Page:Comedies of Publius Terentius Afer (1870).djvu/14

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PREFACE.

drawn them more honest, true, and beneficent than his Pallas Athene and Here; in like manner, Sostrata is nobody before Thais; and whilst Bacchis can call up the contents of the cellar and fastidiously condemn them, the wife is not permitted to taste wine. These anomalies could be cited at great length, but enough has been said to show that there is no reflex of the Hetaira class with us. That which approaches it is our opera singers and actresses, who, although proscribed as servants by the aristocracy supporting them, live in luxury, and ever and anon carry off a noble scion in matrimony. It is therefore I have left the terms meretrix and amica, as also those of psaltria, citharistria, tibicina, &c, in their original tongue—they might be termed actresses, minstrels, harpists, vocalists, &c, but the original words are better. Also I refrain to translate edepol and mecastor, and other interjections. We have exploded oaths ourselves, and the swearing which was in vogue a century ago is now offensive to our ears, which pol and papæ are not; besides, they tend to draw us back to the scene, and to remind us we are in ancient Rome, with Davus and Parmeno and Bacchis; whilst to call the Forum, the market-place, is to blunder exceedingly: we translate far too much.

We as plainly trace Molière drawn from Terence as Terence was traced from the Grecian Menander, the loss of whose dramas appears to be a real loss.