From first to last Terence devotes great attention to plot, but does not at first succeed: in fact we cannot regard him as a master of construction till Phormio. In the two latest plays he employs the perfected method with still greater ease, boldness and versatility.

The Andria shows grave faults amid undoubted merits. Simo's change of purpose provides a delightful entanglement. Having urged his son's acceptance of a marriage that Simo himself does not really wish, he is so pleased by Pamphilus' feigned eagerness that he decides to turn the sham into earnest. As he expounds this change of plan to Davus, Pamphilus' valet, we can imagine the slave's jaw dropping as he realizes that Pamphilus' pretended acceptance (devised by Davus) has been to convincing. Still more sophisticated comedy is found in the scene of the midwife. The stage-convention, it will be remembered, was that all business, however domestic or indeed secret, should be transacted in the street or at the doorway. Terence naturally chafed at such nonsense, and here he hits back beautifully. After Glycerium's baby is born, the midwife comes out and, as usual, bawls her instructions from the door-step—"give her a bath at once" etc. (483 ff.). Simo has already begun to overreach himself with a too cunning idea that Glycerium's confinement is a figment of Davus. The midwife's action confirms it. "Instead of telling them in the bedroom what the patient needed, she waited till she got outside and shouted from the pavement to the women inside! Oh, Davus! Do you despise me as much as that? Do you think me a proper dupe for such obvious plots? You might have taken some pains about it, so that, if I found out, I might think you had at any rate some fear of me" (490 ff.). This is wit indeed. Simo's reproach, uttered less in anger at the supposed conspiracy than in grief at its badness, gives help to the construction; and in the same moment it utters trenchant satire on a stupid stage-convention. Terence has used his very limitations: a method which seems to ruin dramatic art is turned into a novel and effective means of construction.

But the flaws are much greater. Little need be said about Sosia, the "protatic" character. Such people, as we have seen, were never expelled from the theatre: Terence himself uses them in later plays, and they flourish even today. There are far more serious things. We gradually realize that the contriving slave himself makes no real contribution to the plot. Of course Davus provides much incidental excitement and fun, but what does he perform? In reality he is but a fifth wheel on the coach. He produces a device that looks formidably knowing and subtle, that Pamphilus should pretend compliance with Simo's plan of a marriage with Philumena. But what is the outcome of this masterpiece? Firstly, Byrria's discovery, which leads nowhere (see the next paragraph). Further, Simo's sudden idea of turning the sham marriage into earnest; but that too comes to nothing at last. As for Davus' elaborate orchestration of Chremes, Mysis, and the baby, it is impossible—at any rate for one reader—to explain the deliberate bungling that he introduces. Nor does he in any way help to bring about the peripeteia, Crito's arrival, which involves the recognition of Glycerium as Chremes' daughter and therefore a possible wife for Pamphilus.

Further, Charinus (the second lover) and his man Byrria are structurally useless. They look important, to be sure: Charinus wishes to marry Philumena, and Byrria abets him. But the two love-interests do not genuinely affect one another in action. When Byrria discovers that Pamphilus, after assuring Charinus that he does not wish to marry Philumena, tells Simo (untruthfully) that he does, this supposed discovery of Pamphilus' deception of Charinus ought to produce counter-plots of Charinus that shall affect the Pamphilus-Glycerium affair. But no: hearing Byrria's news, Charinus—quite sensibly, of course—straightway confronts Pamphilus and is at once told the facts. Byrria's discovery could be deleted without loss, and a little further thought will show that the rest of the Charinus-Byrria part could follow it.

But could it? Here, if anywhere in the study of Roman drama—nay, of drama in general—it is worth while to attempt the extreme of caution and particularity. Careful study, or rather balanced thinking, here will show us just how Terence worked. These Charinus-scenes have been proved structurally useless to the "question of the play"—what is to become of the Pamphilus-Glycerium affair in face of Simo's determination that Pamphilus shall marry Philumena? On this side, then, the play is bad. But, as often, the bungle reveals the writer's purpose far better than would success. For ars est celare artem: conversely, an artistic breakdown exhibits the artist's method. So does it come about that the adventure of peering over a poet's shoulder is here more delightful than at any other moment of Terence's career.

These scenes are useless. Then why does the playwright put them in? "Put in" is exactly correct: Terence has obtruded them upon his "original," the Andria of Menander. Donatus writes on v. 301: "These characters are not in Menander: Terence has added them to the play …" Why? Few assumptions are less dangerous than that Menander's plot was soundly constructed. Therefore, if Terence takes the initiative so drastically, it is certain that to him the intended matter must have seemed in some way vital. Donatus tells us his idea of the reason: "Terence has added them to the play lest it should be too painful to leave Philumena scorned or unbetrothed while Pamphilus marries another." This is excellent, so far as it goes. But does it meet the objections we have raised against the Charinus-scenes? Yes and no. The "question of the play," we have just said, is Pamphilus' trouble; the climax, or peripeteia, is Crito's revelation that Glycerium is Chremes' daughter; the solution, or dénouement, is the satisfaction both of Pamphilus and of Simo by a marriage with Glycerium.

That is, Philumena (strictly in herself) is of no importance: she exists merely to help provide the "question." On the other side, if we raise our eyes from mere charts or machinery, we may ask what becomes of Philumena when Pamphilus "deserts" her: we should like to "see her settled." Hence the insertion of Charinus to make ready for this; hence, too, the spurious variant of the final scene, which dilates upon Philumena's marriage. The most exact statement is that Charinus has an excuse for his presence, but he is a bungle because he does not help the real plot.

That is to say, in the Andria we are present at the birth of a notable dramatic expedient. In all his plays Terence bifurcates the plot—thinks it out and works it out in two parts that are necessary to each other. This device must by no means be confused with the underplots familiar in Elizabethan drama. It is not merely that the two parts of a Terentian comedy together form the whole as two gloves make a pair: they are complementary, as is one blade of a pair of scissors to its companion. This duality-method is the centre, the focus, of Terentian art and the Terentian spirit: both his vivid moral sense and his magnificent dramatic talent lead him to this principle of duality in unity. So far as can be learned, it is entirely his own—another, and the most impressive, proof of his originality not merely in play-conception but in play-construction also. For he actually recasts his "original" in order to secure this dualism. He tells us this concerning the Heautontimorumenos in so many words, though few care to listen. So in the Andria: that duality-method which is good in Self-Punishment, excellent in Phormio, magnificent in The Brothers, is here crudely thrust upon us. It works badly, but its very badness makes it unmistakable. The improvement to which so many allusions have been made is clearest of all in this basic element of Terentian art.

Self-Punishment, the author tells us in his prologue (v. 6), is a "two-fold play made out of a single plot"—duplex quae ex argumento facta est simplici. That he should so handle a "single" or "simple" Menandrian comedy as to secure the duality-structure shows how vital it was in his eyes. His skill here shows a decided advance on the Andria. The two groups—Clinia, his father Menedemus, and his mistress Antiphila; Clitipho, his father Chremes, and his mistress Bacchis—are of tolerably equal importance. The love-troubles of Clinia and of Clitipho settle one another by an admirable interlocking that far transcends the mere juxtaposition of the preceding drama.

Menedemus, before the action opens, is so enraged by Clinia's keeping a mistress that by his reproaches he has caused his son to go off to the wars. But he misses Clinia, and soon deeply repents his own harshness: in order to punish himself, he toils early and late with spade and ploughshare, old though he is. Thus, when Clinia returns, Menedemus is eager to indulge him; but his old neighbour Chremes, fearing that this new extreme may spoil Clinia, induces him to pretend that he is still harsh and to allow himself, as if unconsciously, to be swindled out of the money that Clinia needs. This odd arrangement helps Clitipho, whose mistress Bacchis, being vastly more expensive than Antiphila, is in pretence substituted for her with disconcerting but laughable results. Nevertheless, the duality-scheme is not perfect. Not only should it secure Clinia's permanent happiness with Antiphila—she proves, as a matter of fact, to be Chremes' daughter and marries Clinia: it should also put the Clitipho-Bacchis affair on a "satisfactory" footing. This does not happen: Bacchis vanishes after the Third Act, and Clitipho agrees to marry a lady not hitherto mentioned. This lapse in technique is due to the irremediably undesirable character of Bacchis.

The mining and countermining is marvellously deft but not flawless. Clinia and his slave Syrus know nothing (apparently) about Menedemus' complete change of mind as to Clinia's extravagance; yet they coolly transfer Bacchis and her retinue to his house. Also, there are one or two blind alleys in the discussions concerning all these machinations. But the chief defect is the complexity itself. Terence has been too clever. Perhaps no one is able, perhaps no one except Terence himself ever has been able, to give from memory a complete and accurate account of this plot: far more to the purpose, it may be doubted whether any Roman auditor could follow it. Menedemus is to know that he is not being fooled as Chremes thinks he is, and is to tell Chremes, so as to fool him, that he is not being fooled as he intended to allow himself to be. The stalwart sons of Romulus must have found this trying. Even a modern reader, who can go as slowly as he wishes, must keep his wits about him. Menander wrote the play "simple"; it is Terence who has introduced this eye-defeating complexity.

In the arrangement or development we observe a brilliant novelty. Terence takes the conventional idea, a slave's device to extract from the old master funds for his young master's amour. He also adopts the equally familiar discovery that the heroine is of free Athenian birth and so may legally marry her lover. But he sets this discovery in the centre of the action, not at the close as usual, thus dislocating the traditional procedure by forcing Syrus to begin his money-plots afresh. Nor has Syrus a moment to lose: he only just prevents Clinia from revealing Clitipho's connexion with Bacchis by departing without her to Menedemus' house, despite the foregoing pretence that Bacchis is his mistress, not Clitipho's.

The Eunuch exhibits a queer yet fascinating jumble of qualities. Consider first our main topic of plot-construction. Repenting (it would seem) the extreme elaboration, the ruthlessly close interweaving, that marks Self-Punishment, Terence here aims at a simplicity that shall yet follow his duality-method. Such success was not to be attained till Phormio. Here he has improved his notion of structure without, however, carrying it quite adequately into practice. The parts that in Self-Punishment interlocked too tightly can here be heard rattling as they hang together.

The two correlative interests are Phaedria's jealous passion for the courtesan Thais and Chaerea's rape of Pamphila followed by his desire to marry her. The interweaving consists herein, that Pamphila is a protégée of Thais and that Chaerea gains his opportunity by impersonating the eunuch whom Phaedria presents to Thais. So far, this is an excellent bifurcation of interest, as easy to follow as anything (properly to be called a complication) can well be. But Terence has practised contaminatio. What has just been described corresponds to the Eunuch of Menander. Into this, as he notes in his prologue, he has inserted the soldier and parasite from Menander's Flatterer.

These scenes of Thraso and his hanger-on Gnatho form a considerable part of our comedy. Most of them are curiously out of key with the rest of Terence's work: apparently in an evil hour he tried to imitate Plautus. For it seems plain that the one reason for this element is the wretched battle-scene where Thraso deploys his followers in front of Thais' door: that is why we have so often been told of Thraso's fancy for Pamphila, which otherwise has no point or result. And when the battle does arrive, it is a fiasco not only for the soldier (of course) but for the playwright also. Having set his heart on a scene of boisterous farce, he leads up to the rally with some elaboration and then allows all the fun to slip through his fingers. Plautus would have done it much better; in Ralph Roister Doisterit is carried through with capital fun and boundless verve.

Why, then, is this written in at all? Thraso restores Pamphila to Thais, but why need they have been separated? Only to give Thraso a locus standi. Again, Thais' wish to conciliate him is made her excuse for temporarily dismissing Phaedria; but there is no reason in the main plot for such dismissal. Chaerea's outrage could not have been committed had not Thais left home—to dine with Thraso; but why such elaboration to secure her absence, which could easily have been caused and arranged otherwise in three lines? Evidently Terence sets great store by this element, seeing that he takes such pains to force them into the action. Why? The explanation is found in that disgusting final scene, where Thraso is induced by his longing for Thais' society unconsciously to finance the liaison between her and Phaedria. Terence is insisting on his duality. Chaerea's affair is settled by a discovery that Pamphila is of free Athenian birth. Thais is not, but she has shown herself throughout a wise, resourceful, and charming woman. Therefore Phaedria is to be permanently happy with her, a result secured by a steady and quasi-respectable concubinage. Funds for this can be secured only through Thraso. On moral grounds we may condemn this vigorously; at present we are to observe that Thraso proves necessary to the duality-method. The dualism would have been perfect had Thais been legally possible as a wife for Phaedria.

The main plot is masterly. Thais' dismissal of Phaedria brings out beautifully his jealous passion and the loving patience of his mistress. Chaerea's plan to impersonate the eunuch, and its outcome, are brutal and heartless, but they give excellent dramatic results. His success engenders in him a sincere love: when he learns that Pamphila can marry him he bursts into a rhapsody of delight. Further, the discovery of his offence brings out the sound character of Thais as does nothing else. Throughout the comedy she shows herself a worthy successor of Chrysis in the Andria and foretells the noble Bacchis of the Hecyra, but her great moment comes when she rebukes this reckless young scoundrel (864 ff.):

nec te dignum, Chaerea, fecisti: nam si ego digna hac contumelia sum maxume, at tu indignus qui faceres tamen.

"Chaerea, you have done what is unworthy of you. Even if I entirely deserve this insult, you should have been above inflicting it." Chremes, again, Pamphila's brother, is used to throw light upon Thais: his drunken vacillation, when the "battle" threatens, is turned to firmness by her encouragement. At the close she gains even the father's affection. Another delightful feature is the passage (968 ff.) where tradition is made to stand on its head. Pythias, seeking revenge on Parmeno, terrifies him by her account of the punishment about to be inflicted upon Chaerea. In panic he reveals everything to his old master on his own initiative—a laughable reversal of the trite system whereby the senex threatens flogging and other horrors in order to extract the scandalous truth.

In Phormio Terence's constructive skill reaches perfection. We shall observe in the two following plays that this skill is applied with greater resourcefulness and flexibility, as with deeper feeling and richer wisdom, but he has now at last gained complete mastery of his instrument. He has learned the double lesson of Self-Punishment and of the Eunuch. All is beautifully orchestrated, so that even a spectator could follow every detail with comfort: the various interests of Antipho, Phaedria, Demipho and Chremes, dominated and driven by Phormio with pervasive activity and tireless ingenuity, make this comedy a delight, not a puzzle. The duality-method also is here at length perfected. Antipho, son of Demipho, dreads being compelled to give up his beloved wife Phanium and marry his cousin, daughter of Demipho's brother Chremes. Phaedria, son of Chremes, is in love with Pamphila, a slave owned by Dorio, and is at his wits' end for money to buy her freedom, for she is about to to be sold to the usual officer and taken by him away from Athens. These two difficulties are made to solve one another by the talent and impudence of Phormio, one of the most engaging scoundrels in the rich annals of the stage.

Before the play opens he has brought about Antipho's marriage, while Demipho and Chremes are abroad, by pretending to be Phanium's relative and so bound, under Attic law, either to find her a husband or to marry her himself. He therefore brought a lawsuit against Antipho to compel him as next-of-kin to marry her. Antipho intentionally lost the case and took her though she had no dowry. Demipho on his return is furious at Antipho's apparent supineness. The young husband in terror hides and Phaedria defends him to Demipho, who exclaims (267) tradunt operas mutuas—"they help each other turn and turn about": the words are a capital description of Terence's method. Demipho and Chremes offer Phormio five minae—the legal minimum—to take Phanium back. This he contemptuously refuses; but we shall find that the offer gives him an idea. Next, our attention is transferred to Phaedria and his trouble about Pamphila. He pleads abjectly with Dorio for three days' grace in which to find the thirty minae for her purchase, but the slave-dealer is obdurate. Then Antipho intercedes—tradunt operas mutuas—and, with Geta, prevails on Dorio to allow them until tomorrow morning. Phormio evolves a scheme to extract the required thirty minae from the two fathers. He sends Geta to report to them that Phormio would have been glad to marry Phanium himself, but she has no dowry and he has debts. So he has become engaged to a lady who has a dowry. Now, if Demipho will pay him what he needs (thirty minae!), he will break off his engagement and marry Phanium. Demipho is enraged, but Chremes is so eager to see Antipho his daughter's husband that he volunteers to pay, out of the rents of his wife's property which he has just brought home from Lemnos. Phormio receives the money, pays Dorio, and delivers Pamphila to Phaedria, whose difficulty is now overcome.

But what of Antipho? We are told (705 ff.) that Phormio will find some excuse for not taking Phanium from him after all. But is the scheme handsome enough? Surely so lame and precarious a solution would be unworthy of a fine worker like Phormio. The requisite brilliance is made possible by an opportune discovery that he is not the only rascal in the play. Chremes has throughout been nervously intent on a marriage between Antipho and his daughter. But who is she? We learn that she is not the child of his Athenian wife Nausistrata. His voyage to Lemnos had for its object not only the collection of Nausistrata's rents, but also a visit to his wife and their daughter, who had however left for Athens. Chremes is a bigamist. It is this Lemnian girl whom he wished Antipho to marry, since his brother's son would be less likely to make trouble about his bigamy. When the two fathers go in to arrange for Phanium's dismissal, it is found that Phanium is the very daughter in question. Thus Antipho's marriage is safe, and is now at once used to help Phaedria's amour—tradunt operas mutuas.

In a scene of delicious light comedy Demipho and Chremes coolly ask Phormio to return the thirty minae, since Phanium is not leaving Antipho after all. Phormio protests against this shilly-shallying and calls on them to send him his "wife." Demipho scoffs bitterly, but Phormio blandly goes on to explain that he has another woman's cause to defend. Amid the agitated groans of Chremes he airily discourses of Lemnos and bigamy: he will reveal all to this wronged lady Nausistrata. Chremes is for leaving him in possession of the money, but Demipho urges him to desperate courage and they fall upon their too-virtuous opponent. He cries aloud for Nausistrata, who comes out and learns everything. Chremes is utterly humiliated and Phaedria is allowed to keep Pamphila—Chremes' own wife asks him (1040 f.): "Do you think it a scandal for a young man to have one mistress when you have two wives?"

The Mother-in-Law is unique among Terentian plays in one particular at least: indeed it would probably be hard to find many parallels in the whole of dramatic literature. That peculiarity is the splendid boldness and success wherewith it accepts traditional theatrical data and proceeds charmingly and skilfully to stand tradition on its head. That is why it failed in Rome and is despised or ignored by modern critics. Mr. Shaw did the same thing when he wrote Arms and the Man. What could his innocent audiences make of a play that, starting well with the resplendent military hero (in the cavalry, of course), the idolatrous fiancée awaiting his glorious return, the amusing parents, and the commonplace soldier of the defeated side, suddenly went off the rails and destroyed itself, depicting hero and heroine as shams, the unromantic people as genuinely mature and effective human beings? But Mr. Shaw luckily survived, and continued his work. Today most of us understand what he was driving at thirty-seven years ago. The Hecyra provides a close analogy with the Shavian play, but unluckily Terence died young. At its first appearances the audience did not hear it to the end owing (among other causes) to the vociferous protests of the ladies in the audience, who, no doubt, were scandalized by the charm and strength attributed to a courtesan. Only at the third attempt was it performed in full, shortly before its author left Rome for ever, as it proved. He could not, like Mr. Shaw, impose himself gradually upon the public by many years of sparkling trenchant original work that pursued this method of constructive disillusionment.

In brief, this is a most beautiful play, composed with such perfect mastery that it is probably unequalled in its own kind; but certain unconventional qualities have prevented many readers from appreciating its peculiar charm. These unconventional features shall be considered first.

First, this is no comedy at all as comedy is understood by enthusiasts for Plautus, by those who "go to the theatre to enjoy themselves" (meaning either a surfeit of guffaws or a drench of sentimentality), by those who understand by comedies about the relations of the sexes either the airily fanciful like The Admirable Crichton or the pornographic like Le Vieux Marcheur. Such theatre-goers have often much right on their side. But there are more sorts of comedy than one, or two. The Hecyra, judged by the standards both of the Globe Theatre and of the Palais Royal, is certainly an execrable play. But Terence is not attempting to write like Shakespeare or like Rip; this should be absurdly obvious, but it seems to need saying. Our play is pathetic high comedy, not unlike the comédie larmoyante evolved by La Chaussée, though it enormously surpasses any work of that forcible-feeble rhetorician. As a result, though the dialogue is aglow with wit in the sense of brilliant aptness, jokes are very rare. Perhaps Pamphilus' hurried description (440 f.) of his imaginary acquaintance is the only example:

magnus, rubicundus, crispus, crassus, caesius, cadaverosa facie.

"Tall, ruddy, curly-haired, burly, gray-eyed—he looks like a corpse."

Next, although traditional characters tread the stage, they act (as we have already said) in defiance of tradition. Terence openly rejoices in this break with stereotyped puppets, machine-made situations: more than once he actually remarks that he is flouting theatrical convention. At the close Pamphilus says (866): "Don't let us manage this affair as they do in the comedies"—placet non fieri hoc item ut in comoediis. Indeed, whoever else does not enjoy this play, Terence did. Probably his "slim feasting smile" was least slim while he dealt with Parmeno. That luckless henchman knows well enough what the audience expects of a "knavish valet"; but every time he tramps dutifully onto the stage, his pockets crammed with amulets, his brain agog with cunning devices, his mouth full of hem, quid ais, heus, he is ordered off again to make room for the play. This happens repeatedly: the centurions and their wives knew no more what to make of it than their descendants appreciated Saranoff's cavalry-charge, but its preliminary recital must have caused a glorious hour round Scipio's dinner-table. Laches, again, is a very poor specimen of the comic heavy father. He does indeed insult his wife now and then, bringing back a moment's cheer to the bewildered auditor; but on the whole we perceive with growing alarm and resentment that he is a much better man than his son, the "hero," and shows real commonsense, a reasonable grip of the situation. No doubt he loses all sense of theatrical decency because from beginning to end no one makes any attempt to swindle him—enough to unnerve any comic father.

But the least conventional of all is Bacchis. Her defection is not in the least laughable, for Terence is expending all his delicate yet powerful art on the creation of a beautiful character. But here, no less than in Parmeno, he is perfectly aware how he is treating tradition. In the first words of the play he puts forward Syra to lecture young Philotis on the correct practice of a courtesan—the "vampire" method so incessantly depicted today and even then familiar. Bacchis proceeds to do exactly the opposite: some might even say that Terence has over-emphasized her revolt from rule. She is more than willing to help bring Pamphilus' wife back to him, and cheerfully tramples on professional rules in doing so (774 ff.):

Pamphilo me facere ut redeat uxor oportet: quod
  si perficio, non paenitet me famae,
solam fecisse id quod aliae meretrices facere
  fugitant.

"It is my duty to see that Pamphilus' wife returns to him. If I do this, I shall not be sorry to have the repute of doing what all other courtesans shrink from." Before this climax, her self-control, discretion and kindness have induced him to learn, and love his wife; and now her courage in facing Philumena brings about the discovery that entirely closes the breach between husband and wife and between their parents. She is a splendid and delightful woman, the fulfilment of Chrysis and Thais. Her interview with Laches makes a superb scene. He expects a woman of Syra's school, to be overawed and bribed: he finds a vibrant spirited personality (734 f.):

ego pol quoque etiam timida sum, quom venit in  mentem quae sim,ne nomen mihi quaesti obsiet; nam mores facile  tutor.

"Indeed, I am nervous too, when I consider what I am—lest the name of my trade should injure me: for my conduct I can defend easily." Before this wonderful scene closes, a great figure has been added to the world's drama.

The third and last peculiarity of the Hecyra concerns plot-structure. In outline the story runs thus. Pamphilus, despite his passion for Bacchis, was induced by his father Laches to marry Philumena, daughter of Phidippus; but he has been her husband only in name. He seeks Bacchis, but she has ignored him; this, and Philumena's sweet patience, have turned his heart to his wife. But he has to go to Imbros on business, leaving his wife with his parents, Laches and Sostrata. Later, Philumena left them for Phidippus and Myrrina, and refused to return, alleging illness. Laches thinks his wife to blame for this estrangement. Pamphilus comes home, definitely in love with Philumena: he is convinced that he must choose between her and Sostrata. He hears that Philumena is ill, rushes in, and finds that she has been delivered of a child, which he knows cannot be his. Myrrina appeals to him. Her daughter (she explains) was outraged by some man unknown, before her marriage: that is why she left Laches' house; Pamphilus alone "knows" that he himself is not the father: let him keep the secret; the child shall be exposed. To this Pamphilus agrees, but he is determined not to take his wife back; this refusal puzzles Laches and Phidippus. Soon Phidippus discovers his grandchild and informs Laches. Pamphilus refuses to take Philumena back even despite the birth of the child, and makes the supposed quarrel between Sostrata and Philumena his excuse. Sostrata and Laches offer to withdraw from Athens, but even this does not alter his intent. The fathers in angry amazement conclude that this obstinacy can be due only to the continued ascendancy of Bacchis. Laches sends for her and insists that she give his son up. Bacchis tells him the facts, which he asks her to convey to the ladies. She goes within for this purpose, and discovers by means of a ring that Philumena's unknown assailant was Pamphilus himself. All ends happily.

But no such bald summary can do justice to the flawless mastery of construction here, the gracious charming flexibility whereby character moulds plot and plot reveals character. Consider the different reasons that cause Bacchis to confront Philumena: you will find character after character slowly giving up their essence under your contemplation. Perhaps the most beautiful device is that the same event, the child's birth, makes Laches still more eager to receive Philumena back and Pamphilus still more resolute not to agree—both for excellent reasons. So might one continue to enjoy now the quiet beauty, now the thrilling deftness, again the lingering fragrance, of this matchless drama.

The peculiarity whereof we spoke at first concerns the duality-method. What becomes of it here, in one of the two finest works that Terence has left? It seems to vanish, for we find but one pair of lovers. Evanthius points out this discrepancy in his essay On Tragedy and Comedy [in K.M. Westaway, The Original Element in Plautus, 1917]. "This further quality in Terence seems to merit praise, that he has chosen for treatment richer subject-matter, drawn from double interests (ex duplicibus negotiis). For, except the Hecyra, which has only the love-affairs of Pamphilus, the other five have two young men apiece." But a little consideration will show the duality-method at work here, and most dextrously. The uniqueness lies in the interweaving. Whereas the other comedies exhibit two pairs of lovers and two love-difficulties entangled, here the two difficulties exist indeed but concern the same man and woman. The problems are Pamphilus' estrangement from his wife and Philumena's plight owing to the offence of an unknown man. Then these two affairs beautifully merge by the identification of Pamphilus with the offender. The plot-complication is no less consummate than the character-drawing.

The Brothers exhibits Terence's most highly elaborated use of the duality-method, in a manner entirely different from the novelty of the Hecyra. Here we find two pairs of interests, not one pair as in all the five preceding works.

First, as in Phormio, the two love-affairs, of Aeschinus and Pamphila, of Ctesipho and "Bacchis," are employed to solve one another. Aeschinus, on behalf of his timid brother Ctesipho, abducts Bacchis from the slave-dealer: this, becoming known, causes Pamphila's mother to believe that he is deserting Pamphila for Bacchis, and her resistance brings Aeschinus' liaison to the ears of his "father" Micio, who therefore arranges the marriage of Aeschinus and Pamphila when their situation was otherwise hopeless. Thus Ctesipho's affair produces the solution of the Aeschinus-Pamphila predicament. On the other side, Ctesipho's difficulty is solved by his brother's trouble. For his father, Demea, is induced to acquiesce in his liaison by Aeschinus' appeal, and this appeal has weight exactly because Demea has already decided to beat Micio at his own game of indulging youthful folly; this indulgence, finally, has been shown above all, and to Demea's continued annoyance, in favouring Aeschinus' affair with Pamphila.

Secondly, Demea and Micio form a separate couple with conflicting interests. One of Demea's sons, Aeschinus, has been adopted by his bachelor uncle Micio and educated in Athens on a system of indulgence and mutual confidence. The other, Ctesipho, has stayed with Demea and has been brought up in the country on a system of severity and repression. Each of the "fathers" believes firmly in his own method and criticizes his brother's: the kernel of the play is the clash between these systems. Here is duality again, applied to a quite different theme from the love-escapades of the five earlier comedies, another couple of which is found here also, but as the outcome of these more fundamental educational doctrines. Demea and Micio are admirably contrasted. The latter has been already described. Demea is not less good, though less novel. He is the traditional senex of a thousand comedies, with the addition of will-power and sagacity. His outcries against the corruption of Aeschinus and the system that has induced it are justified and effective. At the close he dominates the stage in scenes richly comic, rather touching, altogether wise and instructive.

The value and attractiveness of this climax are caused by the duality-method once more, but applied to new material. Micio's failure and Demea's failure are both repaired by the lessons that each can read the other. Both the competing systems are mistaken. A good number of modern plays have been founded on the Adelphoe, among them Molière's L'École des Maris, Shadwell's Squire of Alsatia, Garrick's Guardian, Fielding's Fathers, Cumberland's Choleric Man, and Colman's Jealous Wife. In all these one of the rival theorists confesses that the other has been justified by results, and in all except Fielding's the victor is the person who corresponds to Micio; for the theatre has usually sought to please sons rather than fathers. Terence has been wiser than his successors. Here, as indeed throughout his brief career, technique and knowledge of human nature reinforce and irradiate each other. He knows that extreme and theoretical notions of dealing with men and women, especially the young, cannot produce a sound life. Both these youths have been corrupted. Aeschinus after all has concealed his amour from the sympathetic Micio, and lets matters drift until Pamphila's happiness is in danger. He has no backbone: the system has only made him reckless and insolent, as we observe in that disgusting interview between him and the slave-dealer. He is a bumptious, bullying pseudo-fashionable oaf—the worst kind of oaf. Ctesipho is no worse and no better. Secretive and utterly self-indulgent like his brother, he is also a poltroon: the scene (537-553) where he hides behind the door from his father, too timid to show himself, too nervous to carouse at his ease within, and hysterically whispering to the contemptuous slave who stands between him and detection, is a complete exposure of his depravity.

We return to the climax. A solution of all these troubles, a sound relationship between father and son, is wisely allotted by the playwright to Demea, not Micio, partly through a sense of dramatic balance, Demea having suffered so acutely, partly because he has always realized more deeply the need for a permanently sound way of life for the two youths. First, since Micio has continuously "scored off" him, he determines to beat Micio at his own game, not for the mere fun of the thing but to demonstrate that anyone can grow popular if with an air of bonhomie he lets other people have exactly what they want. (Here he is—very naturally—not altogether just to Micio.) This demonstration makes a rather wonderful scene or two, for it is richly farcical and yet all its details proceed from a moral theory and a moral purpose.

He begins with extreme affability to the slaves; next, when Aeschinus complains of the tedious preparations for the wedding, Demea with a wave of the hand exclaims (906): "Let it all go: knock down the back-wall between the gardens and bring your bride through to our house at once, mother, servants and all." These unusual rites come to Micio's ears, as well they may, and he hurries out to expostulate with Demea, who is quite ready for him. "We ought to help this family," he explains. "Why, of course," replies his unconscious victim. "Very well," rejoins the benevolent Demea. "The bride's mother has no one left to look after her. You should marry her." Micio splutters in helpless indignation; Aeschinus joins his voice to Demea's; and Micio, now for years accustomed to give way to his "son," surrenders. This is an admirable comic rendering of a serious moral thesis, an appropriate application of his own methods. Moreover, it not only secures the excellent Sostrata's future: it withdraws Micio from that irresponsible detachment that renders so many elderly bachelors a public danger. Meanwhile, Demea sweeps triumphantly onwards: this poor kinsman Hegio … "let us give him that little farm of yours … don't you remember what you told me yourself: that in old age we are too fond of money? We must avoid that fault." Demea is congratulating himself on hoisting his brother with his own petard—suo sibi gladio hunc iugulo (958)—when Syrus bustles in to announce that the back-wall is down. Demea's eye gleams. Why should the "contriving valet" go unrecompensed? Has he not crowned his faithful ser-vices by helping to abduct Bacchis? Non mediocris hominis haec sunt officia (966)—"only a remarkable man could have shown such diligent loyalty": Syrus receives not only his freedom but that of his wife also and a "loan" into the bargain. All this settled, Micio in a stupor asks his brother (984 f.): "What on earth has changed your character all of a sudden?" Demea answers gravely and trenchantly, then turns to Aeschinus with a solution of the whole rivalry between the two systems. Both are wrong: we need a compromise between them. This conclusion is obvious to us modern people, who advise, and mostly seek to attain, a blend of elderly wisdom and enlightened sympathy for the young. But it was less obvious to ancient Europe. Micio's system was the vogue in the Athens of Menander, Demea's in the Rome of Terence. This compromise is a real contribution to practical morality.

Thus the duality-method reaches its height in this final work of the Terentian genius: the result arises from neither one doctrine nor the other, but only from their interaction. And, as we saw, the same technique is applied to the love-affairs. Moreover, the two sets of duality—if an ugly phrase will be forgiven—are perfectly interwoven, since of course the love-affairs demonstrate the failure of the two competing theories if they do compete instead of blending. It is this exquisitely close yet perfectly intelligible structure, and, within it, the admirable balancing of all the four men, that makes The Brothers a perfect master-piece of high comedy.

Last of all, something ought to be said concerning topics, themes, or even the "message" of Terence; for here we come upon a chief reason for the frequent opinion that, for all his eloquence, Terence is somewhat pallid, diluted, monotonous. The truth is, he has no topics at all in the usual sense: it would be impossible to prepare any dissertation upon "Politics in Terence" or "The Attitude of Terence towards Sculpture and Painting." The charge of pallor and the rest is in some degree true, as it is true of many others who keep closely to the business of intellectual social comedy. This high urbanity, this slightly fastidious elegance, this chastity of outline in thought and phrase, would consort ill with eloquent outbreaks on politics or atheism, sudden perils or exploits, and frolics, jesting, or horseplay. But, even so, why should not Terence have varied the vivacity, the gusto, of one comedy as compared with another? This, to be exact, he has done in the Thraso-scenes of The Eunuch and in the flippancy of Micio. But the first are not successful, and the second is a minor element in The Brothers. In this respect Terence assuredly falls below Menander. Even though we possess no complete play of Menander, we cannot mistake the difference in tone between Arbitration and The Girl of Samos. Whether Terence, had he been granted, like his predecessor, another twenty-five years of life, would have developed in this regard, is a natural but useless inquiry. We may indeed observe that his last scene is not merely delightful but novel—a profoundly important theory of conduct expounded by means of light fun. Such a description might be applied without too offensive pedantry to some portions of Henry the Fourth: who knows what Terence might have achieved at fifty? But we shall of course guard against denying any weakness in him on the strength of a plea that he might later have outgrown it. He remains, on this side of dramatic excellence, a junior Menander.

Let us return to our discussion of topics, or lack of them. We said that Terence has none in the usual sense, nothing like Plautus' frequent allusions to public institutions, law, and commerce. Still we can extract—nay, we cannot fail to observe—an important idea concerning human nature itself. And, so far is he from merely obtruding themes or instruction, that his one theory about life has created his dramatic method. His plays are not simply the vehicle of this idea: they are the idea, expressed not only by dialogue and action but also by the very shape of his work. This governing idea of Terence is the mutual dependence of human beings. Again and again he causes his people to exclaim that we are sure to err if we walk by ourselves, that others see more wisely in our affairs than we can, that the true life is a life of mutual helpfulness. In his plays the villain is not a slave-dealer or a harsh father or a rapacious courtesan. To heap all the blame for an awkward or agonizing predicament upon the broad shoulders of some artificial bogey ablaze with theatrical fiendishness is easy drama—too easy—but disastrously bad ethics. The real "villain" for Terence is the short-sighted pride that the best of us shows when he seeks to walk alone: the true life is found, not by the excogitation of ethical standards but by human sympathy. That is why homo and its cognates are so frequent in his writing. His most famous sentence is also his most emphatic assertion that our great need is not virtue, not wisdom, so much as a sense of humanity—homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto: "nothing human do I count alien to me, for I too am human." Nothing alien, nothing "no business of mine"—this feeling explains Hegio's sturdy championship of his kinswoman, the self-sacrifice of Bacchis, Chremes' expostulation with his neighbour's remorseless toil. Sympathy is the basis of Terentian morals. That is why Terence as a playwright invented and developed the duality-method whereof we have said so much: his plots consist of two problems that solve each other, just as in life one man needs and helps his neighbour. It is the central excellence of Terence that in his work truth and the expression of truth become one and the same.