#adelphoe

So Thursday in Latin class we finished reading Terence’s “Hecyra” (“The Mother-in-Law”) and at first I found it pretty in the vanguard because WOW he just put down lots of the prejudices of his time regarding prostitutes, mothers-in-law and parents in general, BUT THEN it plunges in I don’t know?? ten verses??? Basically Pamphilus accepted the child and took back with him his wife because he found out that the newborn was actually his son, and so there couldn’t be any honour problem and stuff: lovely, don’t you think? But HOW THE HELL could he be the father if they starts sleeping together month after their marriage? THAT’S SO SIMPLE HE IS the one who raped her in an alley one night, little time before their union was arranged. And then everything finishes with Bacchis saying to the audience how she sorted out all the things and almost how they lived ~happy after all~ after this GLORIOUS discovery

I KNOW that I’m writing this with a reallyreallyreally different mentality from them, but what the hell

I think Terence did a great job with Bacchis and Sostra characters (a prostitute with real feelings for a man and a mother who didn’t try to ruin his son’s marriage were really rare things in comedies bc they were archetype) but also that he destroyed Philumena’s one: we obliviously don’t know what she could have said, but we can imagine how she could have /felt/. The man she grow to love despite their arranged marriage and she was ready to spend her life with was in fact her raper. What a time to be alive.