Curculio, also called The Weevil, is a Latin comedic play for the early Roman theatre by Titus Maccius Plautus. It is the shortest of Plautus's surviving plays.

Plot[edit]

In Curculio, Phaedromus is in love with Planesium, a slave girl belonging to the pimp Cappadox. Phaedromus sends Curculio (a stock parasite character) to borrow money. Unsuccessful, Curculio happens to run into Therapontigonus, a soldier who intends to purchase Planesium. After Curculio learns of his plans, he steals the soldier's ring and returns to Phaedromus. They fake a letter and seal it using the ring. Curculio takes it to the soldier's banker Lyco, tricking him into thinking he was sent by Therapontigonus. Lyco pays Cappadox, under the conditions that the money will be returned if it is later discovered that she is freeborn. Curculio takes the girl back to Phaedromus. When the trick is later discovered, the angry Therapontigonus confronts the others. However, Planesium has discovered from the ring that she is actually Therapontigonus's sister. Since she is freeborn, Therapontigonus is returned his money, and Planesium is allowed to marry Phaedromus.

Casina Plautus Summary

Plautus wishes she’d met Laika, the first animal to orbit the earth. She was a stray whom Dr. Yazdovsky put into Sputnik II in 1957. She was happy in space for a few hours, but then the capsule overheated and she died. Most of the dogs, like Laika, are one-way passengers. Plautus talks to the dogs who return whenever she gets the chance. The Mostellaria (ten called in English The Haunted House) is one of Plautus' most lively plays and one which contains his most skilfully handled elements of farce. Probably based on a Greek original, Philemon's Ghost, it concerns the scheming slave Tranio's attempts (including the invention of a haunted house) to disguise from his old master the sexual and financial prodigality of his son. Mostellaria is a play by the Roman author Plautus. Its name translates from Latin as The Haunted House (with the word Domus understood in the title). It is a comedy with a very linear plot. It is set in the city of Athens, on a street in front of the houses of Theopropides and Simo.

Translations[edit]

• Henry Thomas Riley, 1912:
• Paul Nixon, 1916-38:
• George E. Duckworth, 1942
• Christopher Stace, 1981
• Henry S. Taylor, 1995
• Amy Richlin, 2005
• Wolfang de Melo, 2011 ^[1]

References[edit]

1. ^Plautus; Translated by Wolfgang de Melo (2011). Plautus, Vol II: Casina; The Casket Comedy; Curculio; Epidicus; The Two Menaechmuses. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN067499678X.

• John E. Thorburn (2005). The Facts On File companion to classical drama. Infobase Publishing. p. 159. ISBN0-8160-5202-6.

External links[edit]

• Curculio (full text) on the Perseus Project, translated by Henry Thomsay Riley.
• Curculio (full text) on the Austin College website. Translation by Paul Nixon.

A soldier carries off a prostitute from Athens to Ephesus. Whilea slave wants to report this to his lovesick master, who is abroadon an embassy, he himself is captured at sea and given to thatsame soldier as a present. He summons his previous master5from Athens and secretly pierces through the wall shared by thetwo houses so that the lovers may have the opportunity to meet.From the roof tiles, a guard sees them embracing, but is trickedand hoaxed into believing that the girl is someone else. In the10same way Palaestrio induces the soldier to let his concubine go,on the grounds that his old neighbor’s wife is keen to marry him.He asks his mistress of his own accord to go away and gives hermany presents. He himself, caught in the old man’s house, receivespunishment as if he were an adulterer.

Plautus Casina Summary

A young Athenian was madly in love with a freeborn¹ prostitute,and she with him. Sent as an ambassador, he left home for

The Haunted House Plautus Summary

• ¹Whether she is freeborn or not is unclear; the writer of the summaryseems to have inferred this from l. 490, where Periplectomenus,however, is speaking of her invented twin sister. If she is indeed freeborn,she is free to marry Pleusicles.