The "Dyskolos" of Menander

Author(s): Kenneth J. Reckford

Source: Studies in Philology , Jan., 1961, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Jan., 1961), pp. 1-24
Published by: University of North Carolina Press

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 Studies in Philology

Volume LVIII JANUARY, 1961 Number 1

THE DYSKOLOS OF MENANDER

BY KENNETH J. RECKFORD

The recently discovered Dyskolos of Menander is not altogether

a typical product of its age.' Menander's interest in individual
happiness and security is thoroughly ilellenistic, yet his Dyskolos

1 A synopsis of the play is appended to this article. See pp. 22-24.

I have used the text of V. Martin, M6nandre, Le Dyscolos (Bibliotheca
Bodmeriana, 1958), and for other plays and fragments the Teubner edition
by A. Koerte-A. Thierfelder, Menandriae Reliquiae, I (Leipzig, 1957)
and II (1959). In certain crucial passages in the Dyskolos I follow the
interpretation of H. Lloyd-Jones, " Preliminary Notes on Menander's
Dyskolos," CR, n. s. 9 (1959) 183-92.
At the time of writing the following (selected) interpretive studies on
the Dyskolos were available to me: A. Barigazzi, " I1 Dyscolos di Menandro
o la Commedia della Solidariet. Umana," Athenaeum, 37 (1959), 184-95;
G. P. Goold, "First thoughts on the Dyscolus," The Phoenix, 13 (1959),
139-60; P. W. Harsh, review of Martin's edition, Gnomon, 31 (1959), 577-
86; W. Kraus, " Zum Neuen Menander," RhM, 102 (1959), 146-56; K.
Lever, " The Dyskolus and Menander's Reputation," CJ, 55 (1959-60),
321-6; V. Martin, "Avant la Publication du Dyscolos de M6nandre," Mus.
Helv., 15 (1958), 209-14, and " Dcouverte du jeune Menandre," Parola
Del Passato, 13 (1958), 365-80; P. J. Photiades, "Pan's Prologue to the
Dyskolos of Menander," Greece and Rome, 2 ser., 5 (1958), 108-22; L. A.
Post, review of Martin's edition, AJP, 80 (1959), 402-15; W. Schmid,
"Menanders Dyskolos und die Timonlegende," RhM, 102 (1959), 157-82
(an important, not peripheral study); E. G. Turner, " New Plays of
Menander," Bull. John Rylands Library (1959), 241-58; B. A. Van Groningen,
" Quelques Notes sur le Dyscolos de MWnandre," Mnemosyne, 4. ser., 12
(1959), 224-32; H. H. Yeames, " The New Menander," CO, (October, 1959).
For convenience I shall refer to P. E. Legrand, The New Greek Comedy

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2 The " Dyskolos" of Menander

disparages the ideals of independence and self-sufficiency common

to the popular Hellenistic philosophies.2 In a cosmopolitan age
the playwright remained a true Athenian. When his patron, De-
metrius of Phalerum, departed for the court of Ptolemy, he stayed
behind;3 and in the most anachoritic of times he demonstrated
comically that no man is an island. Political life as Aristophanes
had known it was dead in 316 B. C., but social consciousness was not.
Menander's educational method is very subtle. We knew from
fragments of other plays that he preached without pedantry, using
the comic apparatus-confusion and new understanding, accidents
dangerous and providential-to make real advice more palatable
to his audience by concealing it in plots far removed from every-
day experience. Like the third-century idylls of Theocritus, his
plays are fairy tales for sophisticated men. Theocritus masks his
city-dwellers as shepherds in order that they may come closer to
nature, liberated magically from Hellenistic self-consciousness.
Similarly, as we suspected before and the Dyskolos confirms,
Menander robes and masks his fellow Athenians as stock comic
types, but only to strip away the typical masks and reveal the
individuals behind them.4 His dramatic purpose is to remove their

(translated by J. Loeb, London, 1917), as Legrand; to T. B. L. Webster,

Studies in Menander (London, 1949), as Webster, SM; to Webster, Studies
in Later Greek Comedy (Manchester, 1953), as Webster, SLGC; to Webster,
Art and Literature in Fourth Century Athens (London, 1956), as Webster,
ALFCA.
2 Such philosophical comparisons suggest that the "political quietism"
of Menander was a natural reaction to his age, and not, as Barigazzi, p. 190,
suggests, due to the social and economic policies of Demetrius of Phalerum,
a student of Theophrastus and governor of Athens from 317 to 307 B. C.;
nor would I with Post (p. 408) blame the "obtrusive morality" in this
play on Demetrius, even granting its obtrusiveness. G. M6autis, Le
Crdpuscule d'Ath?nes et Mtnandre (Paris, 1954), 53, calls Demetrius a
" philosopher-king "; one may be sceptical. On the actual relationship of
Menander and Demetrius see F. Susemihl, Gesch. der Griech. Litt. in der
Alexandrinerzeit, II (Leipzig, 1891), 254 and note 36, and A. Koerte, RE,
29 (1931), s. v. " Menandros," 709. Cf. also the remarks of Turner, p. 257
and note 2, and of P. S. Dunkin, " Post Aristophanic Comedy," Ill. Stud.,
31 (1946) 52-56.
' According to Pliny, HN, 7.111, Menander refused invitations to the
courts of Egy'pt and Macedonia, regiae fortunae praelata litterarum con-
scientia. Webster, SLGC, 100, notes that unlike Diphilus, Philemon, and
Apollodorus, Menander was an Athenian by birth.
' Polemo in the PerikeiromenO and Habrotonon in the Epitrepontes show

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 Kenneth J. Reckford 3

affectations along with the masks, leaving his new found individuals
clothed in garments of natural feeling, mutual tolerance, and gentle
affection. In this way he holds up life to his audience not so much
as it is, but as it ought to be.
Before discussing Menander's treatment of individuals in the
Dyskcolos, we shall consider his town-country contrasts, his treat-
ment of Pan and Fortune, and his subordination in general of
comic plot to un-comic character development.
Realism and idealism merge in the rural setting of the Dyskolos.
All is not sweetness and light in the district of Phyle: the soil is
bad, and hoeing, young Sostratus learns, is hard work. Again and
again Menander informs us that poverty and lack of leisure are not
peculiar to Cnemon, the " ill-tempered man."5 Hard work toughens
character without necessarily improving it. If integrity and forti-
tude are the country virtues, quarrelsomeness and suspiciousness
are its vices: the virtues will appear in Gorgias, the vices in Cnemon
and Davus, yet all three are of the same "family." For every
noble savage like the charcoal-burner of the Epitrepontes there is
an ignoble counterpart (the selfish shepherd of that play) or at
least a potential one. Although the rich have their troubles also,
and no life, as Menander says elsewhere, is free from pain, the
scales are strongly weighted against the poor country-dwellers.6
In the Dyskolos there are compensations. Unlike Aristophanes,

that these " stock characters " were not always vicious; cf. Koerte, p. 760;
A. W. Gomme, Essays in Greek History and Literature (Oxford, 1957),
286; Webster, SM, 218 (contrasting different soldiers and lovers in the
fragments), and SLGC, 117 (" the possibility of penetrating through
fictitious values to real values" . . . leads to the sympathetic portrayal of
figures satirically treated by comedy).
"Cf. lines 129-31 (" A poor farmer is very bitter, not this one only,
but pretty much all "); 295-6 (on which see the discussion by Van
Groningen, 227-8); and 604-6 ("This is really an Attic farmer. He fights
with rocks that only grow thyme and sage; he stands there [reading
e7r9TT&s] and harvests only pain, no good.").
' On the hardships of poverty cf. frs. 6, 8, 14, G, 129-133, 537. But the
rich have their troubles too (627, K, 1), for all life includes the element
of pain (337, 341, 622). Of course, these and other fragmentary quotes
are not absolutely reliable, since we are ignorant of the intention and
character of the speaker; cf. the warnings of Legrand, 443, and Powell-
Barber, New Chapters (Oxford, 1921), 94. To give an example: fr. 560
asserts that " farming is a servant's task," but a braggart warrior is
speaking, not Menander!

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4 The "TDiskolos" of Menander

Menainder does not allow the country air to dull the

farmers. They may be blunt in speech but they are not
aypo&KoL.7 In the city, where love-intrigues are the reg
of young men, Gorgias would have been a country mous
but in Phyle it is Sostratus, the rich, idle, half-sophisti
man, who must be acclimated to his surroundings. He comes to
hunt and remains to be educated. There is a touch of the noble
savage in the unnamed heroine, of whom Sostratus says (384ff.)
that she must be a good match because she was brought up far from
the company of women.8 Pan has already informed us that she
"knows no nonsense," and her simple piety toward the Nymphs is
contrasted implicitly with the rather frantic superstitiousness of
Sostratus' mother, who "runs about all the shrines" (261-3). The
girl is the Cinderella of the fairy tale and Pan the fairy godfather
who rewards her merits. Yet the agent of ir&ia in this play is
not the girl but her half-brother and, less directly, her father.
Although superficially a city slicker, Sostratus is the son of an
honest and successful farmer; by returning to the land he loses
his naivet6, much as Neoptolemus was educated by the sufferings
of Philoctetes in Sophocles' tragedy.

7By contrast, Theophrastus, Characters iv, defines d'ypoLKla as dLu&a0a

dcrXjcm'v. Aristotle, Nic. Eth. 1128b, had described the dypOLKOS as a man
useless in social intercourse. Early comedy concentrated on the "super-
ficial shortcomings of the peasant" (Legrand, 58), his slovenly dress,
vulgar speech, ignorance of polite conventions, failure to appreciate ele-
gance. But there were compensations: cf. Legrand, 62, " It seems as though
there were more honesty in the country than elsewhere." In any event,
the appellation d'ypoKco (202) fits Cnemon very badly. Webster, SM, 213,
shows that there is no proof that the 'AypOLKOV in the play of that name
was a boor.
8 On the moral advantages of country living see frs. 57 (poor countryside
makes men courageous), 338 (toil teaches virtue), 401 (he who hates
urban vices should seek solitude). Also, on the moral dangers of wealth,
see frs. 84, 419, 619. For the Utopias of Theopompus, Hecataeus, Euhem-
erus, and Iambulus, see E. Rohde, Der Griechische Roman, ed. 3 (Leipzig,
1913), 218-60. Compare also the primitivism of the Cynics, who used beasts
and barbarians as good examples; cf. G. A. Gerhard, Phoinia Von Kolophon
(Leipzig, 1909), 47-54. Cynic lovers of "{Lady Poverty" could be romantic
dreamers, like Crates. But there were already noble savages in fifth-
century drama, like the peasant " husband " of Electra in Euripides' play.
In Aristophanes' Plutus, Poverty rationalizes her sway by arguing that
the poor are physically fit and have learned self-control; she is defeated
(and comic realism vindicated).

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 Kenneth J. Reckford 5

Menander does not, then, overlook country realities, any more

than Theocritus perfumes his goats or Vergil leaves his shepherds
idle. Rather, what is romantic is his private vision of the country
as a testing-place for sincerity of character where human goodness,
once revealed, becomes (with a little help from Pan) its own
reward. As in Plato's Phaedrus, the country atmosphere rules out
sham.9 There is no place here for false rhetoric or counterfeit
emotion. In the comic tradition, Menander envisions the country
as a source of down-to-earth vitality to counteract the high-flown
abstractions of city life. He sees it in the Athenian way, not as a
refuge or never-never-land, but as a very real source of education.
Pan, who presides over this countryside, is an ambiguous deity.
As a god somewhat tamed by moral purpose, he rewards good char-
acter (Cnemon's daughter, Sostratus, Gorgias) and directs accident
and mischance towards a happy ending. In so doing he is little
more than the dramatic housekeeper of a fairy tale, like Agnoia in
the Perikeiromene and the Lar Familiaris in Plautus' Aulularia.
But also, like Theocritus (1. 16-18), Menander realizes that Pan
is not altogether tame and benevolent. The chorus of Paniastai,
who sing and revel drunkenly in honor of the god, contrast strongly
with the sober, thoughtful main actors.10 And even these cannot
always remain in control of their destinies. Pan has made Sostratus
fall in love (Sostratus' mother dreams appropriately that Pan has
"shackled " her son), and this love, unalterably opposed to cool
thinking and enlightened self-interest, is the beginning of Sostratus'
education. When Cnemon follows jug and mattock into the well,
we almost see Pan push him; when Cnemon proclaims, in a wet
recantation, that no man can be independent and self-sufficient, the
very speeding-up of the metre suggests the ungentle influence of
the god. And later too is it not Pan who, through the agency of
Geta and Sicon, forces Cnemon to join in the final revel, the Kit)&O'
preceding the y4&o ? The revel-music in Act 5, like that in Act 3,

' See the perceptive treatment of Plato's use of the countryside in his
Phaedrus by A. M. Parry, "Landscape in Greek Poetry," YCS, 15 (1957)
16-19.
10 On Pan's pervasive role in the Dyskolos as a defender of good fellow-
ship and rejoicing, see Yeames, p. 2, and Photiades, pp. 111-16 (but Lever,
326, has reservations). The god influences men diversely according to their
temperaments, Sostratus through unselfish love, Cnemon through the shock
treatment of violent accident. On nymphs as good fairies in Menander see
Webster, SLGC, 83.

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6 The " Dyskolos" of Menander

calls everyone to the energetic enjoyment of life; a

pipes self-interest cannot prevail, nor can the new Hellenistic
tendency towards retreat into oneself."'
There is another divinity mightier and less moral than Pan.
Blind chance, nv*w, sways the Hellenistic world. Menander often
uses such images as "stream of fortune" and "wheel of fortune"
to illustrate the unpredictability of the future.'2 From this basic
uncertainty of life are deduced some Menandrian morals: the
senselessness of avarice, the folly of postponing the good things of
life, the need for trust in human companionship rather than in
the delusive gifts of chance. Furthermore, the omnipotence of rv'xq
gives character its full importance. The Greeks deified forces in
the world about them, and if chance was felt to be a force, so was
anything, like character (TpO'7ros), strong enough to resist it."' Not
that good character ensured prosperity; far from it. But good
character was a dependable constant in a changing world. Unim-

Il His call to social responsibility differentiates the teachings of Menander

from those of Epicurus, who came to Athens in 307 B.C. Their similar
appreciation of tolerance and friendship, based on the premise of the
imperfectibility of man, should not obscure this equally important disagree-
ment. Does a romantic hope like Menander's perhaps lie behind Epicurus'
dictum (Diog. Laert. 10. 120), "The wise man will love the country"?
12 For the omnipotence of Fortune and man's consequent ignorsace of
the future, see frs. G, 1, K, 8, 249, 395, and Per. 680 ff. (the ruin of
Pataecus). In Menander's plays man's confused ignorance of his own situa-
tion and that of his family often leads to positively good results: thus
Agnoia in the Perikeiromene is a benevolent deity. Webster, SM, 199-200,
argues that Menander's r4xv is not blind chance but more like Aristotle's
"unforeseen meeting of two chains of rigorous connection."
21 Cf. fr. 223: " Anything that has power is considered a god "; so mind
(13), country (1), and (jokingly) Shamelessness (223), as well as gold
and sliver (614). Compare the famous tribute to Demetrius Poliorktes
(Ath. 253c-d): " Other gods are either far away or have no ears or do not
exist or do not attend to us at all, but thee we see in our midst, not wood
nor stone but flesh and blood." Foresight (Epit. 126-8, Per. 17-18) is a
bulwark against fortune; although human reason cannot foretell the future
(fr. 417), it can be wary of it. Menander most often voices the hope (cf.
Dyskolos 270 ff., 860) that the evil will fail eventually and the good succeed,
and that the gods care for good men (321, 714); the benevolence of Fortune
working through character would suggest the theodicy. But Menander
may not always be so optimistic; ill-fortune makes men unnaturally
vicious (fr. 631), and "a beggar wronged is most ill-tempered of all"
(Dysikolos, 295-6). Cnemon's faulty character may therefore be the product
of his misfortunes.

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 Kenneth J. Reckford 7

pressed by good fortune, unbroken by bad, the good man remained

master of himself, and so, in a sense, of his circumstances. The
divine function of character suggests to Menander a possible
theodicy in a rough and irrational world (Epit. 680-7; typically,
a slave, Onesimus, is lecturing an old man on morals):

[If, then, the gods don't spend their time and effort
on man's affairs,] have they no thought for us?
Not so. Each man gets Character from them
as garrison-commander. This one force
wears down men's being if they use it wrongly;
others it saves. That truly is divine
which causes every man success or failure
in all his acts. To this pay reverence,
avoiding senseless deeds, for fear of failure.1'

"The fault," Onesimus continues (to paraphrase), "is not in our

stars, Smicrines, but in ourselves, that we act unworthily." But
good character sees the heroes of Menander through the tests im-
posed by the uncertainties of fortune. Pan is a kind of benevolent
tutor, for the examinations with which he confronts Sostratus
reveal to the youth the inner strength that we are confident will see
him through the rest of life unscathed.
Although a sure "garrison-commander," character can be in-
fluenced and shaped. " Evil communications corrupt good manners,"
said Menander, like Euripides before him and St. Paul after; more
usually in his optimistic comedies good manners improve bad.15
This contagiousness of character gives new importance to social
prudence (fr. 203):

In some respects the saying, " Know Thyself,"

is incomplete. More relevant to say,
"Know Other Men! "

""Although the central statement on the importance of character is

indeed valid, one must allow for comic exaggeration on the part of a slave.
Menander, like Horace after him (cf. Satires 2. 3 and 2.7), saw the humor
latent in the conflict between wisdom and class-structure. I cannot, how-
ever, agree with Webster, SM, 204, that by substituting character for the
usual Sadpcwr (cf. fr. 714) and then equating it with divinity Onesimus
produces a "nonsense philosophy"; see above, note 13, and Webster, SM,
204, on the truth in Onesimus' remarks.
""On the communication of norms see frs. 179; H, 3; 634; a "friend
of one's own character " is therefore all-important (P, 1; 800). Most
serious characters in Menander's plays are basically good people, but they
are fallible (fr. 432).

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8 The "Dyskolos " of Menander

That one must choose permanent friends carefully is an obvious

corollary. But how to know them? Perhaps through conversation
(" In discourse character is made apparent"), perhaps through the
kind of testing to which Sostratus and Gorgias are exposed in the
Dyskolos.'1 Their subsequent exchange of sisters for wives is sym-
bolic of their new found harmony of interest, the bond which, in
the world of Mlenander, unites all men of good will (fr. 475: " No
good man is a stranger to me ").
Menander's chief concern in the Dyskolos is the unmasking of
character. In the beginning mask, costume, and nomenclature in-
vite prejudice, but first impressions may be and usually are mis-
taken: thus Sostratus is not a playboy nor Gorgias a truculentus,
and even Cnemon becomes more human as the play progresses.'7
As discourse and action strip away the prejudices about character
suggested by the mask-everything, that is, but age, sex, and walk
of life-true individuality shines forth and nobody is left typical.
From fragments of other plays we knew that Menander's courtesans
were not always "greedy," his soldiers not always "boastful "; to
judge from the Dyskolos, he preferred even when young to restrict

1"Character does not appear on the surface; it may, for example, be

obscured by one's financial condition (fr. 419). Yet it is revealed almost
instantly by stage-magic; as L. A. Post, From Homer to Menander
(Berkeley, 1951) 242; says, "Menander seems to write a kind of dramatic
shorthand." Whole dramas are tests of character; Photiades 110, note 1,
suggests that one of Menander's prologues may have been spoken by the
personification, 'EXeyxos. TeK/h7PLOP rp6riov and reipa rporov are common
expressions in his plays. Once perceived, good character may be taken
for granted (frs. 407, 532; Sam. 135).
17 Webster, ALFCA, 135 (and see SLGC, 123), notes two important
results from fourth-century changes in mask and costume: (a) characters
in plays looked more like ordinary householders, and (b) the availability
of a greater number of masks gave more indication of character than had
hitherto been possible. Webster, SM, 192, also demonstrates that their
hair-dressing might connect members of the same " household " (father, son,
slave), making contrasts possible between households as well as between
different ages and sexes. See the convincning speculations about masks used
in the Dyskolos by Goold, 151, who notes the probable resemblance in hair-
do of Cnemon, Gorgias, and Davus (rolled hair?), and Callippides, Sostra-
tus, and Geta (long hair?). In reference to the portrayal of Gorgias, who
is not the boor he looks, Goold comments, "Perhaps Menander liked to
emphasize in his portrayal of people that the characters in his plays are
not 'stock-types' but individuals."

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 Kenneth J. Reckford 9

stock types to the lower, secondary characters like the slaves and
the cook, reserving freedom of development for his serious personae.
Menander's desire to avoid stock characters limits his much-
discussed debt to Theophrastus.18 His plays owe much to the Peri-
patetic concern with character as revealed in ethical choice; he mav
well have been impressed by the vivid and dramatic character-
sketches of Theophrastus, who in turn was indebted to comedy.
Probably Menander was also influenced by the Aristotelian doctrine
of the mean.19 The contrast between ethical extremes in matters of
money (avarice and extravagance) and social behavior (quarrel-
someness and flattery) gives spice to many of his plays, and like
Aristotle he senses that the nearer extreme is always the greater
danger. Yet he remains a poet, not a philosopher "bound to swear
to the words of any master." The Characters of Theophrastus are
really caricatures whose whole life is warped by the faults to which

18 According to Diog. Laert. 5. 36, Theophrastus was the teacher of

Menander. But the idea (cf. Yeames, p. 2) that the Characters were
meant "as a sort of hand-book" for comic writers is surely exaggerated.
See Ath. 21a on the dramatic teaching-method of Theophrastus (cited by
J. M. Edmonds, Loeb Library [Cambridge, Mass., 1953] 8). The popu-
larity of such side-illustrations of ethical problems may have led Theo-
phrastus to publish his very "exoteric" Characters, which Edmonds, pp.
5-7, argues were unscientifically planned to an unscientific end. Scholarly
opinion has generally favored the partial and unintentional influence of
this teacher on his dramatically gifted pupil; thus Webster, ALFCA, 134,
and SM, 212-14, stresses the difference between the comic characters of
Menander that we know and those of Theophrastus. In his excellent dis-
cussion (pp. 157-82, esp. 170-72), Schmid traces the reciprocal influence
of comedy and formal and popular philosophy, with special reference to
Cnemon and the figure of the " misanthrope."
19Aristotle's definition of the mean (Eth. Nic. 1106b) as "a condition
of the soul revealed in choice" points the way to dramatic presentation
of his philosophy. But his concern is normally with the healthy mean,
not the faulty extremes. Thus, on good (social) and bad (anti-social)
behavior (1126b-1127a), he briefly describes the &peIKOL as "those who
praise everything to give pleasure " and briefly names their opposites, who
think nothing of giving pain, 86oTKoXOt and &odptaes, but mainly describes
the mean of good social behavior. His &dpOLKO& of 1128b, useless in social
gatherings, are clearly akin to the &fOKOXO& on the anti-social side; indeed,
as "anti-social" suggests, these extremes are the ones most opposed to
the means (see the practical rule, 1109b). In 1122a prodigality is pre-
ferable to meanness. The other rule (1109b), that we should avoid the
extreme to which we ourselves are most prone, seems to influence the
dramatic portraits of Menander.

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10 The " Dyskolos " of Menander

they are enslaved; those of Menander are never totally identified

with the fault (apwKxcla for Sostratus, 4Oaapppl for Callippides,
SvoxoXia for Gorgias) towards which they lean. Cnemon is of course
the apparent exception. He is called (and even calls himself)
8vaKoXos; XaACTos' is a frequent synonym. Aristotle uses the word
8vaKoxos to denote the man lacking in " sociability " but limits his
description to the sensible man who embodies the mean, leaving us
to deduce the extremes from common experience. Theophrastus'
Characters do not include the SvKo)oosq. Perhaps his aMa8 (the
rough-speaking man) comes closest to Cnemon: the harshness of
this type is illustrated by his curt answers (or none at all), his
suspiciousness of visitors, his bad temper, his avoidance of prayer
to the gods, and curiously, his refusal to dance at celebrations.20
His unsociability, like the other reigning faults portrayed by Theo-
phrastus, is not a vice, nor is it even a crime against society, as
avarice might be; in the end he hurts no one but himself. But
even this unsociability does not really define the man, any more than
does his name, " Mr. Shanks "; it is only symptomatic of an inner
harshness founded on disappointment in life.21
The plot of the Dyskolos is thoroughly subordinated to the revela-
tion of character It lacks the stock situations-violation of maidens,
exposure of babies, recognition through tokens-which, although
older than Euripides, have helped bring New Comedy into ill
repute.22 In his earlier years, perhaps, Menander concentrated his
efforts more on character drawing; later, as his Epitrepontes shaws,

2? Theophrastus, xviii, defines dritfa7 as "the assumption of injustice

in the case of all men," but his drwros is driven by the fear of personal
injury. Cnemon's assumption of human viciousness is more impersonal.
Aristotle (below, note 42) saw &rwrlca as a common fault of old men.
acdOeu, defined by Theophrastus as " roughness in social intercourse, ex-
pressed verbally," fits Cnemon much better. In some respects the aWdalds
(like Cnemon) is simply ill-tempered; it is foolish but not vicious to curse
a stone that knocks against one's foot.
21 The homely rusticity of the name Kv*4wr was pointed out by R. A. Pack,
"On the Plot of Menander's Dyscolus," CP, 30 (1935), 152, note 4 follow-
ing Fick-Bechtel, Die griechischen Personennamen (G5ttingen, 1894), 171
(" Schienbein ").
22Webster, SM, 153, 170-3 (see also SLGC, 84ff.), points out that rapes
and recognition scenes appeared first in tragedy, then were parodied in
mythological comedy and used seriously for the comedy of everyday life.
It is not the externals of the story that matter so much as the use to
which they are put.

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 Kenneth J. Reckford 11

he combined the drama of character with a more complex plot allow-

ing throughout for irony and suspense. The Dyskolos is not im-
mature, just less ambitious. Within its limits it is a complete
success. Its purpose is twofold: to portray a stage in the education
of two young and two old men, and by contrasting their respective
follies and abnormalities to illustrate the desirability of a Menan-
drian norm in human behavior. To serve these aims language and
stage movement are rigidly controlled. Aristophanic and Plautine
extravagance are ruled out except in the farcical finale of Act 5.
The segregation of exclusively funny parts-the coward Pyrrhias,
the e'(po -and----A&Cov team of Geta and Sicon, and poor, shrieking
old Simik&-in short, the use of comic relief, betrays the essential
seriousness of the play.2" None of the kitchen personae have any
depth. Menander uses them functionally, to fill in gaps in the main
action, to give information, to help catalyze dramatic crises, and in
the case of Geta and Sicon, to preserve the vital and ritual connec-
tion of comedy with food, drink, song, and celebration. But the
semi-isolation of these comic types shows the extent to which New
Comedy has moved away from Old; it suggests the influence both
of tragedy and of Peripatetic self-consciousness about humor, wit,
and fun.24
Intending as he does to demonstrate the brotherhood of man,

3Pyrrhias is a aerrus currens-cum- coward; no one in the audience

could object to his being pelted with clods and pears (cf. our pie-throwing).
Sicon, like all dXUrores, exists mainly to have his pretensions demolished
by Geta and Cnemon; on the cook (along with doctors and soldiers) as
a boaster, see Legrand, 163-5. A playwright in search of laughs and who
cared less about total effect would have made SimikA drunk, like so many
old women in comedy. See Webster, SLGC, 121: " The slaves' masks and
the old women remain distorted caricatures; the younger men's masks
seem to have come in during the Middle Comedy and never to have been
much distorted."
*' See Webster, ALFCA, 134-5, on the influence of the Peripatos on
Menander and through him on Apollodorus of Carystus. Webster's earlier
remarks (120-8) on the concern of Theophrastus, the Peripatetic bi-
ographers, and contemporary portraiture with individuality are most
relevant here.
On the Menandrian mixture of o2rov8* and IrazA&, see Plutarch, Quaest.
Cont. 7. 8. 3, p. 711 F. (Koerte, II, p. 9). Very similar in method are the
third-century " diatribes " of Bion of Borysthenes, who attacks 0AXapyvpci,
j&e4s+4otpha, and other prominent faults of his age by poking fun at the
ridiculousness of their addicts. (On Bion's relation to comedy see the

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12 The "Dyskolos" of Menander

Menander cannot represent his principal characters as essentially

comic. Each must have an inner dignity, which the plot illuminates
as it progresses.
Act 1 of the Dyskolos misleads us, stressing lack of dignity and
diversity of interest. Cnemon is caricatured, and with his speech
and actions violent and grotesque, he is comic in the Aristophanic
tradition of fierce old men. In brief, he acts like his mask. Pan
forewarns the audience that Cnemon is a " man without humanity,"
SVcrxoA0o (the type) in all his relations: he fought with his wife,
left her, hates everyone (which is not altogether true, for he appar-
ently loves his daughter). Pyrrhias calls him a lunatic (88 ff.)
and Sostratus readily agrees. Chaereas suggests more humanely
(129-131) that "all poor farmers are bitter," but Cnemon on first
entrance exaggerates his own position to the point of self-parody.
Yet Menander does not portray him as the sole eccentric in a
world of reasonable men. Swayed by love, the hero, Sostratus, is
unreasonable enough to curse out his friend Chaereas at the least
hint of opposition.25 Yet although love may seem witless it is not
self-seeking; if "all the world loves a lover," it is perhaps because
true love is incompatible with what the sophists-showed to be man's
natural striving for roT avAovepov. Thus Sostratus proclaims himself

discussion by G. C. Fiske, Lucilius and Horace [Madison, 1920], 986-97.)

More gentle than Diogenes the Cynic, Bion seems to evince the hope that
a little good sense (and sense of humor) will vastly improve the world.
25 Chaereas is listed in the manuscript as a "parasite," but as Van
Groningen, p. 224, points out, he appears in Act 1 simply as a friend of
Sostratus. I see no evidence for agreeing with the statement of Turner,
p. 244, that he " lives by playing up to his patron's whims." Nor is he
simply a protatic person, "a device to get the action going," as Goold,
151, suggests. As a "practical man" (line 56), he sets off the altruistic
feelings of Sostratus, who admits that he "speaks well indeed, but not
entirely to my liking" (68-69). Compare the differentiation of Charisius
from Chairestratus, " the ordinary young man about town " (A. W.
Gomme, Essays in Greek History and Literature [Oxford, 1937], 289) in
the Epitrepontes. The deafness of love to reason is a truism (see frs. 43,
53, and passim), but at least, by destroying self-esteem, love " supports a
better ideal " (Post, From Homer to Menander, 233). See Aristotle, Rhet.
1389a (and below, note 42) on youth: "They choose good, not expedient
action, for they live more according to natural bent than to calculation."
See also L. A. Post, "The 'Vis' of Menander," TAPA, 62 (1931), 213:
" Menander first found in woman's love a regenerative influence." Should
one add that Menander is reported by Suidas (K6rte, I, p. 1) to have
been "most insane in respect to women"

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 Kenneth J. Reckford 13

dissatisfied with Chaereas' practical dual standard. The " parasite "
advocates one definite method to be followed in pursuing a mistress,
another in choosing a wife, but Sostratus insists recklessly on
pursuing a wife. Such impracticality, Menander suggests later,
may be the surest foundation of a good marriage.28
The other actors are displeased by the frivolous appearance of
Sostratus. Suspiciously loyal like Gorgias, his master, Davus takes
the city boy at mask value and calls him "a wicked young man";
more cautiously, Gorgias will call him " an evildoer, from the looks
of him." The jarring of personalities is worsened by the friction
between country and city, poverty and riches, for Sostratus' very
refinement brands him as a&OTUo'q, a city-dweller out of place in
poverty-stricken Phyle.27
Act 2 presents a partial thawing out of isolationism and suspicion.
Stubborn but young, Gorgias is a fit mediator between his father
and Sostratus, for unlike his father he can be conciliated. Sostratus
now gives a demonstration of character, both in his apologia-his
intentions are honorable, and he will marry the girl without a
dowry-and in his perseverance in her pursuit, undaunted by
Gorgias' warning that his chances are slim. What is typically
Menandrian in this static episode is that Gorgias' character too
is subtly tested. We know from Pan (28) that Gorgias has "a
mind above his years," but was he ever young? He is called " inex-
perienced in love-matters" (345), and with justice; later in the
play he is noticeably woman-shy. His loyalty to his sister leads
him ridiculously to deliver a sermon on not harming the poor to a
youth his own age who has no such intention We know from
other plays that Menander insists upon the value of tolerance. As

36 Menander would, of course, agree with Chaereas that good character

is the essence of a suitable wife; see frs. 581, 580, 570-571; and we know
from Pan that Cnemon's daughter is a good match. But Callippides,
himself a very practical man, points out that a marriage originating in
love will be secure (789-790); he is perhaps wary of the mariage de
convenance to a domineering " dowered wife," an evil figure in New Comedy
(Legrand, 130-1, and Webster, SM, 56, 66). Cf. Plautus, Aul. 478 ff.
(Megadorus): if the wealthy married the daughters of the poor citizens
without a dowry, the world would be much better off.
27 Sostratus' father, we are told (775), is a rich, successful farmer. But
Sostratus clearly has city manners: he is daTLK6c TX7 8LarTpL,7 (41), KO/4169
(414). Although rpvOep6s, brought up in luxury (766), he is not 'rpvoCo
(C" spoilt") or dp7y6 (755).

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14 The " Dyskolos " of Menander

Charisius learns in the Epitrepontes (693 ff.), one must see one's
own faults before blaming others; another fragment proclaims the
wickedness of judging a matter before hearing all the arguments.28
Eventually, therefore, Gorgias must not only retract his allegations
(321) but also apologize: "I spoke too strongly." (315-16) Only
then, their characters tentatively established, can the two youths
become friends.

An important sign of Menander's literary sophistication appears

in the contrast of Sostratus and Gorgias. On first appearance the
notable virtue of each youth points up the vice to which the other
is most prone. Thus Gorgias' moral firmness and integrity suggests
Sostratus' weakness of fibre, and Sostratus' openness, moral gener-
osity, and lack of self-seeking illustrate the stubbornness and sus-
piciousness apparently common in Gorgias' "family" (Cnemon-
Georgias-Davus).29 Through this contrast Menander implies diver-
gent moral requirements. Fully to pass the test of character Sos-
tratus must activate his inner firmness and Gorgias reveal hidden
springs of generosity. This moral challenge to the two, necessitated
by their juxtaposition, is the heart of the play; the working out of
external embarrassments is secondary. And through their develop-
ing friendship, a local segment of the universal bond uniting all
good men, the conflict between country and city, poverty and riches,
may symbolically be resolved.
As long, however, as Cnemon is stereotyped, this resolution must
be prevented by his intransigence. If the function of Act 2 was
to thaw out Sostratus and Gorgias, that of Act 3 is to facilitate
a felt, though unmarked, shifting of sympathy to Cnemon. Already
in Act 2 Gorgias' portrait of Cnemon-itself, not incidentally, a
proof of the youth's generosity-suggested compensations for his
violent misanthropy. In the first place, his search for a son-in-law
"with habits like his own" hints that he loves one person, his

28 Prejudice may, indeed, backfire: cf. fr. 547: "The man who judges
in advance before hearing the matter out is himself wicked for giving
credit falsely." The social slanderer replaces Aristophanes' enemy, the
oloodirr-Is. Webster, SM, 219, discusses the probable influence on Menander
of the Peripatetic theory of decision "not by hard-and-fast rules but by
common sense applied to the particular instance."
2 Lines 270 ff. show that Gorgias has at least a touch of Cnemon's
4drwTlr. Sehmid, 166-7, notes that the traits of Sostratus designated by
darTC6K and KOIA#V6 are antithetical to misanthropy.

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 Kenneth J. Reckford 15

daughter. Even if he turns out to be a Shylock, we must sympathize

a little if he loses his daughter to some worthless Lorenzo. More
important, the lonely misanthrope looks more and more like a
frustrated idealist.30 Like the Cynics, he is given to criticizing the
f8LO& that men lead (355 ff.); suspicious of the idle leisure class,
he is violently juto'r17pos, intolerant of vice (388). 1 In Act 4
we shall see that he desires but despairs of a better world. Yet all
these implied compensations by no means whitewash his character;
what matters is that he has been humanized, untyped. His aggres-
siveness in Act 3 is very different from that of Act 1, in part because
we know now that his bark is worse than his bite; in part, too,
because the victims of his wrath are a slave and a cook. No tears
need be shed for the defeat of Sicon, an aX4(ov (like all comic
cooks) who prides himself especially on his savoir-faire. It is true
that Cnemon grudges Pan his worship and lashes out at sacrifices
and sacrificers generally. But his scepticism is not impiety.32 He

'I The first veiled suggestion of frustrated idealism occurs in lines 355-6:
"He fights with all men, rai[ling against] the lives they lead"; he can't
stand people of leisure, might tolerate Sostratus if he thought him a
common laborer. (All this gives a humorous twist to the usual disdain
of the rich father for the poor beloved girl.) In 388 Cnemon is called
ptvowr6ripos Ty Tp67rW. In 717-722 he explores the reasons for his mis
anthropy: " It almost did me in, by Hephaestus, to look upon men's lives,
how they lived and kept on making calculations of gain; so I imagined
that no one would naturally feel good will towards anyone else. This was
what got in my way." In 742-5 he adds wistfully that if all men were of
good will, there would be no need of law-courts or prisons or wars, for
everyone would be satisfied with what he had-" but keep on doing this,
if it's what you like! " (The sarcasm of this last line, 746, suggests that
Gorgias' nobility has not really convinced Cnemon that unselfishness can
ever flourish in this world.) Post, 404, well argues that Cnemon " suffers
from ingrown virtue rather than vice."
81 The luAworbrnpos naturally avoids the Theophrastean fault of bXo7rovo?1p1a,
or " sympathy with vice," although Menander charitably disapproves of
those who hate the sinner as well as the sin.
"According to Pan (lines 11-13), Cnemon speaks to him when he passes
the shrine, even though he is sorry afterwards. Sohmid, 165-6, cites lines
447 and 453 to show that although less pious than his daughter, Cnemon
is not a ee6LaXos. His preference for the simple (bloodless?) sacrifice
recalls that of Theophrastus (Porph., De Abstinentia 2. 5-20), an idea
which may have been in the air, as Webster, SM, 200, and Schmid, 173,
suggest. Menander's own ideal must have come close to that expressed in
Horace's lovely ode, 3.23, on rsutioa Phidyle.

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 16 The " Dyskolos " of Menander

aims his criticism explicitly at men for whom the point of the
sacrifice is the subsequent barbecue and implicitly at superstitious
people like Sostratus' mother who run frantically from shrine to
shrine placating all the gods.83 Like the 4.XAro'vv1poo, the &L8aL&LLA V
was a familiar figure of Menander's day; both are vicious char-
acters of Theophrastus. Cnemon's misanthropy is comic and
pathetic by turns, but it is hardly characteristic of a " man without
humanity" or a "lunatic." Rather, it is an ingrown, very human
moral perversion.
To maintain our interest Menander alternates romantic and
anti-romantic elements in his story. Sostratus, for example, re-
enters tanned and exhausted, unpraised by Cnemon, and dis-
illusioned, we may be sure, with the delights of toil. He has, how-
ever, passed the real examination set by Pan, much as Ferdinand
in The Tempest carries firewood to win from her disillusioned
father the hand of Miranda.84 His success in the fairytale is thus
guaranteed, partly because the change in his outward appearance
(corresponding to his inner development) will delude Cnemon into
thinking him a countryman, partly too because he has convinced
Gorgias of his worth (764ff.):
"You came to the business under no pretenses;
though used to luxury, you acted truly
and thought it right to do your all for marriage.
You grabbed a hoe; you did hard labor; that's what
reveals the true man: in good times he is willing
to equate himself with the poor man. You have given
sufficient proof of character: keep it up! "

And it is Gorgias who will eventually dispose of the girl in marriage.

Still, his labors done, Sostratus remains nine-tenths untransformed.
He shows generosity (his typical virtue) and good nature, inviting
Gorgias and even Davus to lunch. Very much the Athenian, he
prefers to confer favors, not to accept them.35 But good character

I' Schmid, 172, and I came independently to the same conclusion, that
the mother of Sostratus was a Be&crt8aluAn (lines 260-3). This figure is one
of Theophrastus' Characters (xvi) and gives title and theme to a lost
play of Menander.
" For the testing of Ferdinand, see The Tempest, Act I, Scene 2: ". . .
this swift business / I must uneasy make, lest too light winning / make the
prize light."; Act 3, Scene 1; Act 4, Scene 1: ". . . all thy vexations / were
but my trials of thy love, and thou / hast strangely stood the test."
*6 The attitude is aristocratic. Thucydides (2, 40) applied it to Athens;

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 Kenneth J. Reckford

once demonstrated, like a theorem, Sostratus may be permitted to

relax, even to relapse into the mooning young-lover type: while
Gorgias passes his own test of unselfishness, saving his unkind
stepfather from drowning, Sostratus, according to his own story,
gazes so fondly at the distraught girl that three times he lets slip
the rope and almost kills her father down in the well!
Cnemon's "conversion" in Act 4 reveals the same mixture of
romance and realism. Like old Cleaenetus in the Georgos, he is
forced by a sudden stroke of Fortune-his fall into the well-to
submit to the Menandrian facts of life: events are unpredictable,
life is insecure, no man is an island.36 Cnemon therefore takes back
his wife Myrrhine, and to Gorgias, who has returned good for evil
and so belied Cnemon's misanthropic beliefs, he gratefully hands
over the management of his property and the right to dispose of the
girl as he sees fit. The happy ending of the fairy-tale for Sostratus
and the girl is thus ensured. But the mind of the Dyskolos has
changed, not his heart.37 Following his speech of resignation he

Aristotle makes it characteristic of the ,AeyaX64ivxos (Eth. Nic. 1124b):

"He is the sort to do good to others but ashamed to receive good from
them, for the one befits a superior person, the other an inferior."
a6 The similarities between the Georgos and the Dyskolos will be apparent
from the reconstruction by J. M. Edmonds (Loeb Library, 324) of the
former: " Cleaenetus, an old bachelor farmer, is living in a country deme
where he continues to live like a day-laborer although owner of the farm.
Years before he had (apparently) known and loved Myrrhing, from whom,
however, he had separated before the birth of her daughter. She had mean-
while (apparently) married and is now a widow living in poverty. Her
son, Gorgias, finds employment in the country with Cleaenetus. One day
the old farmer, wielding his heavy two-pronged mattock, wounds himself
severely, and would have died but for the really filial care of the young
man." Edmonds' conjecture that Gorgias is the son of Myrrhin8 is partially
confirmed by the analogy of the Dyskolos. The Georgos is probably a later
play, being more complex: Cleaenetus' "recognition " of his insufficiency
leads to confusion, since he (apparently) decides to marry the girl himself.
The usual reversals and discoveries must follow. On the contrasting of
women in this play see Meautis, 231. The Dyskolos supports the argument
of Webster, SM, 50, that in the Georgos, as in the Hero (34), "the two
young men are obviously contrasted as town-boy and country-boy, and
Gorgias' violent attack on the town boy's morality must have been one
of the high points in the play. . . ." The contrast of town and country
boys is at least as old as Aristophanes' Banqueters.
'7 The incompleteness of Cnemon's conversion has been noted by Barigazzi,
193; Kraus, 155; Martin, " Avant .. .." 211 (contrasting the transformation

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18 The "Dyskolos" of Menander

asks to live "as I wish," bids the company a gloomy farewell, and
abruptly dismisses Sostratus from consideration. Aristophanes
might have transformed him completely, as he turned the vulgar
sausage-seller into a just leader of men and foolish old Demos into
the revered king of "violet-crowned Athens." Menander is por-
traying a real man, too human to be a caricature of viciousness, too
human again to change his manner of life like Scrooge in the course
of twenty-four hours.
Act 5 is the act of surprises. In its first scene two tests are
administered simultaneously to Callippides, Sostratus' father, and
to Gorgias. The contrast between the easy-going attitude of Caffip-
pides and the harshness of Cnemon is not so explicit as that between
Micio and Demeas in the Adelphoe, but here too both fathers experi-
ence a crisis. Callippides balks at having to accept not one but
two beggars as in-laws; Menander's point is apparently that the
rich city-dweller is potentially as opposed to the social virtues,
because of his OtXapyvp, as the poor farmer. For a time there is
danger that this particular camel will not go through the eye of
the needle. But just as Gorgias mediated earlier between Cnemon
and Sostratus, so now Sostratus mediates between his father and
Gorgias. He preaches his father a Menandrian sermon on the
unreliability of money-a corollary of the rule of Fortune-and
on the greater value of friends. Now for the first time we see the
importance of Sostratus' acceptance of Gorgias as a friend. And
Gorgias is still being tested, for when Callippides accedes to the
wishes of his son (with only the one implicit rebuke, " Why do you
quote truisms at me?"), the generosity of the "beggar" is called
into question.88 At first he stands on his dignity; then he too yields
to friendship and humanity. The fact that everyone is confronted
with a serious moral choice, landowner as well as small farmer,
worker as well as lover, brings the immediacy of Menander's ethical

of Euclio in Plautus' Aulularia from miser into generous father), and

"Ddoouverte" 368; Photiades, 119; Schmid, 179. Contrast not only the
transformation of Demos in Aristophanes' Knights but also the hinted
transformation of Trygaios in his Peace (cf. lines 860-62, 336-36, 349-53,
and esp. 349-50: " If I get Peace you will no longer find me a harsh judge
or ill-tempered [6&bKoXOS] or rough in character as before.")
*I I follow the interpretation of W. E. Blake, who suggested to the
American Philological Association (on Dec. 28, 1959) that Gorgias' resis-
tance was motivated by his overhearing the word vr7Xa6s applied to him
and his sister by Callippides (line 795).

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 Kenneth J. Reckford 19

prescriptions home to the audience. Indeed, the two marriages

with which the fairytale concludes are symbolic of a hoped-for
reconciliation of the diverse interests whose struggling disparity
was the greatest problem of the late fourth century."9 Only fore-
bearance and generous sacrifice on the part of the rich and generous
acceptance of that generosity by the poor could bridge the growing
chasm between the parties; only the recognition of individual
dignity and common humanity makes the offer and the acceptance
possible. The unmasking of individuality thus becomes for Men-
ander the keystone of social progress.
One unreconstructed individualist remains. Not all men, as
Socrates thought, naturally profit from lessons; Cnemon is still
alone, still called 8iaKoXos. Sostratus exclaims on his "invincible
character." But those who do not voluntarily join the dance of
life may be forced into it. Since Cnemon has no share in family
kindness, Pan surrenders him, as it were, to the untender mercies
of his opponents, Geta and Sicon. Similarly, in the Epitrepontes,
the harsh irritability and meddlesomeness of Smicrines caused him
to be exposed in Act 5 to the banter of a sermonizing slave and an
old maid-servant. The farcical ending of the Dyskolos is not a con-
cession to the baser elements of Menander's audience nor the wild
fling of a juvenile imagination.40 Rather, it is a tribute to the very
spirit of comedy, to the K tuoq and ya4os in which the forces of
vitality and joy triumph over the figures of death, desolation, and
discomfort. In Old Comedy the enemies of society are expelled
ignominiously from the feast; in the New they are impelled to join
it. To the infectious sound of Pan's victorious music the company
proceed, perhaps even dance into the shrine.

'I See the good discussion of economic tension in the post-Alexandrian

era by Sir W. W. Tarn-G. T. Griffith, Hellenistic Civilisation, 3 ed.
(London, 1952), 108-21, esp. 120 (" the most unhealthy phenomenon in
Hellenism "). Tarn (279) cites the plea of the poet Cercidas to his friends
to meet the threat of social revolution by healing the sick and giving to
the poor.
'? Menander wrote at least 108 comedies but won first prize only eight
times; cf. Susemihl, 256 and notes 48-49. The idea of Martin, " D6couverte "
374, that he won because of concessions to low taste, seems to me just as
speculative as its contrary, the idea of Webster, ALFCA, 135, that the
decorous tone of his comedies was facilitated by the restricted franchise
(and so abolition of free tickets?) in the "Macedonizing" periods, 321-319
and 317-307 B. C.

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 20 The "Dyskolos " of Menander

So far we have stressed the contrast between Sostratus and

Gorgias, Callipides and Cnemon. We should not, however, ignore
the running contrast between age and youth throughout the play.
The toils of Sostratus were compared to those of Ferdinand; but in
The Tempest, a play of his old age, Shakespeare suggests through
recurrent metaphor that the love of Ferdinand and Miranda may be
insubstantial as a dream, his based on momentary passion, hers
on newborn wonder; to the illusions of both is opposed the hard-
won wisdom of Prospero, the realist-magician, who knows that old
age is the time when illusions fade.41 To Menander at twenty-five
the illusions of love seem-perhaps are-more real. A few simple
changes in the outlooks of Sostratus and Gorgias and their happi-
ness is secured. Youth is seen to be wiser than age, if folly can be
wisdom; for Cnemon has succumbed to what Aristotle pictured as
the universal fault of age (Rhet. 1389b):

They are ill-natured. For ill-nature makes the worst of everything. But
old men suspect the worst from lack of faith, and it is from experience that
they come to lose their faith.42

From the typical attitude of aged "calculation" Cnemon is rapt

by force, Callippides by the wise counsel of his son. Indeed,
Menander's own youthful optimism is betrayed by the fact that if
youth learns from experience in this play, experience also learns
from youth. The idea is not un-Greek. If Telemachus learned from
his elders but taught them little, yet Achilles and Priam, Neoptole-
mus and Philoctetes learn from each other. In the present play
the Child is instructor to the Man, generous impulse to petrified
calculation.
In conclusion a few negative points must be made. The Dyskolos

'" See the excellent chapter on the metaphorical unity of The Tempest
(mostly carried through imagery of dreams and shadows) in R. A. Brower,
The Fields of Light (New York, 1951).
"2 The passage on old age, Rhet. 1389b-1390a, is meant to color an orator's
excursus, and such sweeping generalizations would be hard to find in the
Ethics. Yet Aristotle's description suggests that he might have regarded
much of Cnemon's anti-social behavior as an encrustment natural to old
age: age is ungenerous, timid, cold, egotistical, calculating; " Not humanity
but feebleness makes them compassionate." But Menander does not so
generalize; he knows some old men like Callippides and others like
Cnemon, and his Cnemon is pessimistic without being cold, distrustful but
a hater of calculating men.

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 Kenneth J. Reckford 21

has proved once and for all that Menander's characters are not all
alike. Instructive here are the mistakes of able scholars who tried
to reconstruct the play from fragments: Cnemon is not, as was
thought, just another miser who must be convinced to spend his
money fittingly.'8 Our Dyskolos lacks the peculiar fault of Euclio;
his own is less curable. Rather than translate philosophical ideas
into verse, Menander uses Aristotelian and Theophrastean types
as a kind of algebra towards the construction of his own formulas
for human affairs. Now if, as the dramatist's purpose and the
artistic standards of his time demanded, all his serious characters
are strongly individualized, it follows that his plays cannot be all
alike." In externals, perhaps, they might be hard to distinguish
by memory: the same has been said of the novels of Jane Austen,
which by no means lose their internal fascination because they all
portray gentle society preoccupied with the search for stable mar-
riages and social security. The apparent " decadence " of a society
concerned mainly with love and money should not blind us to the
merits of its most able playwright; the recognitions and happy
endings are only his conventional tools, and he employs these with
subtlety and vigor. In only one respect can the Dyskolos be seen
as relatively immature. The development of its plot is simple and
linear, as contrasted with the complexly interwoven Epitrepontes
of his later years.45 But his exploitation of character contrast, com-
plete on a minor scale, points forward to the Second Adelphoe.

,' See the speculative reconstructions of the Dyskolos by Pack (above,

note 22), 151-160, and Webster, SM, 58, note 3 (" a single-character play "),
114 (the Dyskolos was a man who suddenly came into wealth), and 147-8.
It would be cruel to criticize their courageous efforts with our hindsight,
yet it should be noted that such reconstructions tend to rely on stock
characters and situations rather than to credit the dramatist with much
subtlety. Cf. the wise remarks of T. W. Lumb in Powell-Barber, New
Chapters (Oxford, 1921), 66: " Literary fragments are not like human
bones, one of which was sufficient for an Agassiz to reconstruct the whole
body with tolerable certainty."
"Thus Goold, 157, points out that such criticism as that of Terence,
Menander fecit Andriam et Perinthiam;
qui utramvis recte norit, ambas noverit,

is now shown to be invalid (not to say dangerous?). See the excellent

discussion by Gomme (above, note 25), 249-265, on what is external to
a Menandrian plot and what essential.
Few plays of Menander are absolutely dateable: only his Anger in
321, Dyskolos in 316, Charioteer in 312, Imbrians in 302. Webster, SM.,

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 22 The " Dyskolos " of Menander

The farcical element in the Dyskolos is beautifully integrated with

the serious developments; it is a perverted taste that would criticize
the play for having won a prize.
Hopefully, later discoveries will show us something of Menander's
poetic development, his gradual adaptation of the complex plot to
the requirements of character-portrayal. But the present play forces
us to acknowledge it as a " freeborn Athenian." Those who mistook
its identity will be convinced by its chief recognition-token of Attic
parentage: 0Aoao40oiv &wv a XwoaAa ("we pursue wisdom without
loss of vigor"2).4"

The University of North Carolina

THE DYSKOLOS OF MENANDER

Characters, in order of appearance:

Pan, a benevolent god.
Sostratus, a young Athenian of leisure.
Chaereas, his friend, a man of sense.
Pyrrhias, slave of Sostratus.
Cnemon, "the Curmudgeon," a poor farmer.
Girl, daughter of Cnemon.
Davus, slave of Gorgias.
Gorgias, serious, moral stepson of Cnemon.
Geta, slave of Callipides.
Sicon, a haughty cook.
Simike, aged slave of Cnemon.
Myrrhine, wife of Cnemon and mother of Gorgias.
Callipides, a rich landowner, father of Sostratus.
Scene: The Attic countryside, near Phyle. A cave, shrine of Pan and the
Nymphs. Houses of Cnemon and Gorgias.

108, puts the Bpitrepontes after 304, on the basis of metrical changes and
"decreasing fooling "; so also the Seoond Aidelphoe.
"Professor Thomas Means, no mean hand at comic staging, argued
at Wellesley that I seriously underrated the comic possibilities of the
Dyskolos, especially in its visual effects (carrying of sheep, procession of
slaves, contrast between "dignified" and " undignified " types). I agree
that, subordinated to the dramatist's main purpose, such scenes are essential
to the famous Menandrian vis, which Julius Caesar estimated at its
proper value.
This paper owes much to the advice and encouragement of Professor John
Finley and to the detailed criticisms of Professors Robert Getty and
Henry Immerwahr. I am grateful also to the Classical Association of New
England for giving me a theatre in which to test some of my ideas.

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 Kenneth J. Reclcford 23

Synopsis of the play:

ACT I Prologue, by Pan. He tells of the misanthropy of Cnemon, whose

quarrelsomeness had forced Myrrhine to leave him and live in great
poverty with her son, Gorgias. Cnemon himself, also poor, remained
with an old housekeeper and a young daughter whose natural,
unspoilt piety Pan decided to reward by making a rich young
Athenian (Sostratus) fall in love with her.

Sostratus himself, appearing, reveals the depth of his love to

Chaereas, whose commonsensical approach he rejects. Pyrrhias runs
in, terrified of the "lunatic," Cnemon, who had chased him away
with clods and pears. Cnemon is seen, grumbling about the
" crowds "; after growling at the citified Sostratus, he exits. Enter
the Girl, distressed because Simike has dropped a bucket into the
well (within). Sostratus lovingly fetches water for her but is
prevented by the suspicious slave, Davus. Exeunt S, P and C, in
search of Geta, who can advise them.

Chorus of revellers at Pan's shrine.

ACT II Gorgias scolds Davus for not learning more about the city stranger.
Sostratus returns; he missed Geta, who was employed by the super-
stitious mother of S. in some sacrifice. Gorgias preaches on the
dangerous wrongness of harming the poor; S. indignantly affirms
his honorable intentions towards the Girl. G. apologizes for his
suspicions but warns that Cnemon will only marry his daughter to
another " like himself." Persevering, S. is advised to take a mattock
and work in the fields, since Cnemon cannot stand people of leisure.
Exeunt.

Enter (and proceed to the shrine) Geta and Sicon, with bundles
and a sheep. Myrrhine has sent them to prepare a sacrifice to Pan,
after a terrible dream that Pan had shackled S. and made him work
in the fields!

Chorus

AcT III Cnemon is deterred from leaving his house by the noisy arrival
of slaves led by Geta. He curses sacrifices and sacrificers. We soon
see why, for Geta comes to borrow a cooking-pot. Cnemon refuses
violently, chases away Geta and then Sicon (who prides himself on
his tact).

Sostratus returns, exhausted and sunburnt; Cnemon never saw

him! Geta tells him about the festivities; exit S. to invite his new
friends, Gorgias and Davus.

Enter Simike, wailing. A mattock has followed the bucket into

the well. Threatening that she will go in next, Cnemon chases her
indoors. The others prepare for the festivities.

Chorus

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24 The " Dyskolos" of Menander

ACT IV Re-enter Siniike, wailing. Now Cnemon has fallen in! Gorgias
calls Sostratus, runs to save Cnemon. Sicon exults. Re-enter S,
to tell how G. saved Cnemon just in time. Enter a sadder and
wetter Cnemon, with G. Moved by G.'s nobility and realizing that
no man is self-sufficient, he calls for Myrrhine and hands over his
property to G., empowering him to mtarry off the Girl. Exit, to be
by himself. G. betrothes the Girl to S., who has passed the test of
character.

Enter Callipides, hungry; goes into the shrine; G. and family to

their house.

Chorus

ACTV Preaching the right use of riches, S. persuades his father, Calli-
pides, to give his daughter in marriage to Gorgias. G. at first refuses
to marry the heiress, then accepts. The betrothal is formalized;
arrangements are made for a double wedding-party.

Wishing to be by himself, Cnemon has sent even Simike away to

the party. Re-enter Geta and Sicon, plotting revenge. They carry
Cnemon's bed outdoors while he sleeps, awaken him by knocking,
and harass him with absurd requests. The flute plays; they tell
Cnemon about the joys of the party, begin to drag him there. Cnemon
submits. Song and dance, applause.

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