Rudens

Rudens ("The Rope") is a play by Titus Maccius Plautus, (254-284 BC)[1].

The original text

The play tells the pathetic story of Palaestra who, having been stolen from her home in childhood, has fallen into the clutches of the procurer Labrax. She is eventually restored to her father and to her lover after a shipwreck. Written circa 211 BC.

Translations and adaptations

There have been many translations into English, one of the best known being The Rope by E.F. Watling (published as Plautus: The Rope and Other Plays. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964). A new translation by Peter Oswald, entitled The Storm, was produced at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London as part of the "World and Underworld" Season in 2005.

Translated into Afrikaans by Nerina Ferreira as Die Tou, from Watling's English version.

Translated into German as Der Schiffbruch ("The Shipwreck") by J.J.C. Donner. (Leipzig und Heidelberg, C.F. Winter'sche Verlagshandlung: 1864).