\"\'As Easily as a Fox Eats a Pear’ (Plautus, Mostellaria, 559): a Homoerotic Pun\"

"As Easily as a Fox Eats a Pear" (Plaut. Most. 559): a Homoerotic Pun



In Plautus' Mostellaria, Tranio, who has already persuaded his master, Theopropides, that his house is haunted is afraid that his trickeries will be revealed. Theopropides reports to him that he has spoken to his neighbor, Simo, whose house has allegedly been bought by Philolaches, Theopropides' son. He recounts Tranio's fake story about the haunted house, which is new to Simo, so the slave, encourages his master to find an arbiter. Thus, he will win the case easier than a fox eats a pear (559 Tam facile vinces quam pirum volpes comest). The proverb is unique in both Greek and Latin literature. The fox, a common metaphor of cunning and trickery, sometimes symbolizes the sexual predator, whose object of desire is the grape, a fruit suggesting an immature boy or girl. A probable transposition changed the grape into another provocative fruit, the pear, which was a phallic symbol. So the meaning is that Theopropides will win the case easier than the foxy pederast subjugates the young man. If we accept that there is a hidden homoerotic meaning, then the -humoristic- case of Theopropides and Simo will be the only one in Plautus involving two free men and not a master and a slave.