Voz Autoral en Prologos de Terencio- Hecyra

8/10/2019 Voz Autoral en Prologos de Terencio- Hecyra

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/voz-autoral-en-prologos-de-terencio-hecyra 1/29

Authorial Voice and Theatrical Self-Definition in Terence and beyond: The "Hecyra" Prologuesin Ancient and Modern ContextsAuthor(s): Ismene Lada-RichardsSource: Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Apr., 2004), pp. 55-82Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3567879 .

Accessed: 20/03/2014 05:16

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Cambridge University Press and The Classical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve

and extend access to Greece &Rome.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 157.92.4.12 on Thu, 20 Mar 2014 05:17:00 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=classical

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3567879?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp





http://www.jstor.org/stable/3567879?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=classical

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup



Greece &

Rome,

Vol.

51,

No.

1, April

2004

AUTHORIAL

VOICE AND THEATRICAL

SELF-DEFINITION IN TERENCE AND

BEYOND:

THE

HECYRA

PROLOGUES IN

ANCIENT AND

MODERN

CONTEXTS

By

ISMENE LADA-RICHARDS

One

of

the

greatest puzzles

in

the

history

of Roman

Republican

drama

revolves round the failure of the first and second attempt of actor-

manager

Ambivius

Turpio

and his

troupe

to

perform

Terence's

Hecyra.

Despite

the

large

volume of

scholarly

ink

already spilt,

we are

unlikely

ever to reconstruct with

any certainty

the exact

sequence

of events

which

jeopardized

the

performance

of

Terence's

comedy

at the 'Ludi

Megalenses'

of 165 BC and the funeral

games

in

honour of

Lucius

Aemilius Paullus

in

160 BC.

However,

the frustration at what eludes us

has obfuscated the

significance

of what we hold

securely

in hand: written

by

an author

so

deeply

entrenched

in

contemporary literary

debates'

and

put

into the mouth of one of the most

dynamic

actor-

manager-

producers

of the

early

Roman

stage,2

the text of the

longer

prologue,

affixed to the third

production

of The Mother in

Law,

is an under-

appreciated gem.

Even

though

it cannot illuminate in full the

perform-

ance

history

of this

particular

Terentian

play,

its

significance

for

Roman

theatre

history

in

general

is

immense.

In

fact,

as I will

argue

in

this

paper,

both

prologues

have much to tell us about the

ways

in

which the

Theatre of Terence's

day

understood and defined

itself,

demarcating

its

territoryas well as defending and safeguarding its prestige and range of

appeal

within the multicoloured entertainment

horizon of second-cen-

tury

BC Rome.

Such a

theatrically

oriented

reading

of the

prologues

does not intend

to

underplay

the

importance

of

personal politics

inscribed

in

these texts.

It is both clear and undeniable that the brunt of Terence's

criticism is

1

For an excellent

appreciation

of Terence's

prologues

as

poetry

about

poetry,

see

N.

W.

Slater,

'Two

Republican

Poets on Drama: Terence

and

Accius',

in B. Zimmerman

(ed.),

Antike

Dramentheorien nd ihreRezeption:Drama I (1992), 85-103.

2

On the role of these

early

theatrical

entrepreneurs,

see C.

Garton,

Personal

Aspects

of

the Roman

Theatre

Toronto, 1972);

P. G. McC.

Brown,

'Actors and

Actor-managers

at Rome

in the Time of

Plautus and

Terence',

in P. E.

Easterling

and E.

Hall

(edd.),

Greekand Roman Actors:

Aspects

of

an

Ancient

Profession

(Cambridge,

2002),

225-37.

This content downloaded from 157.92.4.12 on Thu, 20 Mar 2014 05:17:00 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions






THE

HECYRA PROLOGUES

borne

by

his

literary

antagonists,

headed

by

the ever

spiteful

and

'malevolent'

Luscius Lanuvinus.3 Not

only

is the

claque

of his

profes-

sional

opponents prominently

singled

out as the

'unjust

minority'

in

whose hands dramatic art of qualityis bound to perish,4but we may also

reasonably

assume that such

claques

could have been

heavily respons-

ible for the rumours of other entertainments which

jeopardized

the two

productions

of the

Hecyra.

Nevertheless,

rather than

aspiring

to add

yet

another footnote to the threadbare

subject

of Terentian

literary

polemics,

I

wish to look instead at the

relatively

neglected

theme

of

'Theatre'

versus

'sub-Theatre',

traditional

stage-drama,

such as is

represented by

Terence and his

Hecyra,

versus its rival counter-

diversions and popular attractions.

The

Hecyra Prologues

and their Rhetorical

Strategies

Let us start from the texts

themselves.

According

to the shorter

Hecyra

prologue

(spoken

at the second

attempt

to

produce

the

play),

when the

comedy

had first been

staged,

it had

been

interrupted by

a 'new

inauspicious

event

(vitium)

and disaster

(calamitas)' (2),

which

had

ensured that it 'could neither

be viewed nor understood

(neque

spectari

neque

cognoscipotuerit)'

(3):

'struck

senseless with

eagerness,

the masses

had fixed their heart

upon

a

tightrope

walker

(populus

studio

stupidus

n

funambulo

/

animum

occuparat)'

(4-5).5

So

fleeting

a

glimpse

into the

play's

misfortune does not

impart

much

solid

information,

but

lines

33-6 in

the

longer

prologue,

which

take

us

back to that same

calamitous

3

Lanuvinus as malevolus:An.

6,

Hau.

16;

as maledictus:An.

7,

Hau.

22, 34,

Ph. 3.

4

See Hec. 46-7: nolite sinere per vos artem musicam / recideread paucos; Hec. 54: ne eum

circumventum

nique iniqui

inrideant. Cf. Hec.

21-3

on

Caecilius

persecuted by

iniuria

advorsarium,

the

spite

of his

opponents. Quotations

from the

Hecyra

follow S. Ireland's edition

(Warminster,

1990),

with continuous

numbering

of verses for

Prologues

I

and II. Other

passages

from

Terence

are cited from R.

Kauer and W. M.

Lindsay's

edition

(Oxford,

1926;

2nd rev.

ed. 0.

Skutsch,

1958).

Unless indicated

otherwise,

translations

from Greek and Latin in this

paper

are

mine.

5

According

to H. N.

Parker,

'Plautus vs

Terence: Audience

and

Popularity Re-examined',

AJP

117

(1996),

585-617,

at

594,

'populus

refers not to the

audience,

but to a "crowd"that broke in'.

Parker's

argument

(by

no means

new)

that on both occasions the

fatal

interruption

was caused

by

intruders is

persuasive,

but we

cannot exclude the

possibility

that,

upon hearing

the

rumours,

the

populus

within the

theatre too 'filled its mind'

with the

prospect

of

an

acrobatic

show;

nor do we

know for

sure when

exactly

the rumours

started

floating

about.

It is

perfectly possible

that

Terence's very audience had already 'cometo the theatre with their minds full of the prospect' of

an exhibition of

funambulism

(F.

H.

Sandbach,

'How Terence's

Hecyra

Failed',

CQ

32

(1982),

134-5,

at

135;

my italics)

and

were

simply

not in the

best frame of

mind

for

appreciating

a

sophisticated comedy

(which

made it

that much easier for the

intruders

explicitly

mentioned

in

the

second

prologue

to create maximum

confusion).

56








THE HECYRA PROLOGUES

production,

elaborate further

on the

day's

events.

Here

the

culprits

for

the

play's

interruption

are identified as 'much

talk

about boxers

(pugilum

gloria)'

combined with the

anticipation

of a

tightrope

walker

(funambuli

. .

. exspectatio): he congregation of their followers, the uproar and the

screaming

of women

(comitum

conventus,

strepitus,

clamor

mulierum)

drove Ambivius'

troupe

off the

stage

before the

play's

end

(fecere

ut ante

tempus

exirem

foras).

And

yet,

how

exactly

the

particular

elements

mentioned

conspired

to the

play's

disadvantage

we are

never

told with

any greater clarity.

Similar is our frustration with the

recounting

of the

play's

second failure

(lines 38-42).

Ambivius affirmsthat he started off

as

a

success

(primo

actu

placeo),

but then

a

rumour

arose that a

gladiatorial show was about to take place (datum iri gladiatores): a

crowd flocked in,

in utter confusion,

shouting

and

jostling

for

places

(populus

convolat,

/

tumultuantur,

clamant,

pugnant

de

loco).

As

a

result,

among

the

general

commotion,

Ambivius and his

troupe

were unable to

preserve

their

place (ego

interea meum non

potui

tutari

locum).

Now,

before

going

any

further some clarifications

are in

order.

In a

landmark

intervention

in

the

scholarly

debate,

D.

Gilula and

F. Sandbach

succeeded,

independently

of one

another,

in

putting

an

end to

the

widespread

fallacy

that

Terence's audience deserted the

theatre en masse, in

mid-performance,

in order to attend the

loudly

advertised

lowbrow attractions.6 Since

the different diversions

put

on at

Roman

ludi were

not scheduled to take

place

simultaneously,

'as

if

in a

carnival

with

sideshows',7

but

on

consecutive

days,8

the audience

had

nowhere

else to

go.

The

Hecyra spectators

then remained rooted

in

the

auditorium,

there to be

confronted with

the sudden influx

of

unruly,

disorderly

elements,

who

had been made

to believe that

pugilists,

acrobats

and

gladiators

were about

to

perform

in

that same venue

where Terence's play was still in progress.9

6

D.

Gilula,

'Where Did the

Audience

Go?',

Scripta

Classica Israelica4

(1978),

45-9;

Sandbach

(n. 5).

7

See Parker

(n.

5),

597,

who

reviews the relevant literature.

8

For the

non-simultaneous

presentation

of different

competitions

at the various Roman festivals

see

L. R.

Taylor,

'The

Opportunities

for

Dramatic

Performances

in

the Time

of

Plautus and

Terence',

TAPA 68

(1937),

284-304,

who nevertheless

takes

the

Hecyra prologues

at

face value:

'From the

prologue

of

the

Hecyra

of Terence

it is clear that boxers

and

rope-walkers

were

sometimes

exhibited

on

days

allotted

to ludi scaenici

and

that

at ludi

funebresgladiators appeared

on a

day

when a drama

was

part

of the scheduled

entertainment'

(ibid.

301).

Cf.

E.

S.

Gruen,

Culture

and

National

Identity

n

Republican

Rome

(Ithaca

and

London,

1992),

213: 'the

conjunction

of plays with other forms of entertainment would normally not even arise.'

9

See Sandbach

(n. 5),

134:

'fighting

for

places

does

not

stop

a

play

unless the

places

are

in

the

theatre

where it

is

being performed.'

For

evidence

on

gladiatorial

combats

staged

in the same

venues

where the

ludi scaenici

were

performed

see

J. Jory,

'Gladiators

in the

Theatre',

CQ

26

(1986),

537-9.

Cf. Garton

(n. 2),

52.

57









So far so

good,

but the crux

of

the

matter lies elsewhere.

We

are

never

told

explicitly

what

was the

precise

reaction of Terence's

audience in the

face of

the tumultuous

invading

mob which

disrupted

both

productions.

Parker's article is

very

effective in drawing attention, once again, to the

critical fallacies

which led

to

gross

misunderstanding

of

the

Hecyra

prologues.

However,

when he insists

that the

audience,

against

all

odds,

was determined

to continue

watching?1

ut was

ultimately

'overwhelmed',

'mobbed

by

a

new crowd of

spectators

demanding

other

entertainment',

he

simply

reads too

much into a

problematically

elliptic

text.1' It is

just

as

likely

that

the

Hecyra spectators

too were also

swept

away by

the

excitement

of the

inrushing

crowd: infected

by

the invaders'

frenzy, they

could have been fighting to preserve their seats not out of unswerving

loyalty

to Terence or

allegiance

to the comic

genre

but,

quite

the

opposite,

out

of

anxiety

lest

they

would miss the

promised

alternative

delights."2

In

other

words,

although

we can

safely put

to rest

the

myth

that Terence's

audience,

fuelled

by

their aversion

to

a

dramaturgy

they

found

uncongenial,

turned their back on

the author

and

instigated

trouble,

there is

no solid textual

support

to

justify

the claim

that

Terence's

public

did not

participate

in

the

pandemonium

and the

clamour

for alternative

attractions,

once the turmoil

got

seriously

under

way.

In

any

case,

no

matter how standard

throughout European stage

history

were

pleas

for

silence and fair

hearing,13

Terence's

request

for

spectatorial goodwill

to be accorded 'here and

now',

at this third

production

of

the

Hecyra (43-57),

would

have sounded affected or

melodramatic

had it been well-known all

along

that

catastrophe

could

only

strike from the other side

of

the theatre

enclosure,

that is to

say,

that

no disturbance could

be

feared from a

loyal

audience

already

in

attend-

ance. Terence's clearlyantitheticaljuxtaposition of the unruly audience

of the

past

to the

dream-audience of the

present,

whose

impeccable

conduct

will

salvage

the

play,

honour the ludi scaeniciand

safeguard

his

own

reputation,

can

only

imply

that he

apportions

at

least

part

of

the

10

Parker

(n. 5),

595

(on

the first

production):

'two

quite

distinct

groups

are referred to: the

audience,

which wanted

to

see the

play

... and

a

crowd

. .

.'.

"

Parker

(n. 5),

599 and 599

n.

60

respectively;

cf.

Parker,

bid.

601: 'If

the

audience had indeed

disliked

the

play, they

could

have

and

would have walked

out,

as Plautus

invites those

who did not

like his

play

so

far to

do

. .

. Terence's audience

did not

walk

away;

rather,

they

tried to

stay,

resulting in a fight for seats.'

12

Such is the line taken

by

Sandbach

(n. 5),

134: 'the

spectators

remained but demanded other

entertainment',

and Gruen

(n. 8),

211

n. 126: 'the audience remained

to welcome the substitute

shows.'

13

In

Terence's

prologues,

cf. An.

24-7,

Hau.

35-40,

Ph. 30-2.

58








THE

HECYRA PROLOGUES

blame for the

collapsing

of his

previous productions

to audience ranks

who

gave

in

to the commotion.14

My

contention can be corroborated

by

the

ending

of the

Phormio

prologue,

which looks back to the

disaster

of

the

Hecyra:

date

operam,

adeste

aequo

animo

per

silentium,

ne simili utamur

ortuna atque

usi sumus

quom

per

tumultum

noster

grex

motus

locost:

quem

actori' virtus nobis restituit ocum

bonitasque

vostra adiutans

atque aequanimitas.

(Phormio30-4)

Pay

attention and

give

us a fair

hearing

in

silence,

so that we do not sufferthe same fate

as we did when the uproar drove our company from the stage. Now we are here again,

thanks to the

courage

of our

producer

and

your

own sense of fairness and

goodwill.15

Once

again,

the

power

to

drive actors off the

stage

is

conceived as

resting

with the

public already

sitting

in

the auditorium;

keeping

one's

ground

on

the

stage, correspondingly,

is

the result of the theatre

audience's

bonitas and

aequanimitas.

But,

once

again,

such

talk,

espe-

cially

with its

retrospective

reference to The

Mother-in-Law,

would have

been almost

meaningless,

had Terence deemed

his

audience's behaviour

entirely disengaged from the fortunes of his jinxed play.

Given

the number

and

complexity

of the

issues

involved, then,

there

should be

little wonder that the

Hecyra prologues

gave

rise

to

and

sustained with remarkable

consistency

the

long-lived perception

of

Terence

as 'the

high-brow playwright',

Terence the 'aesthetic

snob',16

who never

managed

to charm the Roman masses

in

the

same

way

his

predecessor

Plautus did.

The

crowd's double

spurning

of

the

Hecyra

has been felt to resonate with the

indignant

voice

of

popular

culture,

pronouncing

a dire verdict

on

Terence and his

alienating intellectualism. Such a reaction might be seen as comparable

to the

rejection

Ben

Jonson

imagines

himself

suffering

in

the hands of a

Stage-Keeper

so

deeply

imbued

with the

fair-ground

conventions

of

unscripted, improvisatory

drama as to accuse his

high-minded

'master-

poet'/creator

of

contriving

'a

very

conceited

scurvy'

play

(Bartholomew

Fair, Induction,

line

8)

as well as of

snubbing

and

ignoring

the

traditions

of

the

market-place:

14

Whether Terence's

spectators

would have been

able,

realistically peaking,

o avert the

mayhem

s

an

entirely

different

matter.

15

Translation

B.

Radice,

Terence: he

Comedies

Harmondsworth,

965).

16

For a

robustrefutation

f

that

myth

see Parker

n. 5).

59








THE HECYRA

PROLOGUES

He has not hit the

humours

-

he

does not know

'em;

he

has not conversed

with

the

Bartholomew-birds,

as

they say;

he has

ne'ever a sword-and-buckler man

in

his

Fair,

nor

a little

Davy,

to take toll o' the bawds there .

.

. Nor a

juggler

.

. . None o'

these fine

sights

Nor

has

he

the canvas-cut

i'

the

night

for a

hobby-horse

man

to

creep

in

to

his

she-neighbour

and take his

leape

there

Nothing

. . . these

master-poets, they

will ha'

their

own absurd courses;

they

will

be informed

of

nothing

(Bartholomew

Fair, Induction,

10-25).

On the other

hand,

it cannot

be

emphasized

too

strongly

that

Terence

had been

anything

but

a failure

in

the Roman world.

According

to

Suetonius'

Life

of the

poet, preserved by

the

fourth-century

AD

commentator

Donatus,

his

Eunuch 'earned a

price

such as had never

been

earned

before

by any comedy

of

any

author'

(Vita

Terenti,

3)17

and

all his comedies had been equally well-received by the public.18Why,

then,

this loud

broadcasting

of his

producer's powerlessness

to 'hold' his

'ground' (tutari

locum,

42)

in

the face of

unexpected

competition

with

spectacular, yet

boorish and

inferior,

counter-attractions? Terence

did

not

have to

keep reminding

the fresh audience

of each new

production

how

disastrous

previous

performances

had

been.

Surely,

this kind

of

introduction to a

play

can

hardly

be considered an

obvious act of

authorial

self-promotion 19

The

fact that he does

harp

on his former

misfortune, as opposed to cloakingit, can only mean that, far from being

embarrassed

or

feeling

threatened

by

it,

he

is

keen to

exploit

it to the

full.20

As I

will

argue

in

this

piece,

Terence's text

amounts to a

defiant

declaration of authorial

pride,

a

gesture

of

identity

construction

and,

last

but not

least,

a calculated

act

of

theatrical self-definition.

Tightrope

walkers,

boxers and

gladiators

serve

very

conveniently

as

foils

for

the

witty,

rational

and

challenging

distraction

Terence himself has

regularly

been

feasting

his

Roman

public

on: an art which

satisfies

the intellect is

pitted in these prologues against arts which gratify the senses and the

17

Text

in

P.

Wessner,

Aeli

Donati,

Commentum

Terenti,

(Leipzig,

1962),

5:

Eunuchus

quidem

bis

die acta est

meruitque

retium,quantum

nulla

antea

cuiusquam

comoedia,

d est octo

milia nummorum.

18

Wessner

(n.

17),

5,

Vita

Terenti 3: et

hanc autem

[sc.

The Woman

of Andros]

et

quinque

reliquas

aequaliter

populo probavit

(my

underlining).

19

Cf. S.

M.

Goldberg,

'Terence,

Cato,

and

the

Rhetorical

Prologue',

CP

78

(1983), 198-211,

at

202: '.

. .

any

defense of

Hecyra

cannot

help

but recall earlier

doubts about

its

quality.'

20

Of

course,

the

reason for

such

exploitation

is

the

object

of

debate.

See D.

Gilula,

'Who's

Afraid

of

Rope-Walkers

and

Gladiators?

(Ter.

Hec.

1-57)',

Athenaeum 59

(1981),

29-37,

for a

good

refutation of

the

scholarly

view that the

two

prologues

serve the function

of

displacing

upon

audience behaviour

structural flaws

integral

to the

play's

construction,

i.e. that the

interruption

story

was 'a

face-saving explanation

which

the

playwright

invented as a

cover-up

of

the

unpleasant

truth

that

Hecyra's

failure was

due to the

faults

inherent in the

play

itself'

(32).

For a more

recent

and

sophisticated

restating

of the

claim of

'invention' on

different

grounds

see Gruen

(n.

8),

213-18.

60








THE HECYRA

PROLOGUES

instincts,

a mental aesthetic

is delineated

against

one that

privileges

the

visceral and the

corporeal.

And,

most

importantly,

a

public

which

can

happily

'fill

its mind

with' a

rope-dancer (4-5)

throws into much

sharper relief an urbane assembly of intellectually minded viewers, a

much

sought

after audience

appreciative

of

cultured,

sophisticated

performances.

Terence's

persistent foregrounding

of the havoc wreaked

upon

his art

by

a

hodge-podge

of lowbrow entertainments and the

crowd's

response

to them defines

by implication

his

own ideal of

genteel

spectatorship

and

subtle,

elevated

spectacle.

Going

now

through

the two

prologues

in

greater

detail,

we

find them

underpinned by expert rhetorical strategies.21

Terence and Ambivius know full well that their audience at

this third

presentation

of the

Hecyra

cannot be

substantially

different

from

the

impressionable

public

whose

flightiness

contributed to the two

notorious

failures.22

Like its

uproarious predecessors,

the

audience

they

presently

address is

nothing

but a fickle

friend,

potentially

hooked on the

coarse

and sensual

pleasures

of

mute,

sub-literary

entertainments,23

much like

the riff-raff Dio

Chrysostom

complains

about in

second-century

AD

Alexandria,

crowds with

their

'souls all but

hanging

on

their

lips' (p6ovov

OVK

E7

TOtS

XEtAEULt

Ta-s

bvXabsXOVTaS,

Or.

32.

50),

insatiable and

greedy

for

spectacular

attractions,

'indiscriminately

aflutter over

anything

that

is

on

offer'.24

Yet,

rather than

launching

a head-on

attack,

such as can be found in

prologues

and

epilogues

of seventeenth- and

eighteenth-century

English

plays, routinely

belittling

those

unruly

elements who 'with

loud Non-

sense

drown the

Stage's

Wit',25

Terence's

approach

is much more

subtle. The

public

of the

third

production

is

treated as

if

made of

21

On the debt of the Terentian

prologue

to

oratory

see

Goldberg (n. 19).

22

Cf.

Goldberg

(n. 19),

202,

on the shorter

prologue:

'The

composition

of his

new audience was

unlikely

to differ much from the one that

preferred

the

tightrope

walker.'

23

Even within

the

sphere

of

the

Roman ludi

scaenici,

raditionally

defined

Tragedy

and

Comedy

were

never

fully emancipated

from the

carnivalesque type

of attractions which

shared

the

stage

with

them

(e.g.

mime);

as Garton

(n. 2),

52,

puts

it,

'serious theatre was

probably

a

minority

taste over

which the multitude did not

always wholly

enthuse';

cf. ibid. 51 on the Roman

audience

as

presenting

us with the

picture

of 'a

majority pressing

for more numerous and more

uninhibited,

boisterous,

or

spectacular

shows,

and

an

educated

minority

. . .'

24

Or.

32.

54.

25

From the Prologue to The Rival Queens(staged in London, 17 March 1676/7), quoted in E. L.

Avery

and

A. H. Scouten's introduction to William Van

Lennep (ed.),

The London

Stage,

1660-

1800,

Part

I: 1660-1700: A Calendar

of

Plays,

Entertainments,

and

Afterpieces

ogether

with

Casts,

Box-receipts,

nd

contemporary

Comment

compiled

rom

the

Playbills, Newspapers

and theatrical

Diaries

of

the Period

(Carbondale,

1965),

clxviii.

61









superior

stuff and more or less as

culturally homogeneous:

no one

initiates commotion or tumult (nunc

turba nulla

est,

43)

and the

prevailing

attitude is one of

'peace

and silence' (otium

et

silentiumst,

43). The theatre's discursive space is mapped in much the same way

that

Dryden maps

out his terrain

in

the

prologue

of

his Cleomenes

(1692):

I think or

hope,

at

least,

the Coast is

clear,

That

none

but

Men of Wit

and

Sence are here:

That our Bear-Garden Friends are all

away,

Who bounce with Hands

and

Feet,

and

cry

Play, Play.

Who to save

Coach-hire,

trudge along

the

Street,

Then

print

our Matted Seats with

dirty

Feet;

Who, while we speak make love to Orange-Wenches,

And

between Acts stand

strutting

on the Benches.

(lines

1-8)

Terence constructs

the fiction of

addressing

the kind

of

spectators

referred to

by Dryden

as an

audience

'of Wit and

Sence',

viewers

endowed

with

understanding

and

perception

(intellegentia, 31).

The

chaotic

world of noise and

tumult,

which had

previously

brought

down

Ambivius'

attempts,

has now

yielded

its

place

to a haven of discrimina-

tion, as if a magic circle had extended to encompass the entire

auditorium.

There

is,

however,

an

important

sub-text

in

this

language

of inclus-

iveness:

the

miraculously

expanded

'inner circle' of

idealized

spectators

is

implicitly

defined

by

a

condemned 'outside'

space

of

vulgarity

and

rowdiness,

a

site

of

improper

and intolerable behaviour.

And it is at this

precise point

that Terence's and

Dryden's

rhetoric take

different

directions. While

Dryden

chooses to

project

the manners

of the

rabble

onto a territorial

otherness',

the

provinces

or

colonies of Britain,

Let 'em

go people

Ireland,

where

there's need

Of

such

new

Planters to

repair

the

Breed;

Or to

Virginia

or

Jamaica

Steer.

(lines 13-15)

Terence banishes

spectatorial

unruliness

by projecting

it

backwards

along

a diachronical

axis,

that

is

to

say, by

confining

it to the

calamitous

occasions which had

dogged

the

Hecyra production

in

the

past.26

The second

Hecyra prologue,

then, becomes, as much a

gesture

of

26

Dryden's

prologue

is

very helpfully

discussed

in

P.

Stallybrass

and A.

White,

The Politics and

Poetics

of

Transgression London,

1986),

84-9.

62








THE

HECYRA PROLOGUES

inclusionas

it

is a

programmatic

statement

of

cultural exclusion.While

the

undiscerning 'groundlings',

appreciative,

in

Hamlet's

words,

of

'nothing

but

inexplicable

dumb shows and noise'

(Shakespeare,

Hamlet 3. 2. 10-12), are displaced from Terence's 'ideal' audience,

they

are

ipsofacto re-incorporated

in the elevated

community

of a 'real-

life'

regenerated

auditorium,

where novel functions are bestowed

on

them,

together

with the

opportunity

of cultural self-definition

and

identity

construction.27

For not

only

does it

fall

on

them to reverse the

consequences

of

the

play's

unfortunate

past

('your

capacity

to under-

stand will

allay

that

misfortune',

earn calamitatem

vostra

intellegentia

sedabit,

3

1-2),28

but it is also their

responsibility

to lend

support

to the

efforts of the playwright and the acting troupe which brings the play to

life

(adiutrix

nostrae

industriae)

(32).

Most

importantly,

rather than

imagined

as

conniving

with the

usurpers

of

the

stage

to

drive

serious

drama

off the

boards,

spectators

are now invested with the role of

guardians

of a

precious

and noble cultural tradition

(nolite

sinere

per

vos

artem musicam

/

recidere ad

paucos,

46-7).

Besides,

all the while

Terence's tactical flashback

lays

the

emphasis upon

the

gulf

which

dissociates

his art from

the tastes of the

masses,

his

current

address

to

those

very

same

groundlings

tempts

them and coaxes

them into the

negotiation

of some kind of cultural alliance:29he viewer's authorityand

influence

is called

upon

to

promote

and

assist Ambivius' own

authority

(facite

ut vostra auctoritas

meae

auctoritati

autrix

adiutrixque

it,

47-8).

What

is offered

to them

is the

opportunity

and

power

(potestas)

to

collaborate

with

the actors

in

bestowing

honour

to the

ludi

scaenici,

through

which

a

stage-poet's

work becomes

disseminated: 'to

you

is

granted

the occasion

to adorn dramatic

festivals

(vobis

datur

/

potestas

condecorandi

udos

scaenicos)' (44-5).

In

such

a

way,

Ambivius

Turpio,

the actor-manager-producer, and the rowdy throngs are placed on the

same

footing

vis-d-vis

the master-mind

of the

spectacle,

the dramatist

himself.30

27

In a

way,

Terence's

spectators

are forced to

make a silent choice: either

hey belong

to the fan

club of

gladiators

and

rope-dancers

or

they

are

willing

to

proclaim

their

ability

to

appreciate

elevated

art.

28

Cf.

Dryden,

Cleomenes,

19-20: 'arise true

Judges

in

your

own

defence,

I

Controul those

Foplings,

and declare

for Sence.'

29

In the words

of

Terence's

prologue

to

his Eunuch: Si

quisquamst

qui placere

se

studeat bonis

/

quam plurimiset minime multoslaedere, in is poeta hic nomenprofitetursuom (1-3), that is to say,

Terence

hopes

to

please

as

many

of the

boni,

the

educated,

as

possible,

while

offending

the

multi,

the

groundlings,

as

little

as

possible

-

an ambitious

as

well as

precarious compromise.

See Gruen

(n. 8),

220.

30

On the

parity

of interest

or

'joint

cause' between

actors and

playwrights

see Garton

(n. 2),

60.

63









The

powerful

rhetorical

strategies

of the second

Hecyraprologue

then

start

coming

into view.

The

text culminates

in a bid for a collective stand

of

differentiation,

an act

of

social

placing:

Ambivius and

Terence

beg

for

silentium3"and a fair hearing (55), but to partake and to be seen to

partake

in

the

Hecyra experience

in

rapt

silence and critical

appreciation

means much

more

than

merely

to

enjoy

oneself. On the one

hand,

it

signifies

to

proclaim

and

perform

one's severance from the

league

of

the

brainless

with their

coarse

pastimes

and their

yielding

to

momentary

impulses;

on the

other,

it

signifies

to enact one's conscious inclusion in

the intellectual world shared

by

Terence and his

literary

friends.32In a

similar

way,

in Dio

Chrysostom's

recriminating

oration to the

allegedly

unruly Alexandrianmob,33the spectatorialmode of quiet endurance of

an educated

speaker's

words is

regarded

as

the

passport

for admission

in

the ranks of

'experts'

(empeiroz),

men who can be versed not

only

in

pantomime dancing

and instrumental music

but also

in

the rational

appreciation

of an elite

performer's

words of wisdom.34

And

just

as,

in

Dryden's

language,

a

viewer's silence

purchases

his

right

to be

classed as

a

man

'of wit

and

sence',

in

the

prologue

to Terence's

Hecyra good

deportment

functions as the

unifying ground,

the

virtual

melting pot

where the

tastes

of the

'high'

and

the 'low'

meet,

and

where

vulgar

unruliness is

transformed into a

quasi-intellectual,

sophisticated

mode of

viewing. Spectators

in this

purged

Terentian auditorium would

cease to

be

part

of a mindless crowd

but would count as individuals

with a

sense

of

separate

identity,

silent

and

disciplined,

rational and

critical

observers.35

31

If we are to

believe Horace's well-known

overview

of

theatre-audience

behaviour,

'no

voice

could make itself heard above the

clamour emitted

by

our theatres. You

might

think it was the

moaning

of the

Apulian

forests or

the

Tuscan

sea

-

such is

the

noise as

they

watch the

show

. .

.'

(Ep. 2. 1. 200-3, transl.M. Winterbottom, in D. A. Russell and M. Winterbottom (edd.), Classical

Literary

Criticism

Oxford,

1972) ).

Horace

has,

of

course,

his own axe to

grind,

but,

on this

point,

it

is

even

possible

that he

'may

well have

underestimatedhe

unruly

behavior

of

theater

audiences';

see

E.

Fantham,

Roman

Literary

Culture:From Cicero to

Apuleius

(Baltimore

and

London,

1996),

146

(my

italics).

32

Cf. M.

Leigh's

brief comments on

the

Hecyra

prologues

in

'Primitivism and Power:

The

Beginnings

of Latin

Literature',

n 0.

Taplin (ed.),

Literature n the Greekand Roman

Worlds:A

New

Perspective

Oxford,

2000),

288-310,

at 307: 'The

audience which

stays

with the

Mother-in-law

until the

very

end can

identify

itself

with the

culturally

refined

and

against

the boorish

mob.'

33

However,

for

the

&lite,

aristocratic

prejudices conditioning

Dio's

depiction

of his

Alexandrian

audience

in

this

particular

oration see

W.

D.

Barry,

'Aristocrats, Orators,

and the "Mob": Dio

Chrysostom

and

the World of the

Alexandrians',

Historia 42

(1993),

82-103.

34

Or. 32. 24.

35

Terence's

strategy

is

equivalent

to that

of the Lucianic

speaker

in Herodotus

8,

stating

outright

that his

audience is not

'a

vulgar

mob

more keen on

seeing

athletics

(ov

UcrvpfETos8-7

oxAog,

OAqTr&v

,uiAAov

tAoOeadtovee)',

ut 'the

finest

orators,historians,

nd

rhetoricians

pr'qTopv

TE

Kat

cvyypa-

qEfV,

Kat

aobtarTWv

Ol

80Ktt/kdTarot)'.

See R. L.

Hunter,

The

New

Comedy of

Greece

and

Rome

64









Finally,

far from

bringing

disrepute

to

him

personally,

Terence's

emphatic

repetition

of

his

unfortunate

expulsion

from the

stage

func-

tions as

a

dire

warning

of

generalized

cultural

decadence,

by raising

the

spectre of a tyranny of the mindless and the corporeal, the prospect of a

not

too distant future when

language-based performance may eventually

dissolve into

a

miscellany

of

physical, unscripted,

and

aesthetically

spurious

entertainments.36

This

anxiety

of

cultural

predominance,

this

pitting

of

the cerebral and verbal

against

the

bodily

and

dumb can be

paralleled

very

instructively

in

the

literary

and visual

tropes

of

eight-

eenth- and

nineteenth-century

intellectuals and

graphic

satirists,

who

revel in

depicting England's

cultural treasures

(in

the form of the work

of its

greatest playwrights)

discarded like

rubbish,

so as

to

free

the

way

for the

triumph

of

masquerades, pantomimes,

acrobatics and the full

range

of

delights

attached to a

non-textual,

corporeal

dramaturgy.37

n

the words

of

theatre

critic William

Popple, writing

in

the

twice-weekly

periodical

The

Prompter,

The

corruption

of the

stage

is now arrived to such a

height

that unless some

stop

is

put

to

it,

it

must end

in

its total destruction. Pantomimes are now

no

longer

to

be

considered

as

only

harmless or ridiculous

entertainments,

but as

usurpers

that

will

entirely

root out

Tragedy

and

Comedy by

rendering

both

insipid

to the

Town.38

And

in

a famous

eigtheenth-century engraving by

William

Hogarth,

entitled

Masquerades

and

Operas,

a

cart

full of the

plays

of

Shakespeare,

Dryden,

and

Congreve

is

wheeled

off as

'waste

paper'

behind

the back

of a crowd

entirely

oblivious to its

loss,

as it is too

preoccupied

with

queuing up

for

mindless entertainments:

operas, masquerades

and

pantomimes.39

(Cambridge,

1985),

158 n.

25,

who notes the contrast between this

same Lucianic

passage

and

Terence's reference

to the

stupiduspopulus

of the first

prologue.

36

Horace

in

his

Epistle

to

Augustus (Ep.

2.

1)

claims

to

be

a

witness

of such

a

tyranny

come true:

in his

depiction

of

theatrical

audiences

it is a

camelopard

or a wild

elephant,

rather than

sophisticated

drama,

that can attract the

gaze

of the crowds

(vulgi

converteret

ra)

(196),

together

with

spectacular pageants

(189-93)

and

exquisitely

adorned actors

(204-7).

37

See

J.

Moody, Illegitimate

Theatre n

London,

1770-1840

(Cambridge,

2000),

13.

38

Tuesday, January

27,

1736,

reproduced

in A. Hill and W.

Popple,

The

Prompter:

A Theatrical

Paper

(1 734-1736),

selected

and edited

by

W. W.

Appleton

and K.

A.

Burnim

(New

York,

1966),

148

(all

further

citations are from this

edition);

cf.

also,

Anonymous,

A

Letter

to

My

Lord

*****

on

The Present

Diversions

of

the

Town,

with The TrueReason

of

the

Decay

of

our Dramatic Entertainments

(London,

1725;

reprinted

in A. Freeman

(ed.),

The

English Stage,

Attack and

Defense

1577-1730;

New York and

London,

1974),

who bemoans 'the Loss of

SHAKESPEAR, OTWAY,

and

CONGREVE:

Loss

I call

it,

since

they [i.e.

greedy

theatre

managers]

drive from the House

every

Person of

Figure

and

Capacity,

by

adding

their Absurdities

which

they

call

Entertainments)

too low for

Men of Sense

to

see,

and since the

Crowd,

which are diverted with

them,

cannot

enter

into the Beauties of

our Authors: Their Excuse for

this,

is,

their Business

is

to

get

Money'

(14-15).

39

See

S.

West, 'Audiences,

Art

and Theatre:

The

Justification

of

Leisure and

Images

of the

65








THE

HECYRA PROLOGUES

The

Hecyra Prologues

and Ancient Performative Frames:

The

Broader Picture

Looking

now

further

afield,

what

has eluded

scholarly

consideration

is

the much

larger

picture

offered

by

the vibrant

performance

culture of

the Hellenistic

and

post-Hellenistic

world.

If

the

Hecyra

prologues

are

merely approached

as isolated

snapshots

of

specific

theatrical

perform-

ances,

they

are most

likely

to remain

a

frustrating

crux.

If,

on the

other

hand,

they

are contextualized more

imaginatively

as rhetorical

con-

structions,

what

appears

at first as

an

indissoluble

puzzle may prove

to

fit perfectly well into broader cultural and performative patterns

of the

post-classical

world on both sides

of the

Mediterranean

basin.

For one

of the chief characteristics

of

post-classical

performance

history

from

(broadly speaking)

the

third

century

BC to the

fifth

century

AD is the

plurality

and

multiformity

of

voices

in a world

where

spectacles

are

legion.

Traditional

tragedy

and

comedy

are now

sharing

the

stage

with,

and

being progressively

up-staged by,

mimes and

pantomimes,

while

virtuoso

tragic singers/trag6idoi,

soloists of the

cithara/kitharoidoi,

per-

formers

of homeric

epics/homeristai

as well as

a

multicoloured

line of

miracle-workers

(thaumatopoioi),

conjurers, jugglers, marionette-

players,

acrobats, stuntmen,

street-performers

and

rope

dancers,

are

always tipped

to mesmerize vast audiences at

public

festivals,

communal

events or

private

occasions.40 And

when the more

intriguing,

lettered

breed of

public

entertainers are

taken

into

account,

such

as

the

itinerant

sophist,

whose

declaiming

habits

are

just

as

flamboyant

and 'theatrical'

as

those of a real

actor,

or even the

philosopher performing

in his

lecture-hall to a circle of select admirers and

disciples,

not

only

does

a

performance culture of the broadest possible variety emerge but also a

dynamical

arena

for

some

of

the most

passionate

discourses

of

self-

definition and wars

for

the demarcation of

cultural territories

in

the

ancient

world.

Philosopher

or

dramatist,

sophist, poet

or

orator,

the

key-holders

of

Eighteenth-Century English Stage',

in

T. Winnifrith and C. Barrett

(edd.),

Leisure

in Art

and

Literature

Basingstoke

and

London,

1992),

84 with

plate

n.

2.

40

A

glimpse

of

the

variety

of

performances

on offer

can be

gained

from,

e.g.

Athenaeus,

19a-

20b

(jugglers,

conjurers,

marionette

players),

620b-21c

(homerists, magodists, lysiodists,

hilarod-

ists,

kinaedologoi);

Plutarch,

Mor.

673b,

71

lb-13f;

Dio

Chrysostom,

Or. 8.

9,

27. 5;

Statius,

Silv.

I. 6.

51-74;

Manilius,

Astron. 5.

438ff.; Petronius,

Sat.

53;

Apuleius,

Met. 1. 4

(acrobats

and

street

performers);

cf. C. P.

Jones,

'Dinner

Theater',

in W.

J.

Slater

(ed.), Dining

in

a

Classical Context

(Ann

Arbor,

1991),

185-98,

where some of

these

passages

are discussed.

66








THE

HECYRA

PROLOGUES

up-market

performative genres,

are all united in their

depiction

of

popular

pastimes

and attractions

as

a

dangerous

and

coarse intruder,

infringing

or about to

infringe

on their

territory

in

ways

an

urbane,

lettered society cannot but deem repulsive. So, for example, Aelius

Aristides

rebuffs

the

possibility

of intellectual

parity

between

the

pleas-

ures offered

by

low-class entertainers

and those

dispensed

by

reputable

minstrels of

high

education:

KOat

yap

av

KaKeEvo

ov

Tov

avTov

TpOTrOV otTLaL,

T()

p(`ropt KaLL

()otAO6()o KatU TdaT

or)

os6

?TtL

T7S

EAevOeplov

7ratoetas

7rTpo0rKEt

TEp7TELV

OVS

oX/OVS

Kat

TOLS

avoparroCfEt

ro

'

(L

TOTOtS

opXrasg,

L otS,

cLaviuaToTrotol-.

And this other

thing

as

well,

it is not

fitting,

I

think,

for

the orator and the

philosopher

and all those involved in liberal education, to please the masses in the same way that

these servile fellows

do,

the

pantomimes

and

mimes and

jugglers.

(Aelius

Aristides,

Or. 34.

55)41

while Seneca

argues

that there should

be

a

difference between the

applause given

in

the theatre and the

applause

accorded

the

philosopher

performing

in his

school: histrionic outcries

befit the arts and artists that

aim to

please

the

crowds;

on the

side

of

true

philosophy

and

the

pepaideumenoi,

one should

expect

to

find

worshipful

silence.42

Yet, united though they are in representing what they share in

common

as an

unfairly

challenged

and

beleaguered

domain,

members

of the educated elite

engage

in

bitter

fighting against

each other

n

order

to ensure

their own

profession

or

even favourite

pastime

is

established as

the exclusive bastion

of

refinement

and

culture

in a

sea

of

uncultured

and

vulgar

outcasts/'others'.

Anxious

to consolidate or extend his own

share of cultural

capital, many

an intellectual has recourse to rhetoric in

order

to

urge

'the

superior

claims of his wares

over those

of

rival

salesmen who

compete

with him for

the same audiences and the same

physical space';43

he ultimate

goal

is to construct

an

idealized

hierarchy

of erudite

pursuits

in such a

way

that

one's own

profession

crowns the

top,

while

a

number

of inferior realms are

ignominiously sprawled

out

underneath,

berated

and

befouled

for

their

unwarranted

affiliationto the

small

and

petty.

Once this broader

cultural

perspective

is

duly

taken into

account,

the

41

In Aelius

Aristides,

Or. 34. 56

pantomimes

are to orators and

philosophers

what whores are to

decent men.

42

Seneca,

Ep.

52.

12:

Intersit

aliquid

inter clamorem heatri et

scholae;

52. 13:

Relinquantur

stae

voces

illis

artibus,

quae propositum

habent

populo

placere;

philosophia

adoretur.

43

See

M. B.

Trapp,

Maximus

of Tyre:

The

Philosophical

Orations. Translatedwith an Introduction

and Notes

(Oxford, 1997),

xlii.

67









intriguing

rhetoric

of the

Hecyra

prologues stops featuring

as a

unique

phenomenon,

and finds its

place

in the

fiercely

competitive

atmosphere

of

the

post-classical

world. To

restrict

discussion to those areas in

which theatrical or theatricalized forms of culture are involved, elite

contenders

are all too keen to cast their

opponents

into

the

vast,

indiscriminate

category

of

what is base and

corporeal,

while at

the

same time

investing

themselves with the

responsibility

of

forestalling

cultural decline and

reversing

the

tide

of

a

galloping

moral,

aesthetic

and intellectual

degeneration.

Most

importantly,

faced with the

spectre

of aesthetic lowness and

suffocated

by plebeian

attractions,

which

they

dismiss as trifles and deride as

hopeless aspirants

to the

prestige

of

high

arts, they are adept at using a distinctly coded language of cultural

differentiation.

Flashy

and

flamboyant,

wooing

audiences

through

appearance

and

show, costumes,

props

and histrionic

antics,

their

rivals are denied

all share

in

either

manliness

or moral

uprightness

and culture.

On the side of

the

pepaideumenoi

and

their world

there

is

refinement, taste,

educational

discourse,

and intellectual

pleasures

'providing

a feast

to

delight

our

rational

part',44

as

opposed

to that

portion

of

our soul

which is

animalistic and

grass-fed

and can neither

understand

nor

respond

to

reason.45 On the side of

the

ignorant,

the

inferior

pretenders

to cultural

capital,46

reign

the

sensational

and

the

electrifying,

the

cheap

and

mindless

delights

of

the

eye,

'verily

ridiculous

things

and

least

befitting

a free

man',

such as

flutes,

lascivi-

ous

songs, strummings

and

trillings

and

stamping

of

feet,47

or

even

entertainments

'which throw the soul

into

greater

confusion

than

any

drunkeness'

(a

rrdaru

tdE0rs

TrapaXWeorTEpov

rTag

vXags

StaTrAqrtv),

and

so 'full

of

scurrility

and

scandal'

that

they

'ought

not to be seen

even

by

the slaves who fetch our

shoes,

if their

masters

are

in

their

right

minds'.48

To take

just

a

couple

of

examples,

one

need

only

look

in

the

direction

44

See

Plutarch,

Mor.

713c,

welcoming

the voice of the

lyre

or flute

only

when

accompanied

with

words

and

song.

45

See

Plutarch,

Mor.

713b,

on

wordless

entertainment as

feeding

agov

'veoTartT

vX-^

opf3aSLKov

Kat

cdyeAatov

Kat

JlvveTov

,AOyov

Kat

divsKoov.

46

Cf.

Plutarch,

Mor. 7

1

c,

referring

to

such

people

as

avavSpot

Kat

8iarTEOpvpVote'voL

Tara Ta

'

adLovatav

Kat

a7retpoKaAtav,

and

reckoning they

would

ban the

performance

of

Platonic

dialogues

from their

sympotic

entertainments.

47

See the Cynic philosopher Crato's disparagingcomments on pantomime dancing in Lucian,

Salt. 2.

48

Plutarch,

Mor.

712e,

on a

type

of

mime called

paignion;

see

J.

Davidson,

'Gnesippus

Paigniagraphos:

The Comic Poets

and the Erotic

Mime' in D.

Harvey

and

J.

Wilkins

(edd.),

The

Rivals

of

Aristophanes:

Studies in

Athenian Old

Comedy (London,

2000),

41-64.

68








THE

HECYRA

PROLOGUES

of

such

a

characteristic

exponent

of elite cultural tradition as Dio

Chrysostom,

to

find the hallmarks

of a

fully fledged

rhetoric

of

polarization. Spectacles

wherefrom one

might gain intelligence

or

prudence or a commendable moral disposition are conceived of as

diametrically

opposed

to those which can

only

give

rise to

ignorant

strife,

unrestrained

passions

and senseless

emotions,49

useless diversions

consisting

in

noise

(thorybos), ribaldry

(bomolochia)

and scurrilous

jesting (skomma) (Or.

32.

4). Respectable spectators,

correspondingly,

are

pitted against

those addicted to

popular pastimes,

men uneducated

and

foolish

(aTrat8evSrotuL

OearaLS,

vrctadxots,

Or. 32.

4),

devoid

of

seriousness

(spoude)

and

wholeheartedly

devoted to childish

play

(paidia),

sensual

pleasure (hedone)

and

laughter (gelos) (Or. 32. 1).

In

the Roman

world,

Pliny

and the

speaker

of

Juvenal's

Satire

xi

make it

clear that their house

is closed to buffoons and clowns

or

attractive

girls

dancing

immodestly

with castanets and wanton

songs,

for

the feasts

which

they provide

instead

are

adorned

by epic

recitations,

readers,

musicians

or

professional

actors:

nostra dabunt alios hodie convivia ludos:

conditorIliados cantabitur

atque

Maronis

altisoni dubiam

acientia

carmina

palmam.

At

my

feast

today

we'll have

very

different entertainment:

we'll hear the Tale of

Troy

from

Homer,

and

from

his rival

for the

lofty epic

palm,

great Virgil.

(179-81)50

And Seneca's frustration

vents itself

against

the boorishness and

immorality

of

his

contemporaries, indulging

themselves

in

cruder

pleas-

ures,

such as

pantomimes,

while the halls

of

professors

and

philosophers

are left

deserted:

Who

respects

a

philosopher

or

any

liberal

study except

when the

games

are called

off for

a

time

or there is some

rainy day

which he is

willing

to waste? And

so

the

many

schools

of

philosophy

are

dying

without

a successor. The

Academy,

both

the Old and the

New,

has

no

professor

left.

. . . But how much

worry

is suffered lest

the name of some

pantomime

actor

be

lost for

ever

(At

quanta

cura

laboratur,

ne cuius

pantomimi

nomen

49

Or.

32. 5.

50

See

Pliny,

Ep.

9.

17,

discussed

briefly by

R. L.

Hunter,

"'Acting

Down":

The

Ideology

of

Hellenistic

Performance',

n

Easterling

nd Hall

(n. 2),

189-206,

at

195-6;

Juvenal,

Sat. xi.

162-

82; translationP. Green, Juvenal: The SixteenSatires, 3rd ed., Harmondsworth, 1998). Cf. Pliny,

Ep.

1. 15.

2,

where a modest

dinner with

a comic

play

or

a reader

or a

singer

is considered

as far

superior

to a lavish

dinner with

Spanish

dancing

girls,

and

Pliny,

Ep.

3. 1.

9,

where

the

performance

of

comedy

between dinner

courses

is

said to

add to the

pleasures

of the table

'a

seasoning

of

letters'.

69









intercidat.)

The

House

of

Pylades

and of

Bathyllus

continues

through

a

long

line of

successors.

For their

arts

there are

many

students and

many

teachers.

(Seneca, NQ

7. 32.

1-3)51

The

Hecyra

prologues correspondingly,

are on a

par

with a multitude

of other voices

championing

the cultural

predominance

of

traditional

drama,

the

'agonistic (enagonia)

arts' of

Tragedy

and

Comedy (Lucian,

Salt.

2),52

over an undifferentiated torrent

of

newer

or

derivative

dramatic forms

and

quasi-theatrical

attractions

uncomfortably elbowing

their

way

into the

sphere

of

legitimate, 'high'

culture.53

And,

just

as

in

Terence

the

conflict

pits

Drama

against

rope

dancers,

boxers and

gladiators,

in

the eastern

part

of

the

Empire

one

of the fiercest battles

for mastery over the 'performance' world is played out between

traditional drama and the

highly

sensational attraction of

pantomime

dancing.

The

cry

of

emancipation

and

attempt

at theatrical self-

definition

reverberating

n the

Hecyraprologues

can be heard

in

parallel

with the

cry

of

repudiation

uttered

by

the

Greek

pepaideumenos

f the

second

century

AD,

the man of

letters who

would

consider himself

emasculated and

disempowered,

degraded,

infected,

and

polluted

if,

instead

of

enjoying

the 'noble

tragedy

and most

joyful comedy' (Lucian,

Salt. 2), he were to attend

a

pantomimic spectacle: 'May I never reach

ripeness

of

years

if

I

ever endure

anything

of

the

kind,

as

long

as

my

legs

are

hairy

and

my

beard

unplucked ',

declares the

cynic philosopher

Crato

in

Lucian's

dialogue

On the

Dance

(Lucian,

Salt.

5).

Like

Menandrian

Comedy,

Tragedy

is

addressed to the

intellectually

51

Transl.

by

T. H.

Corcoran

(Cambridge,

Mass. and

London,

1972).

Cf.

Libanius,

Or. 35.

17,

stressing

the

incompatibility

of

pantomimes

with the

study

of rhetoric and Or. 3.

12,

complaining

that his students talk about

charioteers,

mimes,

and

pantomime

dancers

while

he

declaims. By contrast, see Philostratus, VS 589 on the declaiming sophist as the winner of the

rivarly

between orators and dancers: when the herald

announces that Hadrian is about to

declaim,

everyone

abandons

pantomimes

and similar

spectacles

and rushes to the Athenaeum where

he

will

perform.

52

However,

it has

to be borne in mind that in

the later Hellenistic and

Roman world

'performance'

culture in

general

had

started

counting

for

much

less than the 'textual' or 'book'

culture which the

elites

appropriated

for themselves and used

to mark themselves off from the

vulgar,

'theatrical'

habits

of

the lower

classes;

only

Menander

succeeded

in

crossing

the threshold

from

drama to literature and hence

became

'fully

appropriated

into elite

literary

culture'. See

Hunter

(n. 50),

194

and

passim.

53

Cf. R.

L.

Hunter,

'The Politics of Plutarch's

Comparison

of Aristophanes

and

Menander',

in

S.

G6dde and T. Heinze

(edd.),

Skenika:

Beitrdge

zum

antiken Theater und

seiner

Rezeption

(Darmstadt, 2000),

267-76,

at 275: 'In

particular, parodic

and

parasitic

forms such as "mimes"

and

farces which

exploited

material

drawn from

"higher"genres

such

as

tragedy

and New

Comedy

confused the

proper

orderof

things.'

Cf. Hunter

(n. 50),

200,

on the 'context of the &lite

hetoric

of

paideia'

which

viewed

performance

forms that

subverted 'inherited

roles and voices' as

lacking

kosmosand

disturbing

'proper

social and moral

hierarchies.'

70








THE HECYRA

PROLOGUES

minded,54

while

pantomime,

a

ballet-style

form of

stage

entertainment

negating

spoken

language

as a mode of

expression

and

communicating

instead

'through

nod,

leg,

knee,

hand and

spin',55

.e. the

wordless,

and

therefore inferior, language of signs,56 is invariably presented as the

pastime

of

the

brainless,

the

immoderate,

and the

effeminate,

those

unworthy

of the status

of free

men;

within

the

context of elite

paideia,

it

is often

thought

to

drag

the viewer

down

the

path

to

insanity

and

madness

(see,

e.g.

Lucian,

Salt.

3;

cf. Salt.

5).57

Terence's twin

prologues,

then,

are less valuable for what

they

have to

tell us

about one

single play,

the

Hecyra,

than for

the

light they

shed

on

Terence's own

conceptualization

of the tradition to which

he

belongs

and within which he earns his livelihood. They have captured snapshots

of a much

broader and

multifaceted

struggle

in

a world where some

of

the

most

heavily

contested issues revolve

around the

privilege

of cultural

leadership,

and

have recorded

a

clear,

albeit

rhetorically

framed,

answer

to

the

question

of 'who holds the

right

to

entertain',

'who

controls

or

should

control the

politics

of a

"performance"

culture'.58

n

other

words,

the two texts do not

merely,

or

even

predominantly,

construct

a

jinxed

play's

defence. Terence's

plea

to

his audience

is

made

on behalf of the

ludi scaenici

and the

ars

musica,

the

dramatic art itself

(44-7).

What

Ambivius'

pre-play

speech

amounts to

is

a defiant

proclamation

of the

54

On

Menander as

the most

appropriate

entertainment

for men of letters

in

theatres,

symposia

and

intellectual

gatherings,

see

Plutarch's

strongly

worded

Comparison

of

Aristophanes

and

Menander,

Mor. 854b

and

passim.

See

further

Hunter

(n. 53).

55

Sidonius

Apollinaris,

C.

23.

269-70;

cf.

Nonnus,

Dion.

7.

21;

Anth. Pal. 9.

505,

17.

56

For the

superiority

of

language

over

other means of

communication, see,

e.g.

Plutarch,

Mor.

713b-c.

57

In

reality,

however,

panto-mania

was

not the exclusive vice

of

mindless,

impressionable,

and

volatile

masses,

as

some of our sources

sneeringly imply;

base-born

and aristocratsalike were

wholly

infatuated with star dancers. In so far as they received the sponsorship of rulers and were included

in the

agonistic agenda

of civic

festivals,

pantomime

performances

appeared

to

exist

in

tandem with

dominant

ideologies,

be

part

and

parcel

of civic

ceremonial and

inextricably tangled

up

with

imperial

cult

and social

identity

formation.

For a fresh look

at

pantomime

and its

elite

advocate,

Lycinus,

in Lucian's

dialogue

On the

Dance see

Lada-Richards,

"'A

Worthless,

Feminine

Thing?"

Lucian and the

"Optic

Intoxication"

of

Pantomime

Dancing',

Helios 30.1

(2003),

21-75.

58

Needless to

say,

the tastes

of the

pepaideumenoi

re

just

as

scornfully

rebuffed

by

the

common

people.

Even

though

the

voice of hoi

polloi

is not

authentically preserved

but filtered

through

elite

mentality

and

texts,

we can

still make

out the traces

of similar

distancing

acts

performed

on their

part.

As

Pliny,

for

example,

writes to

a

friend,

'think

how

many

people

there are who dislike the

entertainments

which

you

and I

find

fascinating,

and

think them either

pointless

or

boring (partim

ut

inepta partim

ut molestissima

offendant).

How

many

take

their leave at the

entry

of a

reader,

a

musician, or an actor, or else lie back in disgust, as you did when you had to endure those

monstrosities

as

you

call them '

(Ep.

9.

17.

3;

translation

B.

Radice,

Cambridge,

Mass. and

London,

1969);

cf. Trimalchio's

dismissal

of all diversions

except

acrobatics,

trumpets,

and Atellan farces as

'silly

nonsense'

(Petronius,

Sat.

53)

or

Dio

Chrysostom's depiction

of

the

Alexandrian crowds

as

fed

up

with oratorical

performances

and

impatient

for the

juggler's

act

(Or.

32.

7).

71








THE HECYRA

PROLOGUES

rights

of

an

entire

genre

and a loud endorsement

of the

claims

of the

'dramatic

games'

(ludi

saenici)

as the

pre-eminent, superior

form

of

entertainment

on offer to the Roman

public.

After

all,

it

is

precisely

in

this vein that in this same second prologue Terence creates for Ambivius

Turpio

the role of the defender of

poetic

art59 in

the

person

of

his

predecessor,

the

exceedingly

popular

dramatist Caecilius.

Despite having

been driven from the

stage

time after

time

or

having

been unable to

hold

his

ground (15),

Terence's Ambivius

implies

that

he never bowed to

partisan pressure

nor

did

he ever

pander

to

the

rabble. It is in

his determination to educate

the

crowds

and

thus

prevent

the festival's

carnivalesque

aesthetic from

imposing

on a

poet's

art

that

Ambivius is most unlike eighteenth-century England's stage-managers

facing

similar dilemmas. While the

former,

averse to tactical conces-

sions,

persisted

in

presenting

worthy

plays,

even

when

they

were

savagely

attacked

by professional

rivals or

perceived

to

cut

against

the

grain

of

fashion,60

he latter

chose to

accommodate,

instead of

'healing',

their

public's

low tastes. As

David

Garrick,

star

actor/manager

of the

eighteenth-century

stage,

sets the

case,

although Shakespeare

is

prefer-

able to

pantomime,

theatres will have no

other

option

than

eventually

give

in,

to

ensure that their clients are offered

the

full

array

of

spectacular

attractions

which their lack

of

understanding

has led

them

to demand:

Sacred to

SHAKESPEARE,

was this

spot

design'd

To

pierce

the

heart,

and

humanize

the

mind.

But if

an

empty

House,

the Actor's

curse,

Shews us

our Lears and

Hamlets lose their

force;

Unwilling

we must

change

the nobler

scene,

And in

our turn

present you

Harlequin;

Quit Poets, and set Carpentersto work,

Shew

gaudy

scenes,

or mount the

vaulting

Turk:

For,

tho'we

Actors,

one and

all,

agree

Boldly

to

struggle

for our

-

vanity,

59

Cf.

D.

Gilula,

The

FirstRealistic

Roles n

European

Theatre:Terence's

Prologues',QUCC

62

(1989),

95-106,

at 104: 'Terence

wrote

for

Ambivius

a

text in

whichhe characterizedim

as

influential nd decisive

.. a

manager

who

is in the

position

o

turn

down

scripts

and

discourage

playwrights.

erence

upgrades

Ambivius o the rankof connoisseur

48),

anarbiter f

excellence,

who,

in his

youth

already

roved

his tasteand sound

udgement y

supporting

he as

yet

unknown

Caecilius.'

60

Ambiviusaysthe blamefor the difficulties e faced with the stagingof Caecilius'playson

spiteful

ndividuals

Hec.

22).

However,

he

dramatist's

rofessional

pponents

wouldnot havehad

a

realistic hance

of

hampering

he

play

withoutat leastsome

support

romsections

of the

audience,

a

body

which

would

undoubtedly

avebeen

highly

tratified nd

diversified

n its

literary

astesand

ability

of

literary ppreciation.

72









If want comes

on,

importance

must

retreat;

Our

first,

great, ruling

passion,

is

-

to

eat.61

The

second

prologue

to the

Hecyra,

conversely,

encodes a reluctance

to submit

to a

possible large-scale

conflation between the elevated

'language'

of

ars musica

and

the inferior

'languages'

en

vogue among

the Roman crowds.62 Besides,

hand in

hand with

the

dramatist's

intransigence

goes

that of his lead actor. The

persona

Terence has

created

for

his

actor-manager-producer

in the

second extant

prologue63

is that of a

performer fully

conscious

of

his own

standing,

above

and

ahead of the

inferior

line

of

vulgar

entertainers. We could well

imagine

Ambivius

making

a stand of

differentiation

just

as defiant as that of

Colley Cibber, the famous actor-managerof the Drury Lane playhouse

who,

together

with

his

fellow actors,

emphatically

'declin'd

acting upon

any Stage,

that was

brought

to so low a

Disgrace'

as

to allow

rope-

dancers

treading

on its boards.64 Ambivius' has

been

made of the stuff

of those

actors

'hardy enough

to

hazard their

Interest' for the sake of

reforming

the

stage

and

mending

the

public's

taste.65

61

'Occasional'

Prologue,

spoken by

Garrick

at the

Opening

of the

Drury-Lane

Theatre,

8

September

1750,

in The Poetical Works

of

David Garrick

London,

first

published

1785;

reprinted

New

York and

London,

1968),

i:

103,

lines 25-36.

62

In Horace's

evaluation,

Terence

would

be an

example

of the 'brave

poet'

(audacem...

poetam)

(Ep.

2. 1.

182), 'ready

to face

an

unappreciative

audience'

(see

C.

0.

Brink,

Horace on

Poetry,

Epistles

book II: The Letters to

Augustus

and Florus

(Cambridge,

1982),

at

182)

by resisting

the

whims

of

spectators

not attuned to his intellectual

level;

but even such a

poet

can

be sometimes

terrified and

put

to

flight

by

a

rowdy public

(line 182).

As Garton

(n. 2),

52-3,

puts

it,

'Playwrights

had to choose

between

resisting

this

trend

[i.e. following

the tastes

of

the

majority]

and

meeting

it

half way.'

63

The

subjective,

personal,

voice

in Ambivius'

monologue

is,

of

course,

illusory.

Although

it

goes

without

saying

that

Ambivius here

plays

himself,

i.e. relives his own

personal experience

on the

stage,

the

piece

of

text that

he recites has been

composed

as a dramatic

part by

Terence,

whose

prologues

constitute

what Gilula

(n. 59),

106,

very aptly

calls 'the first

examples

of

realistic

roles

written

for

European

theatre';

cf. ead.

(n.

59),

105: 'He

composed

the

prologues

to fit

the

personality

of the

actors,

as well as

the

situation,

and succeeded

in

creating

the illusion that

it

is

the actor himself

who

speaks

and reasons with the

audience .

.

.',

and Garton

(n. 2),

60-1:

'. . . it

must be

supposed

that the

drafting

of Terence's

prologues

was done at least

partly

in

concert

with

him,

and it would be

only

human

for him ... to

aggrandize

somewhat

the

actor-manager's

role as

the

kingpin

of

theatrical

enterprises.'

64

See C.

Cibber,

An

Apology

or

the

Life of Colley

Cibber,

With

an

Historical

View

of

the

Stage

duringhis own Time, Writtenby Himself.Edited with an Introduction by B. R. S. Fone (Ann Arbor,

1968),

185,

on

Cibber's

act of

protest against

Christopher

Rich,

the

patentee

of

Drury

Lane,

when

the

latter had

contracted a

set of

rope-dancers

to

perform.

Such

an innovation

was,

he

claims,

'an

Abuse'

of

the

acting

'Profession'.

65

See Cibber

(n. 64),

199.

73









Ancient Frames and

Modern

Parallels

So far in this piece I have drawn liberallyon theatrical material from the

English

stage

and,

as

I

hope

to show in this

section,

such a cross-cultural

perspective

can

prove

to be

in

several

respects

illuminating.

For,

quite

apart

from

their

value for

Roman theatre

history,

the

Hecyra

prologues

could be studied

alongside

the

English

theatrical tradition of those

periods

when the

time-honoured dramatic forms of

Tragedy

and

Comedy

were

rubbing

shoulders with a

medley

of other

entertainments,

from the clowns and

jugglers

of

Shakespeare's

day

to

the newer

attractions of the seventeenth-, eighteenth- and earlynineteenth-century

London

stage: dancing (even

rope-dancing),

instrumental and vocal

music,

Italian

opera,

processions

or

elaborate ceremonial

scenes,

farcical

pieces

and

pantomimes.

In

perfect harmony

with Terence's

voice,

frustrated and hindered

by

the wider

public's

lack of

taste,

playwrights

of the

English

stage deplore

the

minimal

attention

spectators

are

willing

to accord to the

mainstream

performance,

i.e.

the

play

itself:

No Audience

now can

bear the

Fatigue

of

two Hours of

good

Sense tho'

Shakespear

or

Otway

endeavour to

keep

'em

awake,

without the

promis'd

Relief

of

the

Stage-Coach

or

some

such solid

afterlude,

declares an

eighteenth-century

dramatic

prologue,66

while a

journal

of

the

same

period

complains

that

... the

Audience

languishes through

the whole

Representation [i.e.

of

the

play],

and

discovers the utmost

Impatience

till

Harlequin

enters,

to relieve them

from the

Fatigue

of

Sense,

Reason,

and

Method,

by

his

most

incomprehensible

Dexterities.67

Above

all,

'the

Receipts

of

the

Play-Houses'

are called

upon

as

'mournful Evidences' for the 'low ebb of Success' to which the only

'rational'

entertainments of

Tragedy

and

Comedy

have

sunk,

'when

they

are ventur'd

nakedly

to

the Town'.68 The

general

tone is

very

characteristically

given

in

the

polemical

epilogue

to

the

Drury

Lane

production

of The

Humour

of

the

Age (March

1701),

which

encodes the

company's response

to a

performing

monkey

presented

at the rival

66

From

Charles

Johnson's

Preface

to TheForce

ofFriendship

and Love

in a

Chest;

quoted

in E. L.

Avery (ed.), The LondonStage, 1660-1800, Part 2: 1 700-1 729: A Calendarof Plays, Entertainments,

and

Afterpieces

ogether

with

Casts,

Box-receipts,

and

contemporary

Comment

Compiledfrom

the

Playbills,

Newspapers

and

Theatrical

Diaries

of

the

Period

(Carbondale,

1960),

cxx.

67

Pasquin,

4

February

1724;

quoted

in

Avery (n.

66),

clxxv.

68

From the

Mist's

WeeklyJournal,

14

January 1727;

quoted

in

Avery (n. 66),

clxxv.

74








THE

HECYRA PROLOGUES

playhouse

of the Lincoln's

Inn

Fields: 'Once

Dryden, Otway,

Fletcher,

pleas'd

the

Town;

I

Now

nothing

but The

Monkey

will

go

down'.69

Needless to

say,

the overall

picture

differs from the circumstances

applying to second-century

BC

Rome in many crucial ways.

In

the

Republican

Roman

stage

we witnessed Terence's

rhetoric of

all-inclusiveness,

intriguingly

combined with his and

Ambivius' deter-

mination not to

compromise

their

professional

standards,

so as to

keep

their art as

uncontaminated as

possible

from

the

demands of

the riff-raff.

But,

flights

of rhetoric

aside,

in

realistic

and

practical

terms both

Ambivius and Terence

knew that neither

peace

nor

treaty

could

exist

between a

troupe

of

stage

actors

and the

motley

league

of

rope-dancers,

boxers, and gladiators rivallingthem for the attention of the public; in no

way

could

the skills of

non-dramatic

entertainersbe

turned into

profit

for

the

actor-manager's

or

the

playwright's

pocket.

In the

Restoration,

Georgian,

and Victorian

stages,

on the other

hand,

not

only

were the

minor

theatres

contentedly deluged by popular

forms

of

entertainment,

largely

derived

from the

ground

of the London

Fairs,

but

even the

patent playhouses,

privileged, by royal

grace,

with

the

exclusive

right

to

stage

Tragedy

and

Comedy

in

London,

seemed to be

giving

way

to the

overwhelming

craze

for

spectacle,

music,

and all kinds

of optical extravaganzas and thus surrendering control to illegitimate,

sometimes

even

immigrant,

performative

attractions,

'monsters,

tum-

blers, ladder-dancers,

Italian

shadows,

dumb

shews,

buffoonery,

and

nonsense'.70

As the

epilogue

of a late

eighteenth-century

play puts it,'...

the

preference,

we

know,

I

Is

for

pageantry

and

shew'.71 It seems to be

the case

that 'for the

Support

of the

Stage,

what is

generally

shewn

there,

must

be lower'd

to the Taste

of common

Spectators'72

or,

as

the

prologue

of a

production

mounted at Lincoln's

Inn

Fields

laments,

The

Stage

is

quite

debauch'd,

for

every

Day

Some

new-born Monster's

shown

you

for a

Play;

Art

Magick

is for

Poetry profest,

Horses, Asses,

Monkeys,

and each obscener

Beast,

(To

which

Egyptian

Monarch

once did

bow)

Upon

our

English Stage

are

worship'd

now.73

69

Quoted

n

J.

Milhous,

Thomas

ettertonnd the

Management

f

Lincoln'snnFields1695-1708

(Carbondale

nd

Edwardsville,

979),

137.

70

From The

Prompter

n. 38),

136

(datedTuesday,

December

23,

1735).

71

G. Colman(theYounger), rom NewHay at the OldMarket 1795);

cited in

A.

Nicoll,

A

History

of English

Drama

1660-1900,

vol.

III:Late

Eighteenth entury

Drama

1750-1800

(Cam-

bridge,

1969),

24.

72

Cibber

n.

64),

199.

73

From he

Prologue

o TheUnnatural

Mother

September

607,

Lincoln's

nn

Fields);quoted

in Milhous

(n. 69),

96.

75









The

play

is

not the sole but

just

one element

of an entire

evening's

show,

supplemented

or

'supported',

as it

is,

by

all kinds of extra

features,

a

colourful

melange

of

orchestral

pieces, song,

dance,

exhibitions

by

instrumentalists and

vocalists,

farces,

processions,

acrobatics,

jugglers,

rope-dancers,

circus

performers,

animal

acts,

burlesque, variety

shows,

and,

of

course,

the most

popular

of

after-pieces, pantomimes.

Faced

with the

reality

of a fickle

audience,

setting

'so small

a value on

good

sense

and so

great

a one on trifles that have

no

relation

to the

play',74

he

managers

of

Drury

Lane and Lincoln's

Inn

Fields

(replaced

in

1732

by

the new

theatre in

Covent

Garden),

the

two

rival,

patent-holding

London

playhouses,

put

on

a double

act.

On the one hand, they fulminate against the string of 'monstrous

Medlies,

that have

so

long

infested the

Stage',

the 'absurdities' which

'intoxicate its

Auditors,

and dishonour their

Understanding'.75

Chal-

lenged

by

a watershed of

spectacles

resembling

those which threatened

Ambivius'

livelihood

and

Terence's dramatic

reputation, they proclaim,

even

more

openly

and

unequivocally

than Terence and Ambivius

do,

their resistance and determination to stand firm.

'I

cannot

possibly agree

to such a

prostitution upon

any

account',

writes David

Garrick,

'and

nothing

but

downright starving

would induce me to

bring

such defile-

ment

and abomination into the house

of

William

Shakespeare'.76

n

the

same

breath,

however,

unlike Terence and

Ambivius,

they

are

quick

to

follow each other's

lead

in

welcoming

with

open

arms those

very

'Follies'

they

are keen to exorcize:77

unless

they

outvie

one

another in

complying

'with the

vulgar

Taste',78

either the

company

which

lags

behind

will

quickly

find

itself

bankrupt

or

the

public,

so

conspicuously

deprived

of 'all Taste

and Relish

for

the

manly

and

sublime Pleasures of

the

Stage [i.e.

old

fashioned

Tragedy

and

Comedy]',79

will

flock en masse

to the non-patent playhouses, whose licence extends only to the low-

end,

flamboyant

range

of

entertainments. As

Colley

Cibber,

actor-

74

Letter of 12

September

1699,

by

the humorist and

roving

theatrical

reporter

Tom

Brown,

lamenting

the

lowering

of standards at the

London

theatres;

cited in Milhous

(n.

69),

135.

75

Cibber

(n.

64),

279.

76

Letter dated

August

17,

1751,

in

D. M.

Little and G.

M. Kahrl

(edd.),

The Letters

of

David

Garrick,

(Letters 1-334) (London,

1963),

172,

no. 108.

77

Cf. Milhous

(n.

69),

176: 'Both houses

claimed to be

disgusted

with audience

tastes,

though

both

catered to it.' For

contemporary

criticism of the

Drury-Lane

management

for

deciding

to beat

the rival house with its own weapons, and on the 'exasperatingly ambivalent' attitude of David

Garrick

himself,

see L.

Hughes,

The Drama's

Patrons:

A

Study of

the

Eighteenth-Century

London

Audience

(Austin

and

London,

1971),

95-6 and 108-12.

78

See

Cibber

(n.

64), 281.

79

Pasquin,

4

February

1724,

quoted

in

Avery (n. 66),

clxxv.

76








THE

HECYRA PROLOGUES

manager

of the

Drury

Lane

theatre

from 1704 onwards,

explains

his

bowing

to the

pressure

of

'the

Giddy,

and

the

Ignorant',80

I have no better Excuse for

my

Error,

than

confessing

it. I

did it

against my

Conscience

and had not

virtue

enough

to

starve,

by

opposing

a

Multitude,

that would have been

too

hard for

me.... I was

still

in

my

Heart...

on the side

of

Truth

and

Sense,

but with

this

difference,

that I had their leave to

quit

them,

when

they

could not

support

me:

For

what

Equivalent

could

I have found for

my falling

a

Martyr

to them?.81

In stark contrast to the realities of the Roman

stage,

then,

the

'senseless

stuff'

plaguing

the

English playhouses

became

eventually

a

necessary

and welcome

ally

of

their

managers'

financial ventures.82

Nevertheless,

differences

notwithstanding,

the

English stage

is

full of voices reverber-

ating with Terence's or Ambivius Turpio's frustration.

Literary

magazines

and

pamphlets

accuse the

Playhouses

of

'servilely

complying

with a

Depravity

of Taste to their

own

Ruin'83

and

inveigh

against

theatre

managers

who,

'govern'd

by

their

Ignorance

and

Interest,

would rather

fill their Houses

with

Fops,

Prentices,

and

Children,

than

Men of the

first Distinction

and

Sense';84

he abstention

of

the

latter,

the

kind of

spectators

to

whom Ambivius

appeals

for

a smooth

running

of

the

Hecyra,

is

proof

of

their

refined,

educated

taste,

while those who

pander

to the

whims

of the uncultured

mob allow the

Stage

to

'prostitute'

itself

'to

Things altogether

unbecoming

its

Dignity

and

Institution'.85

Moreover,

men of letters

fear,

as

Ambivius

does,

that

the

deplorable

condition of the

stage

will

deprive

worthy

dramatists

of

the

stimulus

to write

good

plays.

Poetry

is so

little

regarded

there

[at

the

playouses]

and the Audience

is so

taken

up

with

show and

sight,

that an author

need not much Trouble

himself about his

Thoughts

and

Languages,

so

he is

in

Fee

with the

Dancing-Masters,

and has but a

few

luscious

Songs

to

Lard his

dry Composition.86

80

Cibber

(n. 64),

281.

81

Cibber

(n. 64),

280. Cf. the Roman

comic

poet's

dilemma,

caught,

as Garton

(n.

2),

53,

puts

it,

in a 'tension between

the artistic

desire for visible

approval

from a consensus

of the best

educated,

and the need

to

interest,

hold

and

gratify

the

rest,

without

whose

support

a

play

could not

stare,

nor

player

nor

playwright

continue

in business.'

82

In

Cibber's

iew

(n. 64),

281,

pantomimes

s

additional

ntertainments

were

onlybrought

n

to

act 'as Crutches

to our weakest

Plays';

the

Drury

Lane

company,

he

claims,

were not

'so lost to all

Sense

of

what was

valuable,

as to dishonour

our best

Authors,

in such bad

Company.'

83

Weekly

Journal,

or

Saturday's

Post, January

23,

1725;

quoted

in

E.

L.

Avery,

'The Defense

and

Criticism of

Pantomimic

Entertainments

in the

Early Eighteenth

Century',

Journal

of English

LiteraryHistory 5 (1938), 127-45, at 135.

84

Anonymous n. 38),

17-18.

85

Weekly

Journal,

or

Saturday's

Post,

January

23, 1725;

quoted

in

Avery (n. 83),

135.

86

Tom

Brown,

Letter of

12

September

1699,

cited

in

Avery

and Scouten

(n. 25),

cxi;

in

the

Hecyra,

see

lines 55-6:

mea causa

causam

accipite

et date

silentium, /

ut

lubeat scribere

liis . . .

and,

77









As for

regular

theatre

critics,

like

Aaron

Hill,

or

graphic

satirists,

they

embark on a

crusade

aimed at

saving

the

Stage

from cultural

pollution.87

They

take

it

upon

themselves

to warn

the

public

of an

impending

dramatic and culturaldecline, and they stand poised to restore Tragedy

to

its

rightful

place,

on a

Stage

untouched

by corruption

and debase-

ment:

... if

Opera

and Pantomime once

get

absolute

possession, by

too

long

an

absence

of

Common

Sense,

it

may

then

be too

late.

I

shall do all that lies in

my power

to restore

the

rightful

monarch to its theatric

throne

by waging

eternal war

against

the

powerful

usurpers

that now

govern

and

triumph

over the

deposed

sovereign.88

Most

importantly,

literary

critics

adopt

strategies

closely

analogous

to

those of

Terence

in

order to

demarcate and

fiercely

protect

the

territory

within which the 'man of

taste,

wit

and sense' must

unfailingly operate.

So,

for

example,

not

only

do

they

fulminate

against

low level

enter-

tainers

as

the

primary

instigators

of

a feared or

already

palpable

degradation

of

taste,

morals

and intellectual

level

among

audience

ranks;

they

are also

adept

at

conceptualizing

and

constructing

the

hotchpotch

of

pantomimists,

acrobats,

jugglers,

puppeteers,

singers,

dancers,

etc. as the

unlawful

'Other',89

he

crude,

coarse and

unsophis-

ticated 'Usurper' of the Stage which, if unrestrained, will strangle and

squeeze

out,

defile

and

demolish whatever

Sense,

Erudition,

and

the-

atrical Tradition have

managed

to

erect

throughout

the

centuries. As

Aaron Hill

replies

to a

letter

defending pantomimes,

The

corruption

of

the

stage

is now

arrived to such a

height

that unless

some

stop

is

put

to

it,

it must end in its

total destruction.

Pantomimes are now

no

longer

to be

considered

as

only

harmless or

ridiculous

entertainments,

but as

usurpers

that

will

entirely

root out

Tragedy

and

Comedy by

rendering

both

insipid

to the

Town,

whose

taste will

be

reduced to a mere

habit and be formed

to relish

only

what it

daily

feeds on.90

with a

slightly

different

mphasis,

f.

18ff.

where

Ambivius tates

his

belief that

a

poet

could be

driven

off his

calling

f

discouraged

y

the

ill-willof his

opponents.

87

See

Appleton's

nd

Burnim's

ntroductiono The

Promptern.

38),

page

x;

cf.

Moody

(n.

37),

12-13.

88

From The

Prompter

n.

38),

19,

dated

Tuesday,

December

24, 1734;

cf.

Anonymous n.

38),

17: I cannot

herefore,confess,

with

anypatience

ee

a

Harlequin,

r

Scaramouch

surp

hat

Stage,

where

havebeen so

often

delighted

withthe

Distresses f

OTHELLOand

JAFFIER.'

n

general,

the

Weekly

Journal,

or

Saturday's

Post of

January

23,

1725

claims that 'Wit

and Sense are

every Day

in a

greater

Likelyhood

f

being

banished

i.e.

from

the

Playhouses],

nd their

Place

usurp'd

by

dumbFarceandAbsurdity'; uoted n Avery (n. 83), 135.

89

See,

e.g.

a

dramatist's

nd

critic's

ranking

f

rope-dancing

ansas 'the

Goths and Vandals'

who

frequent

Covent

Garden:he

Gray's-Inn

ournal,

o. vii.

Saturday,

December

2, 1752,

cited n

Nicoll

(n.

71),

25.

90

From

The

Prompter

n.

38),

148,

dated

Tuesday, January

27,

1936.

78









Consequently,

all the while

Drama,

'the noblest and

most rational

Diversion that

the Wit of Man can

invent',

circumscribes

and fences

off its own

territory

and

proclaims

itself

superior

to the whole

melange

of

'poor and mean Diversions' which neither instruct nor stimulate the

viewer's

soul,91

some

very

interesting polarities

emerge,

not

unlike those

constructed

in

the battles of

self-definition

among

the

Graeco-Roman

lettered elites.

Pitting

the

body against

the

mind,

the sensual

against

the

intellectual,

the reasonable and

edifying

against

the

dumb,

the foolish and the

whimsical,

pamphlet

after

pamphlet

sets the few

'people

of

Condition

and

Taste'92

against

the

multitude of 'debauch'd

sickly

Minds,

that have

lost their true Relish for Wit and

Sense',

are

'delighted

with

anything

that

glitters'93

and 'could

more

easily comprehend

any thing they

saw,

than the daintiest

things

that could be said to

them'.94

And,

as

if

replicating

the

polarities

evidenced

in

antiquity,

what the intellectuals

privilege

and crave for is

the

kind

of fulfilment that reaches

'farther,

than

their

Eyes

and

Ears',

the satisfaction which can 'strike the

Mind,

and

rationally

entertain

it';95

what

they

like to

condemn,

conversely,

in

words

at

least,

is

'every

low

and senseless

Jollity,

in

which the

Understanding

can have no

Share',96

sensual

pleasures

'acting

more on the

Body

than

the Mind' and 'deriving no part from Reason, nor directing any part to

the Gratification

of

the rational Soul'.97

In

short,

in

the words of the

eighteenth-century

British critic who

disparages

French Dancers for

their 'brisk and senseless

activity', proclaims

that he 'can take no

Pleasure worth

attending' any spectacle

'in

which the Mind has not

a

considerable

share',98

and declares that'. . . 'tis

in

vain to charm

the

Ear,

and flatter

the

Eye,

if

the

Mind

remain

unsatisfy'd',99

we can hear the

echo of the Greek

or

Roman man

of

letters,

as he now

deprecates

a

pantomime actor for making meaningless and pointless movements,

with no sense

in

them

whatsoever,100

now

makes it clear that he derives

no stimulation

of

any

sort from the soft

gestures

of a

dancer,

the

impudence

of a buffoon or

the

stupidity

of a clown.101

91

See C.

Gildon,

Life of

Mr

ThomasBetterton

(London,

1710),

143-4.

92

See the

Spectator,August

11, 1711;

quoted

in

Avery (n.

83),

139.

93

Anonymous (n.

38),

20 and

11

respectively.

94

Cibber

(n. 64),

184.

95

Gildon

(n. 91),

144 and 145

respectively.

96

Cibber

(n. 64),

199.

97

Gildon

(n. 91),

157.

98

Gildon

(n. 91),

144.

99

Gildon

(n.

91),

162.

100

See

Luc.,

Salt.63:

K1VOV1EVOv

E

aAoyov

aAAxco

LVaOLV

aLt

daratov,

vSEvot av-r- vov

rpoco'vros,

embedding

the

anti-pantomime

view of the

philosopher

Demetrius.

101

See

Pliny, Ep.

9. 17. 2:

quia

nequaquam

me ut

inexspectatum

estivumve

delectat,

si

quid

molle a

79









Finally,

it would be

interesting

to note at this

point

that even the fear

of disaster

engineered

by

small numbers

of

literary opponents

which

seems

to be

haunting

dramatists

and

actor-managers

in

Republican

Rome, is very similar to the nightmare of eighteenth-century play-

wrights,

living

with the

terror of the so-called

'First

Nighters',

that

is,

groups

of

rowdy

young

men

who,

spurred

by personal

or

political

faction or

merely

for

fun,

made it their business

to

ensure,

with the aid

of

'Cat-calls, Whistles, Hisses,

Hoops

and

Horse-laughs'102

hat a new

play

be

'damn'd' and withdrawn

on its

very

first

performance,

with 'one

single

Word

. . . not heard'.103 As The

Prompter

comments on

the

behaviour of such

a

group,

'when the

auxiliary

shouts, cat-calls,

and

horse-laughs enter the field, one hundred of these terrible heroes shall

easily prevail against

four or five

hundred modest

persons,

who wou'd

willingly enjoy

a rational entertainment

in

quiet.'104

To

conclude, then,

what is at

stake

in

the

Hecyra

prologues

is Theatre

in its

entirety,

both as a

literary

as

well as a

performative

experience.

All

the while Terence sustains the

picture

of his

play

as

unfairly

challenged

by petty,

valueless

attractions,

Theatre carves out for itself a

markedly

distinctive

space,

a

non-negotiable

terrain

of

unsurpassable

intellectual-

ity.

At issue is not

just

the

playwright's

defence

against

the slander or the

sabotage

of the

evil Lanuvinus but the

very ranking

of the ludi scaenici

within the

miscellany

of entertainments on offer.

Moreover,

rather

than

clumsily

broadcasting

the

magnitude

of his own

failure,

Terence seizes

a

golden

opportunity

to belittle the

rival

delights

of the

arrestingly

spectacular,

the

reign

of a

'dramaturgy'

which is nonsensical as well as

utterly corporeal.

The dramatist's outlook is

very

similar to that of

Horace:

coming

a

century

and a half after

Terence,

the

lyric poet

too

drives a

wedge

between his own taste and the whims of the

plebecula,

that majority section of the audience (numeroplures) who, 'inferior in

merit and status'

(virtute

et honore

minores),

'uneducated and

stupid'

(indocti

stolidique),

'clamour for a bear or boxers

in

the middle of the

play'

(media

inter carmina

poscunt

/

aut ursum

aut

pugiles)

and

'delight'

(gaudet)

in the lowest of

pleasures

(Horace, Ep.

2. 1.

183-6).105

cinaedo,

petulans

a

scurra,

stultum a morione

profertur,

with

the

brief discussion of Hunter

(n. 50),

195.

102

From Act IV of an

eighteenth-century play,

cited in A.

Nicoll,

A

History of English

Drama,

1660-1900, volumeII: Early EighteenthCenturyDrama (Cambridge, 1969),14.

103

See Nicoll

(n.

102),

13-14,

with

many contemporary

sources.

104

The

Prompter

n. 38),

dated 20

February

1736.

105

Even

though

Horace is

'embroidering

on Terence' at this

point,

rather than

testifying

to

the

real-life

behaviour

of

Augustan

theatre audiences

(see

N.

Rudd,

Horace,

Epistles

book II

and

80








THE

HECYRA PROLOGUES

In

other

words,

the

Hecyra prologues

sound the clarion call for the

reinstatement

of

the

boundaries

which

demarcate

the aesthetic

spheres

of the

'high'

and the 'low' and

register

their bid for the

safeguarding

of

those generic hierarchieswhich are very precariouslyupheld in the all-

inclusive

and

carnivalesque spirit

of Roman festival culture.

Terence's

plea

for silence and

fair-hearing,

rhetorically

addressed to a

discerning

audience

of

uniform

complexion,

is

also an assertion of

his conscious

disengagement

both from

performative

articulationswith no

pretensions

to

literary standing

as well

as from the

artistic

principles

(or

lack

of)

which

govern

the

reactions of the

mob. Unlike the

highly

entrepreneurial

patentee

of the

Drury

Lane

playhouse,

whose 'Sense

of

every thing

to be

shewn there [i.e. on the Stage], was much upon a Level with the taste of

the

Multitude,

whose

Opinion,

and whose

Mony weigh'd

with him full

as

much,

as that of

the best

Judges',106

he

playwright

Terence refuses to

be

conditioned

by

the

artistic

yardstick

of the

throngs.

And

yet,

while

not

ruled

by

the

masses,

Terence is

not such an

alien from

the

sphere

of

popular

culture

as to

be untrained

in its

idioms

-

as the

Stage-Keeper

imagines

Jonson

to be

in the Induction of

Bartholomew

Fair

(see

above).

His

unprecedented

brand

of comoedia

palliata

provides

its

own

unique

blend

of

'popular'

and

'high'

entertainment,

a

blend

clearly

discernible

in the

Hecyraprologues,

where

the exclusion

of the 'low'

and the

'vulgar'

is

strategically

combined

with a

complementary

attempt

at

unifying

the

audience

and

re-aligning

the voices

of 'sense'

and 'nonsense'

into

an

homogeneous,

elevated

aesthetics

of theatrical

performance.'07

On

a

purely

metaphorical

and

theoretical

level,

such

a

re-alignment

and

fusion we

find,

once

again,

in Horace's

superb

comparison

of

the

lofty tragic

poet's

impact

on his addressee's

emotions

to the

thrills of

the

rope-dancer

and

the

illusionistic

power

of the

magus:

ille

per

extentum

unem

mihi

posse

videtur

ire

poeta,

meum

qui pectus

inaniter

angit,

Epistle

o the

Pisones

Ars

Poetica')Cambridge,

989),

at

186;

cf.

Brink

n. 62),

at

186),

the

gulf

which

separates

he aesthetics

of the

'high'

and the 'low'

is

very

much a

part

of

his

own,

individual

genda.

106

See Cibber

n.

64),

184,

on

Christopher

ich,

who,

in

Cibber's

iew,

'hadnot

purchas'd

is

Shareof the

Patent,

o

mend

the

Stage,

but

to

make

Mony

of

it'.

107

Cf. Gruen

(n.

8),

220,

who,

even

though

starting

rom an

altogether

different

set of

assumptions, oncludes hat'Terence ooked to the standards et by the boniand endeavoured

to

elevate

he tastes

of the

populus.

His

repeated

equests

or

calmness,

attention,

nd

reflection

n

the audience

uggest

hat

goal.

That

the

effort ell

shortof

success,

perhaps

ar

short,

s another

story.

The

playwright

ad

a cultural

mission:

o set

an aristocratic

one

in his comedies

and to

educate

he

public

o

an

appreciation

f that

art form

at a

higher

evel.'

81








82 THE HECYRA PROLOGUES

irritat,

mulcet,

alsis

terroribus

mplet,

ut

magus,

et modo me

Thebis,

modo

ponit

Athenis.

(Horace, Ep.

2. 1.

210-13)

The

poet

who tears

my

heart with

imaginary griefs, provokes

it,

soothes

it,

fills it with

unreal

fears

-

such

a

poet

I

regard

as

capable

of a

tight-rope

act. He is like a

magician,

who can

transport

me now to

Thebes,

now to Athens.108

108

TranslationM.

Winterbottom,

n

RussellandWinterbottom

n. 31),

96.

Voz Autoral en Prologos de Terencio- Hecyra

Documents

Transcript of Voz Autoral en Prologos de Terencio- Hecyra