In what
degree of faithfulness Terence copied Menander, whether, as he states of
the passage in the Adelphi taken from Diphilus, verbum de verbo in the
lovelier scenes--the description of the last words of the dying Andrian,
and of her funeral, for instance--remains conjectural. For us Terence
shares with his master the praise of an amenity that is like Elysian
speech, equable and ever gracious; like the face of the Andrian's young
sister:
'Adeo modesto, adeo venusto, ut nihil supra.'
The celebrated 'flens quam familiariter,' of which the closest rendering
grounds hopelessly on harsh prose, to express the sorrowful confidingness
of a young girl who has lost her sister and dearest friend, and has but
her lover left to her; 'she turned and flung herself on his bosom,
weeping as though at home there': this our instinct tells us must be
Greek, though hardly finer in Greek. Certain lines of Terence, compared
with the original fragments, show that he embellished them; but his taste
was too exquisite for him to do other than devote his genius to the
honest translation of such pieces as the above.
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