Hecyra

Hecyra ( Latinized Greek " the mother " ) is the title of a comedy by the Roman poet Terence. It was built by 165 BC and scored after two performances without a price (165 and 160 BC) a great success. The fabric of the piece goes back on the Hekyra of the Greek comic poet Apollodorus of Carystus on the Epitrepontes of Menander.

Action

The old Laches married his son Pamphilus against his will with Philumena, daughter of Phidippus neighbors. Pamphilus blends, ignored his wife but in the first few months after the wedding and will stick to the courtesan Bacchis, in which he is in love. Secretly Philumena gives birth under the care of her mother Myrrina a child - at a time when the child can not possibly have come from Pamphilus. Pamphilus is inaugurated by Myrrina and learns that Philumena, even before he had consummated the marriage with her, was raped by a stranger who stole her a ring on top of that. Pamphilus want Philumena fact failed, but preserve their secret, so he can make no reasonable justification for its separation purpose and comes under suspicion zurückzuwollen only to his lover. Bacchis tried to mediate, but then Myrrina discovered on her hand the ring of her daughter. Bacchis confesses to have obtained other than Pamphilus this ring of no one who is thus exposed as a libertine and his wife reserves.

Tradition and Translation

The editio princeps of the comedies of Terence (Paris 1470 ) was followed by an 1499 anonymous translation into the German language: Terence the hochgelert and allerbruchelist poet. The most common German title in the translations since the 19th century is the law.