Terence’s Eunuchus, 973–995: A Stylistic Analysis

Lines 973 to 995 of Terence’s comedy Eunuchus find the father of major characters Phae­dria and Chaerea, the senex whom we shall call “Laches” by convention, returning home unaware at first of all that has been happening in the play thus far. Parmeno, the family slave, has been closely involved in both of his sons’ affairs with the house of the meretrix, i.e., courtesan, Thaïs and, having been implicated in Chaerea’s in­trigues to enter Thaïs’s house disguised as a eunuch whom Phaedria is giving to her as a gift, has just been “informed” of the terrible fate Chaerea is supposedly suffering as a re­sult of his having been found out (V.iv). The metrical characteristics and length of the utter­ances said by Laches and Parmeno serve especially to highlight their mental and emo­­tional state as the passage unravels.

[For the text of this scene in Latin and English, click here.]

At Parmeno’s entering into the discourse (976) we see a distinctly fast-paced line full of short syllables, the feet being mostly iambic or anapaestic, except on the word “sal­vom”. The relative preponderance of short syllables can indicate either glad relief or nerv­ous agitation: the emphasis on the word “salvom” created by its distinctive spondaic weight conveys a certain sense of Parmeno’s hope that he himself might be safe, but the seemingly formulaic nature of this greeting evokes the image of a deceitful daughter ner­vously saying “Hi, dad!” as her illicit paramour hides somewhere. In contrast, Laches’ reply to this (976) is slow, spondaic, serious: this reflects perhaps his tranquillity in the five lines before this passage (970–974) as well as his advanced age and dignity, not to mention the authority accorded to him.

At this point Parmeno himself says in an aside, “periī: lingua haeret metū” (976). Indeed his very vocalization slows down from anxious short syllables to long, tongue-tied syllables with an elision for good measure (“lingua haeret”) that highlights the jumble of his words. At this Laches produces a stream of connected questions (976–977), even inter­rupting Parmeno’s aside by an elision that is all the more salient because it occurs in the last syllable of the line (976): “hem, / quid est? quid trepidas? satin salve? dic mihi.” The earnestness and urgency of Laches’ questions are clear in the shift from predominantly long syllables to many short syllables.

Now, in lines 978–979, Parmeno lets loose some verbiage by which he tries to ex­plain and distance himself from his part in the affairs of which he is about to tell, but the utterance unit is in direct violation of probably two of the conversational maxims of Paul Grice’s cooperative principle of discourse. What Parmeno starts out saying is not imme­diately relevant to the previous utterance in the discourse, which is Laches’ questions, violating the Maxim of Relevance. It is also more informative than required, thus violating also the Maxim of Quantity. This failure on Parmeno’s part to abide by the cooperative principle is all the more apparent when Laches interjects, “quid?” (980). By having Parmeno speak in this way, Terence highlights both Parmeno’s edgy state and his flightiness apparent from the total contrast with the way he acts two scenes before, where he claims total credit for successfully getting Chaerea inside Thaïs’s house.

Now Parmeno begins his real response. Here, for the most part, he gives, from an outsider’s point of view, an appro­priately full narration, doubtless to stay in Laches’ good graces, though for the audience this actually builds dramatic irony, as Laches stays for the time being unaware of the immediate crisis. The exception is when he answers Laches’ short, staccato pointed questions, where instead he is relevant but extremely brief, giving only what is absolutely necessary so as not to incriminate himself, for these are indeed the points in which his involvement in the events would be hard to miss: “Thāidī” and “vīgintī minīs” (982, 983). But before this, when he starts out, Parmeno’s speech is sombre and heavily spondaic as he adds more to ingratiate himself and starts actually re­count­ing the facts: in fact, there are only two short syllables in lines 980–982 apart from what the meter absolutely requires. Meanwhile, until the end of line 984 Laches’ speech is characterized by terse, plain pronouncements of dreaded doom and even shorter, urgent one-word questions. He, too, speaks very spondaically, breaking this pattern only when he agitatedly adds “periī hercle” with its short syllables after his rhetorical question “ēmit?” (983).

At the end of this part of the exchange (“actumst.”) Laches has learned only of Phaedria’s doings, whereupon Parmeno adds that even Chaerea is involved, and this is the crux of the entire affair. Even as he speaks of this the spondaic rhythm unravels: the last four words of the sentence contain six short syllables, with two reso­lu­tions of metric­ally dictated longs. The tension has broken. For an entire two lines (985–986) Laches follows suit with replacing a majority of long syllables with a number of short ones in a crescendo effect as he effusively exclaims with four consecutive rhetorical ques­tions that he sums up, “aliud ex aliō malum”, on a register of diction that is obviously heigh­tened from before. He amplifies his first question rhetorically by emphatically expressing it as two: “hem quid? amat?” He begins the next two questions with “an”. He employs a proverbially-tinged repetition of words in “aliud ex aliō” suggestive of “nihil ex nihilō” and similar phrases involving repetition, which in turn throws emphasis on the word “malum” that ends the line (986). Indeed the assonance of the vowel “a” in the line further stresses this emphatic mood.

As Parmeno perceives this tricolon crescens of sorts he tries again to extricate and save himself (987). In keeping with such a tone he expresses himself with many long syl­la­bles, perhaps to slow the mood and calm his master. At the same time, though, the two consecutive elisions betray an anxiousness that the syllable lengths do not show but at the start of the line, where two syllables are short. However, for now Laches is focused more on what has happened than on whatever wrath he has for Parmeno’s implication in it: “ōmitte dē tē dīcere”, although he doubles back and notes, “egō tē, furcifer, / sī vīvō” (988–989), repeating “tē” only two words after the last time he has said it. We see this as he breaks off anacoluthically in the same way that Vergil’s Neptune in Book I of the Aeneid curtails his tirade at “quōs ego”, which Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable defines as “a threat of punishment for disobedience”, in the same way heightening the sense of agitation. At this, Laches then turns his focus instead onto the situation at hand despite his continued anger.

Parmeno in turn keeps going at a measured pace: of the short syllables in 990–992 only two are not obligatory, lending gravity to the words of both Parmeno and Laches, especially where Laches asks the short, rhetorical question, “pro eunūchon?” There are also seven elisions in these lines, five of them Parmeno’s. Four of these are in the same line in Parmeno’s responsive narration, of which three are consecutive. Finally Laches breaks this off and elides Parmeno’s final vowel with a simple “occidī” (992), which Parmeno confirms in the following line, even drawing attention to it, and away from himself, with the imperative “spectā”.

Asked whether he has omitted anything, with emphasis on “damnī” and “nōn” by their having long syllables at the beginning of feet where the rest of the line gives short syllables (994), Parmeno says “that is all”, glad the conversation is over and breathing a sigh of relief—for he himself helped end it—as Laches rushes into Thaïs’ house, strangely with spondaic feet (995).

Glossary

salvom

‘safe’, accusative singular.

periī: lingua haeret metū

‘I am undone: [my] tongue is sticking in fear.’

hem, / quid est? quid trepidas? satin salve? dic mihi.

‘Whoa, what is it? What are you starting at? Are you all right? Tell me.’

vīgintī minīs

‘for twenty minae’

periī hercle

‘I’m undone, by Hercules.’

ēmit?

‘[He] bought [one]?’

actumst

‘It’s over.’

aliud ex aliō malum

‘one disaster from another’

hem quid? amat?

‘How now? He is enamoured?’

ōmitte dē tē dīcere

‘Leave off talking about yourself.’

egō tē, furcifer, sī vīvō—

‘I will—you, rascal, if I survive—<unspecified verb>’

pro eunūchon?

‘In place of a eunuch?’

occidī

‘I am ruined!’