young man Lyconidcs, who has anticipated his uncle in the love of the miser's daughter, has also been borrowed by Molière. Lyconides comes to confess that he has stolen the young lady's affections; but Euclio is so full of his one great loss, that he persists in interpreting all Lyconides's somewhat incoherent language to imply that he is the thief of the gold. The play upon the Latin word olla, which means "pot," and is also the old form of illa, "she," helps the equivoque materially. But the French version is far more amusing; and the words of Harpagon, when, in reply to Valère's talk about "la passion que ses beaux yeux m'ont inspirée," he exclaims in bewilderment, "Les beaux yeux de ma cassette!"[1] has passed, like so many of Molière's lines, into a favourite proverb.
This play is imperfect, and we only know what the catastrophe was from the brief sketch in the metrical prologue, which Priscian the grammarian is said to have affixed to each of these comedies. The lover recovers the pot of gold for its owner; and—by some miraculous change in the miser's nature—is presented with it as a dowry for the daughter. The later scenes have indeed been supplied by more than one ingenious "restorer;" but such restorations are unsatisfactory at the best.
Besides the admirable adaptation of this comedy in the French, no less than three English dramatists, Fielding, Shadwell, and Wycherley, have each a comedy called 'The Miser,' the plot and materials of all which are borrowed more or less from Plautus.
- ↑ 'L'Avare,' act v. sc. 1.
