PROFESSOR SONNENSOHEIN'S " RUDENS."* PROFESSOR SONNENSCHEIN is to be congratulated
on a useful piece of work well done. Already well known as a Plautine scholar, he will distinctly increase his reputation by this edition of the Rudens, the first, by-the-way, that has ever appeared in this country. His Captivi and Mostellaria were good performances, but this is a decided advance upon them. It is better equipped in various ways, something being due to the becoming way in which the Clarendon Press, itself to be congratulated on the addition to its staff of so. distinguished an editor, has sent it out.
The Budens is a bright and picturesque play which might be added with much advantage and without offence to the commonly accepted circle of Plautine reading. It is not saying much that both in motive and in action it contrasts favourably with many of the dramas which modern audiences throng to see. A leno who is carrying off two girls, one a free woman, the other a slave, with evil intent, to Sicily, is shipwrecked on the way, and, after various incidents which delay or advance the conclusion, the free woman is recognised by her father, near whose house, indeed, the shipwreck has taken place, and is restored to her lover, while the slave-girl is manumitted by her owner, and is married, we are to sup- pose, to one of the slaves who contributes to the action of the piece, the husband being himself made free. The prologue, which, unlike most of the Plautine prologues, is, iii part at least, genuine, is spoken by Arcturus, wearing a bright star on his forehead (which, by-the-way, might be admirably given
• T. Maui Pleati Rudens. Edited, with Critical and Explanatory Note, by Edward A. Sonnensoboin, 31.A. Oxford ; Clarendon Press. MM.
in a revival by the electric light). He claims for himself and his fellow-stars the function of telling Jupiter and the other gods of malefactors who might otherwise escape their notice, and in this particular case of executing their vengeance, for he, " signum oranium unum acerrimurn," has shipwrecked the leno and his villainous companion. In the second scene, a comic slave describes the escape of two girls in a boat from the shipwreck. (He is supposed to have a view of the sea, which is not visible to the spectators.) Then the girls come on to the stage one by one ; they have been separated in getting ashore, and now meet again. They take refuge in the Temple of Venus, from which their owner, who has him- self escaped from the wreck, attempts to drag them. The father of the free girl, who has not yet been recognised, rescues them, and the villain is led off with a rope round his neck. After some other action, comes the scenes which give a name to the play. The slave Gripus enters, carrying the heroine's travelling trunk, which he has fished up from the sea. It is, he feels sure, a great prize, and he indulges in a fine 4:lay-dream of what he will do with the money it will bring him in. To become free, to enrich himself by trade, to build a town, to call it by his own name and to become its king, are the visions which pass before his eyes. At the end of his soliloquy, a fellow-slave appears, recognises the trunk as one which the slave-girl had described to him, and seizes it by the rope (rodeos) which is attached to it. A fine quarrel ensues between the two slaves ; ultimately the trunk is opened in the presence of their master, and is found to contain articles which identify its owner with his long-lost daughter. The articles are toys, a miniature sword, a two-beaded axe, both of gold, a little silver sickle and windlass, and a golden bulk, After this, of course, the happy ending is assured, the villain himself getting off with little damage beyond the loss of his property.
The criticism of the text has been caref ally attended to, the editor exercising throughout a sound and sober judgment. The recurring difficulty of the hiatus is well met, with special ingenuity in one passage (528-31), where it is unusually frequent, by the supposition that the lines are spoken by persons shivering with cold, who repeat the initial syllables as their jaws chatter (the editor cites from the Mostellaria, the 9na-ma-madere of a drunken man). The annotation is complete and sound. We are inclined to think that the potando periit of 301 (said when the leno is supposed
to be drowned), is an allusion to the Homeric. 42xpopoy
.ifZeep, rather than "died of drinking." It might have been noted that the "quasi vinis Onecis Neptunus nobis suffudit mare," is an evidently Roman interpolation. So apparently is the mention of the bulla, which was not worn by Greek children. The editor points out in 932 au instance of an opposite kind,'where an allusion of the original which a Roman audience would certainly not have understood, has been preserved. " Imitabor Stratonicum, Oppida circum- vectabor," says Gripus, while he is planning out his future. Stratonicus was a musician in the days of Alexander, who anticipated the great artistes of modern days, in giving a series -of performances in the chief Greek cities, and in realising a handsome fortune by them.
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