In Defense of Milphio: Aggressive Puns and Status Transactions in Plautus' Poenulus

The famous "mistranslation" scene of Plautus' Poenulus, in which the clever slave Milphio seems to fail at translating Hanno's Punic remarks, should be interpreted as Milphio's attempt to increase his own onstage status through a series of revisory puns. Rather than indicating Milphio's failure to be clever, Milphio's "mis-translations" are consistent with his pattern of aggressive, revisory punning throughout the comedy. Milphio frequently retrojects ambiguity onto his interlocutors' speeches in an effort to increase his onstage status and sometimes to reject his master's control of both his person and his reality.