Aris and Phillips series has been serving the field of classics for decades very well, gradually growing in ambitions. In the new Casina, Peter Barrios-Lech produces a complete critical edition with metrical annotation, exhaustive 100-page introductory study, verse translation, comprehensive commentary, glossary, metrical appendix, bibliography, and index.
The book begins refreshingly, with an inspired reconstruction of the day of Casina’s premiere. As if equipped with VR goggles, the readers learn where, when, why, and how it all took place, who was there and why, all along with sounds and smells of the Roman ludi. This immersive experience is a clever captatio benevolentiae, seamlessly drawing readers into a long and rewarding journey of learning everything there is about this play, from every possible angle.
The Introduction neatly transitions to plot summary and evidence for Plautus’ biography, followed by an illuminating discussion of the sociopolitical context in which palliata emerged: mid-Republic Rome was a slave society, a rising geopolitical superpower in pursuit of national identity through literature and language. Hellenistic New Comedy is treated briefly (and more in specific detail throughout the book). The section on adaptation of Diphilus’ original is insightful, though necessarily speculative, and in my view takes internal evidence too much at face value. But aided by the analysis of visual material (e.g., the 4th c. BCE calyx krater from the Manfria painter circle, with plates at p. 25), the conclusions are certainly worth considering. In “Ancient Italian Stage Traditions” Barrios-Lech thoroughly examines the evidence and remains rightly reserved about the influence of Atellanae and mime on Plautine comedy. The “Casina in context” situates the play in the period of the Bacchanalia affair of 186 and Apulian slave revolt of 185, events of thematic significance for the play. The section “Casina and Post-Punic war Rome” elaborates on “the changing conceptions of marriage and women’s role in it, and the enslavements that picked up pace from the Second Punic War onward” (p. 32). The discussion focuses on issues of class and gender as performative identities and addresses the question of the palliata’s elite vs. grassroots origins and social function.
“Interpreting Casina” identifies key themes (contention over Casina, food as sex, animal and olfactory imagery), analyzes shifting stock roles in the conflict between Senex (not “Lysidamus,” as in some MSS) and Cleostrata, who “rely on specifically gendered performances to assert control” (p. 41) and adopt the language of the cunning slave in turn; the power dynamics are analyzed through the distribution of eavesdropping and soliloquies. The metatheatrical dimension of the play is discussed concisely and informatively. The dominant character of Senex is awarded a separate section; he has by far the most text and uses the most Greek words, which signals “his deviation from norms of conduct for Roman men” (p. 49).
In “Language,” Barrios-Lech outlines Plautus’ mastery of registers (legal, religious, military and high-literary) and surveys selected features of his Latin in comparison with Archaic, Early, and Classical Latin. “Information structure” introduces the narratological approach (topic = “theme”, focus = “rheme”, word order, contrasted elements, emphasized elements, clitics, topicalizing construction) and continues, in “Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics,” with analysis of conversational signals (greetings, interruptions, commands and requests, request-softeners etc.), which are fundamentally gendered. The section on Greek language usefully reminds us of its double status (the native Greek of Italian colonies and high literary Greek) and intelligently interprets the thematic effects of Greek loanwords’ distribution.
Eighteen pages are allotted to “Meter and music” (64–82). Readers are helpfully referred to recordings on websites before the theoretical “quick-start guide” (p. 65) for scanning and syllabification of Plautine iambo-trochaics, as well as elementary phenomena (resolution, elision, hiatus, synizesis, iambic shortening etc.). Barrios-Lech demonstrates the advantages of alphabetical notation as opposed to analysis by metrical feet and instructs the readers in using his markups in this edition. The “Ethos and meaning of meter,” relying on foundational works of Moore (primarily Music in Roman Comedy, Cambridge 2012) and Marshall (The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy, 2nd ed. Cambridge 2009), explains “how Plautus uses music to characterize, advance the plot and mark important moments in Casina” (p. 77), the most musical of Plautine plays. Specifically, for example, in the first half of the play iambics are consistently delivered by the slaves, the polymetric cantica by the free characters, so “polymetric passages serve to underscore the upending of expectations that occurs in the play’s second half” (p. 78).
In “Text and transmission” Barrios-Lech addresses the issues of scriptedness and authorship, arguing against the occasionally entertained ideas of a comic script as a post-performance transcript, as well as of a collaborative authorship behind the market brand of Plautus’ clownish name; ultimately, computer analysis confirms linguistic uniformity and single authorship (p. 83, n. 319). Next comes the detailed description and evaluation of manuscripts. This edition “presents only minor updates on previous editions at several places,” viz. vv. 26, 414, 616, 826 (p. 89, n. 325). The Introduction concludes with a survey of the play’s reception highlights in Renaissance Italy, Tudor England, Eighteenth-Century France, and (briefly) 20th century to the present.
As announced in the Preface, the metrical translation is conceived of as a standalone text, with the following rationale: iambic pentameter for unaccompanied verse, seven-beat line for trochaic septenarii, while for cantica either a four-beat verse or freestyle verse inspired by “American pop songs and Western opera” (p. ix) The result is a competent and engaging translation, true to Plautus’ message and enjoyable in its own right; see, e. g. the iambics, vv. 99–103:
Why not remain in your domain: the farm?
Why not surveil the tasks assigned to you
and keep your hands off matters of the town?
You’ve come to take my bride from me; just go
to the farm, straight the hell to your domain!
Note the skillfully rendered sounds and linguistic nuances of Latin: “official-ease” in ruri in praefectura tua ~ remain/domain, and legatum negotium ~ tasks assigned; the dismissive abi dierecte (whatever the exact meaning) ~ straight the hell. These effects are missing from, e. g., Christenson’s prose translation (Newburyport 2012):
Shouldn’t you be doing your duty out there on the farm?
Why stick your nose around here in city business
When you’ve got plenty to do out there?
You’re only here to steal my bride! So go back to the farm!
The comparison highlights that verse translation is worth attempting, challenging though it may be; prose is inherently somewhat flat, unable to convey Plautine liveliness in a way a song can.
Paying special attention to code-switching to Greek (Introduction, 61–4), Barrios-Lech translates Greek passages in Spanish (πράγματά μοι παρέχεις! = ¡Me estás molestando! or Ὦ Ζεῦ = ¡Ay dios mío!, 728, 730), noticing the similar valence of Greek in Plautus’ Rome and that of Spanish in the US: both the outsiders’ language familiar to the insiders, and of high culture (p. 382). Yet, since the former in Plautus more specifically entails ambivalence towards un-Roman frivolousness, and it is debatable if Spanish would be an American’s first association to foreign language of high culture, perhaps a more effective choice would have been Italian. While not autochthonous and hence slightly less familiar to Americans than Spanish, the language of both the Sopranos and of the Medici would aptly cover both stereotypes, without having to decide which one is activated. Impressions aside, this choice is indicative of Barrios-Lech’s conscientiousness. Every individual translation solution is a result of careful consideration and explained in the Commentary, such as “Aw, c’mon,” reproducing Senex’ heia (230) followed by the feminine pol (231).
The nearly 200-page Commentary (235–430) is in fact short considering the amount of information provided. It addresses every aspect imaginable, no stone left unturned: meter and music; staging and dramaturgy; literary history and criticism; imagery, idiom, morphology, syntax; comparative and historical linguistics, registers, pragmatics and sociolinguistics; legal, political, social, religious, intellectual and cultural history, as well as material culture. It is meticulously documented with primary texts, material evidence, and secondary literature of an exceptional interdisciplinary breadth and depth.
The book ends with a short glossary of terms, mostly metrical, with a few stylistic and pragmatic (431–432), an appendix on advanced metrical features, full bibliography (441–464), and a useful general index.
I can add some remarks on minor points.
Perhaps understandably, the Commentary’s ambitious coverage is not easy to structure. Designating English lemmata for interpretation and Latin ones for language and meter (Preface, p. ix) is easier said than done; see, e.g., back-and-forth references to words in vv. 213–216, where metrical effects are also explained under English translation, or on 945–961, where this division is blurred. The whole arrangement at times appears jumbled and navigating it takes some patience.
The Commentary contains some isolated errors and oversights: protinam for protinus (959–960) is not attested only in Plautus (see Ter. Pho. 190); occasionally, loci similes would have been instructive (e.g., for the image Acheruntis pabulum at 157, cf. ulmorum Acheruns, Am. 1029; duplici damno at 722a, cf. pereas… dupliciter, Mil. 295). For the metaphorical use of via in 369, add Short’s important article (“The “Wandering” Metaphor of Mistakenness in Roman Culture,” Arion 21.2, 2013: 140–169.). Since, as Barrios-Lech often emphasizes, the play revolves around the father/son conflict over the possession of Casina, the discussions would benefit from Traill’s seminal study of the dramaturgy of female characters (Women and the Comic Plot in Menander, Cambridge 2008), and Sutton’s classic on intergenerational tension (Ancient Comedy: The War of the Generations, New York 1993). I also feel the character of Casina is under-scrutinized. Her absence is so conspicuous that it practically invites us to speculate on what is left unspoken. We are told that her foster-mother raised her as chaste (educet… educavit… quasi si esset ex se nata, 44–46; pudica, 81). In discussing these passages Barrios-Lech does not observe that the elements are suspiciously reminiscent of the “pseudo-meretrix” scenario of, e.g., the Cistellaria, where Selenium is “raised chastely” by a mother-lena (Cist. 172–3: educavit eam sibi pro filia bene ac pudice; cf. Planesium in Cur. 518–19, 698). Given that Casina’s foster-mother and her (as it turns out) biological mother essentially argue whether the girl should be “pimped out” to Senex (204–5) and that the Epilogue teasingly advertises Casina’s sexual services to male audience-members (1012–18), it would have been worthwhile to explore the curious undertones of prostitution in the titular character’s presentation.
Altogether, Barrios-Lech has delivered an exemplary edition, authoritative without being opinionated, pedagogically generous and sound. While being patiently spoon-fed with basic vocabulary and grammar (and apologetically exposed to non-Anglophone scholarship; Preface, viii–ix) the readers are all along tactfully presented with an impressive spectrum of interpretive directions that close inspection of the text can open.
As a result, this book sends a salutary message both to those who might fear that traditional philology is under threat from more fashionable contemporary approaches, and to those who have come under the erroneous impression that “hardcore philology” is an anachronistic discipline of the privileged. With both determination and grace, Barrios-Lech demonstrates that panoramic, 360°, bird’s-eye perspectives on the broad landscape and microscopic examinations of every molecule of the original—including everything in between—are complementary, equally vital for the ecosystem. All of this is Philology, at her best: eyes to the stars, feet on the ground.
Leaving us wondering how much we were missing until now and how much more we still have to learn, Barrios-Lech irrevocably raises the bar for future editions. This book is written enthusiastically and impossible to be read in any other way.[1]
Notes
[1] Unfortunately, the hardcopy provided for review is very poorly produced. Amateurish page layout and typesetting, together with low-quality paper and stiff binding make for an odd, eventually uncomfortable reading, which is sure to leave the volume heavily deformed. Its steep price (over $100) suggests an e-version might be a wiser acquisition.