Still funny after two thousand years, the Roman playwright Plautus wrote around 200 B.C.E., a period when Rome was fighting neighbors on all fronts, including North Africa and the Near East. These ...three plays-originally written for a wartime audience of refugees, POWs, soldiers and veterans, exiles, immigrants, people newly enslaved in the wars, and citizens-tap into the mix of fear, loathing, and curiosity with which cultures, particularly Western and Eastern cultures, often view each other, always a productive source of comedy. These current, accessible, and accurate translations have replaced terms meaningful only to their original audience, such as references to Roman gods, with a hilarious, inspired sampling of American popular culture-from songs to movie stars to slang. Matching the original Latin line for line, this volume captures the full exuberance of Plautus's street language, bursting with puns, learned allusions, ethnic slurs, dirty jokes, and profanities, as it brings three rarely translated works-Weevil (Curculio), Iran Man (Persa),andTowelheads (Poenulus)-to a wide contemporary audience. Richlin's erudite introduction sets these plays within the context of the long history of East-West conflict and illuminates the role played by comedy and performance in imperialism and colonialism. She has also provided detailed and wide-ranging contextual introductions to the individual plays, as well as extensive notes, which, together with these superb and provocative translations, will bring Plautus alive for a new generation of readers and actors.
Asses, asses, and more asses! This new edition of Plautus' rumbustious comedy provides the complete original Latin text, witty scholarly commentary, and an English translation that both complements ...and explicates Plautus' original style. John Henderson reveals this play as a key to Roman social relations centered on many kinds of slavery: to sex, money, and family structure; to masculinity and social standing; to senility and partying; and to jokes, lies, and idiocy. The translation remains faithful to Plautus' syllabic style for reading aloud, as well as to his humorous colloquialisms and wordplay, providing readers with a comfortable affinity to Plautus himself. An indispensable teaching and learning tool for the study of Roman New Comedy, this edition includes comprehensive commentary, useful indexes, and a pronunciation guide that will help readers of all levels understand and appreciate Plautus and his era.
Epidicus, a light-hearted comedy by Plautus about the machinations of a trickster slave and the inadequacies of his bumbling masters, appears here in both its original Latin and a sparkling new ...translation by Catherine Tracy. Epidicus, the cunning slave, is charged with finding his master’s illegitimate daughter and the secret girlfriend of his master’s son, but a comedy of mistaken identities and competing interests ensues. Amid the mayhem, Epidicus aims to win his freedom whilst risking some of the grislier punishments the Romans inflicted on their unfortunate slaves. This parallel edition in both Latin and English, with its accessible introduction and comprehensive notes, guides the reader through this popular Roman play. Tracy explores Epidicus’s roots in Greek drama, its rich social resonances for a Roman audience and its life in performance. She transforms Plautus' colloquial Latin poetry into lively modern English prose, illuminating the play’s many comedic references to the world of the Roman republic. This fine introduction to an enduring play will be of great use and enjoyment for undergraduate students of Latin drama and the general reader alike.
PDF
