127-141

Act 1

The beginning of the play’s script has yet to be recovered. The earliest part covers the last part of Act 1 (see introduction for an overview of the plot and characters of the play as a whole.)

The first legible lines of the play come when the old man SMIKRINES is complaining to the audience about the behavior of his son-in-law, CHARISIOS. CHAIRESTRATOS, CHARISIOS’ friend and neighbor, is also on stage talking to the audience, but not directly to SMIKRINES.

See the link under the Media tab for a video of this scene in performance (the translation used in the performance is also linked there).

127: ἅνθρωπος οἶνον: This is a sentence fragment, as the rest of the sentence would have been in the previous (lost) line. From the lines that do survive here, it is evident that Smikrines is complaining about Charisios (the ἅνθρωπος) drinking too much wine.

128 ὑπὲρ…τοῦ μεθύσκεσθ(αι): articular infinitive (Goodell 562a, CGCG 51.39)

129 ἀπιστίᾳ … ἐσ(τι) ὅμοιον τοῦτο: lit. “This is similar to disbelief” (dative of equal comparison), meaning “This borders on being unbelievable.”

130: Smikrines is complaining about the cost of the wine that Charisios drinks. It is notoriously difficult to assess the prices for items in antiquity and hence even more difficult to be certain about Smikrines’ attitude here. The size of the drink of wine that Smikrines mentions is close to the size of a glass of wine now. Elsewhere ancient sources talk about an obol purchasing six such drinks, but at other times only two or, as here, close to an obol for the same size. In any case, Smikrines throughout the play is obsessed with numbers and finances. In the performance script, in line with this obsession, the joke hinges on the cheapness of the wine, rather than its expense. βιάζεται …ὠνούμενος πίνειν ἑαυτόν: “he forces himself to buy and drink…”

133 τί … μοι τοῦτο: Lit. “What (is) this to me?” meaning “What difference does it make to me?" οἰμωζέτω: lit. “Let him suffer,” meaning “He’ll suffer for it anyway.”

134: Four talents (a weight of silver exceeding 200 lbs) is a huge dowry, even in the world of the Greek comic stage, where half as much in other plays is generous. At the price Smikrines mentions in line 130 for a drink of wine, for example, four talents would buy 144,000 drinks.

135 τῆς γυναικὸς: i.e., a resident at home with his wife.

137: Smikrines is referring to Charisios paying for the services of the hetaira Habrotonon. As in line 130 about the cost of wine, Smikrines is complaining about the high cost, but it is impossible to know whether the figure he quotes would have sounded excessive in Menander’s time. For comparison, twelve drachmas would pay for 72 drinks at the price given in line 130. The four talent dowry would pay for 500 days at this rate.

138 πέπυστ(ο) > πυνθάνομαι: 3rd sing. perf. dep. ind.

141: Chairestratos’ comment to the audience here suggests that Smikrines is complaining about an amount that is in fact the opposite of extravagant.