The Brothers by Terence is a great tale of “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. Aeschinus is first depicted as a mischievous, almost rebellious teenager kind of character. Demea is introduced by scrutinizing Micio’s parenting style because of some awful crime that Aeschinus has committed. The beginning basically put a bad picture of Aeschinus in my mind. However, later in the story, it is revealed that the motive behind Aeschinus’ crime is actually for good. He freed a slave from a master in order to set her up with his brother, who had fallen in love with her. When reading, I saw no connection to any songs that I knew. However, when I was listening to music later in the day, the scene of Aeschinus breaking into a home just popped into my head. I was listening to the song “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” by Cage the Elephant, and realized that some of the concepts in this song are very present in The Brothers. The song’s format follows a pattern of presenting a sad, difficult, and very real problems, followed by the chorus of the song, “Oh there ain’t no rest for the wicked/Money don’t grow on trees/I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed/There ain’t nothing in this world for free/Oh no, I can’t slow down, I can’t hold back/Though you know, I wish I could/Oh no there ain’t no rest for the wicked/Until we close our eyes for good”. In each of these situations, I always carry a negative connotation of the person that is with the singer in the scene. However, when the chorus is sung, I am given a new context of who this person might be and what their motivations are. For example, in the opening verse, the situation that is described is a prostitute approaching the singer, and the singer pitying her and asking why she is doing this. My initial reaction is that the prostitute is bad because she is doing a morally wrong thing. Then, the chorus plays and I always reconsider my judgement, even if my opinion doesn’t ultimately change. This happens particularly listening to the line “I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed/There ain’t nothing in this world for free”. The message is clear that the motivations for these morally complex actions might be very good, like to provide for a family. This theme of holding judgment until further context is given, or recasting one’s judgement after true motives are revealed, is a very strong presence in The Brothers. I certainly changed my view of Aeschinus, the bratty teen, after I read the full story and learned who he really was, a brother. While this theme is clear in both works, I do see a fundamental difference in that the people depicted by Cage the Elephant’s song may very well be evil people doing evil things for evil reasons. I do not believe that Aeschinus is acting out of true evil, but the prostitute or the robber or the priest very well could be acting out of true evil. This makes the situations in the song more complex because the true motivations of the people committing a crime, although hinted at, are indeed still unknown to the listener.
The Brothers, Page 371:
Micio: “I believe you; I know you are honourable at heart. But I worry about you and your heedless ways.”