[Tactlessness is choosing a time which annoys the people one meets.]

The Tactless Man is the kind who comes for a discussion when you are busy. He serenades his girlfriend when she is feverish. He approaches a man who has just forfeited a security deposit and asks him to stand bail. He arrives to give evidence after a case is closed. As a guest at a wedding he delivers a tirade against the female sex. When you have just returned home after a long journey he invites you to go for a walk. He is liable to bring along a higher bidder when you have already completed a sale. When the audience has taken the point he gets up to explain it all over again. He will enthusiastically try to secure what you don’t want but haven’t the heart to refuse. When people are engaged in a sacrifice and inclining heavy expense he arrives with a request for payment of interest. He stands watching while a slave is being whipped and announces that a boy of his own once hanged himself after such a beating. When he assists at an arbitration he puts the parties at loggerheads, though they are both eager for a reconciliation. When he wants to dance he takes hold of a partner who is still sober.

THE MISANTHROPE

Dyskolos

Menander

Translated by Norma Miller, 1987

Menander (c. 342/41 – c. 290 BC) was a Greek writer of comic plays. Most of his work has vanished but his Dyskolos or ‘Misanthrope’ is largely extant. Knemon, the misanthrope of this comedy, despises all company. When a wealthy man named Sostratos attempts to marry his daughter, he is none too pleased.

Characters

PAN, the god of country life

SOSTRATOS, a young man about town

CHAIREAS, his friend

PYRRHIAS, his servant

KNEMON, a cantankerous old farmer

A GIRL, his daughter

GORGIAS, his step-son

DAOS, Gorgias’s servant

SIMICHE, Knemon’s servant

KALLIPIDES, Sostratos’s father

GETAS, his servant

SIKON, a cook

Sostratos’s MOTHER and MYRRHINE, Knemon’s estranged wife

also appear

ACT ONE

[SCENE: a village in Attica, about fourteen miles from Athens. In the centre of the stage is the shrine of Pan and the Nymphs, with statues at its entrance. On the audience’s left of this is Knemon’s house, on the right that of Gorgias. A statue of Apollo of the Ways stands by Knemon’s door.]

[Enter PAN from shrine]