... Tentamen strictuarum in quasdam M. Accii Plauti comoedias

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§. V.

MIL. GLOR. Miles Gloriosus (The Braggart Soldier). Act. II. Sc. II. v. 89.

I shall charge that he saw her at your house, against my fellow slave,
Embracing and kissing her lover.

I believe it should be read eam her, not eum him. The sense of the words is: If this fellow slave of mine, Sceledrus, has accused me before the soldier of having seen Philocomasium with another lover, I shall charge against my fellow slave that he saw HER (i.e., the sister of Philocomasium, a twin sister so similar that milk is like to milk) at your house, embracing and kissing her lover (with whom she had arrived from Athens, as is pretended). Whenever I compare this certain meaning of the words with the speech of Palaestrio, I cannot wonder enough by what negligence of the editors it has come about that eum is still expressed in editions instead of eam, however much Minerva may be unwilling.

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§. VI.

MERCAT. Mercator (The Merchant). Act. V. Sc. IV. v. 8. sq.

Those who are born of good family, if they are of evil character,
By their own fault leave their lineage, they bring the noble lineage into disrepute.

It would take too long to report what kind of remedy the crowd of interpreters has begun to prepare for this highly vexed passage; and it is the more troublesome because there is no less disagreement about the meaning of the words than there is about restoring the very words of the writer. For what do they mean, Suapte culpa genere capiunt genus, ingenium improbant? Unless I am entirely mistaken, Plautus seems to have written:

Qui bono sunt genere nati, si sunt ingenio malo,
Suapte culpa genere abeunt, genus ingenuum improbant.

That genere abire to depart from one's lineage is used in Latin, I doubt no more than the Greek τῷ γένει ἀφίστασθαι to stand away from one's lineage, ἀπαλλάττεσθαι to depart/be removed. I translate improbant as ἀποδοκιμάζουσιν to reject/disapprove, as the word is defined in lexicons. The sense will be: they dishonor their noble lineage; so that Eutychus's sentiment is concluded almost thus: Those who are born of an honorable family, but have depraved morals, through their own fault fall from the splendor that nobility confers upon the unworthy, or at the very least, as much as lies in them, they render the nobility of their family an object of contempt.