, the satirists may have had more success than we credit them with, for in our day such virulent attacks would be distasteful, immorality being regarded as essentially a matter for grave and serious condemnation. Satire differs from abuse, not only in being declamatory, but in being deserved. The amusement in it mostly depends upon the deformity of the sensual, the failures of the wicked, and the exposure of guilt in a kind of moral pillory. It did not aim at mere accidental losses or imperfections,