A Plautus Reader: Selections from Eleven Plays

The comic playscripts by Plautus—the earliest Latin texts we have—made it through the ancient world to reach ours because the moves and verbal jousting found in them have always made people laugh. Plautine comedies span a wide range of idioms, extending from saucy adventures in the sex trade with Father as the fall-guy who foots all bills, to the trouncing of bigmouth trooper by Ms. Hot Stuff; from the fairytale wishes come true of faraway foundlings fished up on a surprise romantic shore, to the caricature gospel that re-stages the myth of the birth of the hero, in true panto style, gods and all.