144 E. P. Morris, 



^oy.iav of 505: ni ego illam exemplis plurimis planeque — amo, and 

 by the admissions of 509 ff. The scene in Asin. 127-152 brings out 

 .still more plainl}^ certain characteristic marks of the type. The 

 lover refers to the happiness of the past (141), hardens his heart 

 with the consciousness of his wrongs (135 ff.) and pictures himself 

 in the attitude of firmness [ine spcda modo, 145). The language also 

 is pathetic, 127 ff., ingrata and mrita 136, adii and animum . . . dedi 

 141, scelesta 148. But the wrongs from which the speaker is suffering 

 were inflicted by the girl's mother in the character of lena, and it 

 is against her that the threats are directed, so that the whole has 

 in part the characteristics of an ordinary leno scene. 



These illustrations of the type are from comedy and are all in 

 soliloquy (for the speech in Eun. 46—49 is not addressed to the 

 other person on the stage), and there is a certain advantage in the 

 dramatic form. It separates the speaker from the writer and makes 

 it possible to express more easily the two essential, but somewhat 

 contradictor}', elements. Through the speaker of the soliloquy the 

 writer may pour out the storm of indignation, weakness, threats 

 and soft-heartedness, while the humorous side of such an exhibition 

 of emotion may be suggested through another speaker. This is 

 the way that Terence takes to let the audience see that all the 

 emotion is simpl}' a lover's quarrel — inimicitiae, indutiae ; bellum, pax 

 mrsiim, as Parmeno sa3's. It is in the confident assurance of the 

 observer that the belluiii will in due course be followed by pax 

 rnrsHin that the humor mainly lies. Plautus, however, does not 

 use the second speaker for this purpose, but allows the conscious- 

 ness of weakness to show itself in the lover's own words, the 

 writer himself .standing by, as it were, in the character of the 

 humorous observer. 



In the similar scenes in elegy or in lyric poetr}' the writer neces- 

 sarily follows the method of Plautus, rather than that of Terence. 

 He cannot use the device of a second speaker, but must so frame 

 the lover's speech that it shall express the firm determination to 

 break away, and at the same time betray the underlying sense of 

 weakness ; his lover must be at the same moment openly desirovas 

 of going and secretly hopeful that he may be asked to sta}-. The 

 form of soliloqu}^, also, which lyric and elegiac poetr}' have taken 

 over from comedy, requires that the writer shall identify himself 

 with the lover. This he may do more or less completely, making 

 the poem personal to himself or, if the identification is merely formal, 

 treating the situation as an ideal one. It will be seen that different 

 poets in their use of the type emphasize difterent elements. 



