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Fodere, aut arare, aut aliquid ferre. This passage is of much greater consequence than is generally imagined, towards the understanding the true intent and management of this play; for it is material to know what Menedemus is about when Chremes first accosts him; whether he is at work in the field, or is returning home loaded with his tools. Two very learned men engaged in a very elaborate disputation upon this subject. If Menedemus is still at work when Chremes first meets him, Terence would certainly have been guilty of a very gross impriety in the conduct of his comedy; for, as the scene never changes, Menedemus must necessarily be ever present. Terence could never be so absurd as not to guard against falling into so gross an error. He not only takes care to acquaint us with the situation of Menedemus, but also with the hour of the day, at which the piece commences; which is plainly marked out by these words, aut aliquid ferre, which decides the whole point in question. Menedemus having been at work all day, and being unable to see any longer, takes his tools on his back, and is making the best of his way home; Chremes at that very instant meets him near his own door, where the scene lies: the beginning of this play therefore is evidently towards the close of the day, when Menedemus had quitted his work.

There is certainly a great want of accuracy in this way of reasoning, with which Madam Dacier espouses Hedelin's argument: for why, as Menage justly says, should the words aut aliquid ferre refer to the manner in which Menedemus was then actually employed, more than the other words, fodere, aut arare? or if they were so interpreted, still they must be applied to his carrying burdens in the course of his laborious occupations, while at work in the fields. One word of marginal direction, setting down the Pantomime of the scene, according to Diderot's plan, would have solved all our doubts on this head. On the whole, Menage, I think, fails in his proofs that Menedemus is actually at work, though he labours that point exceedingly: and Hedelin is manifestly wrong in maintaining that the scene lies within the city of Athens. One of the principal objections urged by Hedelin (and referred to by Madam Dacier in the above note) to the Poet's having intended to exhibit Menedemus actually at work, when Chremes accosts him, is that the scene evidently lies between both their houses. Were the scene laid in town, as Hedelin contends, indeed it could not be: but if in the country adjacent, as Dacier agrees with Menage, why might not Menedemus be at work on a piece of ground lying between the two houses? It is natural enough that the fight of Menedemus thus employed, might urge Chremes to presume, under the privilege of good neighbourhood, to speak to him.—There is a brevity and sullenness also in the answers of Menedemus, that seems in character for a man employed, and unwilling to be interrupted, though he relents by degrees, and reluctantly suffers Chremes to force his tools from him.—His being at work too forms a kind of theatrical picture on the opening of the piece.—These, I think, are the strongest arguments, deduced from the scene itself, which can be urged in behalf of the notion of Menedemus's being exhibited as at work on his farm; and some of them, I think appear weighty and plausible: but a further examination, with an attention to the conduct of the rest of the piece, determined me to the contrary opinion.—At the end of the scene, it is evident that Menedemus quits the stage, and enters his own house. It cannot be said, that he is prevailed on to desist from his labour by the arguments of Chremes; since he will not even accept the invitation to supper lest it should afford him a respite from his misery. It is plain therefore, I think, that Terence meant to open the first act with the close of the day, together with the labours of Menedemus; as he begins the third act with the break of day and the coming-forth of Menedemus, to return to his toils and self-punishment.

The length of this, and some other controversial notes on this comedy, will, I hope, be excused, when it is considered that this dispute has filled whole volumes. I thought it incumbent on me to clear up these points to the best of my abilities; since none can be so justly reproved for having omitted to explain an author's meaning, as those who have attempted to translate him.

Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto. It is said that at the delivery of this sentiment, the whole theatre, though full of foolish and ignorant people, resounded with applause.

It is said this sentence was received with an universal applause. There cannot be a greater argument of the general good understanding of a people, than a sudden consent to give their approbation of a sentiment which has no emotion in it. If it were spoken with never so great skill in the actor, the manner of uttering that sentence could have nothing in it which could strike any but people of the greatest humanity, nay, people elegant and skilful in observations upon it. It is possible he might have laid his hand on his breast, and with a winning insinuation in his countenance, expressed to his neighbour that he was a man who made his case his own: yet I'll engage a player in Covent-Garden might hit such an attitude a thousand times before he would have been regarded.

We are not to take this, as hath constantly been done, for a sentiment of pure humanity and the natural ebullition of benevolence. We may observe in it a designed stroke of satirical resentment. The Self-Tormentor, as we saw, had ridiculed Chremes' curiosity by a severe reproof. Chremes, to be even with him, reflects upon the inhumanity of his temper. “You, says he [or rather he implies] seem such a foe to humanity, that you spare it not in yourself; I, on the other hand, am affected when I see it suffer in another.”

I cannot dismiss this long note without expressing my concurrence with the last cited critick in his explanation of this passage: but I cannot agree with Sir Richard Steele that sentiments of humanity are suffered to pass unnoticed on our Theatres, any more than I can conclude with the pious St. Augustine, that the Roman theatre was filled with foolish and ignorant people. A modern audience seems to be on the catch for sentiment; and perhaps often injudiciously: for nothing can be more opposite to the genius of the Drama, whether in Tragedy or Comedy, than a forced detail of sentiments, unless, like this before us, they grow out of the circumstances of the play, and fall naturally from the character that delivers them. The original contains a play of words between homo and humani, and a retort of the word alienum, which makes it rather difficult to be given with its full force in a translation. My version, I am conscious, does not comprehend every word; but I hope it will be found to include the whole meaning of the sentiment. It is easy to open it still further by a more diffused expression; but I thought that conciseness made it more round, and full, and forcible. If there are any readers of a different opinion, let them substitute the two following lines; though I must own I prefer that in the text.

Comedy relates to the whole species, Tragedy to individuals. What I mean is this, the heroe of the Tragedy is such or such a man; Regulus, or Brutus, or Cato, and no other person. The principal character of a Comedy, should on the contrary represent a great number of men. If by chance the Poet should give him so peculiar a physiognomy, that there were in society but one individual who resembled him, Comedy would relapse into its childhood, and degenerate into satire.

Terence seems to me to have fallen once into this error. His Self-Tormentor is a father afflicted at the extremities to which he has driven his son by an excess of severity; for which he punishes himself by rags, hard fare, avoiding company, putting away his servants, and condemning himself to labour the earth with his own hands. One may venture to pronounce such a father to be out of nature. A great city would scarce in an age furnish one example of so whimsical a distress.

Horace, whose taste was of a singular delicacy, appears to me to have perceived this fault, and to have glanced at it in the following passage.

Nothing is more in the manner of this poet, than to have given two senses to pejus, one of which is aimed at Terence, and the other falls on Fufidius, the immediate object of his satire.

Perhaps the reader will imagine the latter part of the above note, relative to Horace, is rather a refinement of the ingenious critick, than the real intention of the satirist.

Si quid laboris est, nollem. This passage has not been rightly understood. After Menedemus tells Chremes that he is resolved to torment himself, Chremes unable to account for so extraordinary and whimsical a humour in his neighbour, says, si quid laboris est, nollem, and means to be understood to proceed with te deterrere. Something very shocking, even bordering upon desperation, must have happened, to give Menedemus cause to behave in this manner, and this obliges Chremes to be so pressing with his neighbour to quit this toilsome and fatiguing work, and the rather as it would in a great measure contribute towards his forgetting the cause of all his troubles—a piece of complaisance and politeness, which I have always been charmed with. Dacier.

It will not be improper to say something here of the antient manner of eating among the Greeks and Romans: they sat, or rather lay, in an accumbent posture: the beds or couches, on which they lay, were round the table, which was raised but a little from the ground. Cooke.

The better sort of people had eating-dresses, which are here alluded to. These dresses were light garments to put on as soon as they had bathed. They commonly bathed before eating; and the chief meal was in the evening. Cooke.

Nec vas, nec vestimentum,—ancillas, &c. Among the fragments of Menander's Heautontimorumenos, is a line much to this purpose.

The bath, maid-servants, silver-utensils. There are also two other lines, which seem to be descriptive of the miseries of being driven into exile.

May we not conjecture from these passages, that this first scene is a pretty close translation from Menander; especially as it contains no part of the fable, but what is merely relative to the Self-Tormentor, which, we know, occupied the whole play in the Greek poet?

Inscripsi illicò ædes.—It appears by this, that the Greeks and Romans used to fix bills on their doors, as we do now.—Ædes vendundæ ædes locandæ, a house to be sold, a house to be let. Patrick.

A talent, according to Cooke, was equal to 1931. 15s. English money.

There is much resemblance between this character of Menedemus, and that of Laertes in the Odyssey. Laertes, unhappy and afflicted at the absence of his son, is under the same trouble and anxiety.

The Athenians celebrated several feasts in honour of Bacchus, but there were two principal ones; one kept in the Spring, the other in the Autumn season. The Abbé d'Aubignac [Hedelin] has been very minute in his account of these feasts, and yet after all has unhappily pitched upon the wrong one; for he thinks the feast Terence is now speaking of, was that held in the Spring season, called by the ancients Anthesteria, where he also places that called the Pythoigia, because they then broached the wine casks; and he grounds his opinion upon line the 50th, of the first scene in the third act.

But this manner of reasoning is by no means conclusive; for, could they not have done just the self-same thing at any other time of the year? And in fact they did so upon all their grand festivals, in order to entertain their guests with the best wine their cellar afforded.—Besides, we may here observe that the broaching all the vessels was not in compliance with custom, but that Chremes was forced into it by the importunities of Bacchis; neither does he mention it to Menedemus, but with an intent to let him see to what a monstrous expence he is going to expose himself: This mistake is of greater consequence than it may at first appear to be; for it is productive of many more, and led the Abbé to place the scene of this comedy erroneously. The feast in question was that celebrated in the Autumn season, and was called Dionysia in agris, the Dionysia in the fields. Neither is the scene in Athens, as Mr. d'Aubignac supposed, but in a small village, where Chremes and Menedemus had each of them a house. The only difficulty remaining, is to account why Chremes says Dionysia hic sunt, the Dionysia are held here to-day. The reason is obvious. This feast continued for many days, but not in the same boroughs or villages at one and the same time; to-day it was here, to-morrow there, &c. that they might assemble the more company together.

Menage observes that it is not clear on what authority Madam Dacier pronounces so absolutely, concerning the fluctuating manner of celebrating this feast, to-day here, to-morrow there, &c. and though he differs with Hedelin about the place in which the scene lies, yet he defends the Abbé's opinion concerning the Pythoigia in opposition to Madam Dacier. Non nostrum est tantas componere lites.

Servolum ad eam in urbem misit. This plainly marks the scene to be in the country; though M. d'Aubignac treats this argument with ridicule. But it is in vain for him to assert that there is not one comedy of Plautus, or Terence, where one may not meet with this expression taken in his own sense of it. He will persuade none to think so, except those who have not read them. For my part I do not recollect one instance of it, and I will venture to say it is impossible to find one. Dacier.