Page:Plautus and Terence.djvu/30

18 strong and disinterested friendship. We have too little opportunity of judging what Menander made of them; but in Terence they have commonly the redeeming point of a strong affection for their parents underlying all their faults, though it does not prevent them from intriguing with their slaves to cheat them in order to the gratification of their own passions or extravagance. Yet their genuine repentance when detected, and the docility with which they usually accept their father's arrangements for them in the matter of a wife are a remarkable proof of the strength of the paternal influence. The daughter of the family may be said (in quite a literal sense) to have no character at all. She is brought up in something stricter than even what Dryden calls "the old Elizabeth way, which was for maids to be seen and not heard;" for she is never seen or heard, though we are always led to believe that she is an irreproachable young lady, possessing a due amount of personal charms, and with a comfortable dowry; which combined attractions are quite sufficient to make one of the young gentlemen happy—sometimes at very short notice—in the last scene of the play. But it was not etiquette for an unmarried woman at Athens to make her appearance in the public streets—and in the streets, for the reasons already given, the action of the piece invariably takes place. Of some of the ladies who do appear on the stage the same remark as to character (in a different sense) might be made; and if something less were seen and heard of them, it might be better.

This entire absence of what we should call love-scenes, places these dramas at an enormous disadvantage