The arbitral tribunal
The court of arbitration (original title in Greek Ἐπιτρέποντες Epitrepontes ) is a comedy in five acts by Menander . The German premiere took place on February 7, 1963 at the Landestheater Tübingen under the direction of Ernst Kuhr . The basis of this performance was an adaptation and addition of the text by Wolfgang Schadewaldt .
action
The piece was rediscovered in 1905 and has only survived in fragments. Alfred Körte translated it into German, adding the missing scenes - about a quarter of the piece, according to him. The following table of contents relates to this amended version.
1st act
Onesimos, a slave of Charisios, reports on his master's marriage to Pamphile: she gives birth to a child just five months after the wedding and lets her nurse Sophrone abandon it. Charisios returns from a trip, learns of his wife's infidelity and suppresses his grief by celebrating lavish parties in the house of his friend and neighbor Chairestratos and having fun with the harpist Habrotonon. Smikrines, the father of Pamphile, is angry with his son-in-law because he squanders the dowry he received from Smikrines with the festivities.
2nd act
Smikrines tries in vain to convince his daughter to leave her unfaithful husband and return to the father's house. Thereupon he meets the shepherd Daos, the charcoal burner Syriskos (a slave of Chairestratos) and his wife, who is holding a baby in her arms. The three ask Smikrines to arbitrate a dispute between them:
Daos reports that he found the child and various jewelry items in a pasture. He gives Syriskos, at his pleading request, the child in care. Syriskos later asked to be given the jewelry that belonged to the child and that he, as the child's guardian, wanted to keep for the child. Daos, on the other hand, sees the jewelry as an abandoned lost property and wants to keep it. Smikrines decides in favor of Syriskos, and Daos has to hand over the jewelry. While Syriskos examines the jewelry, Onesimos arrives and recognizes a ring as the property of his master, Charisios.
3rd act
Onesimos says his master lost the ring in a drunken stupor at a party last year. He suspects that Charisios raped a virgin there, who then gave birth to a child and abandoned her with the ring. Onesimos does not want to tell Charisios anything about the ring in order to save him from being revealed as the child's father.
Since Habrotonon was present at the party, she knows what happened there and also recognizes the ring that the young woman who was violated by Charisios was wearing. She forges a plan with Onesimos to solve the case: She wants to confront Charisios with the ring and the child and claim that she herself is the mother. She hopes that he will admit the crime and buy her free - she has been a slave so far.
Smikrines learns from the cook Karion how Habrotonon successfully implemented her plan at the feast in the House of Chairestratos. He fears that his son-in-law will now take the mother of his child into his house - to the detriment of Pamphile.
4th act
Smikrines is determined to get Pamphile back, but she refuses. She regrets abandoning her child. After Smikrines leaves the scene, Habrotonon arrives with the child and recognizes Pamphile as the virgin desecrated at the festival. So she conceived the child with her future husband Charisios - but both were no longer aware of it.
Charisios deeply regrets the infidelity and hard-heartedness towards his wife. After Habrotonon clarified the truth and his fatherhood to him, he was overjoyed and bought Habrotonon free.
5th act
Smikrines, initially still angry, appears and is informed of the circumstances. Pamphile and Charisios have forgiven each other. Onesimos is declared free, and Syriskos and his wife are also ransomed in gratitude for saving the child.
Text output with commentary and translation
- William D. Furley (Ed.): Menander, Epitrepontes (= BICS supplement 106). Institute of Classical Studies, School for Advanced Study, University of London, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-905670-25-3 .
- Menander: The arbitral tribunal. Comedy in five acts. Transferred, supplemented and with an afterword by Alfred Körte. Reclam, Stuttgart 1974.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Menander: The arbitral tribunal. Suhrkamp Theater Verlag, accessed on August 4, 2017.
- ↑ Theater: "The Arbitration Court" by Menander. DIE ZEIT of March 1, 1963, accessed on August 4, 2017.