”The Pot of Gold” is a play where the main motives are greed, cheapness and gold. The theme is Euclio’s cheapness and greed for gold. The play is easy to read and the author makes fun of people’s characteristics. There are four acts.
Euclio is a poor man who finds the pot of gold and gets materialistic richness with it but becomes poor in every other aspects of his life. He only thought about his gold. Phaedria is his daughter and she loves Lyconides. Megadorus is his uncle and he wants to marry Phaedria because he wants to settle down but in the end he gives up on that idea. Lyconides out of love for Phaedria gives up his inheritance just to be with Phaedria who is pregnant with his child.
In the introduction Euclio found the gold and hid it, in the twist Megadorus wants to marry Phaedria, then the pot of gold disappears and in the end Euclio gets his pot of gold and Lyconides gets Phaedria.
Genre: comedy
Time: unspecified
Place: Euclio’s house, temple, woods
Book Summary
Euclio finds a pot of gold and he is a cheap old man who hides his gold from everyone. In the meantime Lyconides and Phaedria fell in love. Megadorus wants to settle down and he goes to Euclio and asks for his daughter’s hand. Euclio said yes just because Megadorus didn’t ask for dowry.
Euclio went to bury the pot into the woods but Lyconides servant Strobilus saw him and stole the pot. Lyconides asked Megadorus to let him have Phaedria. After that the Houshold Ghost of Euclio’s house tells the story of an old cheap man who also found gold and Phaedria prayed to him every day and in the end he gave the pot of gold to Euclio so he could have dowry for Phaedria.
Euclio yelled at his servant because he thought she was spying on him. Megadorus and Euclio met on the street and Megadorus was rushing the wedding so Euclio got scared about his gold. He said yes to the wedding just because Megadorus didn’t ask for dowry. Everyone arrived to Euclio’s house to prepare the wedding.
When Euclio heard all of that rumor coming out his house he was convinced that somebody was about to steal his gold. Euclion hit one of the men in his house because he thought he was trying to rob him. He was convinced that Megadorus prepared all of this just so he could get his hands on the pot of gold. Megadorus lead a monologue from which we find out he is a really honest man.
Megador thinks out loud and Euclio eardrops on him. Euclion is still scared for hisgold so he goes to hide it in the temple. Strobilus knows that Lyconides loves Phaedria and that he wants to marryher. Strobilus follows Euclio while Lyconides begs his mother to talk his uncle Megadorus out of the wedding.
The pregnant Phaedria goes into labor right when Euclio realized his pot it missing and he goes crazy.
In the end Storbilus appears and tells Lyconides that he found the pot of gold. Lyconides demands that the gold returns to Euclio and the story end there because the rest of it was lost. Is is assumed that Lyconides returns the pot of gold and in return gets Phaedria.
Characters: Euclio, Phaedria, Lyconides, Strobilus, Megadorus…
Characters Analysis
Euclio – cheap old man who lived with his servant and his daughter. With the help of his household God he finds the pot of gold and becomes obsessed with keeping it safe. He became selfish and suspicious of everyone. He was scared of marrying his daughter because he didn’t want to give dowry to anyone. He accepted Megadorus proposal because he didn’t ask for dowry. His gold was more important that anything else.
Phaedria – Euclio’s daughter and she is in love with Lyconides. They have a child together and it is believed that they get married at the end
Lyconides – in love with Phaedria. He does not care that she is poor and that her father will give her away without dowry. He tried everything just to be with her and their child.
Household God – he managed the whole situation and played around with the characters because he wanted to teach them the real values of life
Plautus Biography
Titus Maccius Plautus is the biggest Roman comedy writer. He lived between 254 and 184 BC. He worked as a stage worker, actor in Rome and then he got himself into some debts and became a slave.
Plautus style, filled with folk talk and jokes, became a role model to many other writers. Because of many works were written in his tone he is considered to have written over 130 comedies while some believe that he only wrote 21 works that are completely his. The most popular ones are “Aulularia” or “The Pot of Gold” and “Maneachmi”.
In his works, he showed everyday city life scenes but he introduced rough comedy, music parts and elements of burlesque into the Greek comedy.
The Plautus comedy is recognizable by the clever servant who has the most important role and twists the plot. Plautus is considered to be one of the most skilled descriptors of human characteristics that are worthy of being laughed at
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