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Plautus Pseud. 296 ff

Plautus Pseud. 296 ff 59 MISCELLANEA PLAUTUS PSEUD. 296 ff. Heus tu, postquam hercle isti a mensa surgunt satis poti viri, qui suum repetunt, alienum reddunt nato nemini, postilla omnes cautiores sunt ne credant alteri. "Es ist ja bekannt genug, dass man bei Plautus gelegentlich zuruckubersetzen muss, um Witz, ja um Sinn in eine Stelle hinein- zubekommen" 1). The obscurity that has been found in this pas- sage (see, e.g., Ussing ad loc. ) can be clarified, I believe, if we re- member the advice of Skutsch. Since the banking references are presumably originally Greek (see Skutsch, Ob. cit., 276 f., 279 f.), and since the reference to the impossibility of borrowing from bankers is an essential point in the plot, which has in general been retained from the original 2), and the word mensa puns on the meanings 'dining-table' and 'banker's counter' (Lorenz, Ernout), I suggest that we have here a joke, traditional in Greek Comedy, involving a pun on in the sense of (a) 'go bankrupt', and (b) another sense of the word, in this case 'withdraw', 'retire', as at Xen. Anab. I 5, 14. Such a pun appears at Ar. Ach. 614 ff : On these lines the schol. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Mnemosyne Brill

Plautus Pseud. 296 ff

Mnemosyne , Volume 26 (1): 59 – Jan 1, 1973

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1973 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0026-7074
eISSN
1568-525X
DOI
10.1163/156852573X00099
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

59 MISCELLANEA PLAUTUS PSEUD. 296 ff. Heus tu, postquam hercle isti a mensa surgunt satis poti viri, qui suum repetunt, alienum reddunt nato nemini, postilla omnes cautiores sunt ne credant alteri. "Es ist ja bekannt genug, dass man bei Plautus gelegentlich zuruckubersetzen muss, um Witz, ja um Sinn in eine Stelle hinein- zubekommen" 1). The obscurity that has been found in this pas- sage (see, e.g., Ussing ad loc. ) can be clarified, I believe, if we re- member the advice of Skutsch. Since the banking references are presumably originally Greek (see Skutsch, Ob. cit., 276 f., 279 f.), and since the reference to the impossibility of borrowing from bankers is an essential point in the plot, which has in general been retained from the original 2), and the word mensa puns on the meanings 'dining-table' and 'banker's counter' (Lorenz, Ernout), I suggest that we have here a joke, traditional in Greek Comedy, involving a pun on in the sense of (a) 'go bankrupt', and (b) another sense of the word, in this case 'withdraw', 'retire', as at Xen. Anab. I 5, 14. Such a pun appears at Ar. Ach. 614 ff : On these lines the schol.

Journal

MnemosyneBrill

Published: Jan 1, 1973

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