The Comedies of Plautus, Vol. I (T. Macci Plauti Comoediae)

As for the readings of the codices, I have used for the most part the resources gathered by others: Studemund’s transcription, Lindskog’s booklet on the corrections of the Old Codex (B), and the apparatus of the Teubner edition. However, I have personally inspected many passages about which I was in doubt in all the codices (except A). FERDINAND NOVGARET, who spent more days examining that codex than anyone else has spent hours, taught me many useful things, especially about the corrections (B³) of the Old Codex, in the most friendly manner. Therefore, I have never failed to place trust in him whenever he disagreed with Lindskog’s judgment or my own. I also owe thanks to the custodians of these libraries—the Leiden, the Ambrosian, and the Vatican—for their most welcome assistance, offered to me more than once.

Finally, and this is most important, I would like to warn you, kind reader, to recite Plautine verses as they ought to be recited, lest you lose the sweetness of the 'numberless numbers' A reference to the varied and rhythmic nature of Plautine meter.. Care must therefore be taken to pronounce the letters, especially the vowels, truly and in the Latin fashion, since Plautus not infrequently delights in an almost Celtic assonance, as in Amphitruo 1042 (trochaic septenarius):

Now I will lead myself straight to the king and tell how the matter happened.

One must also always observe how well the rhythm of Plautus’s verses squares with that rhythm of daily speech, which is usually brought about through the variety of sounds, as we pronounce some things with a lower voice and others with a higher one. Ritschl’s opinion is both very well known and very true: that in the verses of our poet, 'a harmony has been achieved, as far as possible, between the severity of quantity and the supreme importance of the accent¹.' Therefore, the so-called metric ictus usually falls on those words that have emphasis stress/prominence, as in Menaechmi 1076:

in Asinaria 772:

¹ Some, indeed, seem not to know that the Latin accent, just like the Greek (not to mention others), does not always remain the same in the same word but varies according to the parts that the word plays in the sentence. For just as the accent of the Greek preposition pros toward/near does not always remain the same, e.g., pros me toward me, pros polin toward the city, so the accent of the Latin apud among/at varies, e.g., apud me with me, apud templum at the temple. And not only are Greek enclitic words accustomed to receive an accent, but Latin ones are as well, whenever they either have emphasis themselves (e.g., non ego sed tu fecisti not I, but you did it) or stand before another enclitic word (e.g., ego illum vidi I saw him).