Lo sfogo dell'amante e la 'retorica' del prologo (Plauto Merc. 1-39)

In the Mercator’s prologue the necessity to tell the background overlaps the ethos of the lover, who, through his unruly language, fluctuates between the ‘talking too much’ and the ‘talking too little’. These categories bring to a metapoetic and ‘rhetoric’ reflection on the composition and modality of the prologue itself. If the invitation to the brevity is a constant scenic standard in all the Plautus comedies, the opportunity to ‘speak little’ is necessary especially in the prologues, in order to receive the public’s benignitas (in other words, the willingness to listen). The Mercator’s long exposition therefore represents a playful infraction, which subverts this obligatory rule in the prologizon’s exposition. When in de or. 2 , 326 ff. Cicero shows the limits of a brevitas that provides only the essential details about the events, he uses the example of the Terentius’ Andria first scene, demonstrating on the contrary the qualities of a varied and dwelled and, therefore, effective and enjoyable narratio.