All the same, the harmonious confusion and the mild violence within the magic circle of Menander's theatrical
effects are meant to keep out the black outside world, just as the philosophers of escape tried to keep it out. It is
even probable that Menander and Epicurus, who were exactly the same age, had done their Athenian military
training together. There are touches of Epicurean pleasure and gentleness here and there in Menander. As for the
outer world, we have very few dates for individual works of Menander, so it is hard to trace any development in
his poetry or his invention, or any more precise relation with the events of history. His poetry is just a patch of
sunlight moving over the grass. The famous humanity was only one of his qualities, but the more detail of plots
and counterplots we recover, the more meaning his urbane and somewhat sweet-tasting philosophic remarks take
on.
One very odd element in Menander's plots is moral reformation. Of course he inherits a morality from fifth-century
comedy, in which characters get taught a lesson or won round by comic means. But he wants to philosophize and
moralize these conversions, although at the same time he wants to characterize his people more fully and
realistically. The result is a character like the Difficult Man, beautifully observed, perfectly convincing, who
suddenly sprouts a lot of noble philosophic thoughts. The robust action is not enough: the old gentleman has just
fallen down a well after all, and being rescued is what converted him. He still has to reason it out in noble
sentiments. One is tempted to say that in the world of Menander poetry belongs to children; for those past puberty
it is the moral philosopher who speaks.
In another play a shepherd and a charcoal-burner quarrel over a baby they find lying about abandoned with its few
little treasures; they go to an old man for decision, but little does he know the baby is his grandchild; his daughter
got into trouble at a night festival and threw away the resulting baby for shame. This is only one tiny area of an
unbelievable web of intrigues; in the end the man who fathered the baby at the night festival turns out to be the
girl's husband. One can sympathize with the German nineteenth-century scholar who remarked that the most
immoral feature of such immoral plays as this was their happy endings. The Lord of Misrule had not lost all
influence over the Greek comic theatre; the absurdity of the story-line of these plays, as well as their elegance of
construction, was intended to give delight, and so it does.