Perikeiromene (, translated as The Girl with her Hair Cut Short, is a comedy by Menander (342/41 – 292/91 BC) that is only partially preserved on papyrus. Of an estimated total of between 1030 and 1091 lines, about 450 lines (between 40 and 45%) survive. Most acts lack their beginning and end, except that the transition between act I and II is still extant. The play may have been first performed in 314/13 BC or not much later.
Plot
Probably set in Corinth, the play is a drama of reconciliation. It focuses on the relationship between Polemon, a Corinthian mercenary, and his common-law wife (pallake), Glykera. An act of domestic violence by the soldier triggers a sequence of events that culminates in Glykera's discovery of her father and her reconciliation with and marriage to Polemon.
The lost opening of the play probably featured Glykera's flight from Polemon's house. Recently returned from fighting abroad, the soldier had learned from Sosias, his slave, that Glykera was seen embracing the neighbor's son, Moschion. Moschion has been stalking her because he is in love with her. In a violent fit of jealousy, Polemon cuts off Glykera's long hair. Glykera finds refuge with Myrrhine, the wealthy woman next door. In a delayed prologue, Agnoia (personified Ignorance) reveals that Myrrhine's son Moschion, is, in fact, as only Glykera knows, her brother by birth, which is why she allowed him to embrace her. Moschion was exposed together with her and given to Myrrhine by the same woman, now deceased, who kept and raised Glykera. In act II, the slave Daos falsely tries to take credit for Glykera's move into their house, and Moschion erroneously hopes that she has decided to become his concubine. He finds, however, that his mother keeps him away from her. In act III, Polemon tries to storm Myrrhine's house at the head of a comical army consisting of several male slaves, a female flute-player, and a cook with a pig, but his older friend Pataikos talks him out of it. In act IV, Pataikos tries to negotiate with Glykera at Polemon's request. With Moschion secretly eavesdropping on them, Glykera tells him the truth about the embrace and begs him to retrieve her things for her from Polemon's house, including the baby clothes in which she was exposed. As a result, Pataikos discovers that both Glykera and Moschion are the children he exposed long ago after he lost his fortune and his wife died in childbirth. Consequently, Glykera forgives the contrite Polemon in act V and marries him, whereas Pataikos betroths Moschion to another girl.
Characters
Polemon, mercenary soldier
Sosias, slave of Polemon or flag lieutenant
Glykera, Polemon's concubine
Doris, female slave of Polemon, serving as Glykera's maid
Moschion, young neighbor, Polemon's rival for Glykera's affections
Daos, slave of Moschion
Pataikos, an old Corinthian
Agnoia (Ignorance), speaker of the prologue
A cook, dragging a pig
Habrotonon, female flute-player
Several slaves, members of Polemon's rag-tag army
Chorus of drunken revellers
Themes and Issues
The mercenary soldier's comical attack with a rag-tag army consisting of slaves and other non-military figures was a stock scene in comedies featuring mercenaries. In Terence's Eunuchus 771ff., for example, the soldier Thraso unsuccessfully tries to storm the house of the hetaera Thais with an army that includes his parasite, Gnatho, and his cook, Sanga.
Just as in Aspis and Misoumenos, the mercenary soldier in Perikeiromene has to be socialized into the polis before he can marry the romantic heroine. In the end, his future father-in-law suggests that he should renounce mercenary service for good (1016–17).
From the start, however, Polemon seems strangely lacking in martial spirit. It is his slave, Sosia, who leads the attack at the neighbor's house. Similarly, his rival, young Moschion, acts much more like the stereotypical braggart soldier, boasting with his good looks and his success with hetaerae (Pk. 302-303), joking that he would appoint his slave Daos "overlord of Greek affairs/And a marshal of land forces (Pk. 279-80), and finally sending him ahead as a "scout" to do reconnaissance (Pk. 295).
Polemon's act of domestic violence, the forcible haircut, is representative of the violence associated with mercenaries at the time. What redeems him as a potential husband is that Agnoia (Ignorance) in the prologue explicitly claims responsibility for his violent act (Pk. 163-66). Moreover, his behavior is presented as "an aberration rather than an expression of a fundamentally corrupt character" and thus appears pardonable.