MCCXXXV Colores Grisei

In trying to find good works by Martial to use, I have found mostly not-so-good ones, and due to

that sad, sad fact, I have appropriately (Well, appropriate in the sense that it is fitting) titled this post for his 1,235 epigrams.

I'm pretty sure at this point that I would rather switch authors, because it seems like those few 

poems that are not bawdy-at-best are either bawdy-at-worst or complaints/come-backs about criticism he has received. There are others like them, but the two referencable^TM ones I found, from the page of translations I looked at before reaching the end and realizing there were not many good ones, were III:9 and I:91. III:9 was titled A Silent Critic, and it complained of how Cinna would criticize him, but nobody read Cinna's criticism, so he can't be a good judge of literature when his is so terrible. I:91 is titled The Critic, and it complains of how Laelius would criticize him, but he does not write anything himself. Martial invites Laelius to either stop criticizing his (Martial's) work or write his (Laelius's) own literature.

Basically, it comes down to the fact that I just don't like Martial's writing, since it tends to err away

from the side of witty satire and towards the side of porn and arguments that his porn is good. I'm sure there are a few clean ones that I didn't read, but I feel like I still wouldn't like them.

I also took a second to check out Juvenal to see if he would be any better, and while the content

seems more interesting, the heavily metaphoric nature of it seems kind of hard to follow without a good idea of what he's talking about already, which I'm sure most Roman Citizens had.

All in all, I've decided to move on and not use either of the satirical authors, and I've reached that 

decision the day before the deadline you gave me, to decide by Friday. Therefore, I think it would be fitting to try "something completely different."

On a Comedy of Errors and Plautus

William Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors is largely based on Plautus's works. He kept many things the same, but he also changed some things to more please his contemporary consumers and make it a somewhat original work.

The play is largely based on Plautus's The Brothers Menaechmus, taking the main ideas from it, but building upon them.

He borrowed the idea of having two identical twins from Syracuse who get split up at a young age, one being sent to a city beginning with 'E', and the other staying with a male relative. The differences here, of course are that in the original, one is raised by his grandfather in Syracuse because the father is dead, and the other goes to Epidamnus. In Shakespeare's play, the father (and mother) lives to raise one son, while the other son went to Ephesus.

Shakespeare also adds a twist in that there are twin slaves as well, one with each of the Syracusian merchant's sons.

Shakespeare also added a lot of Christianity to it. Plautus was probably not a Christian, seeing as, you know, Christ didn't exactly exist yet.

Shakespeare also based characters on a lot of Plautus's stock characters in his play, but went on to add character types that made more sense to his contemporaries, with very Christian roles.