 | The Brothers |  |
SCENE I.
DEMEAalone.
Never did man lay down so fair a plan,
So wife a rule of life, but fortune, age,
Or long experience made some change in it;
And taught him, that those things he thought he knew,
In practice he threw by. The very thing
That happens to myself. For that hard life
Which I have ever led, my race near run,
Now in the last stage, I renounce: and why?
But that by dear experience I've been told,
There's nothing so advantages a man,
As mildness and complacency. Of this
My brother and myself are living proofs:
He always led an easy, chearful life;
Good-humour'd, mild, offending nobody,
Smiling on all; a jovial batchelor,
His whole expences center'd in himself.
I, on the contrary, rough, rigid, cross,
Saving, morose, and thrifty, took a wife:
—What miseries did marriage bring!—had children;
—A new uneasiness!—and then besides,
Striving all ways to make a fortune for them,
I have worn out my prime of life and health:
And now, my course near finish'd, what return
Do I receive for all my toil? Their hate.
Meanwhile my brother, without any care,
Reaps all a father's comforts. Him they love,
Me they avoid: to him they open all
Repair to him; while I am quite forsaken.
His life they pray for, but expect my death.
Thus those, brought up by my exceeding labour,
He, at a small expence, has made his own:
The care all mine, and all the pleasure his.
—Well then, let Me endeavour in my turn
To teach my tongue civility, to give
With open-handed generosity,
Since I am challeng'd to't!—and let Me too
Obtain the love and reverence of my children!
And if 'tis bought by bounty and indulgence,
I will not be behind-hand.—Cash will fail:
What's that to me, who am the eldest-born?
This scene, which I have placed the first of the fifth act, stands in Madam Dacier's translation, and in all those editions and translations who have followed her, as the second. I think it is plain from the end of the foregoing scene, that Micio and Demea quitted the stage, and entered the house together; and it seems to be equally evident, from the message that Syrus brings to Demea in the scene immediately succeeding this, that Demea had left the company within—Rogat frater, ne abeas longius—your brother begs, you'd not go further off. But what had still more weight with me, and was a more forcible motive to induce me to begin the fifth act with this soliloquy, was the propriety, and indeed necessity of an interval in this place. The total change of character, whether real or affected, is in itself so extraordinary, that it required all the art of Terence to bring it about; and the only probable method of effecting it, is to suppose it the result at least of some little deliberation, and reflexion on the inconveniencies he had experienced from a contrary temper. Donatus observes the great art with which Terence has preserved the gradation of Demea's anger and distresses, which can be pushed no further than the discovery of Ctesipho; and this admirable climax of incidents, if I may hazard the expression, is finely completed in the scene with which I have closed the fourth act. To say the truth, the fable itself in a manner ends there; and though there is much humour and pleasantry in the remaining part of the play, yet many good criticks have objected to it. Terence however, or rather Menander, must be allowed to have shewn an uncommon effort of genius, if not of judgment, in these adscititious scenes, which he has founded on the conversion of Demea: a circumstance which grows out of the foregoing incidents, and supplies the materials for a pleasant fifth act, like the Giving away the Rings in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, in which play also, as well as this of Terence, the main business of the plot is concluded in the fourth act.
| The Brothers | |