In ancient times Menander (341-290 BC) was the most admired and the most quoted of the writers of Attic New Comedy. He wrote over a hundred plays but until this century was known to us only by short quotations in ancient authors. Since 1907 papyri found in the sand of Egypt have brought to light more and more fragments, many substantial, of his plays and in 1958 the papyrus text of a whole play was published, The Bad-tempered Man. His plays are romantic comedies, dealing with the life of ordinary Athenian families, the direct ancestors not only of Roman comedy but also of English comedy from Sheridan to Ayckbourn. This new verse translation with explanatory notes and introduction follows the text of Menander closely but attempts to fill some of the gaps by supplements based on the dramatic situation and surviving words in the damaged papyri, so that the reader has, as far as possible, a consecutive text.
