Poenulus


Poenulus, also called The Little Carthaginian or The Little Punic Man, is a Latin comedic play for the early Roman theatre by Titus Maccius Plautus, probably written between 195 and 189 BC. The play is noteworthy for containing text in Carthaginian Punic, spoken by the character Hanno in the fifth act. Another remarkable feature is the sympathetic portrayal of the character of the Carthaginian Hanno at a time when only a few years previously the Romans had suffered huge losses in the 2nd Punic War fought against the Carthaginian general Hannibal.
The play shows signs of having been reworked, possibly for a second production, since there are two endings.

Plot

A young man, Agorastocles, is in love with a girl named Adelphasium, who is a slave belonging to the pimp Lycus. Agorastocles, Adelphasium, and her sister Anterastilis were all stolen as children from Carthage. Agorastocles was purchased by a rich childless man who wanted a son, whereas the girls were sold as slaves to the pimp who intended to make them prostitutes.
Milphio, the long-suffering slave of Agorastocles, attempts to help his master obtain Adelphasium. Their plan is to trick Lycus and get him into legal trouble. Collybiscus, Agorastocles' farm steward, dresses up as a foreigner and moves into Lycus' home. Agorastocles and some witnesses then accuse Lycus of harboring his slave and threaten to take him to court.
At this point Hanno arrives from Carthage, and it is soon revealed that he is the cousin of Agorastocles' dead parents, as well as the father of the two girls. In the end, the girls are seized from Lycus, who is punished, and the story concludes with a happy family reunion. Hanno gives Agorastocles his blessing to marry his daughter.
The play is set in Calydon, a city in Aetolia in central Greece. The stage set consists of a street with the slave-dealer Lycus' house on one side, and the young man Agorastocles' house on the other; between these is a temple of Venus.

Structure

The play is symmetrically structured around the trick played on Lycus as follows:
However, certain elements, such as the two appearances of the soldier Antamoenides, and the arrival of Hanno, break the symmetry.

Metrical structure

Plautus's plays are traditionally divided into five acts. However, it is not thought that the act-divisions go back to Plautus's time, since no manuscript contains them before the 15th century. Also, the acts themselves do not always match the structure of the plays, which is more clearly shown by the variation in metres.
A common metrical pattern in Plautus's plays is that each section begins with iambic senarii, then a song in various metres, and finally each section is rounded off by trochaic septenarii, which were apparently recited or sung to the accompaniment of aulos. Moore calls this the "ABC succession", where A = iambic senarii, B = other metres, and C = trochaic septenarii.
Taking iambic senarii as the beginning of a section, and trochaic septenarii as the end, Poenulus can be divided into five parts. The overall pattern is as follows:
Moore believes that everything from line 1332 is an interpolation, probably supplied by a producer when the original ending was lost.
The most commonly used metres in this play of 1332 lines are iambic senarii and trochaic septenarii. Compared with other Plautus plays, the unaccompanied iambic senarii form an unusually large part of the play.

Prologue

  • '''Prologue : iambic senarii '''

Agorastocles tries to woo Adelphasium

  • Act 1.1 : iambic senarii
  • Act 1.2 : mainly bacchiac
  • '''Act 1.2 cont. : trochaic septenarii '''

Agorastocles prepares to trick Lycus

  • Act 1.3–Act 2 : iambic senarii
  • '''Act 3.1–3.2 : trochaic septenarii '''

Lycus is tricked

  • Act 3.3–3.6 : iambic senarii
  • Act 4.1 : iambic octonarii, iambic septenarii
  • '''Act 4.2 : trochaic septenarii '''

Hanno finds his daughters

  • Act 5.1–5.3 : Punic ; iambic senarii
  • Act 5.4 : polymetric
  • Act 5.4 : trochaic septenarii
  • Act 5.4 : iambic septenarii
  • '''Act 5.4 –5.5 : trochaic septenarii '''

The end

  • Act 5.5–5.6 : iambic senarii
  • Act 5.6 : iambic senarii
  • Act 5.7 : iambic senarii
  • '''Act 5.7 : trochaic septenarii'''

Translations