Πλουτοφθαλμία Πλουτογαμία. A Pleasant Comedy, Intituled Hey for Honesty, Down with Knavery

Πλουτοφθαλμία Πλουτογαμία. A pleasant comedy entituled Hey for Honesty, Down with Knavery (henceforth Hey for Honesty) is a translation-adaptation of Aristophanes’ final surviving play, Wealth, first composed and staged by Thomas Randolph (1605-1635) around 1626-1628. The text was not published until 1651, more than a decade after Randolph’s death, by one “F. J.”, probably to be identified as Francis Jacques (see Smith 2015, 411).

The role of “F. J.” in the composition of the play puzzled scholars, and Randolph’s authorship was called into question after W. Carew Hazlitt included Hey for Honesty into his edition of Randolph’s works in 1875 (see Day 1926: esp. 325-6). For sure, references to events occurred after Randolph’s death are to be found in the extant version of the play: e.g., attacks on Puritans, allusions to the Civil War, to the Irish rebellion, to Pope Innocent X. Those can be certainly interpreted as additions by “F. J.”. However, closer readings of the play (especially Day 1926) show that those additions are confined to some specific scenes (e.g., Introduction and Epilogue, Act II, Scenes vi and vii, Act V, Scaen. ult.), which bear no relationship whatsoever with Aristophanes’ original text. Moreover, a close resemblance between the versification of Hey for Honesty and that of other Randolph’s undoubted works can be retraced, showing that Hey for Honesty shares some important traits of the poet’s usus. For these reasons, it can be concluded that Randolph was the primary author of the play, which originally consisted in a translation – however free – of Aristophanes’ Wealth, which was later increased by “F. J.” through the addition of some new – and unrelated to the original – scenes.

Of all Aristophanes’ extant plays, Wealth (first staged in 388 BCE) was by no means the most popular in early modern Europe: not only was it more richly transmitted by Byzantine manuscripts, but it stood first in the Aldine edition and it was the first Aristophanic comedy to be translated into Latin (partially by Leonardo Bruni in 1440, and then fully by Passius in 1501). Although sharing some specific traits of any Aristophanic comedy, Wealth stands out in Aristophanes’ production for at least some reasons: it has almost no Chorus, it contains far less references to Athens’ current events, it offers a more vivid and explicit consideration of moral themes. In fact, Wealth can be read through the lenses of ethics: the protagonist’s problem at the beginning of the play being the wicked relationship between dishonesty and riches, the whole play stages the healing of the blind god of wealth, Plutus, in order to restore the link between honesty and enrichment. This peculiar theme seems to have striken early modern readers of the play the most.

For these reasons, many passages from Wealth were quoted by early modern authors (see Miola 2014, esp. 492-3), and Wealth was staged quite frequently through Europe, including two stagings in Cambridge, in 1536 (on which see Lever 1946) and in 1538. Randolph’s is the first English full-scale translation of Wealth, although of course it does not confine itself to translating the Greek text, but it innovates it, by transposing jokes, characters, and comic situations to England’s Caroline era, and by offering an up-to-date satyr of England’s politics and culture. Moreover, Randolph provides original stylistic reshapings of some key passages of the comedy (such as, for instance, l. 600; see Miola 2014, esp. 493-4 for some other examples). It is thus more appropriate to describe Randolph’s Hey for Honesty as an adaptation than as a translation. Besides, Wealth is not the only Aristophanic adaptation by Thomas Randolph, who also staged Aristippus (Cambridge 1625-1626), an adaptation of Aristophanes’ Clouds and Plato’s Symposium (see e.g. Hall 2007, 67), and The Drinking Academy, another text that bears clear traces of Randolph's Aristophanic readings (especially from Clouds and Wealth).

Randolph’s adaptation is consistent with the common moral reading of Wealth in early modern Europe, with particular attention to its religious repercussions (on the religious implications of Wealth in early modern England, see Lever 1946). However, Roman Catholics are the main object of Randolph’s satyr. In doing so, Randolph shows a deep understanding of one of the main comic structures of Aristophanes’ original drama. In the play of 388 BCE, the relationship between honesty and enrichment has been disrupted by the blinding of Plutus, which is clearly described by Aristophanes as the work of envious Zeus. Then, Chremylus’ fight to restore Plutus’ sight, and thus the link between honest conduct and richness, soon becomes a religious fight against no less than the father of the gods, in compliance with the Aristophanic topos of the sacred war for universal authority between the comic hero and gods (see for instance Peace and, even more clearly, Birds). Accordingly, Wealth ends with Zeus’ defeat, and with the desertion of his priest. Randolph replicates this narrative structure, by adapting it to his era (and by secularising it): the war against a wicked religious power thus becomes a fight that is internal to Catholicism. Although we are not to think that Plutus may effectively substitute God, in Hey for Honesty an honest form of Christian religion is able to subvert and substitute a wicked form thereof. Coherently, the role of Zeus’ priest is taken up the Pope, as a symbol of corrupt Roman Catholicism and of its defeat at the hand of Chremylus and Plutus.

Randolph’s free but acute reading of Aristophanes can be traced in another key passage of Wealth, the agon between Chremylus and Penia, the goddess of Poverty (on which see Morosi 2022). Again, Randolph offers an adaptation of the agon, by introducing three swains and a parson, who are of course absent from Aristophanes’ original play; however, Randolph’s adaptation seems to grasp the deeper meaning and strategy of the original scene. As has been variously noted, Penia’s arguments on the need for poverty in Wealth look far more convincing than Chremylus’, and her argumentative strategy looks more logic and consistent. The reason for this unique feature of the agon of Wealth can be found in Penia’s description as a philosopher: being depicted as an intellectual character, Penia knows how to win a debate. However far from the original characterization of Penia, Randolph’s adaptation intercepts the intellectual tone of the whole scene, and stages a similarly intellectual battle between two scholars, Penia and Dicaeus. Moreover, Randolph understands and adapts the comic relationship between poverty and any intellectual job, and creates a close link between Penia Pennilesse and university students and teachers, in accordance with the university context of the first performance.

Cheney, Patrick and Hardie, Philip eds. 2015. The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature. Vol. 2: 1558-1660. Oxford: OUP.

Day, C.L. 1926. “Thomas Randolph’s Part in the Authorship of Hey for Honesty”. PMLA 41: 325-34.

Hall, E. 2013. “The English-Speaking Aristophanes 1650-1914”. In Aristophanes in Performance 421 BC – AD 2007. Peace, Birds and Frogs, edited by Edith Hall and Amanda Wrigley, 66-92. London: Legenda.

Hazlitt, C.W. 1875. Poetical and Dramatical Works of Thomas Randolph, 2 vols., London: Reeves and Turner.

Lever, K. 1946. “Greek Comedy on the Sixteenth Century English Stage”. The Classical Journal 42: 169-73.

Miola, R.S. 2014. “Aristophanes in England, 1500–1660”. In Ancient Comedy and Reception. Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Henderson, edited by S.D. Olson, 479-502. Berlin-Boston: Brill.

Morosi, F. 2022. “The Paradox of Poverty”. In A Feast of Strange Opinions: Paradoxes and Drama in Classical and Early Modern English Culture, edited by M. Duranti and E. Stelzer, Verona (Skenè. Texts and Studies).

Smith, B.R. 2015. "Comedy". In Cheney and Hardie 2015: 395-418.

The volume of Hey for Honesty, Down with Knavery by Thomas Randolph is in quarto, measures around 17cm high, and consists of 47 pages. It is held at the Bodleian Library (Mal. 169 (2)).

The frontispiece reads: 

Πλουτοφθαλμία Πλουτογαμία. A pleasant comedie, entituled Hey for honesty, down with knavery translated out of Aristophanes his Plutus by Tho. Randolph, augmented and published by F.J. 

Dives Fabula sum satis superque:

At Pauper satis & super Poeta.

London, Printed in the Year 1651.

At bottom of page, the volume has signatures, starting from A¹ and going to G⁴ (no A⁴ after A³) At top of page starting at B¹r, each page has also arabic numbers going from 1 to 47. Number 40 is misspelled ("04"). The witness lacks the Introduction, an introductory dialogue between Aristophanes, the Translator, and Cleon which is printed in Hazlitt's edition 1875: II, 379-83 (Hazlitt does not specify which witness he used for his edition).

The two dedicatory letters, proper nouns and nicknames, and stage directions are in italics. After the frontispiece, the dedicatory letters, the preface, and the argument, the text is arranged on two columns divided by a line. Inking defects can be found at G³r-v. The volume has ornaments at A²r-v, A³r-v and B¹r, and intricate initials at A²r and B¹r.

The EEBO bibliographical number is Wing / A3685.

English: Aristophanes Wealth

Greek: Aristophanes Wealth