In the year 1671, Molière produced a short, three-act farce entitled Les Fourberies de Scapin (The Ruses of Scapin), loosely modeled on Terence's comedy, Phormio, which was based on a Greek original, now lost, by Apollodorus of Carystus, a somewhat younger contemporary of Menander (Apollodorus's play was called Epidikazomenos). The story is as follows. Two young men, Octave and Léandre, have married without the permission of their fathers, who have been journeying abroad. Octave has wedded Hyacinte, a poor orphan whose mother has just died, while Léandre has bound himself to the Gypsy girl Zerbinette. As the play opens, news arrives that the fathers have just returned, and in this bind, they appeal for help to Scapin, a wily fellow who had been appointed to look after Léandre (in this, he differs from his prototype, the “parasite” Phormio, who intervenes to help the two youths in Terence's comedy out of friendship and high- spiritedness). The fathers are furious with their sons, in part because they have made such dubious alliances, but also because Argante, Octave's father, has promised to wed his son to the daughter of Léandre's father, Géronte: this is a daughter that Géronte had by a second wife, in Tarentum (the scene of the play is Naples); he has kept this liaison a secret until now, but the wife and daughter have embarked for Naples for the sake of the intended marriage.