Book 2
23
It is clear what your judgment ought to be about that scene also, found in both comedies, which is about of the following purport: The daughter of a poor man was violated during a religious vigil. This was unknown to her father, and she was looked upon as a virgin. Being with child as the result of that assault, at the proper time she is in labour. An honest slave, standing before the door of the house, knowing nothing of the approaching delivery of his master's daughter, and quite unaware that violence had been offered her, hears the groans and prayers of the girl labouring in childbirth; he gives expression to his fear, anger, suspicion, pity and grief. In the Greek comedy all these emotions and feelings of his are wonderfully vivid and clear, but in Caecilius they are all dull and without any grace and dignity of expression. Afterwards, when the same slave by questioning has found out what has happened, in Menander he utters this lament: Fr. 404, Kock; p. 430, L. C. L. Alas! thrice wretched he who weds, though poor, And children gets. How foolish is the man Who keeps no watch o'er his necessities, And if he luckless be in life's routine, Can't use his wealth as cloak, but buffeted By ev'ry storm, lives helpless and in grief. All wretchedness he shares, of blessings none, Thus sorrowing for one I'd all men warn. Let us consider whether Caecilius was sufficiently inspired to approach the sincerity and realism of these words. These are the lines of Caecilius, in which he gives some mangled fragments from Menander, patching them with the language of tragic bombast: vv. 169 ff., Ribbeck.2 Unfortunate in truth the man, who poor, Yet children gets, to share his poverty. His fortune and his state at once are clear; The ill fame of the rich their set conceals.
