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"In his Adelphi or 'Brothers, SYRUS and DEMEA enter after the Scene was broken by the departure of SOSTRATA, GETA, and CANTHARA; and, indeed, you can scarce look into any of his Comedies, where you will not presently discover the same interruption. Instead of punishing vice, and rewarding virtue; they have often shown a prosperous wickedness, and an unhappy piety.
I shall discover your least, as well as your greatest defects, and I shall very freely tell you of them, 'Non quod odio habeam sed quod amem'. But I shall tell them you 'tete-a-tete', and as MICIO not as DEMEA; and I will tell them to nobody else.
The remark of Horace that "Pomponius would have to listen to rebukes like those of Demea if his father were living; that if you broke up the elegant rhythmical language you would find only what every angry parent would say under the same circumstances," is perfectly just, and constitutes one of the chief excellences of Terence, one which has made him, like Horace, a favourite with experienced men of the world.
The Micio and Demea of the Adelphi, with their opposing views of the proper management of youth, are still alive; the Sganarelles and Arnolphes of the Ecole des Maris and the Ecole des Femmes, are not all buried. Tartuffe is the father of the hypocrites; Orgon of the dupes; Thraso, of the braggadocios; Alceste of the 'Manlys'; Davus and Syrus of the intriguing valets, the Scapins and Figaros.
Thus do I ever advise them to have things done properly, according to my capacity; and lastly, Demea, I command my cooks to look into every dish as if it were a mirror, and tell them what they should do." And yet even the Greeks themselves very much admired and highly applauded the order and disposition that Paulus AEmilius observed in the feast he gave them at his return from Macedon.
Which learned lecture of my man brought this of Terence into my memory: "Hoc salsum est, hoc adustum est, hoc lautum est, parum: Illud recte: iterum sic memento: sedulo Moneo, qux possum, pro mea sapientia. Postremo, tanquam in speculum, in patinas, Demea, Inspicere jubeo, et moneo, quid facto usus sit."
The Micio and Demea of the Adelphi, with their opposing views of the proper management of youth, are still alive; the Sganarelles and Arnolphes of the Ecole des Maris and the Ecole des Femmes, are not all buried. Tartuffe is the father of the hypocrites; Orgon of the dupes; Thraso, of the braggadocios; Alceste of the 'Manlys'; Davus and Syrus of the intriguing valets, the Scapins and Figaros.
I shall discover your least, as well as your greatest defects, and I shall very freely tell you of them, 'Non quod odio habeam sed quod amem'. But I shall tell them you 'tete-a-tete', and as MICIO not as DEMEA; and I will tell them to nobody else.
I grant you should speak more in the vein of Demea than Mitio, vi nempe et via pervulgata patrum; but as for not seeing him again, and he your only son, that is altogether out of reason. "May it please your Majesty to permit me to retire," said Lord Huntinglen, "and dispose of the case according to your own royal sense of justice, for I desire no favour for him."
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