Plautus. Plautus has given one important contribution to the plot of Epicone, the bringing about of the dénouement by revealing the sex of the supposed bride. Dauphine extracts from his despairing uncle money and a deed of gift, in exchange for a promise to annul the elder's marriage. He does so by proving the bride to be a boy in disguise. As Köppel, Rapp, and Reinhardstöttner1 point out, this sort of mock wedding, followed by a ludicrous undisguising, is found in the Casina of Plautus. In the Latin comedy the enamoured old Stalino is fooled by his wife Cleostrata and her accomplice into believing the young Chalinus is the maiden Casina. The supposed maiden is wedded to Olympio, the bailiff. When Stalino and the quondam husband go to meet her at the house of Alcesimus, they find Chalinus in the garments of Casina, are both beaten by him, and made the butts of boisterous laughter.

Upton pointed out three other places in Epicone, one in which the language, the others in which the language and action, may be traced to Plautus. The first is unimportant, and occurs 2. 4. 153, where True-wit says of Daw: 'No mushrome was euer so fresh. A fellow so vtterly nothing, as he knowes not what he would be.' The lines are related to Plautus, Bacch. 4. 7. 23 Nec sentit; tanti'st, quanti est fungus putidus'. The second reference is 2. 5. 88; when Cutbeard would moderate the excessive joy expressed by Morose at the discovery of a woman who knew how to be silent, the latter refuses to listen, cutting him off with— 'I know what thou woulst say, shee's poore, and her friends deceased; shee has brought a wealthy dowrie in her silence, Cutberd; and in respect of her pouerty, Cutberd, I shall haue her more louing, and obedient, Cutberd.' We have already noticed that the dowry of silence is mentioned by

...

1 Emil Köppel, Quellen-Studien Leipzig, 1895; T. Macci Plauti Casina, Rec. Fr. Schoell, Leipzig, 1890; M. Rapp, Studien über das englische Theater, p. 228; Reinhardstöttner, Plautus, p. 390.

2 Cf. note, 2. 4. 153.

Libanius (supra, p. xxxii), who, perhaps, as well as Jonson, had read the same sentiment in the Aulularia of Plautus, 2. 1. 50. Here, as does Cutbeard, Eunomia shakes her head, or endeavours to speak, and Megadorus, anxious to persuade her to his way of thinking, argues :

Eius cupio filiam

Virginem mihi desponderi-Verba ne facias, soror:

Scio quid dictura es, hanc esse pauperem. Haec pauper placet. The third allusion to Plautus is 4. 4. 55, in the description Epicone gives of the pretended madness of her husband. 'How his eyes sparkle! He lookes greene about the temples! Doe you see what blue spots he has ?' Cf. Plautus, Menaechmi 5. 2. 76:

MUL. Viden' tu illi oculos virere? ut viridis exoritur color

Ex temporibus atque fronte, ut oculi scintillant, vide!

Shakespeare. The third source of Jonson's plot, and the only incident traceable to an English source, is the gulling of Daw and La-Foole by True-wit in Act 4. 5. Steevens was the first to compare this scene with Twelfth Night 3. 4, and to declare Shakespeare the borrower. Gifford said of the matter: There can be no doubt but that the attempt of sir Toby and Fabian to bring on a quarrel between Aguecheek and Viola, is imitated from this scene.' That it was Jonson who was the borrower the dates of the plays easily prove.

The date of Twelfth Night was long conjectural, and assigned to every year from 1599 to 1614. It was finally settled by the discovery in the British Museum in 1828 of a little manuscript, the diary of John Manningham2, a student of the Middle Temple. There are entries in the diary from 1601 to 1603. On Feb. 2, 160, Manningham

writes:

At our feast we had a play called Twelfth Night or what you will, much like the comedy of errors, or Menechmis in Plautus, but most like and neere to that Italian called Inganni. A good practise in it to make the steward believe his lady widdowe was in love with him, by counterfayting 1 Jonson's Works 3. 436. 2 Camden Society Reprints.

a letter, as from his lady, in general termes telling him what shee liked best in him, and prescribing his gestures, inscribing his apparaile etc. and then when he came to practise, making believe they took him to be mad. Epicane, then, is almost a decade later than Twelfth Night.

In comparing Jonson's scene and the one from which it is imitated, it is evident at the outset that the former differs from the latter as an incident in a London comedy of manners and intrigue would differ from that in a comedy of romance. What is an intrinsic part of the plot in Twelfth Night becomes almost episodic in Epicone, with a different motive for its introduction. Sir Toby, by any means he can devise, is keeping Sir Andrew Aguecheek at his niece Olivia's house, ostensibly to court the scornful countess, but really to strip Sir Andrew of his possessions. He explains, to Fabian, 'I have been to him, lad, some two thousand strong or so' (3. 2. 53). The idea that the disconsolate Sir Andrew should send a challenge to his rival, the disguised Viola, pops into Sir Toby's head as another means to extract something more from the gull, for he knows 'oxen and wainropes cannot hale them together' (3. 2. 63). So when Andrew promises to give him his horse if he call off the fight, he promptly sets about to do it. In Epicone the motive is punishment of two fellows who have slandered Dauphine 'before the ladies'. Without the formality of a challenge each is made to believe that the other is ready to annihilate him for some injury. In great fear each petitions for a mediator, and unwittingly picks out the main conspirator; each is then punished by the wronged Dauphine, who disguises himself as Daw when he tweaks the nose of Amorous, and disguises himself as Amorous when he chastises Daw. As a result the humor in the two situations is unlike. Sir Toby, the cozener, is himself something of a victim, for the audience, but not the old renegade, see that the countess's frightened page is a woman.

In

Epicone True-wit takes into his conspiracy not only Dauphine, but Clerimont, the spectators, and finally the stage audience of 'collegiates', and makes his day's mirth 'a iest to posterity'. The humor is far more genial which makes Sir Toby less of a victimizer than he believes himself to be, and justly divides the laughter between him and his cowardly victims. The same genial humor awakens a sympathy for Viola, in her unwilling participation in a fight into which she is undeservedly drawn, a sympathy not felt at the belaboring of Daw and the nose-tweaking of La-Foole.

The similarity between the scenes consists primarily in the setting on of two cowards to fight, but secondarily in details of description and expression. The note of surprise which Sir Toby strikes as he advises Viola to beware of her enemy, when she has never dreamed of the existence of one, True-wit admirably echoes in announcing to LaFoole Daw's mortal defiance. In Twelfth Night 3. 4. 238 ff., the challenge is thus delivered:

SIR TO. Gentleman, God save thee.

Vio. And you, sir.

SIR TO. That defence thou hast, betake thee to 't: of what nature the wrongs are thou hast done him, I know not; but thy intercepter, full of despite, bloody as the hunter, attends thee at the orchard-end: dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy preparation, for thy assailant is quick, skilful and deadly.

VIO. You mistake, sir; I am sure no man hath any quarrel to me: my remembrance is very free and clear from any image of offence done to any man.

SIR TO. You'll find it otherwise, I assure you: therefore, if you hold your life at any price, betake you to your guard; for your opposite hath in him what youth, strength, skill, and wrath can furnish man withal.

Vio. I pray you, sir, what is he?

SIR TO. He is knight, dubbed with unhatched rapier and on carpet consideration; but he is a devil in private brawl: souls and bodies hath he divorced three; and his incensement at this moment is so implacable, that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of death and sepulchre. Hob, nob, is his word; give 't or take't.

Vio. I will return again into the house and desire some conduct of the lady. I am no fighter...

SIR TO. Sir, no; his indignation derives itself out of a very competent injury: therefore get you on and give him his desire...

Vio. This is as uncivil as strange. I beseech you, do me this courteous office, as to know of the knight what my offence to him is: it is something of my negligence, nothing of my purpose.

At this point Sir Toby departs, pretending that he will, if possible, appease Sir Andrew, and leaves the frightened Viola in the care of Fabian. With Sir Toby's encounter compare that of True-wit and La-Foole, which begins, 4. 5. 155, thus:

TRV. Question till your throat bee cut, doe: dally till the enraged soule find you.

LA-F. Who's that?

TRV. DAW it is; will you in?

LA-F. I, I, I'll in: what's the matter?

TRV. Nay, if hee had beene coole inough to tell vs that, there had beene some hope to attone you, but he seemes so implacably enrag'd.

LA-F. 'Slight, let him rage. I'll hide my selfe.

what haue you done to him within, that you haue broke some iest vpon him, afore the

TRV. Doe, good sir. But should prouoke him thus ladies

LA-F. Not I, neuer in my life, broke iest vpon any man...

TRV. ... but hee walkes the round vp and downe, through euery roome o' the house, with a towell in his hand, crying, where's LA-FOOLE? who saw LA-FOOLE?

To Sir Toby's description of Sir Andrew above there are some likenesses in True-wit's description of La-Foole to Daw, 4. 5. 76 ff., where he maintains 'Bloud he thirsts for, and bloud he will haue: and where-abouts on you he will haue it, who knows, but himself?' This resembles Sir Toby's assurance of the necessity of 'the pang of death and sepulchre'.

There is a reminiscence of Viola's suggestion that she return to the house for protection in La-Foole's proposal, 4. 5. 184:

I'll stay here, till his anger be blowne ouer... Or, I'll away into the country presently . . . Sir, I'll giue him any satisfaction. I dare giue any

termes.

Turning back to the scene in Twelfth Night, we find