Music in Roman Comedy by Timothy J. Moore (review)
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This is Timothy Moore’s long-expected monograph on music in Roman Comedy where the stream of research, begun in 1998 and carried forward through a series of works on individual problems, converges into a single, comprehensive magnum opus. As confirmed by the large amount of evidence reviewed in the introduction, the comedies of Plautus and Terence were provided with musical accompaniment, performed on stage by a tibicen playing a sort of two-piped instrument (tibiae). Moore reconstructs the technical features of the tibiae by discussing the ancient evidence and by comparing some similar modern instruments (chapter 1). Roman comedies also involved singing, which, according to Moore, was performed by the actors themselves, whose vocal qualities and their operation are considered (chapter 2). Besides singing to the sound of the tibiae, actors performed (occasional) dances, whose types and function Moore also discusses (chapter 3).
The most direct evidence for the plays’ musical aspect is that they are written in various meters, which display complex variety within themselves and often alternate with each other. The central (and most stimulating) part of Moore’s book is thus dedicated to comic meters and to their meaningful relation with what is said by characters and happens on stage.
Moore is not interested in meter per se: according to him (chapter 4), metrical patterns (sequences of long and short syllables) regulated rhythmical patterns (sequences of “emphasized” and “non-emphasized” elements, corresponding to the “arsis” and “thesis” of old metrics), which in turn provided the basis for the (simple) melodies played by tibiae and sung by the actors. In Moore’s view, music was thus subordinate to meter: by studying the latter, he intends to cast some light on the former.
Moore’s aim, however, is not to offer an account of Roman comic meter but rather to “gather meaning from meters”; that is, to investigate the function of each meter (chapter 5), as well as the purpose of the variations within each meter (chapter 6) and across meters (chapter 7). The boldness of this approach, anticipated only in a few partial works (Haffter 1934), makes Moore’s book stand apart from previous metrical treatises (Questa 2007).
Among the meters considered, trochaic septenarii are the “standard” meter, ideal “for lively emotion and for narrative and dialogue”; iambic senarii, the only unaccompanied, non-sung meter, are used “where special emphasis is placed on the words spoken,” but also to underline “serious moments and to distinguish less sympathetic characters.” Iambic octonarii, at least in Plautus, are (probably) associated with paratragedy, trochaic octonarii with “heightened emotion,” and iambic septenarii with love.
Moore also considers verse-internal phenomena, such as the number of short syllables, which accordingly determine the “speed” of the verse, and [End Page 129] elisions, which may “reflect impatience or urgency.” Success or failure by characters in adhering to the ideal metrical patterns is also significant.
Failure to adhere to an expected standard is important also in the alternation between different meters. Moore proposes an ideal metrical structure of a play, which partly upgrades the structure of arcs proposed by Marshall (2006): an expository scene in iambic senarii is followed by a musical passage presenting a character “worthy of the audience’s interest,” and then by a section in trochaic septenarii marking movements of the plot. This succession of iambic senarii (A), other meters (B), and trochaic septenarii (C) is then repeated a number of times, with the same thematic associations, until the grand finale in trochaic septenarii. Variations on this standard structure are explained as carrying special significance.
In the last three chapters, Moore exemplifies and puts to the test his metrical “semiotics” by analyzing metrical variations in some polymetric passages (chapter 8), and in two comedies, Plautus’ Pseudolus (chapter 9) and Terence’s Adelphoe (chapter 10). A rich appendix completes the book, offering useful systematic data.
Moore’s ideas are generally persuasive and original, although it would at times be safer to replace expressions such as “certainly...
