Taceo in Plauto: quando dire non è fare

In Plautus’ Poen. 262, replying to Milphio’s taceo, his master Agorastocles wittily remarks si tacuisses, iam istuc “taceo” non gnatum foret. In fact, taceo (“I shut up”) is a paradoxical utterance, which, taken at face value, means the opposite of what it states. The contradiction between saying and doing is likewise humorously stressed in Ps. 209. In Plautus’ plays taceo after directive expressions mostly occurs within comic routines that delay the progress of the action and, predictably, the utterer never shuts up thereafter. In all those instances what matters is the relational meaning of the expression, its illocutionary force, implying the speaker’s intention to please the other. On three occasions the expression works as a stage direction marking the exit of the character. Significantly enough, the pun on the paradoxical taceo, takes place in plays like Poenulus and Pseudolus where both the power and the unreliability of speech are staged.