BOOK: Grund (ed.), "Humanist Comedies" (cont.)

Humanist Comedies. Edited and translated by Gary R. Grund. The I Tatti Renaissance Library, Vol. 19. Harvard University Press, 2005. 0674017447. xxx + 460 pp.

[Continued from last week.]

Enea Silvio Piccolomini: Chrysis

This is one of the shorter plays in this volume. There's nothing particularly amusing, let alone funny, about it. Two priests, Dyophanes and Theobolus, are avid frequenters of two courtesans, Chrysis and Cassina, but they seem to be offended by the fact that the girls have other lovers besides them, namely two young men named Sedulius and Charinus. Initially I was under the impression that the girls are actually fond of the two young men (see e.g. p. 289 and p. 303), and are seeing the priests only for the sake of their money; but eventually they profess genuine love for the two priests (p. 343), and the two couples are reunited for a reasonably happy ending of the play.

There is much to complain about here. First of all, the plot seems quite thin and somehow rambling, with plenty of loose ends. Too many of the characters are just peripheral, appearing in one or two scenes without a good enough connection to the rest of the story. Secondly, you won't be exactly roaring with laughter while reading this play; there are a few (very few) passages where you might smile, but that's about it. And this brings us to another, even bigger complaint: perhaps you could argue that there is humour in this play, but if so, it is of a very, very dark sort; namely, you could see the whole play as one big sustained act of mockery at the horrible faults of human nature. The author never misses the slightest opportunity to emphasize these faults, and often actually goes out of his way to do it: thus, for example, if most of the play deals with problems brought about by appetites for sex and money, the author has taken the trouble to also insert two completely gratuitions scenes in which Artrax the gluttonous cook extols his appetite for food (scenes VII and XVI: they are completely peripheral to the rest of the play, and could be taken out and nobody would notice anything at all).

And really, the whole play is one big sordid catalogue of human faults. In scene I, we have Dyophanes smugly explain how good he and Theobolus have it as priests (“We have wealth, resources, luxuries; we are born but to eat and drink; we can sleep and relax as much as we want. We live for ourselves; others live for others. [. . .] We don't have to take a permanent wife [. . .] if a lover suits our fancy, we return to her; if we don't care for her, we simply change course”, p. 285). In scene III we have Lybiphanes and Pythias agreeing that neither men nor women are ever faithful in marriage (p. 295). In scene IV Charinus praises his own hedonistic lifestyle, spent in complete disregard of any wider social or political issues. In scene V we see Canthara, the cynical old madam (“A little healthy lovemaking is a good thing [. . .] but the kind of billing and cooing these two are getting up to is positively sickening”, p. 303) and avid drinker of wine. In scene VI we see Theobolus' grim view of the relations between the sexes (“I know how women act and think: whatever you want, they don't want, and vice versa”, p. 311), as well as Dyophanes' candid admission of lust (“I can deprive myself of food and drink, but not of sex. I want to sleep in the arms of my Cassina, even if she does smell like a goat”, p. 309). In scene VIII we have Charinus's bitter complaints about love (“nothing but merciless torture, savage and horrible [. . .] Love makes such a mockery of my shattered reason”, p. 313). In scene X the two courtesans, Chrysis and Cassina, cynically discuss their habit of dumping their lovers on a regular basis (“A brand-new lover wants to please you right away” and is thus more generous, p. 319; “Cassina:  ‘No lover tastes good to me for more than a month; the Kalends of each month always brings me new lovers.’ — Chrysis: ‘You are far too constant in your love! It's really a better idea to celebrate fresh nuptials on the Nones and Ides’ ”, p. 321). Theobolus and Dyophanes exhibit, in several passages, a regrettable degree of misogyny and contempt for prostitutes (made worse by the fact that they themselves frequent these very same prostitutes); pp. 307, 327, 329. Archimenides contributes his own cynical monologue in scene XIII. In scene XV Dyophanes, still angry at his Cassina, provides one of the few really funny scenes in the play by describing in great detail the violence he would like to perpetrate upon her, interrupted after every sentence by utterly sycophantic (and undoubtedly quite insincere) expressions of approval by the slave Congrio (“D.: ‘I have a mind to rip out her eyes.’ — C.: ‘What strength!’ — D.: ‘I'll break a few bones.’ — C.: ‘She deserves it.’ — D.: ‘What if I decided to cut off her nose?’ — C.: ‘I say, do it.’ — D.: ‘And I'm not going to spare her ears either.’ — C.: ‘She doesn't deserve to have ears.’ ”, p. 337).

The play ends with another splendid bit of sarcasm: “Know that the moral of the play is this: that you should work hard to be virtuous, stay away from courtesans, pimps, parasites and wild parties.” (P. 347.) Of course, the rest of the play has hardly done anything to encourage such a moral. By and large, the thoroughly non-virtuous protagonists of this play do just fine; it isn't clear that it would be any better for them if they had really taken up the path of virtue.

A memorable quote from Archimenides (scene XIII, ll. 611–3, p. 329): “Pleasure is a paltry thing in the life of a man, but miseries endure. Sorrow is always a companion to pleasure.” This one belongs into the pessimistic hall of fame, right next to the opening lines of Poe's Berenice (“Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon like the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch — as distinct too, yet as intimately blended.”).

A nice bit of sarcasm from Chyrsis, from the passage where Theobolus and Dyophanes announce their intention to break their relationships with her and Cassina: “This is getting serious. What are we going to do, Cassina? If we hang ourselves now, the effort will be wasted. [. . .] we'll lose the cost of the rope and bring pleasure to these two, who'll enjoy themselves at our expense [. . .] Better to go on living and filling our bellies. That will bother these two more than they'd like to believe.” (P. 329.)

There's a curious inconsistency in this play; on p. 285 Sedulius is described in the dramatis personae as “a young man”, but on p. 291 his friend says: “you're in your sunset years”. Admittedly the dramatis personae was supplied by the translator rather than by the author himself, so maybe that's just a translator's mistake.

Anyway, what to say about this play? Far be it from me to complain when somebody has a low opinion of human nature; after all, so do I; but nonetheless, the relentless emphasis on it, with so little in the way of comic relief, makes this ‘comedy’ a less enjoyable thing to read than one would have liked.

(Incidentally, the author went on to become a pope — it's curious to see a future pope write a play about prostitutes and their customers, and what is more, a play that doesn't make the slightest effort to explicitly moralize, nor to mention religion. That such a thing was possible is one of those fascinating things about the renaissance, I guess. Compare this with the recently deceased pope John Paul II, who also wrote some plays, but they all seem to be much more religious in character.)

Tommaso Mezzo: The Epirote

I think this was my favourite play in this volume, or maybe it ties for first place with Philogenia and Epiphebus. It has at least a few funny passages and a genuinely happy ending. Clitipho and Antiphila are in love, but they dare not marry as she has no dowry. Their plans are further threatened by a confusion between Clitipho and a friend of his, who happens to have the same name! This second Clitipho has been seeing a prostitute, and due to a confusion of names the first Clitipho got momentarily blamed for it. However, the truth comes out, and furthermore Antiphila's uncle (the Epirote, i.e. he's from Epirus) returns home after many years abroad; he turns out to be fairly well off, so he provides a dowry for Antiphila, who can now finally marry Clitipho. There's also a supblot involving an old woman, Pamphila, who is also in love with Clitipho; there's a scene, either funny or sad depending on how you look at it, in which she pathetically attempts to cover her wrinkles under heroic quantities of makeup. At the end she gets married to Antiphila's uncle. There are also a couple of amusing scenes largely unrelated to the rest of the plot; in one we observe a quack doctor in action, and in one a group of musicians cunningly manage to avoid having to pay for their dinner at an inn. All in all, this was quite an enjoyable read; of the five plays in this volume, this one is the closest to what I imagine a comedy should look like.

Apparently the Latin word for an old woman is anus :)) (p. 354). According to the Lewis & Short dictionary at the Perseus web site, it differs from the Latin word for anus only in the length of the a vowel. But judging from the etymologies mentioned in that dictionary, the similarity between the two words is probably just accidental.

The uncle from Epirus says a curious sentence on p. 409: “Dramburi te clofto goglie”. The translator's note on p. 450 says that according to Ludwig Braun, the editor of a German edition of this play, the sentence is “Albanian for ‘Please shut your mouth!’ Braun points out the parallel with Plautus' Poenulus, where the character Hanno speaks his native Punic in several places.” This certainly makes sense, as Epirus partly overlaps with present-day Albania and a language related to Albanian was probably already spoken there in ancient times. Anyway, I've found the same sentence cited on several Albanian web pages, always in reference to this play by Mezzo. According to the Wikipedia, the oldest surviving documents written in Albanian are from 1462; this would make the sentence from The Epirote, which was first printed in 1483, one of the earliest recorded bits of Albanian language. And anyway, the sentence sounds just great; what a pity that Dante didn't know Albanian — “Dramburi te clofto goglie” would make a perfect addition to “Raphèl maì amècche zabì almi” (Inf. 31.67) and “Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe” (Inf. 7.1). :)

Miscellaneous

There are unusually many typos in this book, e.g.: “goard” (instead of “gourd”, p. 123); “these deed” (p. 157), “I can't helped” (p. 181), and missing full-stops on pp. 215, 267, 273 and 429.

In many books, translations from Latin seem to have a slight tendency towards stuffiness; so the translator of this book has to be commended for the valiant efforts to use a more colloquial tone in many parts of these plays. “I came in to sow some wild oats. [. . .] Or rather, I came on a panty-raid” (Paulus, p. 33); “I shall be appointed the censor of the dining-room: either I shall be chief of the chow or general of the jugs” (Philodoxus, p. 137); “Oh, come off it!” (Philodoxus, p. 163).

“In a broader sense it may very well be that because comedy always pits those in the grip of convention against those who desire to love and flourish (bene esse), it will always find a deeper resonance in the hearts of those living in times of political authoritarianism and strict social codes.” (Translator's introduction, p. ix.) I agree with this description of comedy, but then I can't help feeling that several of the plays in this volume can just barely be considered comedies at all.

“As late as the tenth century, Hrotsvitha, a nun at Gandersheim, rewrote in Latin the plays of Terence ‘substituting for so many incestuous vices of feminine lust the chaste actions of holy virgins.’ ” (Translator's preface, p. ix. The quoted sentence is apparently (p. xxviii) from a preface to Hrotsvitha's works in the Patrologia Latina, vol. 137.) Two things: (1) looks like I'll have to read some Terence :) (2) looks like I'll have to start maintaining a list of gloriously silly names of medieval nuns. Hrotsvitha is almost as good as Austrebertha and certainly better than Wereburga.

There are several other interesting passages in the translator's introduction.

Conclusion

I'm starting to fear that I'm repeating myself like a broken record :) As with many other ITRL volumes, this one wasn't exactly a thrilling read as a whole, but some parts of it were enjoyable after all. I'd say about two of the five plays were reasonably enjoyable, the others not so much; and the translator's introduction is interesting and informative.

Maybe one thing I could learn from this is that the idea of what a comedy should be like changes through time. Or maybe just our sense of humour changes? I wonder if the 15th-century readers laughed while reading the plays from this volume. I certainly didn't; but I did laugh e.g. while reading Oscar Wilde's comedies. And I at least smiled every now and then while reading Molière. On the other hand I hardly ever smiled while reading ancient Greek and Roman comedies. Maybe they were funnier if you actually saw them performed on the stage rather than just reading them? Or maybe comedy just happens to be one of those things that don't age so well.

BOOK: Grund (ed.), "Humanist Comedies"

Humanist Comedies. Edited and translated by Gary R. Grund. The I Tatti Renaissance Library, Vol. 19. Harvard University Press, 2005. 0674017447. xxx + 460 pp.

This book contains five 15th-century comedies (well, actually one is from the late 14th century).

Pier Paolo Vergerio: Paulus

I don't see why this one is even called a comedy. There's certainly nothing funny about it. Paulus is a university student from a reasonably rich family, and apparently he isn't untalented either, but he cannot bring himself to sit down and study instead of squandering his time and money on partying. Finally an inspiration comes to him in a dream and he decides to mend his ways, but his wily slave Herotes does his best to turn him back to the path of vice. (As long as Paulus remains on that path, there are many opportunities for Herotes to take a cut for himself here and there, ll. 341–55.) Paulus, although he is starting to feel that he is being led by his own servant rather than vice versa (ll. 167–72, 227–8), and although his other slave, Stichus, is trying to get him to become more serious about studying (scene 3), nevertheless cannot resist the temptation and goes along with Herotes' suggestions. Herotes hires a prostitute for Paulus, but tries to have sex with her first. This leads to one of the few funny scenes in the whole play (p. 55): Paulus, annoyed at being kept waiting for so long, hears the noise from the next room and thinks that “Herotes has gotten into a fight” (l. 681). This gives the playwright an opportunity to employ a series of double entendres based on the fact that, in Latin, “the words for ‘to be ruined,’ ‘to die’ and ‘to pine away from love’ (perire) are the same as the word for ‘to have an orgasm’ ” (translator's note, p. 442). Fortunately these puns also translate quite well (“ ‘I'm coming!’ ”). The play ends with Herotes bragging about this and his various other unethical exploits to another man's servant, Papis.

As I said, there aren't many funny things in this comedy; but the thing that annoys me the most is its general tenor. My understanding of comedies is that at the end, the good side is supposed to win, and the bad guys get exposed for what they are, laughed at, and possibly shamed and/or punished. This is e.g. how Moliere's comedies work. See also the wikipedia page on comedy, and also this web page. But here in Paulus, the bad side, with Herotes as its chief representative, is in fact triumphant and ends up openly flaunting its shameless, amoral cynicism. There's nothing sympathetic about Herotes, so he shouldn't end up winning. Nor can you say that the end of this play is in any way a happy end in the usual sense of the word (but a happy end is another basic requirement of a comedy).

So this is really hardly a comedy. But of course, it isn't a tragedy either; it fits those specifications even less. What is it then? A sordid little piece of reality with few or no redeeming features, that's what.

Incidentally, Vergerio was born in Koper (p. 3).

Leon Battista Alberti: Philodoxus

This play is somewhat better than the previous one. It still isn't very funny, but at least it has a happy end, and it's mostly the right characters that win. Interestingly, practically all the characters have names that mean something in Greek, and the author explains them all in a preface (pp. 73–75). Thus, Doxia is ‘glory’, Philodoxus is the ‘lover of glory’ (or of Doxa), Doxia's sister Phemia is ‘fame’; another character is Fortunius, who has a slave Dynastes (“for, indeed, power is especially subject to fortune”), etc. So the whole play has a nice and refreshingly obvious allegorical meaning. Fortunius, the “insolent young man” (p. 83), tries to win glory but ends up achieving mere fame instead (and even her he has to abduct), while Philodoxus, a much better character, with the help of his wise and prudent friend Phroneus, ends up getting married to Doxia.

Overall, it was a reasonably pleasant play. The one thing that really annoyed me is everyone's response to Fortunius' rape of Phemia. Actually I'm not sure if this is just rape in the old sense, i.e. abduction, or also in the modern sense. Only an abduction is described on p. 137, but on p. 163 it is referred to as a rape. Anyway, even just a kidnapping is bad enough. What annoys me is everybody else's response, which is to suggest that the pair should get married: “the ill fame of a rape may be blotted out by proper nuptials” (the voice of authority — old Chronos, captain of the city watch, on p. 163); Phemia's sister, Doxia, also approves: “Seeing that the matter has come to this pass, and since there's no reason to expect any better results, I think it's prudent to choose the lesser of two evils” (p. 165). Doxia's old maid-servant Mnimia (‘Memory’) also approves (on the same page). Phemis herself doesn't seem to have been consulted. I mean, ick. Marriage as the reward of rape — isn't that a bit much? I guess this is what you get in a patriarchal society where it's unimaginable that a young woman could stay single for a while and choose her own husband (if she wants one)...

There's a curious episode regarding the authorship of the play: “I fooled the people who were asking from what source I'd compiled it into believing it was excerpted from a very ancient manuscript. Everyone was easily convinced, for it smacked of the comic genre and of antiquity, nor was it hard to believe that I, a youth occupied with canon law, was quite incapable of acquiring any merit for eloquence. Moreover, comic wit was held not to be flourishing in these times.” (Pp. 77–9.) Only some ten years later did he publicly acknowledge his authorship.

Ugolino of Parma: Philogenia and Epiphebus

This was one of the two most enjoyable of the five plays in this volume, but once again it doesn't strike me as very much of a comedy. In fact, the main theme is rather sad. Philogenia is a girl whom Epiphebus, a young man, seduces and persuades her to elope with him. After a while it becomes clear that they won't be able to live together indefinitely without being discovered, and Epiphebus finds a peasant named Gobius, lies to him about the girl being a virgin and thus persuades him to marry her. At the same time he makes arrangements that Philogenia will still be able to see him and cheat on her husband.

Maybe the problem is just that social mores have changed so much since that time; anyway, the end of the play doesn't seem particularly happy to me. It's rather sad and sordid. I cannot help feeling sorry for Philogenia. As far as I can tell, she's from a reasonably good family from the city, and now she ends up being married to a dimwitted peasant, and all this because the unscrupulous Epiphebus wanted to have a bit of fun with her. She's really mostly a victim here, partly of Epiphebus' advances and partly of the restrictions that society has placed on the behaviour of women. In fact it's only from the point of view of this kind of restrictive patriarchal society that the play can be considered to have a happy end: from that point of view, she can probably count herself lucky that she ended up married to a reasonably decent (if dull) husband, rather than being locked up in a convent, burned at the stake or left on the streets to fend for herself in a life of prostitution and beggary. But from a present-day point of view, it's all rather sad and hardly a suitable theme for a comedy.

Epiphebus is a bit of a misogynist, at least by present-day standards. He seems to believe that if he loves a woman, she is obliged to reciprocate these feelings (¶1, p. 173), and has a generally antagonistic view of relationships (“no one, or very few at most, can have their way with a woman without being importunate or an incessant plotter”, ¶5, p. 177). Incidentally, he also lies to Gobius about Philogenia's age (“she's just sixteen”, ¶55, p. 237; but “I'm already twenty”, she says in ¶8, p. 181).

In ¶34 (p. 211) a friend of his, Emphonius, he has a very curious proposal: “Whenever you meet a woman, avert your eyes, show that you don't want to look at her, and scorn her. Every man should to the same to every woman he meets. Surely it will then follow that women, desperate and furious, consumed with anger and lust, will beyond doubt go insane with love; they'll turn somersaults to ingratiate themselves with men again and restore themselves to our good graces. [. . .] they'll follow us wherever we go [. . .] And when they meet up with us they'll snatch us up like manna from on high.” To which all that needs be said is on this picture. Maybe I should take back my complaints that this is not a good comedy. This paragraph alone must have had people falling off their chairs with laughter.

Another somewhat bizarre statement from Emphonius, commenting on Epiphebus' idea to marry Philogenia off to Gobius (¶44, p. 223): “But if you bring it off happily, as we hope, afterwards other girls will let us have our way with them, too, as they'll know we can find husbands for our girlfriends once we've satisfied ourselves with them. Everyone will think your plan is pious and holy, too, and praise it to the skies.” I guess this is supposed to be hilariously funny, right? Because it sure as hell doesn't make any sense any other way. I guess something must be wrong with my sense of humour these days.

There are some curious inconsistencies in the play. The argument (i.e. the summary of the story at the beginning of the play) says that Epiphebus is “desperately in love with Philogenia”, and in ¶1 he says that he has “always sincerely loved this girl”, but then in ¶29 Emphonius says of him that “our friend Epiphebus has once again ravished a virgin”. Once again, mind you!!! OK, so he's lying in ¶1; I can understand that; but why is the author supporting his lie in the argument?

Lest I be accused of painting Philogenia as entirely a victim, I must admit that she is not completely without agency in this whole matter. In ¶8 (p. 181) she has a few eloquent sentences in acknowledgement of female sexuality: “Really, how long is it right to keep cloistered in the home a virgin who is ready for a man? Until she is sixteen, I hear it said; I'm already twenty, and it's killing me. I was born with flesh and blood like any other girl; my body is shaped for love, so I can't help being excited by sexual desire. And the more nature has made us inclined to this sin, the more it must be forgiven”. And in ¶42 (pp. 219–21) we see that there are other options, better than elopement, to work around the societal constraints: “What an ignorant thing to do, to leave home in the middle of the night, abandoning my parents without even a goodbye. Certainly I could have taken my pleasures at home, as I know other girls my age have done.” And there's a fairly funny scene when she goes to confession before getting married (¶71, pp. 257–9): “ ‘My father, many men have had sex with me.’ ‘And this happened of your own free will?’ ‘Oh, no, not at all! I was seduced by clever flattery [. . .] I was naïve, as all of us young girls are. That's why I had to service the lust of so many men.’ ‘This, then, is no sin. [. . .] if it wasn't your own will but necessity that forced on you this shameful act, I say that you are innocent.’ ‘[Aside.] Well, thank God I was always able to satisfy my passion without doing anything wrong!’ ”

Interestingly, Philogenia mentions in ¶41 (p. 219) a hypothetical man who “thinks he's a conquering hero, as they say, if he keeps a list of his many girlfriends in his little black book”. I'm intrigued by this — did they have little black books back in the 15th century? I thought this was a relatively recent invention, used just to write down people's phone numbers. My first thought was that this was a translator's effort to modernise something from the original, to make things more familiar to the modern reader; but then I looked at the original text, and although I don't understand Latin, I can't help feeling that the original also speaks about something written down in a book: “et pro munere palmario sibi ducit si plures, ut aiunt, in codice descripsit”.

Epiphebus in ¶5 (p. 177) mentions that “fortune always favors the brave”. I always thought of this as a quote from Virgil (see e.g. here; but my first encounter with the phrase was many years ago in Jules Verne's A Captain at Fifteen). But, to my surprise, the translator's note (p. 445) identifies this as a quote from Terence's Phormio, 1.4.26. I was surprised by this — why not quote Virgil, who is widely thought of as the source of this phrase? But then it occurred to me that Terence pre-dates Virgil by more than a hundred years. Interestingly, the Latin form of the phrase seems to vary slightly all the time. In the Perseus e-text of Phormio, the form is “fortes Fortuna adiuvat”, which they translate as “fortune helps the brave”. Ugolino here in Philogenia and Epiphebus says “fortibus fortuna semper favit” (p. 176). And Virgil's text (Aeneid, 10.284) on Perseus has “audentis Fortuna iuvat”.

[To be continued in a few days.]