The Woman from Andros, alternately called Andria is the next play in my collection of Latin Classics in translation. It’s another comedy based around misunderstandings, secrets, and deceptions in along the lines of the previous Latin play I’d examined, Plautus’ The Haunted House.
The premise of this one is essentially a long game of marital chicken. Simo, an Athenian nobleman, is worried about his son Pamphilus’ morals and future. Simo suspects his son has fallen in love with a lowly woman, Glycerium—and indeed he is correct—and so sets about planning his marriage to Philumena. It’s a similar overbearing father situation akin to something like The Taming of the Shrew. While Simo is actually absolutely correct, he’s missing more information: not only is Pamphilus in love with Glycerium, he is also secretly engaged to her and she is pregnant with his child, about to deliver. Meanwhile, Charinus, who is actually in love with Philumena, is crushed by his friend’s sudden engagement to her. So, they’re all in a love triangle and trying to avoid the wedding.
Simo instructs Davus, Pamphilus’ slave, to ensure that the marriage goes off without a hitch, leaving him torn between allegiances. Does he help his master to remain faithful to his true beloved or avoid the inevitable punishment if he gets in the way of the wedding? The idea of tricky slaves trying to avoid punishment seems to be emerging as a theme in Latin theater…
Davus discovers that the wedding is a sham and engages in a series of deceptions for Pamphilus to save face. Simo is trying to expose Pamphilus and so he’s certain Pamphilus will refuse the marriage; Davus encourages him to agree to the wedding, which puts father and son into a game of chicken: who will back down from this wedding nobody actually wants?
The play is reasonably straightforward in that sense and has some comic moments with its dramatic irony. It doesn’t have the flowery language of a Shakespeare comedy, at least not in this translation, so the comedy is principally based on the situation and the characters’ refusals to concede. There are also some funny misunderstandings where Simo gets so close to knowing the truth but then misreads it. For example, when he overhears a baby being born he thinks it’s a tactic to scare the partners away from the marriage and that it’s all a ruse. Davus very kindly lets him fool himself and then speaks honestly, sort of, to suggest that the baby is a tactic from Glycerium to scare Pamphilus off from his marriage.
The plot gets more complicated from there and I won’t trouble you with the details. Besides, for the humour to land, you’ll need to be at least a little surprised by the kinds of tricks the characters play.
It’s a fun little play that will take you about two hours to read. Might as well give it a shot.
Happy reading!
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