As opposed to the mortal gods?

Well since everybody seems to be doing it, I guess I should take a moment to explain the title of my blog. Those of you who were in Latin with me, or saw the Latin play please excuse this, it will be a little boring.

Plautus. What's not to love?

Well every(Roman)one's favorite playwright, Plautus, wrote this play, the Rudens. (I translated and performed this play last semester). I was two characters in the play, Sceparnio and Gripus, both of whom are slaves. They also both had a affinity for the exclamation "Pro Di Inmortales!" (pronounced like pro dinmortales) translating to "by the immortal gods". About half of my lines contained said exclamation, and I was known to include this into my everyday lexicon.

The stud in the red tights, yep that's me.

Very exciting story, I know. If you have ever seen "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" you would know just how funny Roman comedy can be. (It has pretty much the same story plot wise and humor wise.) I was the equivalent to Zero Mostel's character, Pseudelus.

And since I can't resist the urge, here is a little tidbit of history. The Roman plays were only performed with religious services/festivals, and only once. But since they loved Plautus so much, they would find excuses to perform them again. Religious ceremonies had to be perfect in order to best appease the gods. So they would find fault with the ceremony in order to redo it, and thus perform the play again.

Oh the lengths people will go to for a good laugh.

And as I did before, I will leave you with a few Latin words. Here is the epitaph of Plautus (written by himself):

postquam est mortem aptus Plautus, Comoedia luget,
scaena est deserta, dein Risus, Ludus Iocusque
et Numeri innumeri simul omnes conlacrimarunt.

Since Plautus is dead, Comedy mourns,
Deserted is the stage; then Laughter, Jest and Wit,
And Melody's countless numbers all together wept.

Valete