IX. The Interjection.

(P. Richter: de usu particularum exclamativarum apud priscos scriptores Latinos, vol. I, Part ii of Studemund's Studien auf dem Gebiet des archäischen Lateins, Berlin, 1890; F. W. Nicolson: the use of <foreign lang="la">hercle</foreign> (<foreign lang="la">mehercle</foreign>), <foreign lang="la">edepol</foreign> (<foreign lang="la">pol</foreign>), <foreign lang="la">ecastor</foreign> (<foreign lang="la">mecastor</foreign>） by Plautus and Terence, in vol. IV of Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Boston, 1893.).

Details regarding Plautus' use of Interjections belong mostly to the domain of Accidence, not of Syntax. The Accusative of Exclamation (often accompanied by an Interjection) has been already mentioned, II. 47 Em naturally takes an Accusative, since it is nothing but the Imperative of emo, ‘I take’; e.g. Capt. 859 A. cedo manum. B. em manum. (The Bembine Scholiast remarks on Ter. Phorm. 52: ‘em,’ hoc cum gestu offerentis dicitur.）

En is with Plautus and Terence merely used in rhetorical questions in the collocation en unquam, etc., e.g. Men. 925 dic mihi: en unquam intestina tibi crepant?

Eccum, -am, etc. (for *ecce-hum, an old form of hunc), and eccillum, -am, etc. (whence, according to a probable account, Romance Pronouns like Fr. celui) are characteristic of the Old Comedians' language. When a noun without a verb follows eccum it is normally put in the Accusative, e.g. Mil. 1216 eccum praesto militem, Bacch. 568 duas ergo hic intus eccas Bacchides. A similar Compound is ellum (cf. Ital. ello) for em-illum. For the phrase pro deûm fidem (e.g. Ter. Andr. 237) we find in Caecil. 212 pro deûm . . . imploro fidem, which shows that pro does not govern an Accusative Case (cf. pro di immortales, e.g. Ter. Adelph. 447). On the use of O with Vocatives, see above, II. 52 and on the construction of the Dative with vae (but vae te! Asin. 481), ei (e.g. ei mihi!), see II. 24

Malum!, ‘curse you!’ interjected as an Enclitic after an Interrogative, e.g. Rud. 945 quid tu, malum, nam me retrahis?, Men. 390 cui, malum, parasito?, Most. 6 quid tibi, malum, hic ante aedes clamitatiost?, is an elliptic expression of malum tibi sit.