Terence, Andria, 74-79 and the Palatine AnthologyAuthor(s): Harry L. LevySource: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 89, No. 4 (Oct., 1968), pp. 470-471Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/292830Accessed: 05/06/2010 16:24

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TERENCE, ANDRIA, 74-79 AND THE PALATINE ANTHOLOGY.

SI. primo haec pudice vitam parce et duriter agebat, lana ac tela victum quaeritans; sed postquam amans accessit pretium pollicens unus et item alter, ita ut ingeniumst omnium hominum ab labore proclive ad lubidinem, accepit condicionem, dehinc quaestum occipit.

The verses cited are crucial to Terence's defensio Chrysidis, as Donatus ad loc. views it-the playwright's attempt to portray the courtesan in a favorable light (partim defendenda, partim etiam laudanda, says Donatus, ad And., 71). She must be treated sympathetically if Glycerium, whom Chrysis has brought up as her sister, is to seem worthy of ultimate marriage to Pamphilus.

How well Terence-and presumably Menander-succeeded in this attempt, both here and in the famous o Mysis Mysis speech of Pamphilus (And., 282-98), is known to all who have studied the play. It is small wonder that Terence's portrayal inspired Thornton Wilder to write his brief but sensitive and beautiful lloman of Andros.

The present passage has been rather fully discussed by com- mentators from Donatus down. G. P. Shipp, in his annotated edition of the Andria (2d ed.; Oxford, 1960), points out ad And., 75 that Greek and Roman women "could not earn an honourable living away from their homes; so here lana ac tela and the quaestus meretricius are the only alternatives thought of."

But neither Shipp nor apparently any of his predecessors as editors of the Andria, nor any of the scholars who have written separate articles on the play, has brought into connection with our passage several poems of the Palatine Anthology, which show that Chrysis' facilis descensus was a recognized culture- trait of Hellenistic society, with a rite de passage all its own: the dedication of the spinster's implements to the goddess of respectable feminine employment, Athena, whom she thus ab- jures, and her dedication of herself to a new patroness, Aphro- dite. This is most cleverly expressed in an anonymous epigram, Anth. Pal., VI, 48, which closely parallels the preceding poem, attributed to Antipater of Sidon (fl. ca. 130 B. C.):

470

TERENCE, "ANDRIA," 74-79 AND PALATINE ANTHOLOGY. 471

KepKt8a Tqrv 4(AoEpy'Ov 'AOrlva7 O0Tro B&TTW

avOeua, X.Lp rp7s appuevov epyaaetr7), 7ravTas a7roTrvcaua yvvr TOT TOyS iv epltoLS

)OXOOVS KaLt orvyepas cfpovTLsaSa UiTOTrOVWv E7re 8' 'AOrlva4' T(iv Kv7rpt8os a'/o/LaL p 'pywv,

Tq,V IlapLSos KaTar aouov ,7jyov &vEyKaE,vrq.

Compare also Anth. Pal., VI, 285, in similar vein. The other side of the coin is shown by a whole series of

epigrams, wherein working-women who have continued, in some cases throughout their active lives, to earn their living parce ac duriter, dedicate their implements to Athena, without-except in one instance-apparently giving a thought to her more seduc- tive rival. These are Anth. Pal., VI, 39, 160, 174, 247, 287, 288, 289; VII, 726; IX, 96. The one exception, also by Antipater, clearly shows in its last two lines that the three wise virgins who dedicate their basket, spindle, and comb to Pallas have indeed been tempted by the alternative, but have womanfully rejected it (Anth. Pal., VI, 174, 7-8) :

,CeLV yap 8X'a 7ravTosL ovcoF lOeXs ' cKaaTa, TLve, TOV EK X?etpwv apwvvAeva (38oTOV.

HARRY L. LEVY. FORDHAM UNIVERSITY.