Asinaria; or, The Ass-Dealer

One of the oldest surviving comedies in Western literature, Plautus's Asinaria is a breathless farce about money, sex, and the elaborate lies that keep a household running. The young Argyrippus is desperately in love with the courtesan Philenium but has no funds. His father Demaenetus owes a debt to the ass-dealer, but his wife Artemona controls the purse strings and is furious about his extramarital affairs. Enter the clever slaves Libanus and Leonida, who orchestrate an audacious scheme: they'll pretend to sell the old man himself into slavery, using the proceeds to fund young Argyrippus's romantic pursuits. Chaos ensues as identities blur, debts multiply, and nearly everyone gets fooled. The play crackles with double-dealing, sexual puns, and the kind of comedic timing that invented the template for every farce to follow. Two millennia later, it remains astonishingly funny: a dirty, clever, and thoroughly humane comedy about the lengths we'll go to for love and money.