słonie: Miles Gloriosus (play)

Evidence: 88 • authority: 72

Miles Gloriosus is a comic play written by Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254–184 BC). The title can be translated as "The Swaggering Soldier.” A now lost Greek play, Alazon, or The Braggart, served as a source. The comedy is set in Ephesus, a Greek city on the coast of Asia Minor. The play is thought to date from early in Plautus's career, partly because it contains no polymetric cantica (songs that do not adhere to a single rhythm, which became frequent in the later plays), and partly because lines 210–211 have been taken as a reference to the temporary imprisonment of the poet Gnaeus Naevius in 206 BC. At 1,437 lines, it is the longest of Plautus's surviving plays. Some scholars have suggeste…

Evidence: 53 • authority: 72

Alazṓn (Ancient Greek: ἀλαζών) is one of three stock characters in comedy of the theatre of ancient Greece. He is the opponent of the eirôn. The alazṓn is an impostor that sees himself as greater than he actually is. The senex iratus (the angry old man) and the miles gloriosus (the braggart soldier) are two types of alazṓn.

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Il Capitano (Italian: [il kapiˈtaːno]; lit. 'the Captain') is one of the four stock characters of commedia dell'arte. He most probably was never a "Captain", but rather appropriated the name for himself. Its genesis dates back to the Pyrgopolinices of Titus Maccio Plautus' Miles gloriosus and to Terence's Thrason of the Eunuch. He was reborn in various forms in the Italian theater of the Renaissance. He usually personified the vainglorious soldier. He could boast of titles he did not possess or of feats he had never accomplished. In the most negative versions he actually poorly concealed the terror of having to face a battle or a duel. However, the Captains could also have positive characte…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Ancient Pistol is a swaggering soldier who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. Although full of grandiose boasts about his prowess, he is essentially a coward. The character is introduced in Henry IV, Part 2, and reappears in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V. The character's first name is never given. He is referred to as Falstaff's "ancient", meaning "ensign", or standard bearer.

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Asinaria ("The Comedy of Asses") is a comic play written in Latin by the Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. In the play an Athenian gentleman, Demaenetus, tells his slave Libanus that he knows his son Argyrippus is having an affair with the prostitute Philaenium next door, and he asks him to try to find some money to pay for the affair. When by chance a stranger comes bringing money owed for some donkeys sold by Saurea, the steward of Demaenetus's wife, Libanus's fellow-slave Leonida pretends to be Saurea, and the two slaves trick the stranger into giving them the money. Argyrippus is given the money on condition that his father is to be allowed to enjoy the first night with the prosti…