University of Virginia Library

One cannot conceive any thing more happy or just than these words of Chremes. Demipho's thoughts are wholly taken up how to recover the money, and Phormio is equally sollicitous to retain it; but Chremes, who had just left his daughter, is regardless of their discourse, and, fresh from the impressions which she had made on him, longs to know if his Brother's sentiments of her were equally favourable, and naturally puts this paternal question to him. Patrick.

Argentum jube rursum rescribi. Scribere, rescribere, perscribere, were technical terms in use among merchants and bankers: scribere is, to borrow money; rescribere, to repay it; perscribere, to employ it on your own occasions. And all those dealings were carried on then, as they are now, with us, by Draughts, Bills of Exchange, &c. Dancier.

Etiam dotatis soleo. Donatus explain these words, as alluding to Nausistrata; others suppose that Phormio confines his thoughts to no particular instance; but I think it is plain from the sequel, as well as the general tenor of the scene, that Phormio still keeps Phanium in his eye; and expresses himself obscurely in this place, because the old men were not yet aware of the intelligence he had received on that head, tho' every subsequent speech leads gradually to an explanation, tends to create an open rupture between him and the old gentlemen, and brings on the final discovery to Nausistrata.

The different characters of the two brothers are admirably preserved throughout this scene. Chremes stands greatly in awe of his wife, and will submit to any thing, rather than the story should come to her ears: But Demipho cannot brook the thoughts of losing so much money, and encourages his brother to behave with spirit and resolution, promising to make up matters between him and his wife. Patrick.

Hi gladiatorio animo ad me affectant viam. Alluding to the Gladiators.

In consequence of this line, most of the translations introduce the servants here; but I think the scuffle between Phormio and the old men would be much more comick in the representation without the intervention of servants: And it is remarkable that Phormio addresses himself solely to Demipho and Chremes, and that the imperatives used by themselves also are all in the singular number, and may therefore most naturally be supposed to be addressed to each other, while in conflict with Phormio, without the aid of servants—Rape hunc—Os opprime—Pugnos in ventrem ingere—&c.

This is commonly translated, “that it is no wonder, that you defend your brother:” but it is a more insulting speech of Phormio, alluding to the miserable condition, to which Chremes was reduced by Demipho's advice. Thus, in the foregoing scene, Phormio says, much in the same spirit,

Exsequias Chremeti, &c. What creates the drollery of this speech is, that Phormio here makes use of the same terms, which it was customary to use at the proclamation of Funerals—L. Titio exsequias ire cui commodum est, jam tempus est, ollus defertur.

Mactatum infortunis. There is an elegant humour in the combination of these words; mactatum being a term used at sacrifices.

These three last scenes [the same that compose the fifth act in this translation] are perhaps the most beautiful of any in the Phormio; yet Guyetus has declared such a cruel war against them, that he cuts them off at one stroke, without giving quarter to so much as a single verse: but it is impossible not to say, that this is rather the disgust of a sick man, than the wholesome delicacy of a judicious critick.

This remark of Madam Dacier is as just as it is elegant, and the false delicacy of Guyetus is as inconsistent as it is ill founded. For if he considered these scenes as superfluous, those, which here compose the fourth act, are superfluous also; and the play should end with the interview between Chremes and Sophrona; for when Phanium is discovered to be his daughter, nobody can doubt of her being permitted to remain the wife of Antipho, since it is the very thing which the two old gentlemen were labouring to bring about. But the truth is, that Terence in this play has displayed an address something similar to that observed by Mons. Diderot in the Self-Tormentor; for though Chremes has discovered his daughter himself, yet he is particularly anxious to conceal that incident from every personage in the Comedy, except Demipho; and the gradual unfolding that circumstance to all the other characters of the play gives the poet an opportunity of continuing his piece with all that humour and pleasantry, with which we see he has accomplished it: and his uncommon art in thus adding to the interest of his Comedy, instead of suffering it to languish, after so important a discovery, is worthy our particular observation. These scenes have indeed generally procured our poet the approbation of the severest criticks. Bentley, in the last note to the fourth act, speaks of them in the handsomest terms, and is so far from endeavouring to bring them within “the proscribing hook,” that he declares Guyetus to be an absolute madman for his unmerciful sentence of amputation.

But though there are few readers, who would not on this occasion concur in the opinion of Bentley and Dacier, yet I do not think that this Comedy has in general received the encomiums it deserves. The plot indeed, being double, is so far faulty; and the story of Phanium and Antipho would certainly of itself afford sufficient materials for a Comedy, without the episode of Phædria and the Musick-Girl. It must however be acknowledged that, allowing that episode, the construction of the fable is extremely artful, and contains a vivacity of intrigue perhaps even superior to that of the Eunuch, particularly in the Catastrophe. The diction is pure and elegant, and the first act as chastly written as that of the Self-Tormentor itself. The character of Phormio is, as Donatus has observed, finely separated from that of Gnatho, and is, I think, better drawn than that of any Parasite in Plautus. Nausistrata is a lively sketch of a shrewish wife, as well as Chremes an excellent draught of an hen-pecked husband, and more in the stile of the modern drama than perhaps any character in antient comedy, except the Miser of Plautus. On the whole, if Terence copied as closely from his original in this play, as he is supposed to have done in the four which he drew from Menander, it must give us no mean opinion of the dramatick merits of Apollodorus.

Moliere has given us a contemptible travestie of this excellent comedy in his miserable farce of Les Fourberies de Scapin, “The Cheats of Scapin.” It would be too injurious to the memories both of Terence and Moliere to enter into any particular comparison between the two pieces. I shall therefore conclude these notes with the well-known lines of Boileau.

I have divided what is commonly received as the fifth act into two, nor is there any other way of removing the flagrant absurdity in the old division of this play, except doing the same thing by the first act, which is the method followed by Echard, who in his translation concludes the first act with the parting of Davus and Geta; and it must not be dissembled, that Donatus lays out the play in the same manner. But in a Comedy so full of action (tota motoria, as Donatus calls it) it is surely needless to make the first act consist entirely of narration, like the meagre Step-Mother. In the division here observed, I have endeavoured to assign a particular portion of the business of the play to each act. The first contains the previous circumstances related by Geta, and the return of Demipho. The second contains the conference of Phormio and Demipho, the consultation of the lawyers, and the altercation between Dorio and Phædria. In the third, as it ought, the situation of affairs becomes more critical: Chremes returns; we find that the old gentlemen had particular reasons to be uneasy at the marriage of Antipho; this naturally paves the way for their being bubbled by Phormio and Geta; and the act closes with the discovery of Phanium by Chremes. The fourth act communicates that discovery, in a very pleasant manner, to Demipho, and by another way, equally entertaining, to Geta, Phormio, &c. The fifth contains the endeavour of the old men to recover their money, which effort very naturally produces the catastrophe, that betrays the whole secret to all the parties interested in the event. I hope it is needless to observe, that Phormio's retiring in order to wait for the coming forth of the old men, leaves the stage vacant, where I have ended the fourth act, and forms a proper interval between that act and the fifth.