Critical Evaluation
The Rope is one of Plautus’s longer plays. Some scholars think that it is also his finest play. In some respects, it is not a typical play. For one thing, the setting, on the African seacoast, is distinctly exotic compared with the typical urban settings of much Roman comedy. In general tone, the play is more poetic than the Plautine comedies, which tend to be raucous. The emotions are serious in this play, with an ending that reintegrates all the characters, even the villainous pimp. The storm and the shipwreck and the final universal forgiveness evoke the atmosphere of romance found in plays such as William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (pr. 1611, pb. 1623).
In other ways, The Rope has some elements typical of Plautus’s work. As the prologue reminds the audience, the play is based on a Greek play by Diphilus, who named the town Cyrene. This is a reminder to any audience of the standard practice of Plautus’s times: The Roman playwrights translated the Greek originals, creating a category called comoediae palliatae, or comedies in Greek dress. The translation is from Greek to Latin and includes changes in the details of locales and customs. This must have enabled the Roman dramatists to enjoy at least two advantages: They could amuse their audiences with the essential comic tool of incongruity achieved with anachronisms, and, if their satire and jokes gave offense, they could always claim they were poking fun at the Greeks, not at their Roman audiences.
Greek New Comedy, the most influential comedic formula in Western literature, has survived for thousands of years and continues to appeal to audiences primarily through its transmission in the works of Latin playwrights, including Plautus. Certain aspects of The Rope are typical of this traditional comedy: the kidnapped child, the tokens of high birth, the villain, the thwarting of young love, the recognition scene, and the reuniting of families.
Plautus is known for creating memorably clever servants who engineer much of the comic action. In this respect, the servants in The Rope are typical, for Trachalio and Gripus provide most of the comedy. It is not unusual for memorable characterizations and speeches, such as Gripus’s daydream of power and wealth or the dialogue of the fishermen, to have little to do with the action; however, they can distinguish a play.
A distinctive aspect of The Rope, in keeping with its air of romance and fantasy, is the mystical element, much stronger here than in most of Plautus’s other surviving works. The mystical element begins with the setting, which has two human habitations: Daemones’ humble farmhouse and the temple of Venus. The prologue is spoken by Arcuturus, a bright star in the constellation, who, before telling the tale, provides a strong clue to its moral nature. The gods, he informs the audience, watch closely over human affairs, and they keep track of the good and the evil. He and other stars report back to Jove so that Jove may “confer prosperity” on the deserving.
In the story that follows, the gods do not directly arrange matters; still, a spiritual element pervades. The two women, miraculously saved from the storm and shipwreck, arrive at the temple of Venus. A minor character in the play, the priest of Venus, provides them with shelter and refuge. The temple becomes a focal point in the action as the pimp tries to reclaim his “property” and the women fight him off.
In that respect, the women may be said to be “reborn” because of the storm, from their pathetic state as slaves to free women. Their rebirth,...
(This entire section contains 1026 words.)
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as one scholar has observed, takes on a mythic note: The goddess Venus was born from the tempestuous sea. Different versions of her birth have her coming either from the foam or from a seashell. This play may well contain the first literary allusion in classical literature to the Venus-rising-from-a-shell version. Another mystical element is Daemones’ dream of the ape and the fledglings in the swallow’s nest. The dream inspires him to protect the two slaves.
An indirect allusion to rebirth continues in the matter of the container that is recovered from the sea. The tug-of-war between the servants—which includes the rope referred to in the title—while a fine bit of comic business, also brings in the box containing the proof that Palaestra is Daemones’ daughter. Curiously for a young female character, compared with those in similar comedies, Palaestra is more concerned with her identity and with finding her family than she is interested in her hardworking, faithful lover, Plesidippus. When the box also survives the storm and reappears, her fond wish is granted, for Daemones recognizes his long-lost daughter, and the family, so long separated and broken, is reunited and whole again.
Plautus’s plays were very popular in his lifetime and have continued to be enjoyed by audiences. The plays are so popular, in fact, that Plautus’s name has been attached to about one hundred plays. Whether or not he wrote that many, over the years about twenty complete plays that have survived have come to be accepted as his. To describe a typical Plautine comedy or even a typical New Comedy is, therefore, to describe the comedy on the basis of incomplete knowledge. Many plays have not survived or have not yet been discovered.
The surviving plays of Plautus have not always pleased and delighted audiences. In the Middle Ages in Europe, for example, his works were considered too boisterous. Although Latin scholars have appreciated his enormous talent for colloquial Latin and his wordplay, not all have respected his work. Much of it has seemed too lighthearted and superficial; the works are amusing, but they lack significant social commentary.
The Rope is an interesting example of Plautus’s work because it has the trademark humor, comic characters, plot elements, and more. The myth of Venus’s rebirth, a story that balances the destructive power of the sea with its benign, productive power, weaves throughout the play. This allusion flavors the conventional comedic story of family loss and reunion with a spirituality unusual in Plautus’s extant comedies.