Casina (play)

Plot

The action takes place on the streets of Athens, and all the characters are Greek. The plot revolves about a beautiful girl, Casina, who was abandoned at the door of Lysidamus and his wife Cleostrata, and has been raised as a slave. Euthynicus, son of Lysidamus, has fallen in love with Casina and wants her to marry his armour-bearer Chalinus so that he can enjoy her favours as a concubine. His father Lysidamus, however, desires Casina as his own concubine, and plans to have her marry his farm-manager Olympio instead. Cleostrata opposes his plan, and wants Casina to marry Chalinus to save her for her son.

To resolve the situation, Lysidamus proposes to draw lots (the play is also known as The Lot-Drawers), but Olympio wins. Chalinus discovers that Lysidamus plans to sleep with Casina in the neighbor's house before Olympio takes her to the farm. When Cleostrata learns of this, she dresses Chalinus as Casina and humiliates both Olympio and Lysidamus by taking advantage of the darkened bedroom in her neighbor's home where Lysidamus' affair was to take his wife, and his sins have been exposed to the public. Cleostrata takes him back and life returns to normal. There follows a brief epilogue in which it is explained that Euthynicus will return from the country and will indeed marry Casina, who was really a free-born Athenian when she was taken into the family.

Many of the characters in Casina are stock characters of Greek and Roman comedy, such as the old man chasing after the young slave woman.

Metrical structure

Plautus' plays are traditionally divided into five acts. However, it is not thought that the act-divisions go back to Plautus's time, since no manuscript contains them before the 15th century. Also, the acts themselves do not always match the structure of the plays, which is often more clearly shown by the variation in metres.

A common pattern in Plautus is for a metrical section to begin with iambic senarii (which were unaccompanied by music), followed optionally by a musical passage or song, and ending with trochaic septenarii, which were recited or sung to the music of a pair of pipes known as tibiae.

The structure of the play is as follows, taking A = iambic senarii, B = other metres, C = trochaic septenarii:

:ABC, AC, AC, AB, AC, BABC

The argument over Casina

• Act 1 (1–143): iambic senarii (125 lines)

• Act 2.1–2.3 (144-251): polymetric song (ba, cr, an) (108 lines)

• Act 2.3–2.4 (252-308): trochaic septenarii (56 lines)

Olympio wins the lottery

• Act 2.5 (309–352): iambic senarii (44 lines)

• Act 2.6 (353–423): trochaic septenarii (71 lines)

Chalinus discovers Lysidamus's plans

• Act 2.7–2.8 (424–514): iambic senarii (91 lines)

• Act 3.1–3.2 (515–562): trochaic septenarii (48 lines)

Pardalisca's trick

• Act 3.3–3.4 (563–620): iambic senarii (57 lines) :: Lysidamus enters. He says he has wasted the day at the forum unsuccessfully pleading in court for a friend. He meets Cleostrata, who lies to him that she had invited Myrrhina, but that Alcesimus had refused to allow her to go. She goes inside. Alcesimus now appears, and the two men argue about these contradictory versions of events. Eventually Alcesimus grudgingly agrees to send his wife across using the out-of-sight back door, although he is obviously very cross with Lysidamus. Suddenly Lysidamus hears a commotion from his house.

• Act 3.5–3.6 (621–758): mixed (cr, an, ba, an) (138 lines)

The wedding begins

• Act 4.1–4.2 (759–797): iambic senarii (39 lines)

• **Act 4.3 (798–814): trochaic septenarii (15 lines) (with 2 ia4) **

The old man is fooled

• Act 4.4 (815–46): an, ba, an (32 lines)

• Act 4.4 (847–54): iambic senarii (8 lines)

• Act 5.1–5.3 (855–962): ba, an (108 lines)

• Act 5.4 (963–1018): trochaic septenarii (54 lines)

Bibliography

• Christenson, David M. (2019). Plautus: Casina. Bloomsbury Academic.
• Connors, Catherine (1997). "Scents and Sensibility in Plautus' Casina". The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 305–309.
• de Melo, Wolfgang (2011). Plautus, Vol II: Casina; The Casket Comedy; Curculio; Epidicus; The Two Menaechmuses. Loeb Classical Library
• Franko, George Fredric (1999). "Imagery and Names in Plautus' Casina. The Classical Journal, Vol. 95, No. 1, pp. 1-17.
• MacCary, W. T., Willcock, M. M. (1976). Plautus: Casina. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics.
• Moodie, Erin (2021). "Review of Christenson (2019)". Bryn Mawr Classical Review.
• Moore, T. J. (2012). Music in Roman Comedy. Cambridge University Press.
• Traill, Ariana (2011). "Casina and The Comedy of Errors.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 18(4), 497–522.
• Way, Mahalia L. (2000) "Violence and the Performance of Class in Plautus' Casina." Helios, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 187+.

References

References

1. In his edition, Lindsay writes "Cleustrata", but the manuscripts all have "Cleostrata"; the name is pronounced with three syllables.
2. The name appears in Lindsay and Leo's editions, but it may be an error. He is not named in the text itself: Traill (2011), pp. 500–501 note.
3. De Melo (2011), p. 7.
4. Connors (1997).
5. Franko (1999).
6. (1976). "The "Senex Amator" in Plautus' Casina". Hermes.
7. Merrill, F. R. (1972). ''Titi Macci Plauti Mostellaria'', p. xix.
8. For the ABC order, common in Plautus, see Moore, Timothy J. (2012), ''Music in Roman Comedy''. Cambridge University Press, pp. 237-42, 253-8, 305-8, 367-71.
9. For details of the metres line by line see: [http://romancomedy.wustl.edu/ Database by Timothy J. Moore of ''The Meters of Roman Comedy''], Washington University in St Louis.
10. Moore (2012), p. 195.