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Title: The history of the harlequinade, volume 1 (of 2)
Author: Maurice Sand
Release date: July 2, 2025 [eBook #76428]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Martin Secker, 1915
Credits: deaurider and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF THE HARLEQUINADE, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) ***
THE HISTORY OF THE HARLEQUINADE
[Illustration]
THE HISTORY OF THE
HARLEQUINADE
BY MAURICE SAND
VOLUME
ONE
LONDON: MARTIN SECKER
NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI
_First Published 1915_
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 9
I. HARLEQUIN 57
II. POLICHINELLE 103
III. THE CAPTAIN 137
IV. COLUMBINE 159
V. PIERROT 183
VI. LELIO 235
VII. RUZZANTE 279
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
HARLEQUIN _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
HARLEQUIN 64
POLICHINELLE 112
THE CAPTAIN 144
COLUMBINE 176
PIERROT 192
LELIO 240
RUZZANTE 288
THE HISTORY OF THE HARLEQUINADE
INTRODUCTION
The first mime, or rather the first comic actor, was he who leapt upon
a bench or table to delight the assembly by his singing, his dancing or
his relation of an amusing story. Improvisation prompted all such early
attempts.
Some of these primitive comedians assemble in Icaria under the direction
of Susarion, who gives a form and a sequence to their buffooneries, and
they set out to trail their booths and chariots through the cities of
Greece (800 B.C.).
They represent a slave with shaven head, a drunkard rubicund of face,
brutalised by libations, an obese glutton, who tumbles incessantly. Soon
comic poets, such as Magnes, Achæus and Timocreon, conceive for them
performances mingled with comic dances (termed _cordaces_) and pantomimes.
Thespis, born in Icaria, sets up a theatre, assigns rôles to his mimes,
dresses them grotesquely, parades them in chariots, their faces smeared
with dregs or soot, and sets about presenting little dramas and comedies
mingled with music. He detaches from the chorus an individual, assigns to
him a rôle and thus creates the _corypheus_. Æschylus the Athenian (393
B.C.) adds a second one. Thenceforward no comic or tragic performances
are given without music.
In Athens and in Sparta charlatans set up their trestles in public
places, and by means of their displays attract a crowd, to whom they then
proceed to sell their unguents (400 B.C.). Here we behold among others a
thieving rogue, or a foreign doctor who speaks a ridiculous dialect.
Whilst Aristophanes is performing his comedies in the great theatre, the
streets of Athens are encumbered by diviners, sorcerers, fortune-tellers,
jugglers, equilibrists, rope dancers and prestidigitators, amongst whom
are cited Theodorus and Euryclides.
In the theatre we behold equilibrist performances, such as the leap
on that earliest of spring-boards, the air-inflated goatskin. From
these performances were derived the rope dancers, called by the Greeks
_schœnobates_ and _acrobates_, and later, by the Latins, _funambuli_.
Among the Greek actors we find several classes, the _ethologues_,
famous in Magna Græcia and in Alexandria, who display the lowest and
most corrupt of manners; the _biologues_, who portray and parody the
personages of their day; the _cinedologues_, also called _simodes_ and
_lysiodes_, from Susim of Magnesia and Lysis, the authors of their
pieces, who perform and utter obscenities; the _hilarodes_, dressed
in white, shod with sandals and wearing golden crowns on their heads,
who act and sing to the accompaniment of string instruments; and the
_phallophores_, a name fully justified by a part of their costume, as is
to be seen in all the monuments that have survived. At Sicyonia, where
the _phallic_ choirs and the scenes called _episodes_ are more ancient
than in Athens, the actors preserve this name of _phallophores_.
Later this Sicyonian phallophore, his countenance blackened with soot or
concealed under a papyrus mask, is transformed into a _planipes_ in Rome
and becomes in the sixteenth century the Bergamese Harlequin.
All these actors performing on the orchestra very close to the spectators
found it unnecessary to increase their height by the aid of the buskin
with elevated heels. They played without masks, their countenances merely
smeared in various colours according to the types which they represented.
Women, too, performed on the orchestra, singing, miming and moving in the
pieces that did duty as interludes, much after the fashion of our modern
actresses.
These female mimes passed from the Doric countries into Sicily and Magna
Græcia, and finally found their way to Rome.
The Etruscans were, in the art of the theatre as in many other things,
the preceptors of the Romans. Having long been in communication with
the Greeks they possessed stone theatres such as that at Tusculum, long
before the Romans had so much as wooden booths. In the year 442 the youth
of Rome studied Oscan literature, according to Titus Livy, much as in his
own time it devoted itself to the study of Greek letters.
Between Naples and Capua, Atella (to-day Aversa) was one of the first
ancient cities to possess a theatre, and above all a particular style
of comedy; thus she gave the name of Atellanæ to the first comedies
performed in Rome, comedies which derived largely from the satirical and
buffoon pieces of the Greeks.
These comedies, interlarded with dancing, singing and pantomime, in which
the actors improvised upon a _scenario_, or agreed subject, were full of
pleasantries and quips, and they very quickly eclipsed the _Saturæ_, the
indigenous and national comedies of Rome.
The Roman youth appropriated this style of piece and the right to perform
it. The actors of the Atellanæ alone enjoyed exemptions and liberties
without limit. Later these pieces became licentious and obscene, and the
name of Atellanæ was given to all those which were written in a ribald
style. They were also called _exodiæ_ from the custom of playing them
after other pieces or at the end of the spectacle. They were performed
on the orchestra under the proscenium, hence the name of _comædiæ
planipediæ_, because the actors dispensed with buskins. They dispensed
also with those enormous masks termed _personæ_.
The _tabernariæ_ comedies, the subjects for which were drawn from the
lower orders and from tavern life, were sometimes played in the same
manner as the _planipediæ_; this was also the case with the _togatæ_, in
which the actors appeared arrayed in the toga.
The other styles of comedy were designated variously as follows:—mixed
comedies, partly developed in speech, partly in mimetic action, such as
_The Eunuch_ of Terence; _Motoriæ_ comedies, in which all was action,
such as _The Amphitryon_ of Plautus; _Palliatæ_ comedies, in which
the subject, the characters and the costumes were Greek; _Prætextatæ_
comedies, in which the subject and the characters were drawn from the
nobility; _Latinæ_ or comic-lachrymose comedies invented by Rhinthonus, a
buffoon of Tarentum; _Statariæ_ comedies, which contained a great deal of
dialogue and little pantomime, such as the _Asinaria_ of Plautus and the
_Hecyra_ of Terence.
In the performance of some pieces theatrical declamation was shared
between two actors, one of whom spoke whilst the other gesticulated. The
Abbé du Bos in his critical reflections upon poetry and painting offers
the following explanation of this, based upon the writings of Titus Livy:—
“Livius Andronicus, a celebrated poet who lived in Rome some
five hundred and fourteen years after its foundation and some
sixty years after the opening there of theatres, himself
performed in one of his pieces. It was then the custom for
dramatic poets to show themselves upon the stage, there to
take part in their own works. The people, who took the liberty
still taken to-day in France and Italy to demand the repetition
of passages with which they were pleased, by dint of crying
_bis_ caused the poor Andronicus to recite so long that he grew
hoarse. Out of all condition to continue to declaim, he induced
his audience to consent that a slave placed in front of the
instrumental performer should recite the phrases, and, whilst
the slave recited, Andronicus went through the same gestures
which he had made when reciting himself. It was observed then
that his action was very much more animated because he employed
all his energies in gesticulation, whilst another was entrusted
with the labour of enunciation; hence, according to Titus
Livy, was born the custom of dividing the declamation between
two actors, and of reciting, as it were, to the rhythm of the
gestures of the comedian.”
“Of all the Roman spectacles,” says M. Charles Magnin, “none was more
appreciated than pantomime; it became even peculiar to this people
to whom the masterpieces of the Greek tragedies were foreign.” They
required shows, but shows contrived for the eyes. This term _pantomime_,
signifying imitator of all things, suggests that these actors had the
art of rendering all manner of subjects by gesture alone. Lucian says
that sometimes the subject of the piece performed by the pantomime was
sung, and that at other times he performed, in silence, expressing the
verses by his mute action.
“This spectacle,” says M. Charles Magnin, “which admitted no
words, was better suited than any other to the suspicious
politics of the emperors; and it possessed moreover the
inappreciable advantage of supplying a sort of language
intelligible and common to all those nations so diverse in
their idioms and customs that composed the Roman empire.”
And further on he says:
“Observe in what terms Nonnus of Panopolis, a poet of the time
of Theodosius, speaks of the pantomime in Book VIII. of his
Dionysiaca: ‘there are gestures that have a language, hands
that have a mouth, fingers that have a voice.’
“Although the use of the mask permitted the Roman mimes to
perform either male or female rôles, nevertheless, female mimes
were already in existence in the fourth century. The incredible
licence of this epoch rendered the presence of women necessary
to the enjoyment of the crowd. They appeared with uncovered
heads, and often—incredible statement!—entirely nude. They swam
thus before the spectators in a sort of vat or basin placed
upon the large orchestra.
“The number of the Roman mimes in the fourth century is hardly
credible. Ammianus Marcellinus reports, as a thing shameful to
the Romans, that in the reign of Constantius, when the fear
of famine compelled the authorities to expel from Rome all
strangers practising the liberal arts, six thousand mimes were
suffered to remain there undisturbed.”
Already, before the Christian era, the _funambuli_ or rope dancers were
a source of sensation in Rome. The Romans preferred their spectacles to
all others. Terence himself experienced this; and he laments that during
the performance of one of his pieces the appearance of a new _funambulus_
so attracted the notice of the spectators that they could give no thought
or attention to anyone else. _Ita populus, studio spectaculi cupidus in
funambulo animam occupaverat._
The celebrated perfection of the ancient mimes amazes us when we consider
the masks they wore, which must have deprived them of all power of
expression and even of the natural character of their countenances,
unless this superimposed face was contrived with such art and scenic
experience as to render it effective at a given distance. These masks,
however, were less deformed than those of other actors, since at least
they were not equipped with those enormous mouths whose aim was to
increase the volume of the voice—a measure necessary in the vast theatres
of antiquity.
It may be well to enter into some details of the uses of the ancient
mask, with which the mask worn by the actors of the Italian comedy is
undoubtedly connected.
We know already that the chief advantage of those ancient scenic masks
was to enable men to appear in female rôles. This mask was a kind of
great helmet covering the entire head of the actor and representing, in
addition to the features of the countenance, the hair, the ears and even
the ornaments which women might employ in their headdresses.
This mask was called _persona_; it is thus that Phædrus, Horace and other
authors have named it in their works. It appears that the earliest were
contrived of bark; later they were made of leather, lined with cloth;
but as their shapes were liable to distortion it became the custom to
make them all of a light wood, and it was conceived, moreover, that they
should be constructed in a manner calculated to increase the volume of
the actor’s voice; this was accomplished either by lining them with
plates of bronze or other sonorous material, or else by fitting to the
interior of the mouth a sort of trumpet which was to have the effect of
a megaphone. Hence is it that a large number of these masks have mouths
of a size and an extent that render them hideous at close quarters; but
it should be considered that this deformity was no doubt diminished when
they were seen from a distance, the spectator then being able to perceive
no more than a very strongly marked expression.
Aulus-Gellius, who wrote under the Emperor Adrian, gives us the following
account of the effect of these masks in increasing the voice:—
“The entire head and face of the actor being enclosed within
the mask, so that the voice could issue by only one restricted
opening, it follows that the voice thus confined must be
greatly increased in volume and distinctness. This is why the
Latins have given the name of _persona_ to these masks, because
they cause the voices of those who wear them to resound and
reverberate.”
It was natural to provide different sorts of masks according to the
employment for which they were destined. Consequently they were
divided into comic, tragic and satiric masks. These last in particular
were horribly overcast, and no doubt very much larger than the others,
because, being intended to represent fauns, satyrs or cyclops, which
poetical imagination depicted as superhuman beings, the actors entrusted
with these rôles had to appear as men very much above the natural.
Consequently they never failed to increase their stature in proportion to
the size of their masks.
Only the masks designed for feminine rôles or those worn by dancers were,
far from being deformed, of pleasing and regular features. They were
called, according to Lucian, mute or orchestric masks.
We also know that among the Greeks, where the aim of comedy, more free
than amongst the Romans, was to depict living citizens, the actors wore
masks displaying the features of those persons whom they portrayed. It
is thus that Aristophanes in his comedy of the _Clouds_ gave one of his
actors a mask which so perfectly resembled Socrates that the spectators
thought to behold the man himself upon the stage. The Romans corrected
this abuse, and it seems that in the comedies of Terence the masks of the
actors expressed the age, the condition, the manners and the nature of
the character, but without ever offering to the spectators any features
with which they were acquainted.
The name of histrion, which is derived from the Etruscan _hister_,
came from Etruria to Rome together with scenic performances; it became
the designation of all actors. These were for the most part slaves or
freedmen who did not enjoy the privilege of Roman citizenship. Moreover,
any citizen who should have been so ill advised as to appear upon the
stage to perform or declaim would thereby have forfeited his civic
rights. For the rest, only the law was rigorous with histrions; custom
dealt with them tolerantly. We know that an actor could become rich, and
free if he were a slave, when by his genius and his talents he attained
celebrity.
Quintus Roscius, a famous Roman actor, born 129 B.C., earned from five to
six hundred thousand sesterces, and the actor Esopus, his contemporary,
left to his son, on his death-bed, a fortune of twenty million
sesterces[1] acquired entirely in the theatre.
Sorix and Metrobius were his contemporaries, and shared with him the
friendship and favour of Sylla.
The city of Tarentum, in Magna Græcia, was famous for its actors, who
came to Rome after the conquest of their city. Cleon performed his
mimetics to the sound of the flute; he was the most celebrated actor
in all Italy and played without mask, like Nymphodorus, his rival.
Istomachus, who, at first a charlatan, followed later in the ways of
Cleon, began by performing his farces in the public squares; afterwards,
when he had acquired a certain celebrity, he set up a theatre for his
shows.
Esopus, according to Quintilian, was considered one of the greatest
tragedians of Rome, whilst Roscius excelled as a comic actor; he was the
friend of Cicero, and as esteemed for his talents as for his probity. He
had brought that art of gesture which the Latins called _saltatio_ to
such a point of perfection that Cicero often challenged him as to which
of them would render the same thought with the greater eloquence, the one
by gesture, or the other by word.
Pylades and Bathyllus, in the first century, were both famous as
pantomime actors, and the former assembled a troupe which enjoyed a
wide celebrity. Lentulus, mime and mimographer, lived also in the first
century under Domitian and Trajan.
In the third century, Genes or Genest of Rome, a comedian, was martyred.
In addition to the actors subsidised by the State there were itinerant
mountebanks, mimes and buffoons—the etymology of which, _buffo_, is
derived from the action of inflating the cheeks so that the smacks
which the actor is to receive must make more noise, and induce to
greater laughter. All these mountebanks overran Italy, and performed
their pieces, which were in the nature of Atellanæ, and written—like
those intended for the great theatres—in verse, which was often sung to
accompaniments on the flute.
The Romans, like the Greeks, had also their _nevrospastes_ or marionette
performers, for we see the actors of the Atellanæ borrowing religious
pomps, such as the _Manducus_, from the ancient marionettes. “Thus was
established in Rome,” says M. Charles Magnin, “a sort of interchange
between the characters of the Atellanæ and those of the theatre of
marionettes, just as much more recently in France the masks of the
Italian comedy mingled, and, as it were, duplicated themselves with the
actors of the troop of _Polichinelle_; so that it is not easy to know
whether in certain rôles marionettes preceded living actors or living
actors preceded marionettes.” The marionettes, or αύτοματα, as Aristotle
calls them, were brought from Egypt into Greece.
It is necessary to sketch the history of this theatre, for it is
essential to that of certain types of the Italian comedy.
Herodotus relates that the origin of puppets on wires is of the greatest
antiquity; but he claims to have seen the women of Egypt bearing in
procession, in the religious festivals of Osiris, whom he calls Bacchus,
images which sometimes were veritable statues, certain parts of whose
bodies were moved by cords. The Greeks appropriated this mechanism,
but they did not confine the uses of it to religious ceremonies; they
employed these automata in the theatre.
Similarly in the religious ceremony, which in Rome preceded the games
in the circus and the triumphs, wooden statues were carried which were
equipped with hidden strings. Amongst them were the African ghouls,
known as Lamiæ, and the sharp-toothed Manducus, the eater of children, a
monster with a human head (undoubtedly the primitive type of Mâchecroûte
and Croquemitaine), which opened, says Rabelais, in _Pantagruel_, “large
and horrific mandibles, armed with teeth, above and below, which by means
of the device of the little hidden cord, were made terrifically to clash
the one against the other.”
The identical custom of promenading monsters and colossal figures is to
be found again in the Middle Ages, with the difference, however, that
instead of being paraded in the triumphs of emperors they are now seen
in the anniversaries of the holy bishops, canonised for delivering the
country of awesome monsters, or just simply for having curbed idolatry;
even in the processions of our own day we may behold monsters, whose jaws
are armed with horrible teeth, or a giant Goliath and a Saint Christopher
moving arms and legs.
This name of _marionnette_ is derived from _Maria_, _Mariola_, a
diminutive which the young girls in the Middle Ages gave to the little
figures of the Virgin exhibited in churches and by the wayside. Our
fathers have drawn therefrom various derivatives, _marote_, _mariotte_,
_mariole_, _mariette_, _marion_, and lastly _marionnette_. All these
infantile names, given at first to young girls, were appropriated
afterwards by mountebanks for their wooden puppets, which they called
_marmozets_ and _mariottes_, as they are still called in Languedoc.
In 1550, in Italy, they were called _bagatelli_ and _magatelli_; but when
BURATTINO, one of the masks of the Italian comedy, came to be personified
among the marionettes, he bestowed his name upon them, and they came
generally to be known as _burattini_, from the end of the sixteenth
century onwards.
The names of _burattini_ and _fantoccini_ are given to those whose limbs
are articulated and moved by wires, whilst _bamboccie_ applies to those
that are worked by a string stretched horizontally from a stick on the
one side, to the performer’s knee on the other; these are still in use
among the little savoyards who “make _la Catarina_ dance.” _Puppi_ and
_pupazzi_ describe those whose hands and heads only are of wood. The
body is merely a cloth pocket, into which the hand is introduced; the
thumb and the middle finger work the arms, the index moves the head,
being thrust into the hollow neck. These marionettes, simple in their
structure, go a long way back. It was by means of them—easy of transport
and maintenance as they are, and as is also their theatre, a mere booth
of a primitive simplicity revealing no more than the upper half of their
bodies—that the traditions of farce and satire were preserved throughout
the Middle Ages.
In Spain the marionettes bear the name of _titeres_ but they are more
commonly called _bonifrates_ because in their masque performances they
always represent hermits and saintly characters. “The crowd,” says M.
Charles Magnin, “has ever shown itself greedy of scenic amusements, and
when it has not been possible to obtain comedians, the people themselves
have been their own comedians and buffoons. Well might the Church
condescend to the mimetic inclinations of the multitude and strongly
endeavour to satisfy the bizarre fancies of the crowd by serious, and
sometimes comic, representations; well might she give to the laity a rôle
in the sacred ceremonies. But there remained ever outside the Church a
surplus of unsatisfied mimetic passion which demanded, notwithstanding
all inhibitions, the maintenance of comedians and dancers in the public
places.”
In the fourth and fifth centuries the little familiar dramas, similar
in manner to the later Italian subjects, were greatly in vogue in the
Greek and Roman theatres. Women took part in them. As for the subjects of
the pieces, they were always, say the Fathers of the Church, intrigues
of gallantry and the misadventures of guardians or betrayed husbands.
“Philosophers and doctors are always ridiculed in them. We behold more
or less the same subjects and the same characters as those which passed
later into the Italian comedy.”
Cassiodorus, writing in 560, says that the performances of mimes and
pantomimes are still flourishing in his day.
The Fathers of the Church sought to extinguish the last traces of
paganism by forbidding comedies and all histrionic performances, upon the
ground that they were impious and sacrilegious. But the taste and the
passion for the theatre being inherent in the Italian, the new religion
could not succeed in abolishing this art. The Church Victorious—leaving
out of consideration the spirit of the early Christians, which contented
itself with the Catacombs of Saint Agnes for only temple—felt the need of
monuments and luxurious churches and of pomps calculated to strike the
imagination. Thus we can see certain dramas and religious representations
intermingling with the _mise-en-scène_ of Catholicism Triumphant. It is
in the very Church itself that dramatic art finds refuge. The theatres
had ceased to be places of pleasure and entertainment. The majority
had been converted into citadels and fortresses to resist the constant
invasions of the Huns, the Vandals, the Goths, the Lombards and the
Normans.
Although the people of Italy had no leisure in which to occupy themselves
with farces and show-plays when the avalanche of the Northern people
descended upon their cities and overran the countryside now desolated by
famine, no sooner was a moment of respite conceded to this poor land than
the taste for comedy and spectacles was born again of its own ashes.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, who lived in 1224, speaks of the comedy of his day
as of a spectacle which had existed for many centuries before him. He
calls comedy _histrionatus ars_ and comedians _histriones_.
When the feudal and barbarous nobility was compelled, under a pious
pretext, to bear arms in the East to stem the incessant wave of Saracen
invasion which threatened Christendom, the whole of Europe traversed the
civilisation of the empire of the East, and it was upon their return from
the Crusades that the pilgrims, their imagination fired by the marvels
of Byzantium, performed the remarkable adventures of the knights-errant,
miracles of saints and religious legends, first in Italy, and later in
France. These were the sources of our theatre. In Italy the histrionic
art began to assume two distinct manners: the sacred and religious
mystery plays, and the comedies, which continued to be what they had been
in the hands of the ancient Latin mimes—that is to say, burlesque farces,
improvisations mingled with tumbling, dances and scraps of ancient pieces
which the Italian dancers have preserved, often unconsciously, down to
our own days.
“It is to the Italians,” says Voltaire, in his _Questions
sur l’Encyclopédie_, “that we owe the vicious style of drama
called _mystery plays_. They began in the thirteenth century
and perhaps earlier, by farces drawn from the Old and New
Testaments: an unworthy abuse which soon passed into Spain and
France! It was a vicious imitation of the attempts which Saint
Gregory of Nazianza had made to oppose a Christian theatre to
the pagan theatre of Sophocles and Euripides. Saint Gregory
of Nazianza infused some eloquence and some dignity into his
pieces; the Italians and their imitators introduced into theirs
nothing but buffooneries.”
With the fourteenth century Italy enters upon a new era, upon the
epoch of reflorescence, the renaissance of arts and letters which was
not experienced in France until a century later; nevertheless, in the
beginning of the fourteenth century Italian influence inspired Luco, the
Provençal poet, to compose a satirical piece against the Duke of Anjou,
King of Naples. Towards the middle of the same century, Parasolz, another
Provençal poet, composed a series of five pieces, or rather a piece in
five chapters, against Jeanne I., Queen of Naples; therein her life, her
adventures, her crimes, were dragged into the light of day under the
titles of _L’Andreasse_, _La Tarenta_, _La Mahorquina_, _L’Allemande_,
_La Johanella_. This satire was performed at Avignon, before the
anti-pope Clement VII. (Robert of Geneva), who was so pleased with the
work that he appointed Parasolz Canon of Sisteron.
The Italian language, having been purified by Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio,
and Ariosto, the fifteenth century was in Italy an epoch of taste, of
art and of letters. Whilst in France the theatre was the monopoly of
the religious confraternities, jealous of their privileges, in Italy it
was always open to the productions of wit and of genius. Two distinct
styles existed there: the noble tragedies and comedies written, memorised
and recited, such as _Il Pastor Fido_ of Guarini, _La Calandra_ of
the Cardinal of Bibbiena, _La Mandragora_ of Macchiavelli, _I Simili_
of Giorgio Trissino, _L’Aminta_ of Tasso, etc., etc.; and the free
theatre of the improvisers given over to singing, dancing, raillery and
facetiousness. Whilst in France one might take delight only in mystery
plays, into which had been introduced, it is true, many profane and gross
pleasantries, or in the plumed mountebanks, who swallowed swords and
canes, walked on their hands or with blindfolded eyes, to the sound of
tambourines, and performed what is still known to-day as _la danse des
œufs_, in Italy the theatre was rediscovered, honoured and cultivated.
Whilst the Zingari, Bohemians or Gypsies, that errant race of Hindu
_soudras_, overran Europe, and sometimes took the risk of displaying
their _pupazzi_ or _magatelli_—which caused them in certain countries
to be taken for sorcerers and got them condemned by sentence to be
hanged and burnt—troupes of comedians and of buffoons, such as Martino
d’Amelia and Gian Manente, went about Italy performing plays written
by Poliziano, Macchiavelli, Ariosto, the Cardinal of Bibbiena,
Nicolò Secchi, Tasso, Fedini, Guarini, and others, dramas, tragedies
and pieces in which tragedy, comedy and satire were mingled, called
_tragisatirocomedie_, improvisations upon given subjects, termed
_commedie dell’ arte_, and lastly, _commedie sostenute_.
In speaking of the Italian comedies Montaigne says: “I have often
conceived a fancy to write comedies such as those of the Italians who are
so felicitous in that art. They find in everything something to excite
their laughter; they are in no need to tickle themselves.”
Throughout the sixteenth century, down to the seventeenth, two distinct
theatres were therefore in existence: one occupied by comedians who
played impromptu (_commedia dell’ arte_) with Harlequin and other masked
actors; the other occupied by the academicians, or academic actors, who
performed written and regular pieces (the _commedia sostenuta_) which
sometimes passed into the theatre of the buffo-comedians.
It was Angelo Beolco, surnamed RUZZANTE, who was the first to open
a career to the Italian dialects. In 1528 he presented his first
prose comedy, in which each character spoke a different dialect. This
entertainment became extremely popular. Every locality desired to have
its own type represented in it. Hence its infinity of characters and of
names, which may be summed up into a few principal types: Harlequin,
Pulcinella, the Captain, Scaramouche, Brighella, Pantaloon and the Doctor.
Pulcinella had never ceased to exist from the days of the Atellanæ, in
which he went by the name of Maccus, the _mimus albus_.
Casnar, Pappus, the flouted and ridiculous old man, became Pantaloon, and
later Cassandro.
The two _Zanni_, Harlequin and Brighella, are the _sanniones_ of the
ancient theatre; the first is a lackey or loutish peasant, stupid and
gluttonous; the second is an astute and wily slave, avenging himself upon
his masters by robbing them.
The ancient tradition has been preserved down to our own days in the
garments of the characters of the Italian comedy. First the mask,
which has been but little modified; for the principal types, such as
Pulcinella, Harlequin, Brighella, Pantaloon, Coviello, Tartaglia, still
wear the mask which, in itself, lends them an ancient character and,
except in the case of old men, a nightcap which conceals the hair and so
perpetuates the tradition of the shaven heads of the ancient mimes.
The tradition of that other part of the costume worn by the Greek
phallophores was preserved by comedy mimes and buffoons down to the
time of Louis XIII. It suffices to cast a glance at such illustrations
as Callot’s _Les Petits Danseurs_, as Cerimonia, Smaraolo, Scaramuccia,
Captain Spezza-Monti and others, to realise this.
Most of the characters also wore the mantle (_il tabaro_), and all the
lackeys, like the slaves of the Atellanæ, appeared in short garments. The
toga and the long robes were permitted only to the nobles and the old men.
The club of Pulcinella and the bat of Harlequin are probably no more than
modifications of the curved staff of the peasants of the Greek theatre,
the attribute of the Muse of Comedy.
Other essential analogies are to be considered. First, La Cantatrice
included in all Italian troupes, who, in the manner of the ancient
chorus, came to sing and to explain the scenes. Then the modern
_planipes_, the Bolognese Narcisino, who still comes, by way of
interlude, to chat with the public and scoff at the manners of the day;
finally and chiefly the method of performing impromptu, the actors having
memorised no rôles and playing after merely having read an outline of
the subject nailed up in the wings. These resemblances and many others
would prove that the Commedia dell’ Arte is no more than the continuation
of the theatre of Atella with its improvisations and its free and often
licentious scenes, mingled with songs and pantomime.
We have said that every province desired to be represented. Thus
Bergamo provided Harlequin and Brighella; Milan supplied Beltrame and
Scapino, who are merely varieties of Brighella and Meneghino; Venice
contributed Pantaloon and his lackey Zacometo; Naples gave us Pulcinella,
Scaramouche, Tartaglia, el Capitan (who became metamorphosed under his
Spanish designation) and the Biscegliese. From Rome came Meo-Patacca,
Marco-Pepe and Cassandrino, this last a more modern type, a sort of
_monsignore_; Florence supplied Stenterello; Bologna, the Doctor and
Narcisino; Turin, Gianduja; Calabria, Coviello and Giangurgolo; Sicily,
the Baron, Peppe-Nappa, etc., etc.
Harlequin, Brighella, the Doctor and Pantaloon may be called the four
fundamental modern masks.
Salvator Rosa indicated seven—namely, these four, and Pulcinella,
Tartaglia and Coviello.
Why are these set apart to-day? Perhaps they are so old that they have
fallen into disfavour. Where are the Menego, the Truffa, the Zaccagnino,
Cavicchio, Bagatino, Ciurlo Guazeto and many others? But then—
“where are the snows of yesteryear?”
When Flaminio Scala travelled through Italy with his troupe, towards the
middle of the sixteenth century, a few years after Beolco (Ruzzante), he
found the personages of the Commedia already established, and the greater
part of them baptized. Nothing remained for him but to bring them into
action. Since the advent of the Christian era women had disappeared from
the theatre; with the Renaissance they re-entered it again.
Flaminio Scala’s company played in Italy from the second half of the
sixteenth down to the beginning of the seventeenth century; chiefly they
performed _commedie dell’ arte_ upon subjects very succinctly sketched.
Scala did no more than continue the performances of fables and farces
which had been played long before his day. He has left us some fifty
subjects, printed in 1611. Among the personages in these are Arlecchino,
Pedrolino (Pierrot), Burattino, Fritellino, Capitan Spavento, Mezzetino,
Pantalone, il Dottore, Cavicchio, and Flaminio Scala himself under the
name of Flavio. Thus in the middle of the sixteenth century we find a
considerable number of our Italian masks named and performing.
“This same Flaminio Scala,” says Riccoboni (in his _History of
the Italian Theatre_, written in 1723), “caused his plays to
be printed; they contain no dialogue, but merely expound the
subject in simple scenarii which are not as concise as those
which we use and attach to the walls behind the wings of our
theatres, nor yet so prolix that one may derive from them the
least hint of the dialogue: they explain merely what the actor
is to do and the action in question, and no more.”
Evaristo Gherardi, on the subject of performances upon scenarii and
the improvisation of the actors in the Commedia dell’ Arte, writes as
follows:—
“... The Italian comedians learn nothing by heart, and to
perform a comedy it suffices them to have glanced over the
subject for a moment before entering the stage. Therefore the
chief merit of their pieces is inseparable from the action; the
success of their comedies depends absolutely upon the actors,
who render them more or less amusingly according to the measure
of their personal wit and as a result of the advantages of
the situation in which they are placed when playing. It is
this necessity of spontaneous performance which renders it so
difficult to replace a good Italian comedian. There is no one
who may not learn by heart and declaim on the stage what he has
learnt; but it is a very different affair in the case of the
Italian comedian. He who speaks of a good Italian comedian,
speaks of a man of solid qualities, of one who performs from
imagination rather than from memory; who in the course of
performing invents all that he utters; who knows how to support
his fellow-actor on the stage; in short, one who so perfectly
weds his actions and his words to those of his fellow-actors
that he enters at once into the play and action demanded by the
others to such an extent as to make it all appear to have been
preconcerted.”
Further, on this same subject, here are the sentiments of Riccoboni:
“One may not deny that it has graces peculiar to itself such
as the written comedy may never boast. Impromptu affords
opportunity for such variety of performance that although you
may return again and again to see the same scenario performed,
you will always witness a different piece. The actor who
performs impromptu performs in a more lively and natural manner
than he who discharges a rôle which he has learned by heart.
The actor feels more deeply and consequently gives a better
delivery to words proceeding from himself than it were possible
to give to those borrowed from another by the aid of memory;
but these advantages of the impromptu comedy are purchased at
the price of great drawbacks; it is necessary that the actors
shall be ingenious; it is essential that they shall be more or
less of equal talent, because the weakness of impromptu lies in
the fact that the best of actors depends absolutely upon those
who are his partners in the dialogue; should he find himself
playing with one who does not know how to seize with precision
the moment of retort or who interrupts him imprudently, his
subject languishes or the vivacity of his wit is stifled.
Face, voice, sentiment even, may not suffice the actor who
performs impromptu; he will not excel unless his imagination is
lively and fertile and he is gifted with a great facility of
expression, unless he possesses all the niceties of language
and unless he has acquired all such special knowledge as may be
necessary to enable him to deal effectively with the different
situations in which he is placed by his rôle.”
The opinion of the witty and very artistic Président de Brosses (1740)
may be added to the foregoing.
“This method of performing impromptu which renders the style
very weak, renders the action on the other hand very lively
and very true. The Italians are natural comedians: even among
men of the world you will find in their conversation a fire
which does not exist with us, lively though we are accounted.
The gesture and the voice inflexion are always wedded to the
subject in their theatre; the actors come and go, they speak
and move as in their own homes. This action is natural in a
very different sense and wears an air of truth very different
from that which is seen when four or five French actors,
arranged in line, like a bas-relief, on the foreground of the
stage, recite their dialogue each speaking in his turn.”
Enough has been said to show that the Italian comedy is directly
descended from the performances of the ancient Latin mimes; and the genre
called _commedia dell’ arte_ in particular is none other than that of
the Atellanæ. It is the only theatre in Europe which has preserved the
traditions of antiquity. The theatre in France did not begin to take form
until the Italian influence came to soften and to abolish the rudeness of
the marvellous and grotesque French mystery plays.
It is often wondered how it could have been possible to play such scenes
as that in which two actors, finding themselves on the stage, seek
each other and speak without seeing each other; or sometimes five or
six characters perform at the same time, forming nevertheless two or
three groups, who again do not see one another. These scenes, which are
constantly to be found in the plays of Plautus and Ruzzante, are to be
explained by the shape and construction of the theatres of antiquity
and of the Renaissance, of which a very beautiful specimen, the work of
Palladio, is still to be seen at Vicenza.
The auditorium is constructed in the shape of a semicircle supplied
with steps. It is surrounded by a colonnade, the intervals between the
pillars forming the boxes, and by stairs leading to a gallery which
crowns the whole. The stage consists of two parts, the proscenium, a
semicircular platform which reaches to the foot of the steps, and behind
this the stage proper, bearing the scenery. But the scenery was hung very
differently from that in our modern theatres. The stage was divided into
three arcades, and under each arcade one saw, upon a sloping ground, a
real street with wooden houses; these streets, proceeding from the back
of the stage, come to debouch upon the proscenium, which is deemed an
open square. The actors may therefore perform and circulate through all
the streets, conceal themselves, spy upon one another, listen, or very
naturally surprise secrets and mysteries in such a manner as is often
impossible in our modern theatres. A further great advantage was that
the actors performing, whether on the proscenium or the stage, might be
equally well heard in any part of the auditorium owing to its circular
construction and to the fact that the stage was not raised as is the
case with us. This theatre, called the Olympic, built by Palladio at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, is an architectural gem.
On the occasion of the fêtes with which the city of Lyons received
Henry II. and Catherine de Medicis in 1548, the Florentine merchants
established in that city brought at their own expense a troupe of Italian
comedians to perform the Cardinal of Bibbiena’s _La Calandra_ before the
King and Queen of France. But the Italian comedy theatre was not seen in
Paris until 1570, when it was established there by one Ganasse or Juan
Ganassa. Here both tragedy and comedy were performed, and “The charge of
admission was up to five or six sous for each person.” Ganassa’s troupe,
authorised by letters patent from the king, does not appear to have made
a long sojourn in France. Ganassa had been in Spain in the early years
of the reign of Philip II. managing a company of Italian comedians, who
performed farces in the Italian language. In this company were included
Harlequin, Pantaloon, the Doctor, Pagliaccio, Burattino, and Tabarino
whose homonym enjoyed later on so great a vogue in the Place Dauphine in
Paris. The performances of these personages and their costumes achieved a
great success in Spain, where they made a protracted sojourn before going
to France.
Porbus shows in one of his pictures a ball or _divertissement_ at the
Court of Charles IX. in 1572. In this the king and all his courtiers are
to be seen in the costumes of various Italian buffoons. The Duke of Guise
(le Balafré) appears as Scaramouche, the Duke of Anjou (Henry III.) as
Harlequin, the Cardinal of Lorraine as Pantaloon, Catherine of Medicis as
Columbine, and His Very Christian Majesty is seen cutting capers under
the mask of Brighella. Singular prelude to the horrible tragedy of the
24th August of the same year!
In 1571 the Italian troupe, known under the name of _I Comici
Confidenti_—that is to say, the confident comedians (confident, it was
understood, of the indulgence of the public)—journeyed through the
provinces of France. The performances of this company consisted in
impromptu comedies, pastorals and written comedies and tragedies.
The famous Celia, whose real name was Maria Malloni, was one of the
members of this troupe, as was also Bernardino Lombardi, actor and poet,
and Fabrizio di Fornaris, known by the name of Captain Crocodile—Capitan
Cocodrillo.
At about the same time a second troupe, under the name of _I Comici
Gelosi_ (that is to say, zealous, anxious to please the public), came
also to France to perform the same style of pieces. This troupe also
included some excellent actors, such as Orazio Nobili, of Padua, Adriani
Valerini, of Verona, known under the name of Aurelio, and the beautiful
Lidia, of Bagnacavallo.
In 1574 the two rival companies amalgamated into a single troupe, which
took the name of _I Comici Uniti_ (the united comedians); but the Masters
of _la Passion_ caused the theatre to be closed.
At the end of 1576 the two united troupes separated once more, and again
resumed their respective titles of _I Confidenti_ and _I Gelosi_. It was
then that Flaminio Scala placed himself at the head of the _Gelosi_, and
travelled through France and Italy alternately, always encouraged by the
greatest success. This troupe was in Venice when Henry III. summoned it
to Blois, whence he commanded it to Paris. The arrival of these artists,
in 1577, is announced by _L’Etoile_ in the following terms:—
“In this month the Italian comedians called _li gelosi_,
whom the king had sent for from Venice, and whose ransom he
had paid, they having been captured by Huguenots, began the
performance of their comedies in the Salle des Etats at Blois;
and the king permitted them to charge a half testoon to all who
should come to see them play.”
“On Sunday the 19th of May, the Italian comedians, surnamed
_li gelosi_, began the performance of their comedies at the
Hôtel de Bourbon, in Paris; they charged the members of their
audience a fee of four sous per head, and such were the crowds
they attracted that the four best preachers of Paris had not
amongst them all as many present at their sermons when they
discoursed.”
“On Saturday, the 27th July, the Italian comedians, _li
gelosi_, after having presented at Court letters patent
accorded them by the king, permitting them to perform their
comedies notwithstanding the prohibition of the Court, were
dismissed under plea of objection with prohibition ever to
obtain and to present such letters to the Court subject to a
penalty of ten thousand livres, to be paid into the poor-box.
Notwithstanding this inhibition, in the early part of the
following September they renewed the performance of their
comedies at the Hôtel de Bourbon, as before, by the king’s
express command; the corruption of these times being such that
comedians, buffoons, harlots and mignons enjoy the fullest
credit with the king.”
But this company did not long remain in Paris.
“Long sojourns” (says M. Charles Magnin) “were not the custom
of these itinerant troupes, and moreover the magistrates,
being little in favour of the establishment of new theatres,
sustained with rigour the monopoly of the ancient confraternity
of _la Passion_, which was then being infringed by professional
comedians at the Hôtel de Bourgogne.”
The _Gelosi_ troupe returned therefore to Florence in 1578; and it was
there that Flaminio Scala brought together the most famous Italian
company of the sixteenth century. This company visited France on several
occasions. It had for its device a two-faced Janus with this legend,
punning upon the word _gelosi_:
“Virtù, fama ed onor ne’ ser gelosi.”
The principal actors engaged by Flaminio Scala, who himself played lovers
under the name of Flavio, were: a young actress named Prudenza, born at
Verona, who played second lady, and who had already formed part of the
company in 1577 at Blois and in Paris; Giulio Pasquati, of Padua, who
played Pantaloon and il Magnifico; Gabriello, of Bologna, creator of
the character of Franca-Trippa; Simone, of Bologna, the first to bear
the name of Harlequino; Girolamo Salimbeni, of Florence, under the name
of Zanobio (an elderly citizen of Piombino); Signora Silvia Roncagli,
of Bergamo, who filled soubrette parts under the name of Franceschina;
Lodovico, of Bologna, who played Doctor Graziano; Francesco Andreini, of
Pistoia, who performed upon “all musical instruments and spoke six or
seven languages”; Francesco Bartoli, an able comedian; and Isabella, who
married Francesco Andreini (Captain Spavento).
From 1584 to 1585 the troupe called the _Confidenti_ was in France.
Fabrizio di Fornaris gave a pastoral play and then a comedy (_Angelica_),
which was first performed impromptu in Italian at the house of the Duke
of Joyeuse. The author himself played the rôle of Captain Crocodile, who
spoke only Spanish. This new troupe established itself at the Hôtel de
Cluny, but it was driven out by the Confraternity of _la Passion_.
In 1588 there was a fresh attempt by the Italians to establish themselves
in Paris. On the subject M. Charles Magnin says:
“One may read in a remonstrance addressed to the king on the
occasion of the opening of the _Seconds Etats_, at Blois,
amongst many other plaints, ‘that the performances of the
Italian strangers are a great evil which it is wrong to
tolerate.’ Further, a warrant of the 10th of August of this
year renews the inhibition to all comedians, whether Italian
or French, to give any performance anywhere but at the
Hôtel de Bourgogne. Evil times rather than this inhibition
compelled the Italian actors to return beyond the Alps. During
this sad epoch, indeed, there was no room in France for the
blithe frolics of Harlequin, Pantaloon, the Bolognese Doctor,
Franca-Trippa, Franceschina, and Captain Spavento. The Sixteen
and their adherents were giving very different spectacles to
France.”
In 1600 Henry IV., after the peace of Savoy, at the time of his marriage
with Mary of Medicis, introduced from Italy a new troupe which, according
to some authors, was none other than that of the _Gelosi_, under the
direction of Flaminio Scala. They were lodged in the Rue de la Poterie
at the Hôtel d’Argent, and were salaried by the king. They came to an
arrangement with the comedians at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and played
alternately with them in the theatre of the Rue Mauconseil.
The beautiful and famous Isabella Andreini was the queen of this troupe,
and her death in 1604 was the signal for its disbandment. Flaminio Scala
retired, worn out by twenty-eight years of work, and occupied himself
thereafter with the publication of scenarii.
In the beginning of the seventeenth century Italy possessed several
companies of comedians: the _Comici Uniti_, a troupe formed in 1583
by Adriano Valerini of deserters from the camp of the _Gelosi_; the
_Confidenti_, who were slowly disappearing; the _Gelosi_, whom we
have seen disbanded after the death of Isabella, and a new troupe,
inheritor of the glory of the _Gelosi_, which was known and applauded
for forty-seven years throughout Europe under the name of the _Comici
Fedeli_ (the faithful comedians). Giovanni Battista Andreini, the son of
Isabella, assumed in 1605 the direction of this company, which, several
times renewed, did not disband until 1652. Its principal actors were:
Gian-Paolo Fabri, who had already performed under the name of Flaminio
in the troupe of the _Uniti_; Nicolò Barbieri, known by the name of
Beltrame, who became in 1625 joint director of the troupe with G. B.
Andreini; Virginia Ramponi, married to G. B. Andreini in 1601, and known
by the name of Florinda; Girolamo Gavarini of Ferrara, known by the name
of Captain Rhinoceros (Capitan Rinoceronte); Margarita Luciani, his wife;
Lidia, an actress of great merit, who married G. B. Andreini in 1635,
after the death of Virginia Ramponi; and Eularia Coris.
In 1613, Mary of Medicis summoned to Paris the troupe of the _Fedeli_,
under the direction of G. B. Andreini, who had just dedicated his
religious piece _L’Adamo_ to the queen. He remained there until 1618,
presenting the old repertory of the _Gelosi_ and playing now at Court
and now in the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne by arrangement with the
French comedians.
In 1621 Andreini was again called to Paris and he remained there,
according to M. Ch. Magnin, “until the end of carnival of 1623, having,
during these two years, performed to great applause and published five or
six pieces of his own in Paris. After a short journey beyond the Alps,
he comes yet again to spend the year 1624 and the beginning of 1625 in
Paris.”
The performances given by his various troupes consisted of comedies,
both improvised and memorised, tragedies, and plays of the comic opera
and pastoral variety. The dialects of Venice, Naples, Bergamo or Genoa,
besides French, German and Castilian, were sometimes employed, in certain
pieces of his, such as _La Ferinda_. It is fairly certain that the French
public cannot have understood them to any great extent, and the author
himself would have to compensate them on the morrow of such performances
by giving them such works as _La Centaura_ (dedicated to Mary of Medicis).
This equestrian piece presented an entire family of centaurs, father,
mother, son and daughter. In the first act they prance in a comedy, in
the second they graze happily in a pastoral and in the third they gallop
and rear in a tragedy. Numerous and picturesquely bizarre adventures
pivot about the father, the son and the mother centaurs, in the course
of their combat to recover the crown of the island of Cyprus. Despairing
of success in their design, they resolutely kill themselves. This
accomplished, the offer of that crown so ardently desired is made to
them. The little female centaur, an orphan, sees herself compelled to
ascend the throne, which she does at the gallop.
The influence of these Italian comedies, farces and buffooneries, the
picturesqueness of the costumes, the impromptu of this class of play,
soon begat in France comedians and buffoons who sometimes even surpassed
their models. Whilst borrowing the mask, the mantle and the liveries of
the Italians, the French comedians very quickly created in the theatre
of the Hôtel de Bourgogne—fallen into discredit on account of the
tiresome pieces presented there—characters, half-French, half-Italian,
full of originality, wit and mirth, such as Gros-Guillaume, Turlupin,
Gaultier-Garguille, Guillot-Gorju and Jodelet, whilst from 1618 to
1625 Tabarin performed in the Place Dauphine, in company with Mondor,
his farces in Italian, in Spanish or in French according to the types
presented. This was a field in which Molière had the ability to glean as
well as in that of the Italian comedy.
In 1639 Louis XIII. summoned from Italy a troupe of players, half
singers, half improvisers, which remained but a little while in France.
It included the celebrated Tiberio Fiurelli, who went by the name of
Scaramouche. These short visits were several times repeated, as we gather
from the works of Andreini and Beltrame. They tell us that these troupes
of Italian comedians were not settled in Paris. They were sent for and
the expenses of their journeys were defrayed; they remained in Paris or
attached to the Court for as long as they afforded entertainment, and,
after some years, they were given a sum sufficient to meet the expenses
of their return journey.
A company summoned to Paris in 1645 by Cardinal Mazarin played at the
Petit-Bourbon Theatre. It was made up of Pantaloon, Harlequin, Mezzetin,
Trivelino, Isabelle, Columbine, the Doctor, Scaramouche, Aurelia,
Gabriella Locatelli, Giulia Gabrielli, and Margarita Bartolazzi.
Here is the title of a piece performed in this theatre:
“Explanation of the scenery and action of the piece entitled
_La Folle Supposée_ (_La Finta Pazza_), the work of the
celebrated Giulio Strozzi, most illustrious Italian poet, to
be performed by the grand royal troupe of Italian comedians,
entertained by his Majesty at the Petit-Bourbon, by command
of the Queen Mother of the Very Christian King [Louis XIV.]
printed in Paris, November 1645.
“Flore will be played by the graceful and pretty _Louise
Gabrielle Locatelli_, named Lucile, who by her vivacity will
prove herself a true light of harmony....
“Thétis will be played by the signora _Giulia Gabrielli_, named
Diane, who will marvellously portray her choler and her love.
“The prologue of this piece will be spoken by the very
excellent _Marguerite Bartolazzi_, whose voice is so ravishing
that it is impossible worthily to praise it.”
Further on we read on the subject of another scene:
“_Note_: This scene will be entirely without music, but so
admirably performed that the harmonies dispensed with will not
be missed.
“The first act of the piece concludes with a ballet by four
bears and four apes, performing a very amusing dance to the
sound of little drums.
“And ostriches will appear and in the course of lowering their
necks to drink at a fountain will perform a dance.”
Here is the argument of the eighth and last scene of the third act:
“Nicomedes recognises Pyrrhus for his grandson, and meanwhile
there arrives an Indian, who, having made his bow to the king,
announces that among the merchandise aboard his ship which the
tempest has driven into port, there are five parrots, of which
he makes offer, causing them to be brought on in a cage.
“At the same time four Indians go through a Moorish dance;
finally the parrots take flight from the hands of their owners
and leave these in despair at the loss; after which the piece
concludes and all take ship for the war in Troy.”
In 1653 a new troupe appeared, in which again we find some actors who
had already visited France several times, such as Tiberio Fiurelli
(Scaramouche), Locatelli (Trivelino), and Brigida Bianchi (Aurelia). This
troupe was the first to settle definitely in Paris. The Petit-Bourbon
Theatre was assigned to them, as well as to the troupe of Spanish
comedians who, from 1650 to 1672, played concurrently with the Italians.
The following is an announcement by Loret, who published his letters in
verse every Saturday:—
_The Historic Muse of Loret, for the 10th August 1653_
Une troupe de gens comiques.
“Venus des climats italiques.
Dimanche dernier, tout de bon.
Firent dans le Petit-Bourbon.
L’ouverture de leur théâtre
Par un sujet assez folâtre.
Où l’archiplaisant Trivelin,
Qui n’a pas le nez aquilin.
Fit et dit tout plein de folies
Qui semblèrent assez jolies.
Au rapport de certains témoins.
Scaramouche n’en fit pas moins.
Mais pour enchanter les oreilles,
Pâmer, pleurer, faire merveilles,
Mademoiselle Béatrix
Emporta ce jour-là le prix.”
N. Turi (of Modena) played the parts of Pantaloon;
Angelo-Agostino-Constantino Lolli (of Bologna) the parts of Doctor
Baloardo; Marco Romagnesi, under the name of Orazio, the parts of first
lover; Turi the son, under the name of Virginio, those of second lover;
Beatrice Adami, under the name of Diamantina, the parts of soubrette;
Jean Doucet appeared in the character of a zany; Tiberio Fiurelli in
that of Scaramouche; Brigida Bianchi played the parts of leading lady or
_amoureuse_ under the name of Aurelia, and Domenico Locatelli was seen as
Trivelino.
The performances were held between two and five o’clock in the afternoon,
the choice of hour being governed by consideration of the mud and thieves
encumbering the badly lighted streets of Paris after dark.
This troupe left the Petit-Bourbon in 1660 and found accommodation, by
order of the king, together with Molière’s company, at the theatre of the
Palais-Royal. Performances were given on alternate days and the company,
reinforced by several other actors and actresses from Italy, was made up
as follows:—
VALERIO, OTTAVIO, Andrea Zanotti.
EULARIA, Orsola Corteze, wife of Domenico.
DIAMANTINA, Patricia Adami, wife of Angelo Lolli.
HARLEQUIN, Giuseppe-Domenico Biancolelli, called _Domenico_.
CINTHIO, Marco-Antonio Romagnesi.
SCARAMOUCHE, Tiberio Fiurelli.
FLAUTINO, Giovanni Gherardi (1675).
MEZZETINO, Angelo Constantini (1682).
COLUMBINE, Catarina Biancolelli, daughter of Domenico.
PIERROT, Giuseppe Giaratone (1684).
PASQUARIELLO, Giuseppe Tortoretti (1685).
AURELIO, Bartolomeo Ranieri (1685).
MARINETTA, Angelica Toscano, wife of Tortoretti.
PULCINELLA, Michel-Angelo da Fracassano (1685).
GRADELINO, Constantino Constantini (1687).
OTTAVIO, Giovanni-Battista Constantini (1687).
HARLEQUIN, Evaristo Gherardi.
LEANDRO, Charles-Virgile Romagnesi de Belmont.
SPINETTA, BRIGHELLA and the CAPTAIN, whose real names are not known.
LA CANTATRICE, Elisabeth Danneret, called _Babet_.
In 1697 the troupe was expelled from Paris, and the theatre closed as the
result of a comedy (_La Fausse Prude_) in which Constantini, who filled
the rôle of Harlequin, permitted himself satirical allusions to Madame de
Maintenon.
Under the designation of _Théâtres de la Foire_ were comprised, down to
the end of the eighteenth century, the performance halls established
on the sites of the markets of Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent, which
had begun their existence with rope dancers, trained dogs, etc. It was
then that the actors of the forain theatres appropriated the Italian
repertory, establishing themselves upon that suspension of privileges and
upon the exemptions granted to the traders of the fairs of Saint-Germain
and Saint-Laurent.
But the actors of the Comédie-Française, anxious to secure the
maintenance of their rights, obtained from M. de la Reynie, the
Lieutenant of Police, a sentence including “prohibition to all excepting
the French comedians to perform in comedy or farce in the city of Paris
under pain of fine.”
The forain[2] players appealed against this sentence, and continued their
performances pending judgment. There was renewed opposition from the
French comedians. M. de la Reynie again forbade the forain players to
perform “any spectacle in which there is dialogue.”
Obedient to this mandate they declared that they would perform no more
dialogues, and two or three days later they announced: _Scaramouche and
the Scrupulous Pedant_, a comedy in three acts entirely in _monologues_.
When a comedian had spoken his part he withdrew to the wings, and he who
was to deliver the answer came to take his place to disappear again in
his turn and make room for the first one. In this fashion seven actors
took part in this comedy.
Derided by the public, and exasperated by the forain players, the actors
of the Comédie-Française and the magistrates, accompanied by several
squads of the watch, by forty archers, two parliamentary ushers and
two constables, invaded the forain theatres on the 20th February 1709,
destroying the booths, the benches and the scenery, after which they
withdrew extremely proud of having made an end of these recalcitrant folk.
But the forain players did not account themselves beaten. No sooner had
the archers departed than, with the aid of the public, they restored the
damage in a few hours, and on the morrow they billed a play and performed
it as if nothing had happened. But on the next day the ushers and archers
reappeared, and this time they did not confine themselves to breaking up
and pulling down; they delivered everything to the fire, and for several
days twelve archers were on guard over these ruins of farce with no other
occupation but that of burning and annihilating.
The forain actors were therefore compelled to submit; but they again
found means to re-establish themselves, for some years later they were to
be heard singing the following verses of Panard in their theatres:—
“Les lois ne sont qu’une barrière vaine
Que les hommes franchissent tous;
Car, par-dessus, les grands passent sans peine,
Les petits, par-dessous.”
The directors of the Opéra soon came to understand that no successful
opposition could be made to the development of these little theatres, and
they sold the right to sing to the theatre of the fair of Saint-Laurent
since the Théâtre-Français denied it the right to speak. That theatre
thereupon assumed the title of the Opéra-Comique.
Amid the enterprises of the forain theatres were the performances of
Bertrand, Alard, the widow Maurice and Decelles, associated and primarily
the sole proprietors of the shows given at the fairs. Later on they
admitted Dolet and Laplace to share this right with them. Then came
Ottavio and Domenico, to be succeeded by Saint-Edme and Madame Baron
who, in rivalry with the Chevalier Pellegrin, came to replace Francisque
and Lalauze, and finally by Ponteau, who obtained the privilege of the
Opéra-Comique from the Royal Academy of Music in 1728, and kept it until
1742.
A large number of more or less celebrated French authors worked for the
forain theatre, such as Lesage, Fuzelier, d’Orneval, Panard, Favart,
Diderot, Piron, Vadé, Carolet, Sedaine, Dorville, Laffichard, Gallet,
Fagan, Dallainval, Boissy, Taconet.
“Who would believe,” asks Grimm, in 1772, “that the opera and the two
comedy troupes, the French and the Italian, should be perpetually united
to persecute by virtue of their privilege, the theatre of the fairs?
From the moment that a manager conceives a good idea to attract the
public, and from the moment that he attempts something which is tinted
by success, that successful thing is forbidden. In the hope of hindering
the better classes from patronising these performances, the managers
have been forbidden to charge more than twenty-four sous for the best
seats, so as to compel decent people to be mingled and confounded with
the populace. Preach tolerance and flatter yourselves to see it reign in
a country in which Henry IV. and Polichinelle were persecuted with equal
fury!”
The theatre of the fairs introduced actors and actresses of recognised
merit to the public, and the public have applauded these—the comical and
singular performances of Domenico, the son of Harlequin, the naïveté of
Belloni as Pierrot, the voice and the slyness of Mademoiselle de Lisle
in soubrette rôles, the amusing gibberish of Desgranges as Scaramouche,
the grimaces of Paghetti in the rôles of Pantaloon and Cassandre, and the
modest air of Mademoiselle Molin as leading lady.
Harlequinades and pantomimes were also played from 1759 to 1771 at the
Ambigu-Comique, which was situated then on the Boulevard du Temple,
whilst at the Théâtre Gaudon, in 1769, were to be seen performances by
Polichinelle, Harlequin, Isabella and other Italian characters.
The four halls of the fair of Saint-Germain were open from the 3rd of
February to Palm Sunday. Those of the fair of Saint-Laurent were open
from the 1st July to the 30th September, as was also that of the fair
of Saint-Ovide, which was made up chiefly of mountebanks and marionette
shows.
Some of the Italian types preserved their original form, and were
played in costumes adopted long since and remaining invariable. Others,
however, underwent changes of name, of character and of costume. Pierrot
became Gilles, Pantaloon came to be called Cassandre, Leandro became a
ridiculous lover, a coxcomb, a poltroon, a sort of Captain; Jeannot,
which in the Italian companies had been no more than a very sketchy
character, became a complete and important rôle, and attracted all
Paris. Nor yet had the forain actors hesitated to borrow types from the
Théâtre-Français; thus Crispin, Harpagon, Sganarelle, and Gros-René
came to be mingled with the Italian types, a further happy amalgamation
which endured until the closing of the fairs of Saint-Laurent and
Saint-Germain, fallen into desuetude and out of fashion, in 1789.
The last of the Italian troupes seen in France was that which the regent,
Philippe of Orléans, summoned in 1716, under the direction of Louis
Riccoboni (named _Lelio_); it was housed at the old Hôtel de Bourgogne in
Rue Mauconseil, and was composed as follows:—
LELIO, Luigi Riccoboni.
MARIO, Giuseppe Baletti.
HARLEQUIN, Vicentini, called _Thomassin_.
PANTALOON, Alborghetti.
THE DOCTOR, Matterazzi.
SCAPINO, Bissoni.
SCARAMOUCHE, Giacopo Rauzzini.
FLAMINIA, Elena Baletti.
SILVIA, Gianetta Benozzi.
VIOLETTA, Margarita Rusca.
COLUMBINE, Teresa Biancolelli (1739).
LELIO, Giovanni-Antonio Romagnesi (1725) and Francesco Riccoboni (1726).
HARLEQUIN, Carlo Bertinazzi (1741).
LELIO, Antonio-Luigi Baletti (1741).
CORALINE, Anna Veronese (1744).
CAMILLE, Antonia Veronese (1744); Elisabetta Constantini; Mademoiselle
Belmont and Mademoiselle Dehesse (1730); Marie Laboras de Mézières
(1734); Madame Riccoboni (1762); Madame Favart (1749); Madame
Bognioli (1758).
ANGÉLIQUE, Mademoiselle Foulquier, named _Catinon_ (1753); Mesdames
Vesian, Bacelli, Zamarini, Billoni.
The company of 1716 was called the New Comédie-Italienne, or the Regent’s
Company, to distinguish it from that of 1653, which it was agreed to name
the Old Comédie-Italienne.
The several Italian troupes that played in France, down to that of 1716
inclusive, presented plays of various kinds. They gave a medley of
scenes that had been committed to memory, of others that were entirely
improvised, of scenes that were played throughout in dumb show, and of
dances and singing, all with scenery and such _mise-en-scène_ as was then
possible. Fireworks were never absent from the opening of a season, the
Italians being anxious to preserve their ancient pyrotechnic reputation.
That which in Italy was called _opera_ (a work) was nothing more than
this intermingling of various genres, of which an instance is afforded by
_Le Gelose Politiche e Amorose_, of Pietro Angelo Zaguri, performed in
the house of Giovanni Battista Sanuto, in Venice, in 1697. The prologue
of this opera took place in an entirely imaginary country, inhabited by
Eolus, to whom the Tiber, accompanied by Nymphs, came to pay a visit; it
was at once a ballet, a drama, and a tragedy, mingled with couplets and
dances.
The troupe of 1653 was chiefly concerned with the performance of pieces
without much production, in which music played but a very minor part.
The actors were very soon compelled to abandon their improvisations
in Italian, as the spectators could not grasp the point of their
pleasantries. It was thanks to this compromise that they were able to
maintain themselves in France; for we see that the troupe summoned in
1639 by Richelieu—who was a great lover of Italian music and the Italian
language—after having performed, danced and sung _L’Ercolano Amante_, was
compelled to depart for lack of audiences.
That of 1645, summoned by Mazarin, which performed among other pieces
_La Finta Pazza_ and _La Rosaura_, would not have enjoyed very much
more success but for the spectacular operas (such as _Orpheus_) which
roused enthusiasm. In this there were twelve changes of scenery and
these represented: a city besieged and defended; a temple surrounded by
trees; the banqueting hall on the occasion of the nuptials of Orpheus; a
palace interior; the temple of Venus; a forest; the palace of the Sun;
a horrible desert; Hades; the Elysian Fields; a wood on the edge of the
sea; Olympus and the heavens. The expense of production, the properties
and the scenery, designed and painted by Giacomo Torelli, amounted to
five hundred and fifty thousand livres.
The pieces played in France by the Italians consisted of bare scenarii,
upon which the dialogue was improvised, but into which the actors would
also interpolate scenes written for them and learned by heart. Regnard,
Palaprat, Delorme, de Montchenay, Lenoble, Mongin, Fatouville, Dufresny,
de Bois-France, etc., supplied this theatre with scenarii, some of the
scenes of which were written in full and others left entirely to the
impromptu wit of the actor. Thanks to Gherardi, who has collected
a number of these scenarii (designated _à la françoise_), we are
able to judge what French wit could accomplish crippled by a sort of
half-and-half language, whose French and Italian components were alike
incorrect, offering, consequently, a piquant babble, which combined
perhaps better than would have been possible to any other form of speech
the fantastic gaiety of both nations. Even in the parodies of the dramas
and tragedies of the epoch in which the verse and the rhymes forbade
improvisation, the Italian actor would cut into the middle of an act to
introduce an entirely irrelevant scene of _lazzi_ and of pantomime.
Nevertheless, towards the middle of the eighteenth century, and probably
in consequence of the lack of good actors, singing came little by little
entirely to displace dialogue. The Comédie-Italienne was no more than
a theatre presenting comic operas or written pieces from the pens of
Marivaux, d’Alainval, Laffichard, Legrand, Boissy, Delisle, Favart,
Sedaine, Desportes, Lanoue, Fuselier, Anseaume, Vadé, etc. French actors
were not slow to invade a theatre in which no one any longer spoke
Italian.
In 1762 the Comédie-Italienne was amalgamated with the theatre of the
Opéra Comique (the old fair of Saint-Laurent), and the troupe was made up
as follows:—
Dehesse, _A Lackey_; Ciaverelli, _Scapin_; Carlino Bertinazzi,
_Harlequin_; Baletti and Lejeune, _Lovers_; Champville, _A Ridiculous
Lover_; Zanucci, _Lelio_; Colalto, _Pantaloon_; Caillot, _Colus_;
Laruette, _Cassandre_; Clairval, _Leading Lady_; Madame Favart,
_Soubrette_; and Mesdames Rivière, Desglands, Bognioli, Laruette, Bérard,
Beaupré, Carlin and Mandeville.
In 1779 the administration dismissed the Italian players and thereafter
comic operas only were performed. “The Comédie-Italienne having obtained
permission not to perform any more Italian pieces, has replaced these
by others of its old repertory which it had entirely abandoned after
its amalgamation with the Opéra Comique. Therefore all our ultramontane
actors have been dismissed with the exception of Carlino Bertinazzi and
his double, who continue to perform their rôles of Harlequin in the
French pieces” (Grimm, April 1779).
In 1780 the theatre of the Comédie-Italienne assumed the name of Théâtre
des Italiens notwithstanding that there was no longer a single Italian
actor connected with it.
In 1783, when the hall in the Rue Mauconseil began to show signs of
falling into ruin, a theatre was built on the side of the Hôtel de
Choiseul, on the Boulevard des Italiens, and the _Théâtre des Italiens_
assumed the name of the _Théâtre-Favart_. Necessary repairs compelled the
company to abandon it and to transfer themselves to the theatre of the
Rue Feydeau, which was destined for a company coming from Italy. This
company arrived in 1789 under the protection of Monsieur, the king’s
brother.
After this rapid sketch of the history of the Italian comic style and
of its types, let us say with the learned M. Charles Magnin, whose
researches are so precious, that “the popular and plebeian drama along
the open roads and in unroofed spaces has never failed to lighten the
sadness of the serfs and the brief leisures of the rustics; it is an
indestructible theatre which lives again in our own day in the open-air
performances of Deburau, a theatre which links together the ancient and
the modern stages. Erudition may discover for these _joculatores_, for
these _delusores_, and for these _goliardi_ of our own times and of
the Middle Ages the most honourable ancestry in Greek, Latin, Oscan,
Etruscan, Sicilian and Asiatic antiquity, from Æsop the wise Phrygian
hunchback down to Maccus, the jovial and disguised Calabrian, the hero of
the Atellanæ farces, who has since become in the streets of Naples, by
the simple translation of his name, the very sprightly Master Pulcinella.”
Pierrot, Harlequin, Pantaloon and Columbine are the only Italian types of
pantomime surviving to-day, and each has been thoroughly transfigured.
In Italy they are to be found only in the lesser theatres or among the
marionettes.
A propos of the witty pantomime of M. Chaumpfleury that was performed at
the Funambules, M. Théophile Gautier writes as follows:—
“Pantomime is the true _comédie humaine_, and although it does
not employ two thousand characters like that of M. de Balzac,
it is no less complete. With four or five types, it suffices
for everything. Cassandre [_i.e._ Pantaloon] represents the
family; Léandre, the stupid and wealthy fop, favoured by
parents; Columbine, the ideal; Béatrix, the dream pursued, the
flower of youth and of beauty; Harlequin, with the face of
an ape and the sting of a serpent, with his black mask, his
many-coloured lozenges, his shower of spangles, represents
love, wit, mobility, audacity, all the showy and vicious
qualities; Pierrot, pallid, slender, dressed in sad colours,
always hungry and always beaten is the ancient slave, the
modern proletarian, the pariah, the passive and disinherited
being, who, glum and sly, witnesses the orgies and the follies
of his masters.”
None must expect to find here a history of the Italian theatre; we shall
make no mention of the mystery play, which, in Italy and in Europe, was
essentially religious throughout the Middle Ages, nor of the academic
and classic drama and comedy, which, from the fifteenth century onwards,
amused the courts of the Italian princes. Nor yet shall we occupy
ourselves with the serious dramas and comedies, in verse or in music,
performed in Italy in later times, and largely derived from the modern
French theatre. Our researches are concerned only with that which sets
forth the real character of Italy; with that art _sui generis_ which is
only to be found there, the impromptu comedy begotten of the Atellanæ,
the masks full of originality, the buffoons full of wit and spontaneity,
as much at their ease in the public square as in the Court of Versailles;
it is in short of these _Commedianti dell’ Arte_, and of their successors
along the same road, that we are going to attempt to disclose the
history and to trace the types with the aid of our drawings, given to
the light—as was said of old, in speaking of engravings—by our friend
Alexandre Manceau.
I
HARLEQUIN
“Sirs, I was born in Bergamo, but so long ago that I remember nothing
of it. I was called in those days—— Ah, but wait!... I can no longer
remember my name, by Bacchus! Forgive me if I appeal to Bacchus, but he
is the only god whom I ever take to witness.
“Sirs, I was well acquainted of old with one Maccus, whose temper was
not always amiable, and it also happened that I had more wit than that
coarse brute. Later I was lackey to a doctor who in reality was but an
apothecary, and so miserly that for clothes he gave me no more than such
old rags of his own as could no longer be employed to repair less seedy
ones. I endured a noble poverty, and for long. You are looking at my hat!
It is almost new. It was given to me by Henry III. He did not care about
hats; he gave me one that proved too small for his monkish head. This
rabbit’s tail is the emblem of his courage and of mine; not the courage
of the lamb, but the courage of the hare, to run quickly and long.
“I was very naïve, not to say stupid, my masters; but with age,
experience and wit came to my assistance, and to-day I have all that
I need and some to spare. I said to myself at first, when I left my
old apothecary, that I should be well advised to imitate my brother
Brighella—that is to say, to find myself a situation where one may eat
well. Therefore I chose hostelries. But, alas! if shoemakers are the
worst shod, eating-house lackeys are the worst nourished. I abandoned
that profession and became a soldier; a poor condition, believe me;
later I turned comedian, tumbler, dancer, merry-andrew and mountebank at
one and the same time. But, perceiving that my rags did not make a good
impression at Court, I bought new cloth of all colours, red, yellow,
blue, to replace the tattered pieces of my little garment, the like of
which is not to be seen at present within a thousand leagues. On Sundays
and holidays I put on my satin clothes; but they wear out too quickly
and are too dear. And the fact is—must I confess it sirs?—I never have
a halfpenny. That, however, does not prevent me from being gay, or from
being pleasing to beauty; upon waiting-maids, now, I exert a peculiar
attraction. I understand perfectly how to contrive certain delicate love
affairs into which fathers, husbands and guardians have no business to
be thrusting their noses. I am, for the moment, a lackey of condition
to some young people, whose purse is not always quite as empty as their
brains. In short, whilst waiting to transact my own affairs I transact
those of others, and I will say with my old friend Polichinelle: ‘I am as
good as many another!’
“I contrive so well that I now go to Court; I am the Marquis of
Sbruffadeli; I overlook the waiting-maids; I court their mistresses, and
I aspire to the hand of Isabella....
“But what is that? Who strikes me? Ah me! Where shall I hide myself? I
cry you mercy, my master! I will restore you your garments. Do not beat
me to death; let me die of old age! I resume my rags, my bat and my mask;
I return to Columbine, and I shall avenge myself upon Pierrot.”
The Greeks represented and put upon the stage all the inhabitants of the
earth then known to them, and the members of all classes of society:
Greek citizens, merchants of Tyre, Persian wizards and sorcerers, foreign
doctors, Egyptian priests, Chaldean astronomers, Macedonian soldiers,
Scythian barbers; pedants, parasites, matrons, young girls, courtesans of
Lesbos or of Athens, peasants and Asiatic or African slaves. Among these
last we find an actor dressed now in the skin of a goat, now in the skin
of a tiger, variegated in colour, which clung tightly to his body, armed
with only a wooden staff, his head shaved, and covered by a white hat,
his face by a brown mask; he was called by the vulgar the young satyr.
Could this be the first Harlequin?
In an article on Harlequin, Marmontel writes, in 1776:
“This is at one and the same time the most bizarre and the
most amusing character in the theatre. A Bergamese negro is an
absurdity. It is probable that an African negro was the first
model of the character.”
The Sycionians, with whom the mimes were as ancient as with the
Athenians, preserved the name of phallophores for their public phallic
singers. These Sycionian phallophores wore no mask, they besmeared their
countenances with soot, _fuligine faciem obductam_, or covered their
faces with papyrus bark—that is to say, with a paper mask—to represent
foreign slaves. They advanced rhythmically, from the side or back of the
theatre, and their first words were always:
“Bacchus! Bacchus! Bacchus! It is to thee, Bacchus, that we
consecrate these airs. We shall adorn their simple rhythm by
varied songs which were not made for virgins. We do not repeat
old songs; the hymn which we address to thee has never yet been
sung.”
In Rome these same phallophores take the name of _planipes_. This name
comes to them from the fact that having no need for the high tragic
buskin to increase their size—since they performed quite close to the
public on the thymele in the orchestra itself—they played, as it were,
flat-footed. These actors performed only little pieces and improvisations
of the Atellane farces.
“_Quid enim si choragium thymelicum possiderem? num ex eo argumentare
etiam uti me consuesse trageodi syrmate, histrionis crocata, mimi
centunculo_,” says Apuleius in his apology.
_Mimi centunculo_ indicates the garb of Harlequin, composed as it is of
an infinity of pieces of various colours. His black mask is described by
_fuligine faciem obductam_, and his shaven head, according to Vossius,
by _Sanniones mimum agebant rasis capitibus_ (the buffoons performed in
their pantomimes with shaven heads).
Harlequin and Brighella are called in Italy _zanni_, _zani_ or _sanni_,
from the Latin _sannio_, a buffoon, a mocker; _sannium_, _sanna_,
mockery, raillery, grimace.
“I have sought,” says Riccoboni (in his _History of the Italian
Theatre_), “the origin of this name of _zanni_, and I think
that it is a change in the first letter that has given rise to
doubt. We see that our predecessors very often used Z in the
place of S. All the most approved Italian authors have said
_zambuco_ for _sambuco_, _zampogna_ for _sampogna_, _zanna_ for
_sanna_.
“‘_Quid enim potest tam ridiculum quam sannio esse? qui ore,
vultu, imitandis motibus, voce, denique corpore ridetur ipso?_’
(Cicero, _De Oratore_, lib. ii.)
“‘_Planipes graece dicitur mimus, ideo autem latine planipes
quod actores planis pedibus, id est, nudi proscenium
introirent_’ (Diomed. lib. iii.)
“Is not the footgear of Harlequin indicated there? His foot is
simply enveloped in a piece of leather without a heel. From
top to toe, then, the dress of Harlequin is precisely that of
the Latin mime. I have found a book which, whilst not being
as ancient as I might have desired, yet contains enough to
show the difference between the costume in those days and the
present one.
“... In the time of Henry IV. a troupe of Italian comedians
came to Paris. The Harlequin of this troupe sought to induce
the king to present him with a gold chain and a medal. He
conceived the notion of writing a book, of printing it, and
addressing it to the king. On the front page there is a figure
of Harlequin of the height of some three inches.”
The costume of this Harlequin which Riccoboni has engraved consists of
a jacket open in front, and laced with shabby ribbons, and skin-tight
trousers, covered with pieces of cloth of various colours, placed
haphazard. The jacket is similarly patched. He wears a stiff black beard,
a black half mask, a slashed cap, in the fashion of the time of François
I. and no linen; he is equipped with a girdle, a pouch and a wooden
sword; his feet are shod in very small slippers, covered at the ankle by
the trouser, which acts as a gaiter.
As for the mask with which Harlequin appeared in France, and which he
wears still to-day, it is said that it was Michel-Angelo who restored
it him, copying it from the mask of an ancient satyr. His costume in the
seventeenth century, like his character, underwent a metamorphosis; we
still find him arrayed in the same pieces of cloth of different colours,
but henceforward they are symmetrically placed.
From the time of Domenico, who was the transformer of this type, the
costume has changed but very little. The jacket has grown, little by
little, whilst the trousers have shrunk, returning to their primitive
form. Lozenges of different colours have lengthened; but the mask, the
chin-piece, the black head, the rabbit tail—emblem of poltroonery—the bat
and the girdle, have remained such as they always were.
That rabbit’s tail which adorns the head of Harlequin is a further
tradition of antiquity. It was the custom to attach the tail of a fox or
the ears of a hare to those upon whom it was sought to draw ridicule.
An innovation lies in the spangles which render the modern Harlequin a
sort of streaming fish in gold and silver scales.
In the first Italian troupes of the sixteenth century—nomad troupes
which derived as much from the Bohemians and the mountebanks as from the
comedians—we find Trivelino, Mestolino, Zaccagnino, Truffaldino, Guazeto
and Bagatino, who are of the same type under various names, and often
under the same costume. It was not until Henry III. that a zany of this
type appeared in Paris.
It has been pretended that as this zany was without doubt protected by
the first president of Parliament, Achille de Harlay, his comrades came
to call him Harlequino, meaning thereby the little protégé of Harlay.
This name remained to him and to his successors in the type. But its
etymology is victoriously refuted in an interesting passage of the
learned commentators of Rabelais, Johanneau and Esmangard:
“Donat informs us that the procurers (_lenones_) in the ancient
comedies were dressed in variegated costumes, no doubt after
the manner of Mercury their patron, which persuades us that
that character in comedy which we call Harlequin, is none
other than Mercury, this being the reason why he is given a
variegated costume, made up of pieces of different colours.
Harlequin is a diminutive of _harle_, or _herle_, the name of
an aquatic bird, and not a derivative of that of M. de Harlay
or of Hercules. In Italy he is called Harlequino; in the
anti-chopin he is called Harlequinus, and in a letter of Raulin
in 1521 Herlequinus.”
“Harlequin’s performance down to the seventeenth century” (says
Riccoboni) “consisted of just a series of extravagant capers,
of violent movements and of outrageous blackguardisms. He was
at once insolent, mocking, clownish and, above all, obscene. I
think that with all this he mingled an agility of body which
made him appear to be always in the air, and I might add with
assurance that he was an acrobat.”
Our modern Harlequin is, above all, a dancer and a tumbler, in which he
is in affinity with the most ancient type.
In the background of some of his drawings Callot shows us several
Harlequins who are leaping and dancing and turning backward somersaults.
So that in Callot’s day Harlequin was still a dancer.
Nevertheless, from 1560 onwards, we see Harlequin, the native of Bergamo,
shedding some of the stupidity that had characterised him until then. He
still remains a glutton, and he is always a poltroon, but he is no longer
that type of farm servant from the neighbourhood of Bergamo, seeking
everywhere for the donkey upon which he was mounted.
“His character,” says Marmontel, “presents a mixture of
ignorance, naïveté, stupidity and grace. He is like a mere
sketch of a man, a great child visited by flashes of reason
and intelligence, in all of whose capers and awkwardnesses
there is something sharp and interesting. The model Harlequin
is all suppleness and agility, with the grace of a young
cat, yet equipped with a superficial coarseness that renders
his performances more amusing; the rôle is that of a lackey,
patient, faithful, credulous, gluttonous, always in love,
always in difficulties either on his master’s account or on his
own, afflicting himself and consoling himself again with the
readiness of a child, one whose sorrows are as amusing as his
joys. Such a part demands a great deal of naturalness and of
wit, and a great deal of physical grace and suppleness.”
At the time that the zany Arlecchino was a fool, Brighella, the other
Bergamese, was sly and astute. Harlequin and Brighella are both from the
town of Bergamo. This town is built like an amphitheatre on the hills
between the Brembo and the Serio in their courses from the Valtelline
hills. It is said that the inhabitants of the upper and lower town are
entirely different in character. Those of the upper town, personified in
the character of Brighella, are lively, witty and active; those of the
lower town are idle, ignorant and almost entirely stupid, like Harlequin.
I crave the pardon of the inhabitants of the lower town for this
statement, made upon the assumption that, like Harlequin himself, they
also have become, since the sixteenth century, as lively and as witty as
their compatriots of the upper town. It is said in the north of Italy
that Harlequin the imbecile had over his left eye a wart which covered
the half of his cheek, and that it was for this reason that he assumed
the mask, which he has retained ever since.
[Illustration]
Towards the close of the sixteenth century Harlequin, whilst adhering to
his leaping movements, and his cat-like manner, becomes less simple, as
we have said, and from time to time even goes so far as to permit himself
a certain wisdom. It was in this manner that in 1578 the character was
played in Italy by Simone of Bologna.
But it was in the seventeenth century that the rôle of Harlequin was
completely transformed by Domenico Biancolelli, a man of merit, well
informed, and the friend of literary men, who bestowed his own wit upon
the character. Thus Harlequin became witty, astute, an utterer of quips
and something of a philosopher. Even in the Italian troupes the actors
who played the part under the names of Zaccagnino and of Truffaldino
modelled their performances upon those of Domenico.
ii
Giuseppe-Domenico Biancolelli was born in Bologna in 1640. His father and
mother were comedians in a company established in that city, and from his
earliest infancy Biancolelli played with them in comedy, and made such
rapid progress that at the age at which men are usually considering a
career he was already counted amongst the good actors of Italy.
In 1659 Cardinal Mazarin, desiring to increase his Italian company,
sent for several actors, including Biancolelli, who was then performing
at Vienna in the troupe of Tabarini. This Tabarini had already been in
France during the reign of Louis XIII. and the minority of Louis XIV.
In response to the cardinal’s summons, then, young Biancolelli went to
France in the following year, together with Eularia, Diamantina and
Ottavio.
At the time an actor named Locatelli was playing the rôles of Trivelino,
a sort of Harlequin, in the company which Biancolelli went to recruit.
This, however, did not hinder Biancolelli from playing Harlequin, as
second comic, alongside of Trivelino, until the death of the latter in
1671. From that moment the stage was dominated by Domenico, as he was
generally known. He acquired the reputation of being the greatest actor
of his century, and rendered popular the name of Arlecchino. He died at
forty-eight of pneumonia contracted whilst dancing before Louis XIV.
“The Sieur Beauchamp, dancing master to Louis XIV. and composer
of his ballet, had performed before his Majesty a very
singular and greatly applauded dance in a divertissement which
the Italian comedians had attached to one of their pieces.
Domenico, who danced very well, gave forthwith an extremely
comical imitation of Beauchamp’s dance. The king manifested
so much delight in these parodying capers that Domenico
persisted in them for as long as it was physically possible
to him. He was so overheated that, being unable to change his
linen upon leaving the stage (because he had to return to it
immediately in his own rôle), he caught a severe chill which
ended in pneumonia. He lay ill for only eight days, when, after
having _renounced the theatre_, he died on Monday the 2nd of
August, 1688, at six o’clock in the evening, and was buried at
Saint-Eustache, behind the choir, opposite to the chapel of
the Virgin. He dwelt in the Rue Montmartre near the old Hôtel
Charôt.”
The loss of Domenico was a shattering thunderbolt upon the Italian
comedy. His comrades closed the theatre for a month, and when they
reopened it they put up the following announcement:—
“We have long marked our sorrow by our silence, and we should
prolong it further if the apprehension of displeasing you did
not influence us more profoundly than our legitimate pain.
We shall reopen our theatre on Wednesday next, the 1st of
September 1688. In the impossibility of repairing the loss we
have sustained, we offer you of the best that our application
and our care is able to supply. Bear us a little indulgence,
and be assured that we shall omit nothing that will contribute
to your pleasure.”
Domenico had married in Paris, in 1662, Orsola Corteze, who played under
the name of Eularia. She bore him twelve children, five of whom survived
him. They were:
Françoise Biancolelli, born in 1664, who played the rôles of Isabella;
Catherine Biancolelli, born in 1665, who played the rôles of Columbine;
Louis Biancolelli, knight of Saint-Louis, captain of the royal regiment
of marines, military engineer, and director of the forts of Provence, who
died at Toulon in 1729; he was a godson of Louis XIV., and the author
of several pieces played at the Comédie-Italienne, and included in
Gherardi’s collection;
Philippe Biancolelli de Bois-Morand, born in 1672, king’s councillor,
elder councillor to Saint-Domingue, and marine commissioner;
Pierre-François Biancolelli, born in 1681, who, under the name of
Dominique, played Trivelino parts at the Comédie-Italienne, and in forain
theatres, and who died in 1734.
Anecdotes abound concerning the famous Domenico. It is related of him
that being present one night at a royal supper he fixed his eyes upon a
certain dish of partridges. Louis XIV., observing this glance of his,
said to a lackey:
“Let this dish be given to Domenico.”
“And the partridges also?” inquired Domenico.
“And the partridges also,” replied the king, appreciating this readiness
of wit. The dish was of gold.
Louis XIV. returning one day from a hunting expedition went incognito
to attend the performance of an Italian piece that was being given at
Versailles.
“That is a bad piece,” he said to Domenico, as he was leaving.
“Whisper it,” replied Arlecchino, “because if the king were to hear you
he would dismiss me together with my troupe.”
Domenico was of short stature and comely face, but some ten years before
his death he had become rather too stout for the part of Harlequin. At
the foot of his portrait painted by Ferdinand, and engraved by Hubert,
the following quatrain is to be read:—
“Bologne est ma patrie et Paris mon séjour,
J’y règne avec éclat sur la scène comique;
Arlequin sous le masque y cache Dominique,
Qui réforme en riant et le peuple et la cour.”
After Domenico’s death a book was published by Florentin Delaulne bearing
the following title:—_Arlequiniana, or the Quips and Pleasant and Amusing
Stories culled from the Conversations of Harlequin_, 1694.
The work begins thus:
“On Saturday last, the 30th of the month, as I was leaving my
room on the stroke of midnight, Harlequin appeared before me.
He was wearing his little hat, his mask and the coat in which
he performed. At first I was surprised to see him; but I was at
once reassured, being persuaded that I had nothing to fear from
a man for whom my affections had survived his death.
“‘Do not be apprehensive,’ he said to me; ‘I am charmed to see
you.’
“Thereupon I ran to embrace him.
“‘No, not that,’ he said, ‘my body is now no more than
abstract matter, ill calculated to receive such marks of your
friendship. What folly induced you to publish things uttered
between us when I was alive? Do you think to gladden the world
with my stories? Was I so well known that my name should not
yet be forgotten?’ etc.”
The author answers him that his name is immortal, that his person is
beloved and esteemed throughout Europe; that in the rôles which he
undertook he never played other than with justice and honesty.
“When you portrayed the knaveries of the practitioners, the
distortions of women, the trickiness of bankrupts, or the
impertinences of the bourgeois, do you think to have done them
any harm?”
The conversation continues thus between the author and the deceased
Domenico throughout the volume. Into this conversation are brought
amusing stories, scandalous anecdotes of the time, quips, facetiæ,
moralisings, philosophic dissertations, etc. It is a pot-pourri on the
subject of Domenico.
In one of the comedies played by Domenico Harlequin seeks to sell his
house. Having found a buyer, he protests that as he does not wish him
to buy a pig in a poke he will show him a sample of the goods, and he
produces from under his jacket a large piece of plaster.
In another scene Harlequin appears as a beggar. Ottavio questions him
upon various matters; amongst other things he asks him how many fathers
he possesses.
“I have only one,” replies Harlequin.
“But how does it happen that you have only one father?” demands Ottavio,
losing patience.
“What would you?” is the answer. “I am but a poor man, and I have no
means of affording more.”
Elsewhere Pasquariello seeks to lead Harlequin to a tavern; but in this
piece Harlequin is of sober habits, and replies: “The glass is Pandora’s
box; out of it come all the evils.”
Let us cite a few further traits of the character drawn by Domenico in
the various Harlequins performed by him.
Mezzetin promises Harlequin that he shall wed Columbine if he will second
him in a fresh piece of knavery. Whilst Mezzetin is considering his
project, Harlequin counts the buttons of his doublet, and at each button
says: “I shall have Columbine, I shall not have her; I shall have her, I
shall not have her; I shall have her, I shall not have her; I shall have
her, I shall not have her; I shall have her, I shall not have her; (_he
bursts into tears_) I shall not have her!”
MEZZETIN. What ails you? Why are you crying?
HARLEQUIN (_weeping_). I shall not have Columbine! hi! hi! hi!
MEZZETIN. Who has said so?
HARLEQUIN (_indicating his buttons_). Buttonomancy!
In _L’Homme à Bonnes Fortunes_, Harlequin, disguised as a marquis, is the
recipient of many presents from women whom he has contrived to please. He
has already received and donned two dressing-gowns, when a third one is
brought to him on behalf of a widow who comes to judge for herself of the
effect produced by her present. There is a knock at the door. It is she.
Harlequin has no more than time to slip this third gown over the other
two, whereby he is given the appearance of an elephant. The widow enters,
notwithstanding that admission has been refused her.
HARLEQUIN (_angrily_). Morbleu, madam! Did I not bid them tell
you that I was not visible to-day?
THE WIDOW. To find you, sir, it is necessary to come upon you
as you leave your bed; throughout the remainder of the day you
are unapproachable.
HARLEQUIN. It is true that I have not an hour to myself. I am
so exhausted by these adventures which the vulgar call _bonnes
fortunes_ that my superfluity would be enough for twenty idlers
of the Court.
THE WIDOW. But, sir, I find you very fat. What is the matter
with you?
HARLEQUIN. Nothing, merely that I overate last night at supper.
THE WIDOW. There must be some other reason; are you perhaps
dropsical?
HARLEQUIN. Indeed no!
THE WIDOW. Let us see. (_She pulls off his dressing-gowns, one
after the other._)
HARLEQUIN (_defending himself_). Fie, madam! What are you
about? This isn’t decent!
THE WIDOW. One, two, three dressing-gowns! That is to say,
three mistresses! Ah! Traitor! It is thus, then, that you
betray me! And you say that you love none but me!
HARLEQUIN (_attempting to seek refuge in the wardrobe_). Madam,
I can bear no more!
THE WIDOW. Now I know the worth of your oaths.
HARLEQUIN. Madam, I must go.... If I don’t——
THE WIDOW. Rascal!
HARLEQUIN. Madam, I can no longer answer for the discretion of——
THE WIDOW. Are you shameless? I will have no more to do with
you. Return me the dressing-gown. (_She attempts to drag her
dressing-gown from him; they fight, HARLEQUIN knocks off her
headdress, she loses one of her petticoats, and departs._)
On the subject of the etymology of the name of Harlequin, it is explained
thus by Domenico:
CINTHIO (_to his lackey, HARLEQUIN_). By the way, since you
have been in my employ it has never occurred to me to inquire
your name?
HARLEQUIN. I am called Arlecchino Sbrufadelli.
(_At the name of Sbrufadelli CINTHIO bursts into laughter._)
HARLEQUIN. Do not presume to mock me. All my ancestors were
people of consequence. Sbroufadel, the first of the name, was a
pork butcher, but so superior in his profession that Nero would
eat no sausages but those which he made. Of Sbroufadel was born
Fregocola, a great captain; he married Mademoiselle Castagna,
who was of so lively a temperament that she gave birth to me
two days after the wedding. My father was delighted, but his
joy was cut short by certain pettifoggeries on the part of the
police. Whenever my father met an honest man on the highway
he never failed to take off his hat, and if it happened to be
night, he would take off his cloak as well. The police sought
to curb this excess of civility and ordered his arrest. My
father did not wait for it. He took me in my swaddling clothes,
and, having thrust me into a cauldron, and the rest of his
movables into a basket, he left the city, driving before him
the donkey that bore his house and his heir. He frequently
struck the beast to cries of “Ar! Ar!” which in the asinine
language means “Get on! get on!” Whilst proceeding thus, he
perceived that a man was following him. This man, observing
that my father was considering him attentively, hid himself,
crouching (_se messe chin_) behind a bush. My father, who
took him for the officer sent to arrest him, conceiving that
he assumed this position the better to surprise him, beat his
donkey more severely than ever, crying _Ar! le chin_, that
is to say: Get on, he is crouching. So that, as I was still
without a name, my father, remembering the fright which he had
received, and the words _Ar! le chin, Ar! le chin_, which he
had repeated so often, called me Arlechino.
In another Italian scene we see Pasquariello giving advice to Harlequin,
who is in difficulties on the subject of finding a good profession.
PASQUARIELLO. Set up as a doctor. If fortune smiles on you
you’ll soon be rich. Consider how much the doctor has earned
since he has been in fashion to treat gout. He has amassed more
than two hundred thousand francs, and he knows no more about
the gout than you do.
HARLEQUIN. Then of necessity he must know very little, for I
know nothing.
PASQUARIELLO. That should not hinder you from being a clever
doctor.
HARLEQUIN. Parbleu, you mock me! I can neither read nor write.
PASQUARIELLO. No matter, I say. It is not knowledge that makes
the successful doctor, it is impudence and wordiness.
HARLEQUIN. But how, then, do they manage with their patients?
PASQUARIELLO. I will tell you. You begin by having a mule and
promenading through Paris on it. First comes a man who says:
“Sir doctor, I beg of you to come and see my parent who is
ill.” “Willingly, sir.” The man goes ahead and the doctor
follows on his mule. (_Here PASQUARIELLO imitates the man who
walks; he turns round and says to HARLEQUIN who follows him
trotting_): What are you playing at?
HARLEQUIN. I am playing the mule.
PASQUARIELLO. You arrive at the house of the sick man. Your
guide knocks, the door is opened, the doctor alights from his
mule and together they ascend the staircase.
HARLEQUIN. And the mule? Does the mule also ascend the
staircase?
PASQUARIELLO. No, no, the mule remains at the door, it is the
man and the doctor who ascend the staircase. Behold them now in
the patient’s antechamber. The man says to the doctor, “Follow
me, sir, I am going to see if my parent sleeps.”
(_Here PASQUARIELLO walks on tiptoe, stretches out his arms,
and pretends to draw aside the curtains of a bed._)
HARLEQUIN. Why do you step so softly?
PASQUARIELLO. On account of the sick man. We are now in his
chamber, beside the bed. “Sir, the patient is not asleep, you
may approach.” Immediately the doctor takes the arm-chair by
the bedside, and says to the patient: “Show me your tongue.”
(_PASQUARIELLO puts out an enormous tongue and, imitating the
patient, says_:) “Oh, sir, I am very ill!”
HARLEQUIN (_considering PASQUARIELLO’S tongue_). Eh! what an
ugly illness!
PASQUARIELLO. That tongue is very dry and very heated.
HARLEQUIN. It must be put on ice.
PASQUARIELLO. Let us feel the pulse. (_He pretends to feel
the pulse of the sick man._) Now here is a pulse that goes
devilishly quick! Let us feel the stomach. Now here is a
stomach that is very hard.
HARLEQUIN. Perhaps he has swallowed iron.
PASQUARIELLO. Let me have paper, pen and ink. (_He pretends to
write._) Recipe: this evening a _lavement_, to-morrow morning
a blood-letting, and to-morrow evening a medicine. (_All
this is mimed by PASQUARIELLO as if he were administering a
~lavement~, or a blood-letting, or swallowing a medicine._)
Then you take your leave of the patient, and you depart saying,
“Sir, to-morrow I shall come at the same hour, and I hope in a
short time to restore you completely to health.” Then the man
who has introduced you reconducts you again, and slips a golden
half-louis into your hand; you mount your mule once more and
depart.
HARLEQUIN. But how may I be able to guess whether he has the
fever or not?
PASQUARIELLO. I will show you. When the pulse is equal, that is
to say when it goes tac, tac, tac, there is no fever, but when
it is intermittent, and when it goes quickly, ti, ta, ta; ti,
ta, ta; ti, ta, ta, there is fever.
HARLEQUIN. Now that is quite simple: tac, tac, tac, no fever;
ti, ta, ta; ti, ta, ta; ti, ta, ta, fever.
PASQUARIELLO. There you are, as learned as the doctors; let us
go.
HARLEQUIN. Ti, ta, ta; ti, ta, ta; I am all for ti, ta, ta.
Harlequin, having become a doctor, prescribes as follows for the Captain,
who has asked him for a remedy for toothache. “Take,” says Harlequin,
“some pepper, garlick and vinegar, and rub your back with them; that
will make you forget your pain.”
As the Captain is about to depart, Harlequin calls him back. “Sir, sir,”
says he, “I was forgetting the best; take an apple, cut it into four
equal parts, put one of these in your mouth, and then thrust your head
into an oven until the apple is baked, and I will answer for it that your
toothache will be entirely cured.”
In the very curious pictures possessed by the Théâtre-Français, bearing
the inscription in gold letters: “_Farceurs françois et italiens, depuis
soixante ans_,” we find Domenico in his costume of Harlequin together
with several other Italian types—Brighella, Scaramouche, the Doctor,
Pantaloon, Mezzetin, Matamoros—mingling with the French types: Turlupin,
Gros-Guillaume, Gaultier-Garguille, Guillot-Gorju, Jodelet, Gros-René and
Molière.
iii
In 1689 Evaristo Gherardi took up and continued the performances of the
rôles of Harlequin. He was the son of Giovanni Gherardi, born at Prato,
in Tuscany. He made his first appearance in the revival of _Divorce_, in
the rôle of Harlequin created by Domenico in the preceding year. Here is
what he himself has to say of it:
“This comedy had not succeeded in the hands of M. Domenico.
It had been struck out of the catalogue of the plays which
were revived from time to time, and the parts had been burnt.
Nevertheless (notwithstanding that I had never been on the
stage in my life, and that I had but left the college of La
Marche, where I had just concluded my course of philosophy,
under the learned M. Bublé), I chose it for my first
appearance, which took place on the 1st of October 1689. The
piece was so successful in my hands that it gave pleasure to
everyone, was extraordinarily well attended, and consequently
earned a great deal of money for the company.
“If I were the man to derive vanity from the theatrical talents
which nature has given me, either with face uncovered or
under a mask, in the leading serious or comic rôles, I should
have in this the most ample grounds upon which to flatter my
self-love. I should say that I did more in my beginnings and
in my first years than the most illustrious actors have been
able to do after twenty years of experience, and in the full
prime of their lives. But I protest that very far from having
ever become elated by these rare advantages, I have always
considered them to be the results of my good fortune, rather
than the consequences of my merits; and if anything has been
able to flatter my soul in this connection, it is the pleasure
of seeing myself universally applauded after the inimitable M.
Domenico, who went so far in the expression of the naïveté—that
which the Italians call _goffagine_—of the character of
Harlequin, that all those who witnessed his performances must
always find some fault with the most famous Harlequin of any
later day.”
It will be seen that Gherardi praises himself quite naïvely. It is true
that this self-praise was not exaggerated, that he had great talents, and
that he was attended by constant success until the theatre was closed in
1697. He hoped to bring about its reopening by his protectors at Court;
but in this he was disappointed. He then produced a very interesting
collection of the memorised French scenes, which were frequently
interpolated into the Italian scenarii.
Some months before the publication of this collection, in the course of
a show given at Saint-Maur, with Poisson and la Thorillière, Gherardi
happened to fall upon his head. He neglected to have his hurt properly
cared for, and on the very day on which he had been to present his book
to Monseigneur he was holding between his knees his son (borne him by
Elizabeth Danneret) when he had a seizure, and suddenly expired. That was
on the 31st of August 1700.
“Il n’était ni bien ni mal fait,
Grand ni petit, plus gras que maigre.
Il avait le corps fort allègre,
Le front haut, l’œil faible, mais vif.
Le nez très-significatif.
Et qui promettait des merveilles.
La bouche atteignait les oreilles.
Son teint était d’homme de feu;
Son menton se doublait un peu;
Son encolure, assez petite
Le menaçait de mort subite.”
From an engraved portrait he resembles this description but little. His
forehead is high, it is true, but his eyes are very large and lively, his
nose aquiline and sensitive, his mouth small and well formed, and not a
gash from ear to ear; the jaw is strongly outlined. In short, it presents
a very intelligent countenance, full of finesse, advertising a lively and
caustic spirit.
Here are some passages from the book of Gherardi—that is to say, from the
scenes collected and performed by him:
DESPAIR OF HARLEQUIN IN _L’EMPEREUR DANS LA LUNE_
HARLEQUIN. Ah! unfortunate that I am! The doctor wants to marry
Columbine to a farmer, and how can I live without Columbine? I
shall die. O ignorant doctor! O inconstant Columbine! O knavish
farmer! O extremely miserable Harlequin! Let me hasten to die.
It shall be written in ancient and modern history: “Harlequin
died for Columbine.” I shall go to my chamber; I shall attach
a rope to a beam; I shall get upon a chair; I shall fit the
rope round my neck; I shall kick away the chair; and behold me
hanged! (_Mimicry of hanging._) It is done; nothing can stop
me; let us hasten to the hanging crutch....
“To the hanging crutch? Fie, sir, you must not think of it. To
kill yourself for a girl! It were a great folly....”
“Yes, sir; but for a girl to betray an honest man is a great
wickedness....”
“I agree; but when you shall have hanged yourself shall you be
any fatter?”
“No, I shall be thinner; I desire a slender shape! What have
you to say to that? If you want to join me you have but to
come....”
“Oh! as for that, no; you are not going....”
“Oh! but I am....”
“Oh! no, you are not....”
“But I _am_ going, I tell you.” (_He draws his sword, strikes
himself and then exclaims_:) “There! I am rid of that tiresome
fellow. Now that there is no one to interfere with me I will
go hang myself.” (_He makes as if to depart, and then stops
short._) “Ah! but no! To hang is a very ordinary death, the
sort of death one sees every day; there is no glory in it.
Let us seek some extraordinary death, some heroic death, some
Harlequinic death.” (_He considers._) “I have it! I will stop
up my mouth and my nose, so that the air may not pass through
and thus I shall die. Behold, it is done.” (_He stops his nose
and mouth with both hands, and, after remaining thus for some
time he says_:) “No; the air still escapes; it is not worth
while. Alas! what a trouble to die! Sirs, if any amongst you
would be so good as to die, so as to afford me a model, I
should be infinitely obliged.... Faith, I have it! We read in
history that there are people who have been killed by laughter.
I am most sensitive to tickling; if some one were to tickle me
for long they would make me die of laughter. I shall go and
tickle myself, and thus I shall die.” (_He tickles himself,
laughs and falls down._)
In the same piece, a few scenes later, he goes to visit the
Doctor, and announces himself as Colin, the farmer’s son who is
to marry Columbine. The Doctor is his dupe until the arrival
of the carrier, who announces that the farmer’s son is ill and
cannot come. The Doctor turns upon Harlequin, eyeing him from
top to toe, and says to him: “You are not Colin!”
“Forgive me, sir,” replies Harlequin, “I thought I was.”
Chagrined at not yet having succeeded, he seeks a new way to
obtain Columbine. He runs backwards and forwards across the
stage until he is out of breath, when he exclaims: “Will some
one of his charity inform me which is the residence of Doctor
Grazian Balouard?” (_He puts his hand to his mouth and imitates
the sound of a trumpet_). “Pu, pu, pu! Doctor Balouard, a
doctor at fifteen sous!”
THE DOCTOR (_aside_). What is the meaning of this? (_To_
HARLEQUIN.) Doctor Grazian Balouard? He is here, sir; what do
you want with him?
HARLEQUIN. Oh! sir, you are choicely found. Address me your
best compliments and bows. I am ambassador extraordinary, envoy
from the emperor of the world of the Moon, and I am come to ask
of you the hand of Isabella in marriage.
THE DOCTOR. Address yourself to others, my friend. I am not
so easily taken in. An emperor in the moon! (_Aside._) Yet
such a thing might be possible; since the moon is a world like
ours, presumably there must be some one to govern it. (_To
HARLEQUIN._) Are you really from that country, my friend?
HARLEQUIN. No, sir, I am neither from that country nor from
this country. I am an Italian of Italy, at your service, born a
native of the city of Prato, one of the most charming cities in
all Tuscany.
THE DOCTOR. But how, then, did you contrive to ascend to the
world of the moon?
HARLEQUIN. I will tell you. We had arranged a party—three of
my friends and I—to go and eat a goose at Vaugirard. I was
deputed by the company to go and buy the goose. I transported
myself to the Valley of Misery; I there made my purchase,
and I was wending my way thence to the rendezvous. As I was
entering the plain of Vaugirard, behold! six ravenous vultures
came swooping down upon my goose, and carried it off. I, who
feared to lose it, clung firmly to its neck, so that in a
measure as the vultures carried up the goose they carried me
up with it. When we had got very high, a further regiment of
vultures came to the assistance of the first, hurled themselves
upon my goose, and in an instant caused me to lose sight of
the highest mountains and the highest steeples. I, obstinate
always as the devil, would not let go. I hung on until the
neck of my goose failed me, and I tumbled into a lake. Some
fishermen, luckily, had spread their net, and I fell into it.
The fishermen drew me out of the water, and, supposing me to be
a fish of consequence, took me upon their shoulders, and bore
me as a present to the emperor. Behold me lying on the ground
and the emperor coming with all his court to view me. It is
asked, “What sort of a fish is that.” The emperor replies, “I
think it is an anchovy.” “Your pardon, Monseigneur,” says a fat
gentleman, who accounted himself witty, “rather is it a toad.”
“Anyway,” said the emperor, “bid them fry me this fish such as
it is.” When I heard that they were going to fry me, I cried
out: “But, Monseigneur....” “How,” says he, “do fishes speak?”
Thereupon I assured him that I was not a fish, and further I
informed him in what manner I had been brought to the Empire of
the Moon. He asked me at once: “Are you acquainted with Doctor
Grazian Balouard, and his daughter Isabella? Then go and ask
her of him in marriage on my behalf.” But I replied, “I shall
never be able to find my way there, because I do not know which
way I came.” “Do not let that embarrass you,” he replied, “I
shall send you to Paris by means of an influence that I am
sending thither, laden with rheumatism, catarrhs, pneumonias
and other little trifles of that kind.” Further he said: “I
reserve for the doctor one of the best places in my empire.”
THE DOCTOR. Is it really possible? Did he tell you what it was?
HARLEQUIN. Indeed yes. He says that about a fortnight ago one
of the twelve signs of the Zodiac, the Scorpion, died; and he
wants to put you in its place.
The Doctor believes everything, asks a thousand questions
concerning this lunar sovereign, inquires what like are the
houses, the cities and the habits of life in the Court of that
country. Harlequin gives him details of the manner in which the
emperor eats. His food is shot at him from arbalists, and he is
given to drink from a syringe. “It is very curious,” says he.
“One day an awkward arbalister missed the emperor’s mouth and
fired a buttered egg into his eye. Hence such eggs have ever
since been called _œufs pochés_.” After this he induces the
Doctor to give him a purse and some jewels, and he departs, to
return presently dressed as the Emperor of the Moon.
The Doctor addresses several questions to him concerning his
empire and his subjects.
HARLEQUIN. My subjects? They are almost without defects,
because they are governed solely by interest and ambition.
COLUMBINE. That is exactly as here.
HARLEQUIN. Everyone seeks to do the best he can for himself
at the expense of his neighbour, and the highest virtue in my
empire is to be wealthy.
THE DOCTOR. That is exactly as here.
HARLEQUIN. In my country there are no executioners; instead
of dispatching people in a quarter of an hour on a scaffold,
I hand them over to be killed by the doctors, who do them to
death as cruelly as they do their patients.
COLUMBINE. What, sir! Do the doctors up there also kill the
people? That is exactly as here.
ISABELLA. And in your empire, sir, are there any wits?
HARLEQUIN. My empire is the source of them. For over seventy
years, now, we have been working upon a dictionary which will
not be finished in two centuries.
COLUMBINE. It is exactly as here. And is justice properly
administered in your empire?
HARLEQUIN. It is administered by hanging.
ISABELLA. And the judges, sir, do they not permit themselves to
be corrupted?
HARLEQUIN. Women there, as elsewhere, importune them. Sometimes
presents are made to them; but in general they behave properly.
THE DOCTOR. It is exactly as here. Sir, in your empire, are
husbands accommodating?
HARLEQUIN. That fashion arrived there almost as soon as in
France. At the beginning we had a little trouble in making up
our minds to it, but at present all the world is proud of it.
COLUMBINE. It is exactly as here.... And the women in your
empire, are they happy?
HARLEQUIN. It is they who handle all the money and spend it
all. The husbands have no concern save that of paying the taxes
and repairing the houses.
COLUMBINE. It is exactly as here.
HARLEQUIN. Our women never rise until the afternoon. They
invariably take three hours over their toilet; then they enter
a coach and repair to the comedy, to the opera or to the
promenade. Thence they go to sup with some chosen friend. After
supper they play or they attend an opera, according to the
season; and, towards four or five o’clock after midnight, they
return home, so that a poor devil of a man may sometimes go for
weeks without meeting his wife in the house, and you may see
him hanging about the streets on foot, what time madam employs
the coach for her pleasures.
ALL. It is exactly as here!
iv
When a new Italian troupe, summoned by the Regent, arrived in Paris, in
1716, Antonio Vicentini (styled Thomassin) made his first appearance
in the rôle of Harlequin, supported by the entire troupe, on the 8th
of May of that year, in the theatre of the Palais-Royal, in _L’Inganno
Fortunato_.
“The famous Domenico, who had made himself so great a reputation
in France, had a defect in his voice to which he had so thoroughly
accustomed the public that it was never afterwards conceived that a
Harlequin might be endurable who did not speak in his throat, and affect
the tones of a parrot.”
Riccoboni and Thomassin were very uneasy as to the manner in which the
public would receive a new Harlequin, gifted with a clear and natural
voice. There were several night-scenes in _L’Inganno Fortunato_. “One
of these occurred at the commencement of the piece. Lelio called his
lackey Harlequin, who at first did not answer, and who then answered at
intervals, appearing to fall asleep again after each reply. Lelio went in
quest of him, and dragged him on to the stage whilst still asleep though
on his feet. Harlequin, awakened, answered and, then letting himself fall
down, would drop off to sleep again. His master would awaken him once
more. Harlequin would then go fast asleep upon his master’s arm. The
public were put in a good humour by this scene, and after having laughed
and applauded for a quarter of an hour without the new Harlequin’s having
uttered a single word, they had not the courage to censure him upon his
voice when at last they heard it.”
Vicentini was born at Vicenza, and had long been playing in Italy when
Riccoboni made him offers to induce him to come to Paris. Marivaux
wrote several pieces for Thomassin, amongst which were _La Surprise de
l’Amour_, in 1722, and _Le Prince Travesti_, in 1724. It was no longer
a question of improvisation, but of memorised comedy, and Harlequin’s
business was solely to get full value out of the author’s wit. Marivaux,
whilst preserving to this type his original colour, causes him to appear
sometimes scintillant with wit, sometimes entirely stupid. He is a
mixture of Sganarelle, Sancho Pança, Crispino and Figaro. In the _Prince
Travesti_, Harlequin is the lackey of the Prince of Léon, who conceals
his identity under the name of Lelio. He meets the Princess of Barcelone,
who is in love with Lelio, and who puts questions to him on the subject
of his master.
THE PRINCESS. What do you seek, Harlequin? Is your master in
the palace?
HARLEQUIN. Madam, I implore Your Principality to pardon the
impertinence of my stupidity; had I but known of your presence
here I should not have been so foolish as to have brought my
person hither.
THE PRINCESS. You have done no harm. But tell me, are you
seeking your master?
HARLEQUIN. Exactly. You have guessed it, madam. Since he spoke
to you a while ago I have lost him in this plaguey house and,
saving your presence, I have lost myself also. If you would
show me the way you would be doing me a kindness; there are
here so many chambers that I have been travelling for an hour
without coming to the end of them. _Par la mardi!_ if you
prize all this it must mean that it brings you a lot of money.
Nevertheless, what a jumble of furniture, of oddities, and of
kickshaws! A whole village might live a year upon the value of
it all.... It is so beautiful that one does not dare to look
at it; it instils fear into a poor man like me. How rich you
are, you princes, and I, what is it that I am by comparison
with this! But surely it is another impertinence on my part to
reason with you as with an equal. Your companion is laughing,
perhaps I have said something foolish.
HORTENSE. You have said nothing foolish; on the contrary, you
seem to me of an excellent wit.
HARLEQUIN. Pardi! I laugh always: what would you? I have
nothing to lose. You amuse yourselves with being rich, you
others, and I—I amuse myself with being gay; to every one his
own amusement in this world.
With his master Harlequin shows himself to be no less critical and
profound.
LELIO. I am disposed to confide in you that I am a person of
condition, who amuse myself by travelling incognito. I am
young; it is a study that will be useful to me some day.
HARLEQUIN. My faith, it is a study that will teach you nothing
but poverty; it was hardly worth while to travel post for the
sake of studying all this rubbish. What will you make of all
this knowledge of men? You will learn but poor things.
LELIO. But they will cheat me no more.
HARLEQUIN. That will spoil you.
LELIO. Why?
HARLEQUIN. You will no longer be so kindly when you are learned
on that subject. By dint of seeing so many scoundrels, in
truth, you will become a scoundrel yourself.... Good-bye! Which
is the way to the kitchen?
Comical scenes follow between Harlequin and Frederick, an ambitious
courtier who seeks to seduce Harlequin. The latter thereupon becomes
again the loutish lackey, opposing to Frederick’s attack the ponderous
and ingenious probity of the peasant.
HARLEQUIN. Pardi! You treat me like your own child. There is
no boggling at that. Wealth, employment, and a pretty girl;
that means a whole shipload of victuals, money and delicacies.
It is clear that you love me very dearly!
FREDERICK. Yes; your physiognomy pleases me; you are a good lad!
HARLEQUIN. Oh! as for that, I am as droll as a box; leave it to
me and we shall laugh like mad together; but let us behold at
once this wealth, these employments and this pretty girl, for I
am in haste to be rich and at ease.
Frederick has a small service to ask of him. It is that of
spying upon his master, and to report to him his words and
actions. “Observe all very carefully, and as an earnest of the
recompense ultimately to be yours, here is some money for you
in advance.”
HARLEQUIN. Can’t you advance me the girl also? We will deduct
her from the rest.
FREDERICK. A service, my child, is never paid for until it is
rendered; that is the custom.
HARLEQUIN. A villainous custom!... I prefer to give you my
note of hand to the effect that I have received this girl on
account.... But, when I come to think of it, I am afraid you
want me to do dirty work for you. What do you want with the
words of my lord Lelio, my master?
FREDERICK. Mere curiosity.
HARLEQUIN. Hum.... There is malice under all this. You have
a sly look. I will bet you ten sous that you are a worthless
fellow.... Get along! you should not tempt a poor lad who has
no more honour than is necessary to him, and who is fond of
girls. I have all the trouble in the world to prevent myself
from being a scoundrel. Must my honour be the ruin of me, to
deprive me of wealth, employment and a pretty wench. _Par la
mardi!_ you are very wicked to have invented this girl.
FREDERICK. Consider that I am offering you your fortune, and
that you are losing it.
HARLEQUIN. I am considering that your commission smells of
trickery, and luckily this trickery fortifies my poor honour
which was wavering. Bah! your pretty girl is no better than a
drab; your employments are concerned with some dogs’ traffic.
That is my last word, and I am going straight to find the
princess and my master to relate to them my disaster and all
your proposals.
FREDERICK. Wretch! are you resolved then to dishonour me?
HARLEQUIN. Good! when one has no honour is it necessary to have
reputation?
Thomassin would execute at times highly extraordinary turns of strength
and of agility.
“He would run round the outside of the boxes of the first,
second and third tiers; but the public, too deeply interested
in the life of this amiable actor, compelled him to cut
out a turn so dangerous which invariably had the effect of
frightening the spectators far more than it amused them.
“His natural gaiety and the graces of his clowning would in
themselves have sufficed to have charmed the public, even had
not nature made him an excellent actor, which is to be taken in
the widest sense of the term as meaning that he was natural,
naïve, original and pathetic.”
Amid the laughter excited by his buffoonery he would at times suddenly
surprise his audience into tears. “Often, after beginning by laughing at
the manner in which he expressed his pain, one ended by experiencing the
emotion by which he was penetrated.”
Like Domenico, in the matter of pupils, Thomassin produced only very
bad copies, and “one saw nothing but pitiful attempts in the rôle of
Harlequin” until the day when Carlo Bertinazzi came to succeed him.
Thomassin had married Margarita Rusca, who played waiting-woman parts
under the name of Violetta. He died on the 19th of August 1739 at the age
of fifty-seven, after a long illness. Among the many children he left and
who have appeared on the Italo-French stage, the best known was Madame de
Hesse, wife of the actor of this name.
On the 21st of November of 1739 Antonio Constantini, a brother of the
celebrated Angelo Constantini, who had created the rôle of Mezzetin in
Paris, made his first appearance in the part of Harlequin. He played
“with great vivacity,” and held out some hope that he would repair the
loss which the theatre had sustained by the death of Thomassin; he did
not, however, fulfil this promise, and he was not accepted for the rôles
of zany.
The feeble début of the Alsatian, Théodorak—anagram of Cadoret—in 1740,
met with no better success.
“It is altogether incredible what a number of Harlequins
appeared within the space of three or four years; they seemed
to rise from the ashes of Thomassin: but, similar to those
shadows which are formed from the exhalations of tombs, and
which the least sound dissipates, so all these disappeared
before the booings of the groundlings.”
In 1741, Gioachino Vicentini, the youngest son of Thomassin, aged
eighteen, made his début as Harlequin, on the 26th of August. “But,
as talents are not always hereditary, he was not accepted at the
Comédie-Italienne, and he confined himself thereafter to playing in the
provinces.”
In the same year the Sieur Molin also attempted the rôle of Harlequin
with no better reception. He also repaired to the country.
v
At last, on the 10th of April 1741, Carlo Bertinazzi, born at Turin,
1713, made his début, and was received into the troupe in the month of
August 1742, after having played with success the famous character of
Harlequin for more than a year, and having surpassed the hopes which had
been founded upon his talent. This brilliant début was thus chronicled in
the _Mercure_:
“On Thursday, the 10th of April 1741, the Italian comedians
opened their theatre with an Italian piece in prose and in
three acts, in which the Sieur Carlin Bertinazzi, born at
Turin, some twenty-eight years ago, performed for the first
time the rôle of Harlequin, the principal character in the
piece. The Sieur Richard, who had addressed the public on the
closure of the theatre, addressed it again on the opening, and
expressed himself in the following terms:—‘Gentlemen, this
day, which renews our efforts and our homage, was to have been
marked by the novelty which we had prepared for you; but the
actor who is going to have the honour of appearing before you
for the first time was too deeply interested, and too impatient
to learn his fate, to permit us to postpone his début. “Should
your novelty fail,” said he, “I shall learn how your public
hisses, and that is something that I do not want to learn;
should it succeed I shall know how they applaud, and I shall
draw, perhaps, a sad comparison between its reception and that
which may be accorded to me.” So as not to give this new actor
any grounds for reproach, we have conformed entirely with his
wishes. He knows, gentlemen, not only what he has to dread in
appearing before you, but also in following that excellent
actor whom we have lost (Thomassin) in whose rôle you are
about to see him. These just causes of apprehension would be
counterbalanced in his mind if he were aware of the resources
which await him in your indulgence; but it is in vain that
we have endeavoured to reassure him on this score; he can be
convinced of the truth of it only by yourselves, and we hope,
gentlemen, that you will be disposed to fulfil the promises
which we have made to him on your behalf. They are founded
upon an experience so long and so happy that we are as assured
of your kindliness as you must be of our zeal and profound
respect.’”
It was in such terms that the public was flattered in those days. And
being thus flattered, it received Carlin with an indulgence of which he
was very far from standing in need.
Carlin’s performance was easy, natural and comical. Garrick, seeing him
in a scene in which he had just received a correction from his master,
menacing this last with one hand, whilst rubbing his side with the other,
was so charmed by the naturalness of his miming that he exclaimed:
“Behold, how the very back of Carlin has a physiognomy and an expression!”
Carlin Bertinazzi was, like Domenico and all great buffoons, of a
very melancholy character; he depended upon his wit and not upon his
temperament.
Of Domenico it is related that, being intensely troubled with his spleen,
he went to consult Dumoulin, a celebrated doctor, who prescribed for him
as a remedy that he should go and see Domenico at the Comédie-Italienne,
because Domenico made all the world laugh. “Alas!” replied the poor
actor, “I am Domenico, and from now onwards I must look upon myself as a
lost man.”
To his histrionic talents Carlin united considerable knowledge on various
subjects and all the qualities that go to make a good member of society.
It is related that on a lovely summer evening, when the heat was
suffocating, and Carlin was to perform in two plays, Camerani, the
manager, came to inform him that there was but one spectator in the
theatre, and that there was no occasion to give a performance. Carlin
laughed, and replied that it was necessary to play none the less
since there was _a_ public (un _public_). The curtain rose; Carlin
appeared, drew his wooden sword, took a turn round the theatre, and
after a thousand capers which provoked great bursts of laughter from a
fat gentleman seated in a corner of the orchestra, he advanced to the
footlights and addressed him:
“Monsieur Tout-Seul, we are desolated, my comrades and I, to be compelled
to play in such weather as this to one single spectator; nevertheless, if
you demand it, play we will.”
The spectator entered into conversation with the actor, informed him
that he was from the country, and that he had come to Paris for no other
purpose but that of seeing him perform, and implored Carlin to grant
him this favour. Carlin resigned himself and began his performance. All
at once the sky became overcast, thunder rumbled and rain came down in
torrents. The theatre filled itself as by enchantment, and in less than
an hour the receipts rose to nine hundred livres, an enormous figure at
this epoch. At the end of the second and last piece, Carlin came forward
again to the footlights and sought his fat gentleman, who had been
convulsed with laughter throughout the performance. “Monsieur Tout-seul,
are you still there?” he cried. The man from the provinces rose to
reply: “Yes, M. Carlin, and you have made me laugh very much.” “Monsieur
Tout-seul, I come to thank you for having compelled us to perform; as
a consequence our receipts are enormous. Thank you then once more,
Monsieur Tout-seul.” “I am enchanted, M. Carlin. Au revoir,” replied the
fat country gentleman, striding across his bench to depart, whilst the
audience shook with laughter.
When there was hesitation to announce a performance, either on account of
the heat or from any other cause, Carlin would say to Camerani: “Let us
put up our bills, none the less. Who knows?—perhaps Monsieur Tout-seul
will come this evening.”
Carlin died in Paris in 1675. He was still playing within a very short
time of his death. His advanced age had robbed him of none of his
vivacity, mirth and suppleness. The following epitaph was written in his
honour:
“De Carlin pour peindre le sort,
Très peu de mots doivent suffire:
Toute sa vie il a fait rire,
Il a fait pleurer à sa mort.”
As author he has left us _Les Métamorphoses d’Arlequin_.
Modern literature has made of him an historical personage. A very
remarkable novel of M. de Latouche attributes to him a regular
correspondence with Pope Clement XIV., who was in fact an old
schoolfellow of his. MM. Rochefort and Gustave Lemoine wrote some years
ago a very pretty piece on this subject. Carlin, ignorant that the new
pope was that same Lorenzo Ganganelli, the friend of his youth, received
a visit from him, addressed him familiarly in the second person singular,
and performed with him a scene of which Ganganelli held the manuscript,
laughing so heartily the while that he kept forgetting to take up his
cues.
On the subject of the début of a Harlequin at the Théâtre-Italien, Collé,
in his _Journal Historique_, speaks as follows of the masters of the
burlesque art:—
“On Monday, the 21st inst. (June 1751), I went to the Comédie
to see a new Harlequin who has been playing there for several
days. He is a very nimble rascal, a mountebank, a sort of rope
dancer, a buffoon and a sound comedian; as he is merely a bird
of passage, the Italians would not have been so ill-advised
as to have permitted him to appear upon the stage if he had
been better than, or even the equal of Carlin, their present
Harlequin. The latter, who for some years now has been in
possession of this rôle, does not acquit himself at all badly,
although he is sometimes ponderous in his action and always
stupid in his subjects, whatever may be said to the contrary
by the partisans of these paltry spectacles. But we may say
at least that Thomassin, his predecessor was quite as stupid
as Carlin, and even perhaps more so, although he repaired his
short-comings by an unflagging energy and inimitable grace.
This comedian even went so far as to endow his Harlequin with a
singular attribute; he gave him a pathetic side; he could move
his audience even to tears in certain pieces such as _La Double
Inconstance_, _Timon_, _L’Isle des Esclaves_, and others; this
has always seemed to me a prodigy to perform under the mask of
Harlequin.”
In 1777 Bigottini took up the rôles of Harlequin. Grimm refers to him as
follows:—
“A young Harlequin of sixty odd summers, the Sieur Bigottini,
has made his début on the stage of the Comédie-Italienne in
a piece of his own, entitled _Arlequin Esprit Follet_. The
performance of the Sieur Bigottini has no analogy with that
of the actor he is replacing; he has not the same grace nor
the same subtlety, nor yet the same naïveté; nevertheless his
metamorphoses are ingenious and varied, and his movements,
without having the suppleness which characterised the
slightest gestures of Carlin, are of extraordinary precision
and lightness. Nothing could equal the swiftness with which
he changes his costume and his mask; his talent on this point
approaches prodigy, but it is a style of merit which must fail
to amuse for very long. It is only wit that may be infinitely
varied, it is only grace whose charm never stales.”
At the end of the eighteenth century, one of the most celebrated
Harlequins of Italy was Golinetti.
The character of Harlequin, which underwent as many variations in its
type as in the orthography of the name, which from _Harlequino_ became
_Arlechino_, _Arlichino_ and, to-day, _Arlecchino_, has more or less
passed from fashion in Italy. Meneghino and Stenterello have taken his
place. Nevertheless he is still to be found in the marionette theatres.
There he is dressed in garments broken into squares of yellow, red and
green. He still wears his mask and his black chin-piece to simulate a
beard; but, perhaps to indicate his great age, his moustachios and his
eyebrows have become white.
In France the type is more or less extinct. The wit which he developed in
the eighteenth century has descended once more to his legs. He is no more
than a traditional mime, more or less graceful. His last successes were
leaped and danced by Cossard and Derruder.
In Italy the principal actors who filled the part were: Fremeri, in 1624;
Belotti, in 1625; Girolamo Francesco, in 1630; Astori of Venice, in 1720;
Bertoli, in 1730; Ignazio Casanova, of Bologna, in 1734.
vi
Trivelino is, under another name and in a different costume, what
Harlequin was before Domenico gave him that attribute of subtlety which
his successors have always preserved.
Instead of lozenges arranged symmetrically, we find small triangles
over the seams of his garments and suns and moons scattered here and
there upon his coat and breeches. He too wears the soft hat with the
rabbit-tail, but he does not carry a bat. For the rest his name, which
signifies a wearer of rags, is perhaps the real name borne by Harlequin
before the sixteenth century.
We have said that in 1635 Domenico Locatelli (Trivelin) was performing on
the stage of the Comédie-Italienne in Paris, when Domenico Biancolelli
went there to make his début under the name of Arlechino. They were
both lackeys, and they portrayed more or less the same character. They
presented a sort of duplicated rôle and they were known as first and
second zany, for in many of the pieces of the Italian troupe which went
to Paris in 1716 the rôles of zanies are played under the names of
Trivelino, Arlechino and Scapino indifferently.
In the companies that roved through Italy in the seventeenth century the
rôle of Trivelino was that of an intriguer who incessantly tormented that
poor fool Arlechino. He was in league with Fritellino and Truffaldino to
play the most damnable tricks upon the Doctor and upon Pantaloon; he was,
in short, a thorough-paced rascal, a worthy rival of Brighella.
Thus, in _Artémire_, a parody given at the Théâtre-Italien in 1720, we
have the following scene:—
TRIVELINO. The goods of Pantaloon shall be my salary. Crime is
to be approved when it is necessary. But here comes Harlequin;
though something of a fool, I would have him join us in this
plot. (_To HARLEQUIN._) Are you brave?
HARLEQUIN. Yes, particularly at table.
TRIVELINO. I know your talents for eating and for drinking, and
I know the activity of your jaws, but I want other exploits
from you at present. I have chosen you for a daring enterprise.
HARLEQUIN. Pantaloon is alive....
TRIVELINO. That does not worry me. I have determined to murder
him.
HARLEQUIN. Fie! that smells of the gibbet.
TRIVELINO. I want you, my dear Harlequin, to second me.
HARLEQUIN. In the art of murder I am still a novice. Do not
reckon upon me.
TRIVELINO. You are a coward.
HARLEQUIN. Better words, my friend! I am prudent.... But, to
assassinate Pantaloon—no, no.... I cannot without sorrow behold
the slaughter of a pig. How then can I murder Pantaloon?
Domenico Locatelli, who performed the rôles of Trivelino at the
Petit-Bourbon Theatre, went to France in 1645. He was an excellent
comedian. He wrote a very spectacular French piece entitled _Rosaure,
Impératrice de Constantinople_, which was performed in 1658. After a
brilliant career he died in March of 1671.
Pierre-François Biancolelli, born in 1681, and known under the name of
Domenico, which had been borne by his father, was educated at a Jesuit
college. Upon leaving school he joined Giuseppe Tortoretti (Pasquariello)
who was then touring the provinces. He made his début with success as
Trivelino at Toulouse. He then went to Montpellier, where he married
Tortoretti’s daughter, with whom he had become enamoured in Paris, and
for whose sake he had turned comedian.
He repaired immediately to Italy with his wife, and performed in Venice,
Milan, Parma, Mantua and Genoa, returning afterwards to France, where he
played in the provinces until 1710. He returned to Paris and performed
until 1717 at the fairs of Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent, after which
he entered the Italian company of the Regent. This Biancolelli was the
author of more than eighty pieces for the Italian repertory. He died in
Paris in 1734.
vii
The first creation of TRUFFALDINO took place somewhere about 1530 in the
troupe of the famous Angelo Beolco (Ruzzante). He represents the sly and
lying servant under the name of _Truffa_ (the crafty). This type achieved
popularity in Italy, and towards the middle of the seventeenth century
it became one of the varieties of Harlequin, under the diminutive of
Truffaldino.
In _La Vaccaria_ of Ruzzante, Truffa is the servant of Flavio, a young
lover, and in _La Rhodiana_ by the same author, he is the servant of
Roberto, whom he aids in his amours.
“You may trust me entirely” (he assures his master),
“because, although you see me in these peasant garments, I am
nevertheless of anything but low extraction. I disclose myself
to you alone, assured that you will not betray my secret.
Learn that my real name is Gasparo, and that I am the son of
Roberto San-Severino; I was compelled to flee my country on
account of a love affair with a beautiful lady whose relatives
sought my life. I have travelled in Italy, in the East and in
the West, and I have learnt several languages that have proved
very useful to me. Finally, being in Venice, I fell in love
with the daughter of my mistress, named Lucretia, and so that
I might commune with her in secret, I assumed the garments of
a peasant. Do not be offended if, whether alone with you or in
company, I employ a language that corresponds with my dress.”
Towards 1738 the actor Sacchi was playing in Italy, and particularly
in Venice, rôles similar to that of Harlequin, under the name of
_Truffaldino_, a Bergamese caricature. Goldoni and the Abbé Chiari had
boasted that they would drive the Commedia dell’ Arte and the leather
masks from the theatre. Sacchi, seeing the national company disappearing,
quitted Venice with his troupe and his friends, Brighella, Tartaglia and
Pantaloon, to seek his fortune beyond the seas. But the great earthquake
at Lisbon drove them out of Portugal. Sacchi then returned to Venice
with his troupe, and, in 1761, the theatre of San-Samuele, which had
been closed for five years, was put into repair and reopened with
_L’Amour des Trois Oranges_, a fable in five acts, by Carlo Gozzi. The
marvellous genre being supported by Gozzi, became a subject of enthusiasm
in Venice until 1769, in which year a rival troupe appropriated Sacchi’s
pieces and actors, opened the theatre of Sant’ Angelo, and brought
about his ruin, notwithstanding the endeavours made by Sacchi in giving
the public _commedie sostenute_. “But,” says M. Paul de Musset, “the
decadence and the dispersion of Sacchi’s company was none the less
inevitable. Truffaldino was growing old and infirm. Further to complicate
matters the old fool fell in love with La Ricci (Gozzi’s mistress), and
notwithstanding his seventy years, he gave umbrage to our poet. One day
Gozzi discovered La Ricci in the act of cutting out some white satin
to make a gown. The material was a present from Sacchi, and the young
leading lady would have desired, with Italian naïveté, to have retained
at one and the same time the lengths of satin and her virtue. So much was
decidedly impossible. She kept the satin.”
The character as performed by Sacchi was that of a poltroon, who is
beaten and deceived. Bombastic, very proud of his birth, and calling all
others low born, he was nevertheless the butt of the piece. Sacchi was
an admirable improvisor, and the rôles destined for him in the plays of
Carlo Gozzi are not written _in extenso_.
“No one,” says Gozzi, “may write the rôle of Truffaldino, either in prose
or in verse. It suffices Sacchi to know the intention of the author, so
as to enable him to improvise scenes superior to any which a writer might
have prepared him.”
Those passages which are intended to be performed by Truffaldino are
merely indicated as follows:—“Truffaldino enters, goes through his
pleasantries,” or even more simply: “Enter Truffaldino,” and then “Exit
Truffaldino.” In certain pieces nevertheless his rôle is more fully set
forth.
TRUFFALDINO. You ask me what I am and what I am going to do. I
am going to tell you; and I shall sincerely relate to you the
story of my life. I came from the foundling hospital. Let me
consider a moment my genealogical tree. It is most probable
that I am the son of a king, because I have always experienced
in my blood a great superiority. In the foundling hospital they
attempted to teach me to read and to write, but my greatness of
soul could never permit me to lower myself to such meannesses.
In consequence of a certain inherent royal ferocity, it was my
fate to break the skull of a teacher. After that I ran away
and by virtue of my heroism I became a mendicant. Taken by
corsairs I was sold as a slave. The Turks, perceiving in my
physiognomy the indelible signs of my noble origin and admiring
the majesty of my stomach, valued me in the market at the price
of fifty philippes. My buyer, having thoroughly experienced
how monarchically I was disposed to despise all such work as
was set me, sold me again for fifty livres. My third buyer
harnessed me with a donkey. In this situation I became so
celebrated for my indifference to any kind of occupation
other than that of eating that my latest buyer sold me for
twenty-seven livres and a half. At last I was decorated with
an honourable kick and thus I quitted slavery with honour and
glory. I was as much out of place there as a fish in a meadow
or a cheese in a library. After all that I have told you, you
will readily see for yourself the nature of the employment for
which I am fitted.
II
POLICHINELLE
“B-r-r-r-r-r.... B-r-r-r-r-r.... Yes, my children! Here I am!
I, Polichinelle with my big stick! Here I am! The little man
is still alive, you see. I come to amuse you, as pleasantly as
I can, for certain _quidams_ have told me that you are sad!
Now, why should you be sad? Is not life a pleasant thing, an
idle jest, a veritable farce, in which all the world is the
theatre and where there is plenty to excite your laughter, if
you will but take the trouble to look? It is getting on for
four thousand years, my children, that I have been parading
my humps about the surface of the globe, among men who are no
whit less ferocious and savage than tigers and crocodiles;
and it is getting on for four thousand years that I have been
laughing, sometimes until I have had a pain in my back. Is it
not droll, is it not very droll, tell me, to see upon such a
little space as that which we call the world, this ant-heap of
creatures, each of which, taken separately, conceives itself
to be privileged by all nature? Ask one of these atoms if it
would change its skin with its neighbour. Ah no, be easy, its
own skin pleases it too well. But ask it if it would change its
purse with that of its neighbour. ‘Oh yes, if his is fatter
than mine,’ it will answer you. And each one strives, comes,
goes, amasses, stirs up, rolls, grovels, and gives more thought
to to-morrow than to yesterday. You would suppose to look at
them that they must live for ever. They are all mad! Observe me
this one, he amasses and piles up ducat upon ducat, waiting
until the hour of his death to make use of this fortune. His
son makes haste to scatter it all, and goes to a deal of
trouble to ruin himself in body as well as in purse; sometimes
he dies before having succeeded. That is the law; to make and
to unmake. Behold me this fellow, who plagues his brains to
discover some means of attracting the attention of some other
unfortunates who do not wish to be turned aside from the road
which they follow, which their fathers followed, and which
their children will follow. He has had some sort of a notion
to disturb his neighbours; they seize him, shut him up, or
have him burnt or drowned. Is it not droll? Ah! you would have
laughed to have seen thousands of human carcasses hanging from
the trees by the roadside after I know not what jest had gone
through the minds of some lunatics. I never laughed so much
as some fifteen centuries ago. There were whole roastings of
people whose tort it was to be weaker than those who were the
stronger at that time. It was very amusing to see them rent
and devoured by wild animals. You’re going to call me a dull
fellow, a fool, and to tell me that I have not understood what
I have seen. Pish! my children! it is best to laugh at things,
for the children of these disembowelled wretches avenged
themselves later on.
“But droller still, the drollest thing of all, is woman.
Ah! now there we have a strange animal! Oh, the vanity, the
malice of these little beings, for whom I am still capable of
committing follies! By Pluto or by Satan! (they are both one,
and I don’t think much of either, for after all they are but
human inventions) it is good to watch men and women desiring
each other, deceiving each other, hating each other. The two
sexes have declared war, and yet neither can live without the
other. Ask a man what he thinks of women. He will reply: ‘They
are vain and untruthful.’ Ask a woman what she thinks of men.
She will say: ‘They are egotistical and perfidious!’ Come,
come! there is truth on both sides, because with gold either
may be bought. Be rich and you shall be honoured, loved and
flattered; you shall be beautiful, even young if you please;
you shall find love, consideration and honours. Be poor and you
shall not be worth a string of onions!
“I can see from here one or two who do not share my opinion.
They may please themselves; they are still young. If, like me,
they had seen whole cities disappear under volcanic ashes, if
their shoes had been scorched by the hot lava of Vesuvius,
if they had seen the sanguinary people of the south hurl
themselves upon the ferocious people of the north, and vice
versa; if they had spoken the truth in three words, as I did,
to the mighty ones of the earth; if they had told the proudest
nations of the world that they were no better than savages and
brutes, they would think differently, and they would consider
the matter carefully before contradicting me.
“Is my conscience wide and easy? Of course it is! that which
belongs to others belongs to me; and I have only to stoop so as
to fill my hat with the gold and the wealth of my neighbours.
You find that wrong? It is my point of view; I have such a
contempt for men that I am little concerned with what they may
think or say of me.
“But do not dare to call me a thief! It is not the word that
wounds me, it is the intention. Take care! I have never been
insulted with impunity, and I am never more to be feared than
when I am in a good humour. You do not deserve that I should
waste my merry words upon you, because that which should make
you laugh seems, instead, to annoy you. What! would you weep
because everything goes wrong? Look at me! I have suffered
as much as any man, but I cover my hump and my heart with a
cuirass. I am laughter incarnate, laughter triumphant. So much
the worse for those rows of paper capuchins which are to be
overthrown by the first breath that blows. I am of wood and
iron, and as old as the world!”
Polichinelle is right to say that his heart is as dry as his cudgel:
he is an egotist in the fullest acceptance of the term. Under a
good-humoured exterior he is a ferocious being: he works evil for the
pleasure of it. Caring no more for the life of a man than for that of a
flea, he delights in quarrels, making a point of seeking them, and takes
great pleasure in bloodshed. Far from being a boaster he does not always
speak of his evil actions, and whenever you hear his laughter crackling,
you may be sure that he has killed his man. He fears neither God nor
devil, for he has beheld too many civilisations and religions come and go
under his hooked and warty nose.
After his cudgel—his staff of credit, as he calls it, because it is the
money with which he pays his debts—his chief predilections are women and
the bottle. It is very true, as he says himself, that for women money is
necessary, and he has no money. Although he pretends that he has only to
stoop to take what he needs from the coffers of his friends, his friends
are not quite so simple; they hide themselves and their riches on his
approach. Without money it is necessary to be persuasive towards the fair
sex, and, notwithstanding his humps and his unattractive figure, he is
so caustic, so cajoling, so enterprising and so insolent, that he is not
without his successes.
“I have no illusions on the score of my physical appearance,” he
declares, “and I shall not disclose to you my secret, because I do not
know it; on the other hand, can you explain women to me? He who pleases
them does so because he pleases them; there are no other reasons. Woman
is a bizarre and mysterious being: she is the only good thing in this
world, after wine and hard knocks.”
He loves all women alike because there is not one who may boast that she
held him long.
ii
It would be somewhere about the year 540 of Rome, that the Romans
introduced the style of improvised pieces known as Atellanæ, with Maccus,
Bucco, Pappus, and Casnar as the principal types, speaking Oscan, Greek
and Latin.
Their subjects were nearly always rustic, setting forth the manners of
the peasants of the Campagna, and the oddities of the inhabitants of
the little cities. It is _Pappus præteritus_, or, as it were, Pantaloon
dismissed; Maccus the soldier; Maccus, the testamentary legatee, the
doctor, the painter, the baker; Pappus agricola, etc. The Atellanæ
possessed two distinct buffoons, two _sanniones_: Maccus, who was
lively, witty, insolent and a little ferocious; and Bucco, who was a
self-satisfied flatterer, boaster, thief and coward. In the modern
PULCINELLA these two characters are combined; he is a mixture of bravery
and cowardice, of stupid vanity and witty insolence.
It is pretended that these opposite traits of character were similarly
attributed to Maccus, the Oscan peasant, who in his day was as well known
and loved as is Pulcinella now.
“Maccus, the Oscan character,” says M. Ferdinand Fouque, “has a
character compounded of stupidity, impertinence, and disorder,
as his name indicates, because in Greek, μακκοἃδθαι signifies
to play the buffoon, to drivel, to be mad. Maccus of the
Atellanæ corresponds sometimes to Harlequin, but more often to
Polichinelle. The image in metal preserved in the museum of the
Marquis Capponi is a Maccus. He wears a sort of cloak, which
descends to his knees, and he is shod in sandals. His head is
shaved, his nose is large and hooked. Another Maccus is to be
seen upon a cornelian: he is dressed in purple, his feet are
naked, his head shaven, his pendulous nose covers his mouth and
chin, giving him a stupid expression; his face is phlegmatic,
and his arms, crossed upon his breast, are entwined into his
coat. He represents a philosophic Maccus akin to the Pulcinella
of the comedy entitled _Pulcinella the Pretended Doctor_
(_Pulcinella Finto Dottore_).
“Bucco is of Oscan origin. In name and countenance he
resembles the parasites of comedy. His character is compounded
of loftinesses and meannesses, of oddities and of follies.
He can be pleasant at need, impertinent according to the
circumstances; subtle, officious, insinuating, clownish,
garrulous, indolent, greedy and familiar: he has all the
vices which go with the manners of a corrupt nation; also
he possesses the secret of pleasing the great and rendering
himself necessary to them: he studies their tastes, adapts
himself to their fancies, ministers to their passions and
countenances their libertine undertakings. Bucco had monstrous
cheeks and an enormous mouth.”
Pulcinella, then, descends in a direct line from Maccus. But how has
the name of Pulcinella come to substitute that of Maccus? The point
has been practically cleared up by now. We know that Maccus had a
crooked nose, long legs, a slightly arched back, a prominent stomach,
and that, after the fashion of all the ancient mimes, he excited mirth
quite as much by his gestures and his cries as by such witticisms as
he uttered. The special attribute of Maccus was to imitate the cries
of birds and the cackle of hens, by means of a sort of bird-call which
became the _sgherlo_ or _pivetta_. This instrument cannot have been of
his invention; no doubt he borrowed it from those schœnobates, or Greek
marionette performers, who had invented their _sgherlo_ to imitate the
voices of actors passing through the speaking trumpet of the mask and
acquiring thus a metallic ring. Maccus came therefore to be nicknamed, in
consequence of these avian cries of his, and perhaps also because of his
beak-like nose and his eccentric gait, _Pullus gallinaceus_, and hence,
by contraction, Pulcinella.
A little bronze figure suggesting Maccus, now in the Capponi Museum, was
unearthed in Rome in 1727. Of this the Abbé of Saint-Non remarks in his
_Voyage de Naples_, in 1782: “But what may perhaps seem remarkable is to
find here a Polichinelle who, in the essential features, is absolutely
similar to our own, with the humps behind and in front.” He supplies a
drawing of this little image, of which he further says: “This bizarre
figure is copied from an ancient bronze found in Rome in 1727. The
original is preserved in the Capponi Museum, together with the history of
this character, of whom it is impossible to deny that the titles and the
genealogy are of the greatest antiquity:
“Vetus histrio personatus in Esquiliis repertus an. 1727 ad
magnitudinem æri archetypi expressus, cui oculi et in utroque
oris angulo Sannæ seu globuli argentæi sunt. Gibbus in pectore
et in dorso, inque pedibus socci. Hujus generis moriones et
ludiones, verbis gestique ad risum movendum compositi, locum
habuerunt in jocularibus fabulis Atellanis, ab Atella Oscorum
opido, inter Capuam et Neapolim, ubi primum agi cæperunt
denominatæ. Unde homines absurdo habitu oris et reliqui
corporis cachinnos a natura excitantes, etiamnum prodeunt; huic
nostro persimiles et vulgo Pullicinellæ dicuntur, a Pulliceno
fortasse: qua voce Lampridius in Severo Alexandro, Pullum
gallinaceum appellat. Pullicinellæ autem speciatim excellunt
adunco, prominentique naso, rostrum pullorum et pipionum
imitante.”
Louis Riccoboni gives at the end of his _Histoire du Théâtre Italien_ a
reproduction of this same little image. It is to be observed that in each
corner of the mouth there is a little ball which can only belong to a
sort of _sgherlo_ or bird-call.
“In the course of writing my _History of the Italian
Theatre_,” he says, speaking of the _Mimus Centunculus_, “I
had entered into conjectures on the score of the character
of the Neapolitan Polichinelle, and I had supposed him a
_Mimus Albus_, giving him a derivation as ancient as that of
Harlequin; but as I failed to find proofs that should in any
way support my opinion I suppressed that chapter when the book
was on the point of going to press. If at that time I had been
acquainted with the monument of which I speak (the little
bronze image) I should have worked on Diomedes and Apuleius, to
arrive at the conclusions which have been reached by Italian
scholars. No further proof is needed to assure me that I was
not mistaken when I believed Polichinelle to be a direct
descendant of the _Mimus Albus_ of the Atellane comedies.”
In an article upon the Italian comedy written by George Sand in 1852, is
the following statement:—
“The most ancient of all the types is the Neapolitan
Polichinelle. He descends in direct line from Maccus of the
Campagna, or, rather, he is the same character. The ancient
Maccus did not appear in regular comedy but in that very
ancient kind of satirical drama called Atellanæ, from the name
of the city of Atella, which had given it birth. A bronze
statue, discovered in Rome in 1727, can leave no doubt on
the score of the identity of Maccus and Polichinelle. The
Polichinelle of the Atellanæ is equipped like his descendants
with two enormous humps, a nose hooked like the beak of a bird
of prey, and heavy shoes, tied about the ankle, which are not
unlike our modern sabots. His air is mocking, sceptical and
evil; two little silver balls placed at the corners of his
lips increase the size of his mouth and lend his countenance
something false and base, an expression entirely foreign to
that of the modern Polichinelle. This difference between the
externals of the two personages seems to me to indicate a
profounder difference between the characters. The ancient type
must have been somewhat baser and more hateful than the modern
Polichinelle; provoking laughter chiefly by his deformities, I
imagine that I can see from afar a sort of Thersites, popular
in the struggle with the oppression of slavery and ugliness.
Polichinelle personifies the accomplished revolt; he is hideous
but he is terrible, severe and vengeful; neither god nor devil
can make him tremble when he wields his great cudgel. By means
of this weapon, which he freely lays about the shoulders of
his master and the heads of public officers, he exercises a
sort of summary and individual justice which avenges the weak
side and the iniquities of official justice. I am confirmed
in this opinion by the fact that in the Neapolitan farces
two Polichinelles are to be found: one is base and doltish,
the veritable son of Maccus: the other is daring, thieving,
quarrelsome, Bohemian and of a more modern creation.”
When the pagan theatres were destroyed, and the tragedies and the
comedies suppressed with them, we know that the Atellanæ continued to be
performed in the public places. Polichinelle took part in them as well as
Harlequin who also was beloved by the Romans.
Throughout the entire Middle Ages, an epoch in which the theatres saw
none but mystery plays, Polichinelle was never seen. He had disappeared.
It is only in the sixteenth century, upon the renascence of the theatres,
that a comedian named Silvio Fiorello wrested this character from
oblivion and introduced Pulcinella into the Neapolitan shows. Fiorello
was the leader of a troupe of comedians. He himself played under the name
of Captain Matamoros, and entrusted the rôle of Pulliciniello (as it was
then called) to Andrea Calcese, a sometime tailor, surnamed _Ciuccio_,
who imitated to perfection the accent and the ways of the peasants of
Acerra, near Naples.
[Illustration]
The costume of Pulcinella has varied but little since the days of this
Andrea Calcese. Pulliciniello—it is thus that he is still called in
the beginning of the seventeenth century—wears a sort of ample white
blouse, gripped about his waist by a leather belt which carries a wooden
sabre and a purse. His trousers are wide and pleated; his shoes are
of leather. He wears no collar and a rag of white material with green
embroidery serves him as a _tabaro_; he wears a black half-mask with long
moustachios; his head is covered by a white skull-cap and an enormous
grey hat whose brim is looped up on either side into the shape of an
enormous cap such as was still worn under Louis XI.
It was thus that he was presented by Argieri, born in Rome, and known in
Paris as _Polichinel romain_. At the foot of a picture of him is to be
read: “Burlesque mask, speaking the language of the Neapolitan peasants
and dressed in white linen feigning stupidity.”
In the middle of the seventeenth century at the Comédie-Italienne in
Paris Pulcinella suddenly effected a change in his costume. Barbançois,
the _Pulcinella_ of Mazarin’s troupe, imitated Jupilles, the French
_Polichinel_ of 1640. He assumed doublet and breeches of red and yellow,
laced with green, but he continued to wear the hat and mantle of the
Italian tradition.
In 1697 Michael Angelo da Fracassano exaggerated the two humps of the
costume, assuming a grey felt hat adorned by two cock’s feathers,
and thus rendering his appearance absolutely similar to that of the
Polichinel of the fairs. It is in this guise that he has been represented
by Watteau.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century we find Pulcinella succumbing
in Italy to the French influence; under the name of _Pulcinello_,
Coleson, who enjoyed a great vogue in the forain theatres of Florence,
Venice, Milan and Paris, represents him with a stomach which entirely
fills his ample coat buttoned from top to bottom. He wears the black
half-mask with a protuberant nose, surmounted by a great wart, the collar
and the high-crowned, wide-brimmed great hat; his trousers are wide and
rather short. He is still dressed in white linen and wields a heavy
cudgel. This character, called in Bologna Purricinella, seems to me to be
Roman rather than Neapolitan, for the costume of the Neapolitan type has
been but little modified since his creation. According to Riccoboni this
fat and heavy personage was the second Neapolitan Pulcinella, the stupid
type.
“The Neapolitan comedies” (he says), “instead of a Scapin and
a Harlequin, have two Polichinelles, one cunning and the other
stupid. It is the common opinion of the country that these two
opposite characters were drawn from the city of Beneventum, the
capital of the Samnites of the Latins. It is said that this
city, the half of which is on the top of a hill, the other half
at the foot, produces men of entirely different characters.”
Beneventum is built like Bergamo, where, as we have seen, the same
tradition existed, the stupid Harlequin representing the inhabitants of
the lower town, and the witty Brighella those of the higher.
Pulcinello, then, is to be accepted as the type of the stupid and the
coarse, a direct descendant of Maccus; whilst the Neapolitan Pulcinella,
witty and astute, may be considered the sensual descendant of Bucco.
This latter type became European. In France he was known as Polichinelle;
in England as Punch, an abbreviation of Punchinello, and Jack Pudding;
in Germany as Hanswurst (Jack Sausage) and Pulzinella; in Holland as
Toneelgek; in Spain as Don Christoval Pulichinela; even in the East,
Karagheus is none other than Polichinelle.
Pulcinella is, turn by turn, and according to the piece, master, servant,
magistrate, poet or dancer, but never an acrobat; in essentials the
character is always the same. In what concerns him the piece adapts
itself to his rôle. Sometimes, but rarely—and then only in the marionette
theatres—one has seen him married to a Pulcinellina, and thus equipped
with wife and children.
“Thirty years ago,” says a wit, in the middle of the nineteenth century,
“there was not a single individual in Naples who had not in himself
something of Pulcinella. A deal of that has been lost to-day, but
sufficient still remain.”
In Naples, Pulcinella took up his domicile in the theatre of San Carlino.
“It is there,” says M. Fred. Mercey, “that night and day he is
the hero of marvellous and comical adventures. Indeed, although
the Polichinelle of San Carlino is not of wood, he never rests,
and whenever some new piece has been announced for morning and
evening performance, _most choice in all its scenes, full of
bizarre happenings, with Pulcinella_, Pulcinella must be under
arms and on view living or dead.”
Do you wish to form an idea of these pieces, _most choice in all their
scenes, full of bizarre happenings_, pieces which owe their success
entirely to Pulcinella? Let us analyse one or two, selecting preferably
from those which best reveal the Neapolitan character.
_Pulcinella, Brigand-Chief_
The scene is laid in Calabria. Pulcinella, whose business
affairs have been going badly, devotes himself to a fresh line
of industry; he exploits the highways. Pulcinella has all the
attributes that go to make an excellent brigand-chief. He is
without scruples and without mercy, and he professes a most
sovereign contempt for human life. The new chief has designs
upon the wife of a miller of the neighbourhood of Nicastro,
who, in addition to her personal attractions, has, if public
rumour is to be believed, a great sack of ducats in her
cupboard. Pulcinella leaves his band in a neighbouring wood
and, accompanied by a single follower, he goes to visit the
miller’s wife. So as not to arouse her suspicions, he conceals
his follower behind a bush, and presents himself alone upon
her threshold. The day is Sunday, and the brigand has chosen
it because he knows that the miller will be at Mass in the
neighbouring township and that he will have left his wife alone
with her child at the mill. Pulcinella represents himself as
a miller’s boy out of work. He is well received. Suddenly,
seizing a moment in which the child has gone apart, he draws
a knife and threatens to cut the woman’s throat unless she
gives him at once all the money she possesses. “My money is up
there,” she says, “in my cupboard. Come with me and I will give
it to you.” Pulcinella follows her. Whilst he is rummaging in
the cupboard, the woman slips quickly out of the room, shuts
the door and turns the key. The windows are equipped with iron
bars; the door is a half-foot thick. Pulcinella is taken in
a gin like a starling. The miller’s wife loses no time; she
calls her child: “Run to Nicastro,” she bids him, “and fetch
your father and the carabineers; run quickly, tell him that
there is a brigand in the house.” The child sets out, but
Pulcinella’s companion, hearing the cries of his chief, bars
the lad’s passage and seizes him. The miller’s wife, however,
does not lose courage. She bolts the doors and barricades the
windows. Her situation is most critical. She hears Pulcinella
who, by means of a hammer, is beginning to demolish the ceiling
over her head, and she sees her child threatened with death by
the other brigand unless she opens. Eventually this brigand
pinions the child, casts him into a corner, and sets about
seeking some door or opening by which he may enter the house
to deliver his chief. Presently the idea occurs to him to slip
down the wheel of the mill and through the opening left by the
axle of the sails; but at the same moment the miller’s wife
conceives the notion of setting this wheel in movement. The
brigand is already half through the space between the wall and
the axle when the miller’s wife draws back the bolt which holds
the wheel; this begins to move, and before it has turned twice
the brigand is crushed as if by a pestle in a mortar. Meanwhile
Pulcinella has completed his hole in the ceiling and is about
to drop through into the chamber below when the miller arrives
with a detachment of carabineers. Pulcinella does not lose
courage. As these ascend the staircase leading to the chamber
in which he is locked, he jumps down through the hole in the
ceiling, escapes by another staircase, and climbs on to the
roof of the house.
The remainder of the piece is merely a sort of burlesque
divertissement, in which we see the miller’s wife, the
soldiers and the peasants pursuing Pulcinella, who displays
his address and performs all sorts of _tours de force_. We
see him, for instance, taking the place of the vane, and
turning this way and that in the wind; but in the instant in
which the carabineers are aiming at this extremely unmetallic
vane, he leaps to the roof, and from the roof to the gardens,
and thrusts himself into a corner, where he pretends to be a
pillar. A soldier climbs upon this pillar to look through a
window; the pillar comes to life and takes to its heels; then
Pulcinella slips under a winnowing basket, and attempts to
reach the wood, crawling like a tortoise. In the end he is
taken and conducted to Nicastro to be hanged. The history of
his hanging is well known. Pulcinella permits himself calmly
to be led to the scaffold, but when the rope is ready he plays
all sorts of tricks upon the hangman; he feigns stupidity and
pretends not to be able to find the noose. “You fool!” cries
the impatient hangman. “Look! It is thus that the noose is
adjusted.” And he slips his own head through it. Pulcinella
seizes this favourable moment, takes hold of the rope, and
strangles the hangman, crying to him: “How now? Am I still a
fool?”
In _Le Ruine di Pompeia_, Pulcinella, who is in love with the
daughter of one of the custodians of the place, has attached
himself to a group of foreign visitors, whom he amuses with
his sallies, and at whose expense he regales himself, stealing
the best bits of their dinner, and for ever juggling away the
coin which they place in the custodian’s hand. The visitors end
by seeing through his game, are displeased with it, and seek
to seize him by the collar. Pulcinella grows angry; he raises
his voice indignantly to protest that anyone should suspect
an honourable man such as he, a person of his importance. He
pretends to be, by turns, an English lord and a French officer.
Soon, however, being convicted of imposture, and closely
pressed, he plies his cudgel, takes to flight through the
ruins, and suddenly disappears at the very moment in which his
pursuers believe they have captured him. He is found at last in
one of the newly discovered caves, lying amid a litter of empty
amphoræ in company with the custodian’s daughter. Everything is
arranged, and the piece concludes with a marriage which appears
to be extremely necessary.
The characters taking part in these pieces of an entirely national type
are, in addition to Pulcinella and Scaramouche, the peasant, the Roman
woman and the soldier.
Polliciniella, as he is called in the Neapolitan dialect, wears a sort
of short and very ample blouse, with or without girdle, the sleeves of
which are gathered at the wrist as are the trousers at the ankle; his
white shoes are strongly soled. He wears no collar; his black half-mask
is beardless, and his hat is a rimless grey or white felt in the shape
of a sugar-cone. On certain occasions when it is necessary for him to
dress up a little, he changes his felt hat for another of white cambric
like his coat, as high and as singular in shape, but adorned with
rose-coloured ribbons. His black half-mask has a large aquiline nose,
embellished by a wart, and its cheeks are profoundly wrinkled to announce
that Polliciniella was not born yesterday.
The spirit of this Polliciniella differs greatly from that of the
French Polichinelle and the English Punch. He is a buffoon, a mocker
and a jester, but not wicked. He represents the type of the Neapolitan
bourgeois in its natural grossness but instinct with that biting spirit
of which the Abbé Galiani is a refined type. He is slow in his movements
(all famous Pulcinelle are very sparing of gesture), his air is foolish,
but his wit is ready money, particularly in the asides which he always
addresses directly to the public.
Although to be seen in various theatres in Naples, Pulcinella’s special
stage was that of the San Carlino, whither he would attract twice daily
an audience drawn from all ranks of society. The San Carlino had a famous
troupe, chiefly composed of masks of unalterable national types. Here,
from the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards, several actors
created great reputations, such as Celesi Balli and Tomaso Fabioni in
1800, Lucio Bebio in 1803, Camerano in 1805, etc. One famous Pulcinella
was applauded there throughout five and twenty years. After having
been one of the most brilliant cavalry captains of King Murat, after
having accompanied him upon several great and victorious campaigns,
after having been decorated by the Emperor Napoleon, when the Bourbons
returned to Naples, he donned—either out of necessity or caprice—the
coat of Pulcinella, and in this amassed a very handsome fortune. He
was the idol not only of all Neapolitans but of all who understood
the dialect. Restrained in his movements, cold, sluggish, full of
awkwardness, speaking as little as possible, but seeing to it that the
few words he uttered bore the imprint of the liveliest and most biting
wit, he contrived, notwithstanding the mask which covered the half of
his countenance, a miraculously expressive physiognomy. One of the
buffooneries which he repeated frequently, especially during carnival
(because in this season Polliciniella is forbidden to wear either mask
or costume) was to eat mountains of macaroni, of which the character is
traditionally very fond, out of an enormous _cantaro_. You might see him
drawing forth these long macaroni and causing them to descend into his
mouth from the full height of his arm, to the peals of laughter of his
audience.
Speaking of Pulcinella, M. Charles Magnin says:
“The Pulcinella of Naples, a tall fellow, as straight as anyone
else, noisy, alert, sensual, with his great hooked nose and
black half-mask, his pyramidal grey bonnet, his white camisole,
his wide white pantaloons, gathered and girt about his waist by
a rope from which hangs a little bell, may well bring to mind
the _Mimus Albus_, and the still more remote Maccus; but, with
the exception of his beak-like nose and his bird-like name,
he has no connection with, nor does he resemble, our French
Polichinelle. For one trait of resemblance that is perceptible
ten contrasting ones may be pointed out.”
iii
“Polichinelle,” says M. Charles Magnin, “such as we have made
or adapted him, represents in the highest degree Gallic humour
and physiognomy. I might even say that under the compulsory
obligation of a loyal caricature, Polichinelle permits us
to perceive the popular type, I dare not say of Henry IV.,
but at least of the Gascon officer, imitating his gait in
the guard-rooms of the castle of Saint-Germain or of the old
Louvre. As for the hump, Guillaume Bouchet reminds us that
from time immemorial it has been the appendage of the jester
_ès farces_ of France. In the thirteenth century Adam de la
Halle was called _the hunchback of Arras_, not because he was a
hunchback, but on account of his mocking spirit:
“On m’appelle bochu, mais je ne le suis mie.”
As for the second hump, it brings to mind the bright and
bulging cuirass of the soldier, and the pigeon breasts so
much the fashion in that time which imitate the curve of the
cuirass. Even the hat of Polichinelle (I do not refer to his
modern _tricorne_, but to the felt with turned-up rim which
he wore in the seventeenth century) was the headdress of the
cavaliers of the time, the hat _à la Henri IV._ Lastly there is
even in certain characteristic features, even in the jovial,
daring, amorous humour of a good soldier, something that
reminds me of the qualities and short-comings of the Béarnais.
In short, notwithstanding his Neapolitan name, Polichinelle
seems to me to be a type entirely French, and one of the most
spontaneous and vivacious creations of Gallic fantasy.”
It was in 1630, they say, that Polichinelle passed from the trestles to
the marionette theatre. But in any case it is quite certain that in 1649
Polichinelle had his theatre on the left bank of the Seine, at the house
of one Brioché or Briocci.
“I am Polichinelle
Who stand as sentinel
Before the Gate of Nesle.”
“A tradition which still survives,” says M. Charles Magnin, the learned
historiographer of Polichinelle, “and which the true children of Paris,
of Chartres and of Orléans transmit from one to another, has preserved
for us the air and the couplets of the famous song of Polichinelle:
“‘Je suis le fameux Mignolet,
Général des Espagnolets.
Quand je marche, la terre tremble:
C’est moi qui conduis le soleil,
Et je ne crois pas qu’en ce monde
On puisse trouver mon pareil.
“‘Les murailles de mon palais
Sont bâties des os des Anglais;
Toutes mes salles sont dallées
De têtes de sergents d’armées
Que dans les combats j’ai tués.
“‘Je veux, avant qu’il soit minuit,
A moi tout seul prendre Paris.
Par-dessus les tours Notre-Dame,
La Seine je ferai passer;
Des langues des filles, des femmes,
Saint-Omer je ferai paver....’
“This song places Polichinelle as belonging to the reign of Henry IV. and
the epoch of our long quarrels with Spain.”
The real home of Polichinelle was in the fairs of Saint-Germain and
Saint-Laurent, at Bertrand and at Francisque, where for over a century
he jested, making a mock of all people and all things; but many of his
wickednesses were forgiven him on account of his shape and his wooden
person.
In 1721, when the Théâtre-Français caused the theatres of the fairs
to be closed, Polichinelle laughed and mocked more thoroughly than
ever. In the following year Polichinelle covered again with his cudgel
a vengeance which Lesage, Fuzelier and d’Orneval set themselves to
extract from the united theatres of the Opéra, the Comédie-Française
and Comédie-Italienne. They came to an understanding with Laplace,
who managed a marionette theatre, and they gave him three unpublished
comic operas which attracted all Paris, and emptied the royal theatres.
Polichinelle sang and mocked still more loudly. Our three associates
had hung out a sign upon which was a life-sized Polichinelle with this
legend: “I am worth many another” (_J’en valons bien d’autres_).
The number of actors who have played Polichinelle is incredible. Among
the pieces which had most success we may mention: _Polichinelle Grand
Turc_; _Polichinelle Colin-Maillard_; _La Noce de Polichinelle et
L’Accouchement de sa Femme_; _Les Amours de Polichinelle_; _Polichinelle
Magicien_; _Polichinelle à la Guinguette de Vaugirard_; _Polichinelle
Maçon_; _Polichinelle Don Quichette_; _Polichinelle Gros-Jean_, etc.
In 1793 the _Vieux Cordelier_ exclaims:
“This egotistical multitude is made blindly to follow the
impulse of the stronger.... Alongside of the blade of the
guillotine, under which crowned heads are falling and in the
same place and at the same time, Polichinelle also is being
guillotined, thus earning the attention of the avid mob.”
But, after the 10th of Thermidor, Polichinelle took his revenge upon the
executioner and upon the devil himself. He began again to beat and hang
the pair of them as before and from the same rope.
In 1819, Arnault, speaking of the rôle of Polichinelle played at the
Opéra by Ely and at the Porte Saint-Martin by Mazurier, wrote:
“He is an important character; he is the man of the day.
During his quarter of an hour no one will dispute with him
his public favour unless it is himself; for Polichinelle is
double, as was Amphitryon in other days, and like that hero he
combats also against himself, to the great satisfaction of the
public. When one thinks of all the qualities that a perfect
Polichinelle must unite in himself, it is difficult too greatly
to congratulate the century which produced in duplicate such a
model. In the matter of deformity Polichinelle should be what
Apollo is in the matter of perfection. Humped, in front and
behind, perched upon legs like a heron’s, equipped with the
arms of an ape, he must move with that nerveless stiffness,
with that suppleness without springs which characterises the
steps of a body deprived of the principle of movement, whose
limbs, set in action by a cord, are attached to the trunk not
by articulations but by rags. The aim of the actor in this rôle
is to imitate the machine with the greatest fidelity which, in
another rôle, this machine would employ to imitate the man.
It is in this that the Polichinelle of the Porte Saint-Martin
(Mazurier) is marvellously successful. There is nothing human
about him; from the nature of his movements and his tumbles
one cannot believe him to be flesh and bones; he seems of
cotton-wool and cardboard. His countenance is truly wooden, and
such is the illusion that he creates that children take him
for a grown-up marionette, and perhaps they are right.”
Speaking of Ely, at the Opéra, he says:
“What is there more clever than his gestures and his
attitudes, whether when leaning against one of the wings he
seems suspended from it rather than supported by it, or when
collapsing upon himself he appears to have been abandoned
by the hand which sustained him, or the nail from which he
hung? It is truly sublime. Polichinelle has been accorded the
honours of lithography. One may inscribe according to one’s
predilection for one or the other of these virtuosi the name
either of Mazurier or of Ely.”
Towards the middle of the nineteenth century M. Champfleury presented
several very original pantomimes at the theatre of the Funambules. He
sought to restore to light the character of Polichinelle, and in his
scenarii he gave him something more to do than perpetually to break
himself. He sought to rejuvenate the personage; but the ancient tradition
was already lost, and Vauthier, who was an admirably wooden Polichinelle,
could render only that with which he was acquainted—namely, the
traditions of Mazurier and Ely.
“O Polichinelle,” exclaims M. Charles Nodier, “original
and capricious fetish of children! grotesque Achilles of
the people! modest and powerful Roscius of the highways!
inappreciable philosopher of the unfortunate ages which did not
know Shakespeare!
“O Polichinelle, animated simulacrum of natural man given over
to his naïve and ingenuous instincts! eternal type of truth of
which the indolent centuries were slow to seize the deformed
but witty and agreeable outline! O Polichinelle, whose original
theme so often enchanted the leisures of Bayle and revived more
than once the indolence of La Fontaine!
“O Polichinelle, inexhaustible orator, imperturbable
philosopher, intrepid and vigorous logician, mighty practical
moralist, infallible theologist, able and unerring politician!
“O Polichinelle, thou whose wooden head contains essentially in
its compact and inorganic mass all the knowledge and all the
common sense of the moderns!”
“Should we not be well-advised to reawaken Polichinelle?” asks M. Ch.
Magnin. “... Above all do not suggest that he is dead. Polichinelle never
dies. Do you doubt it? You cannot know, then, what Polichinelle is. He
is the good sense of the people, he is the alert sally, he is laughter
irrepressible. Yes, Polichinelle shall laugh and sing and whistle as long
as there are vices, follies and eccentricities in the world. You see then
that Polichinelle is very far from being dead. Polichinelle is immortal.”
iv
It was in 1688, after the Stuarts, that Polichinelle passed into England.
His English name of PUNCH is clearly derived from Punchinello, for in
the early days of his installation in London he was called indifferently
Punchinello and Punch. There, as in Paris, Punch became the king of the
marionettes. This Neapolitan, after having been French, became, when he
naturalised himself English, a difficult fellow to manage, of a mocking
ferocity, which is still to-day the basis of his character.
M. Charles Magnin says that “Punch, according to the definition of Mr
Payne, is the Don Juan of the populace.” The most ancient text in which
this able critic finds mention of the adventures of Punch and Judy is a
ballad thought to be no older than 1790.
v
The German Polichinelle, HANSWURST (Jack Sausage), is, in the matter
of character and wit, a mixture of Pulcinella and Harlequin, though
resembling neither in costume. In the tenth century Hanswurst’s exterior
resembled that of the Neapolitan Pulcinella of the time, whilst, however,
being very much fatter.
“He is,” says M. Magnin, “a sort of _Franca-Trippa_. In the
last two centuries the physical and moral type of Hanswurst
has changed but little. This buffoon, according to Lessing,
possesses two characteristic qualities. He is doltish and
voracious, but of a voracity which profits him, so that he is
in very different case from Harlequin, whose greediness profits
him nothing and who in spite of it remains always light,
svelte and nimble. In Holland, Hanswurst has for a long time
now been no better than a clown: he thumps the drum at the
door of the booth, and invites the crowd to enter. As actor
and as marionette he has been supplanted by Hans Pickelharing
(Jack Pickled Herring), and more recently by Jan-Klaassen.
This latter, who has become the hero of the Dutch marionette
theatre, has appropriated, not without success, the turbulent
and jovially rascally habits of the English Punch and the
Parisian Polichinelle. In Germany Hanswurst has had several
rivals. He has been compelled to give way more than once to
Harlequin, to Polichinelle and to Pickelharing.”
In the eighteenth century this character was played in the German
improvising troupes by Prehauser, who made of him a sort of lackey having
some points of resemblance with Brighella. But the improvisation theatre
of Vienna having been forced to give way to the classical theatre,
Hanswurst was supplanted by Casperle, the joyous Austrian peasant.
vi
In Rome the inhabitants of Trastevere possessed two types which are
certainly of the family of Polichinelle—types which nevertheless have
aged a little: they are Meo-Patacca and his faithful companion Marco-Pepe.
MEO-PATACCA is a native of Trastevere. He claims descent like Pulcinella
from Maccus, in which very possibly he is justified. Like Maccus he is
witty and insolent, and no better able to suffer contradiction, his most
persuasive argument lying in his cudgel. He begins by striking, and
having felled his man to earth he then proceeds to explanations with him.
He has a bright and lively eye, a tanned skin, a profile exaggerating
the ancient Roman type. He is the personification of the inhabitant of
Trastevere, the descendant of Nero or of Maccus, whose blood has been
slightly mingled in the course of time. He speaks the Roman dialect, and
never utters a sentence without repeating its most energetic word, thus:
“I want you to do so-and-so—I want it.”
“He swallows,” says M. Mercey in his _Théâtre en Italie_, “all
the final syllables of his infinitives. He says _sape_ for
_sapere_, and _fa_ for _fare_; or else he replaces the last
syllables of these words by the particle _ne_, which he uses
on all occasions; he thus says _fane_ for _fare_, _sapene_ for
_sapere_, _chine_ for _chi_, _quine_ for _qui_. It also pleases
him to transpose his _l_s and _r_s; thus when he speaks of his
glory he does not say _gloria_ but _grolia_, etc.”
Giuseppe Berneri has written an entire poem of twelve cantos, in the
popular dialect of Rome, on the subject of Meo-Patacca, and this poem,
printed in Rome in 1685, would perhaps have fallen into oblivion if
Bartolomeo Pinelli, the Roman draughtsman, had not happened to illustrate
it in 1823.
Berneri’s poem begins as follows:—“I sing the glory of the bravest young
Roman plebeians, the most redoubtable of all the chiefs of their band”
(“_Il capo-truppa della gente sgherra_”)—which is to say, the chief of
the quarrelsome, brawling and more or less assassin troupe.
Meo-Patacca is irritated by the audacity of “these infamous sons of
dogs of Turks” who dare to besiege the Christian city of Vienna. He
conceives the project of going to its deliverance, and halting before
the statue of Mark Antony, “whose hand is raised in sign of triumph,” he
considers it and says: “Who knows but that one day you will see another
statue standing here? Who knows but that a man whom I call _I_ will not
show himself worthy of the honour?” His companions to the number of
ten, who follow as sheep follow their leader, admire him and already
bow down before him. He leads them thus through the ruins of ancient
Rome, and fires their courage by war-like speech. To drive out the Turk
all that he will need, he says, is a company of five hundred young
Trasteverins, well armed with arquebuses, pikes, hangers and slings. He
would continue to talk to them, but that the company, weary of saying
nothing, interrupts his harangues with _Viva Meo-Patacca! Viva!_ rendered
in tones that might disturb the ashes of the ancient Romans of the Campo
Vaccino. Amid the acclamations of the mob, he is carried in triumph to
his lodgings.
At the beginning of the second canto, all these heroes are ready to set
out. It is the hour at which the grocers, the fruit-sellers and other
victuallers, set up upon poles their linen sun-blinds before their
shops so as to protect them from the heat which, to the profit of the
iced-water sellers, becomes intolerable. It is noon, and Meo-Patacca is
surrounded by a crowd of women who loudly give tongue to their despair.
They are the more or less legitimate wives of the heroes who are about
to follow Patacca. After several speeches he comes triumphant out of
this contest, which he considers the most severe he was ever engaged in.
Nothing now can arrest his valiant arm. They are about to set out when
the news arrives of the deliverance of Vienna by Sobieski. Meo-Patacca
is by no means sure that he has not had something to do with the rout of
the Turks. He convokes his followers and they deliver themselves to great
rejoicings. During this they learn that Bude has been taken by assault by
the Christians and that the Jews have united with the Turks to repel the
attack. “Vengeance! Vengeance upon the Jews!” This phrase, flung into the
middle of the mob, is soon no less than a battle-cry and the entire army
of Patacca hurls itself upon the _ghetto_, which it attacks and pillages
to the greater honour and glory of God.
It is in the theatre of Palla-Corda, says M. Mercey, that Meo-Patacca,
an epic rather than a dramatic hero, figures in a number of little dramas
_à coups de bâton_.
“But he is no longer quite the malicious fellow of other days.
The bravo has changed his costume, his character and his
estate. Instead of the _fungo_, the waistcoat and the velvet
breeches, with their two lines of silver buttons, he is in foul
rags, and occupies, by his patched costume, a middle place
between Brighella and Polichinelle.”
During his sojourn in Rome in 1740, the Président de Brosses wrote:
“All the troupes of comedians which I have seen in this country
are at least as good as those of Paris. They include characters
which we have not; such as Brighella, the first _Zanni_, who
takes the place of Harlequin and wears his mask but with a
different costume; for second _Zanni_ they have a sort of
ragged Polichinelle, very different from our own, and rather
resembling the ancient Pierrot. You could not feel resentment
towards him if you saw him in the middle of a synagogue,
borrowing money from Jews, who, after having subjected him to a
damnable usury, demand of him in addition that he shall become
a Jew. It is then that he loses his temper, and with the great
cudgel, with which he is armed, belabours them again and again.
In a word, they make one laugh. They are excellent comedians
playing in wretched comedies.”
From the drawings of Pinelli, it is seen that the costumes of Meo-Patacca
and Marco-Pepe are very similar. The hair is gathered into a sort of
cloth bag; the neck is naked, although they wear upon their shoulders
a sort of scarf which serves for ornament and which is tied in a large
rosette upon the breast. A broad girdle once carried a dagger, but
weapons having been forbidden, this is now replaced by a stout cudgel.
The sleeved waistcoat is buttoned at the side. The breeches are open
at the knee as in the time of Berneri; but the garters seem to us more
modern as well as the shoes with their steel buckles, which Meo-Patacca
can never have worn in the seventeenth century. He wears also the
wide-brimmed _fungo_ and the mantle.
Pinelli certainly found his types among his friends and compatriots of
Trastevere, and Meo-Patacca in the dress we have described has the air
rather of a bravo than of a Pulcinella in rags, such as he was but a few
years earlier.
vii
In the poem of Berneri, MARCO-PEPE is the only one who dares to stand
before the face of Meo-Patacca. He plays the rôle of traitor. Meo-Patacca
provokes him; they fight; but from the combat Marco-Pepe gets nothing but
dishonour.
In the dramas of Palla Corda, Marco-Pepe is the friend and the
sympathiser of Meo-Patacca. He seeks to imitate his hero, who walks
behind him, for Marco-Pepe is a boaster, a brawling, boisterous fellow,
whom one would suppose capable of swallowing everything; his air is very
much more terrible than that of his companion; his voice is very much
louder; but if Meo-Patacca becomes angry, or merely clenches his fist,
Marco-Pepe disappears as if by enchantment. Meo-Patacca fears nothing;
Marco-Pepe fears everything.
These types were still to be seen in Rome in the Emilian Theatre (Triato
Mijani) in the middle of the nineteenth century. Tacconi, a hunchback,
leader of the troupe, performed one day in the dialect of the hills,
another in the dialect of Trastevere, the pieces of which he was always
the author. The dramas or heroic pieces, such as _Hero e Leandro_,
_Francesca da Rimini_, _Giulietta e Romeo_, were all arranged by him and
adapted to the taste of the public.
In _Giulietta e Romeo_, for instance, we find Romeo, dressed after the
fashion of Meo-Patacca, wearing a plumed hat, and trailing a great
cavalry sabre, replying as follows to Juliette, who has reproached him in
no very choice terms with the death of her cousin-german:
“Silence, child, I will make you understand. Know that
yesterday, as I was leaving you at the foot of the staircase, I
lighted a cigar. At the corner of the street I heard this foul
word: ‘You are smoking it, you ugly carrion!’ (_Te la fumi,
brutta carogna_). Having received this insult, I returned at
once, I drew my sabre, and ... but you know the rest, etc.”
viii
The Neapolitans have a very popular type which they name IL GUAPO and IL
SITONNO (the lad). He represents the popular bully. He is dressed like a
Neapolitan of the lower classes, still to be found in certain quarters of
the town: a round, wide waistcoat, of cinnamon-coloured cotton velvet,
a sort of cap over one ear, light coloured breeches with a red belt
round the waist; he carries a long stick, and struts in an insolent and
provocative fashion; he speaks of nothing but blows, be they of knife,
stick, stone or carbine, and he uses an emphasis full of menacing
reticences. Nevertheless, although he is not entirely a coward, his
deeds correspond but little with his words and, more often than not, his
threats and quarrels terminate, not in the shedding of blood, but in the
shedding of wine in the nearest tavern.
In the Piovana of Angelo Beolco (Ruzzante), 1530, an amorous young
peasant bears the name of Siton. That beyond doubt is the primitive type
of _Sitonno_, who again is a type of peasant, but one who has become
suburban and denaturalised.
“I can find no difference between a lover and a young calf, to
which the herdsman, to amuse himself, shall have bandaged the
eyes and thrust a thorn into its tail, so that it runs hither
and thither without knowing where it is or whither it is going.
I am the calf; love is the herdsman, the thorn is the sorrow
which I have in my heart, and the bandage over the eyes is my
bewilderment. I do not know whither I am going, for I am not
where I am. I am here and my heart and soul are with Nina.”
ix
In Bologna the marionette theatres have yet another type which
personifies the _facchini_, the young men of the lower class of the town;
this BIRRICHINO, according to the annotations of the poem of _Bertoldo
Bertoldino e Cacasenno_, is derived from a certain idle and mendicant
class, which lives by petty thefts and trickeries, exercising in Bologna
a still uglier trade. The word is probably derived from _buricus_ of
the Latins, or _borrico_ (donkey) of the Spaniards, because, like the
gypsies, they follow the trade of horse-dealers, mule-shavers and
kindred employments.
Birrichino is mocking, jocund and addicted to practical jokes; he never
fails to thrust out his leg at the police officer when the latter enters
the stage. He is an elusive, agile and lively being, gifted with a pair
of legs which would win a coursing prize from a hare. He is never a
thief. If he ever abstracts anything it is not that he may profit by
it—it is a joke which he plays upon an enemy to discompose him, and
compel him to hunt for the missing thing, for Birrichino always ends by
restoring it. He is dressed after the fashion of the people of Bologna.
It is questionable whether he may be included among the varieties of
Polichinelle.
III
THE CAPTAIN
“_Diga usted!_ Do you know me? No? You do not know me? Head and Belly!
Blood and fire! I am who I am! Italy trembles at the name of Captain
Spavento! Spain reverences me under the name of Matamoros, and I terrify
France, when I will, under the name of Fracasse—for I can assure you I am
a most redoubtable man. All love me and all fear me, in peace as in war.
I think no more of chewing up a prince than an onion.”
This Captain, with his tiger-cat moustachios, his colossal ruff and his
plumed hat, audacious without courage and ostentatious without generosity
was born, according to some, on the banks of the Guadalquivir, according
to others, on the banks of the Garonne. But he is older than he seems.
What should he have done on the banks of either of these rivers in times
when they were still inhabited by savage tribes? It was in Athens and
in Rome under the Cæsars that he first saw the light. Ever since those
days it has been his claim to put whole armies to rout by a stroke of his
sword; with a glance he will demolish walls, with a breath overthrow the
Alps or the Pyrenees.
He drove the goddesses mad with love of him, and betrayed Mars himself.
He has changed his shape in the course of centuries, but not his nature.
He is always the same boaster, so mendacious that he imposes even upon
himself.
PYRGOPOLINICES. Let it be seen to that my shield is brighter
than is ordinarily the sun in fine weather, so that when I use
it in battle, by opposing it to the enemies I shall dazzle and
blind them. I burn with desire to comfort this poor sword; she
complains that she is downcast at having so long been idle, she
who is consumed with impatience to hack the enemy into pieces.
But where then is Artotrogus?
ARTOTROGUS (_a parasite_). Here he is: he has the honour to
attach himself to a man who is as mighty as he is happy, a man
of royal beauty and heroic valour. Not even the god Mars would
dare to draw a parallel between himself and you, or to compare
with yours his war-like qualities.
PYRGOPOLINICES. Do you refer to that fellow whom I disdained
to overthrow on the field of Gorgonidonia, where Bumbomachides
Clytomestoridysarchides, the grandson of Neptune, was the chief
commander of the forces?
ARTOTROGUS. I remember the occasion perfectly. You refer to
that general whose troops, so remarkable for their gilded
armour, you scattered by a single breath from your lips;
you scattered them, I say, as the wind scatters leaves and
thistle-down.
PYRGOPOLINICES. By the temple of Pollux! that was a trifle....
ARTOTROGUS. By Pollux! I remember how by a single blow of the
fist you broke in two the arm of an elephant in India.
PYRGOPOLINICES. How? The arm?
ARTOTROGUS. No, no: I mean the thigh.
PYRGOPOLINICES. And yet I struck it but lightly. Do you
remember nothing else?
ARTOTROGUS. If I remember! There were a hundred and fifty men
in Cilicia; a hundred Cryphiolathronians; thirty Sards and
sixty Macedonians, of all of whom you disencumbered the earth
in a single day.
PYRGOPOLINICES. What is the sum total of all those men?
ARTOTROGUS. Seven thousand at least.
PYRGOPOLINICES. Exactly! I see that you are quick and accurate
at figures. As long as you compute me such a number of men
killed by my hand you shall never lack for food, and you shall
always share my table.
ARTOTROGUS. What should I say of Cappadocia had not the edge
of your sword become blunt after you had sliced off the heads
of five hundred men! But it was no more than a remainder of
infantry! Is it necessary that I should repeat to you what is
on the lips of all humanity? There is not, say all mortals, in
the whole world but one Pyrgopolinices, who excels in valour,
in beauty, in great actions and in heroism. All women love you;
and not without reason, faith, since you are of a dazzling
beauty; you should have seen the number of ladies who but
yesterday plucked at my cloak to question me concerning you.
PYRGOPOLINICES. What was it that they said? Tell me all. It
will give me pleasure.
ARTOTROGUS. One inquired: “Is not that perchance Achilles?”
“No,” I answered; “it is his brother.” Another ejaculated:
“How beautiful he is, how shapely and how gracious! Happy the
women who enjoy the honour of his choice. Assuredly it were
impossible to be too envious of their lot.”
PYRGOPOLINICES. Really now, did they say that?
ARTOTROGUS. Two amongst them implored me to see to it that you
should pass their door to-day, as if the mere sight of you were
as good as a whole procession, or an enchanted spectacle.
PYRGOPOLINICES. Confess now that an excess of beauty may often
cause chagrin and embarrassment.... I think it is time that
we repaired to the Forum to pay the soldiers whom yesterday I
enrolled. For you are to know that King Seleucus has begged
me instantly to raise an army for him, such high confidence
does he place in my knowledge and judgment. I have therefore
resolved to render to-day this good office to my friend the
king.
ARTOTROGUS. Since that is so, let us go.
PYRGOPOLINICES. Follow me, lackeys; and above all let it
be seen that you belong to me.... I may boast myself the
favourite of Venus. Who knows but that the goddess herself may
be enamoured of me?...
MILPHIDIPPA (_a waiting maid_). My Lord Beautiful, I greet you
very humbly.
PYRGOPOLINICES. Who told you my surname? May the gods love you,
my child, and may they give you what your heart desires!... I
do not for a moment doubt but that the girl is in love with me
herself.
MILPHIDIPPA. All my wish is to spend my life with you, sir.
PYRGOPOLINICES. You aspire too high! Your pretensions go too
far.
MILPHIDIPPA. It is not for myself that I speak; it could not
please the gods that I should be so daring. I speak for my
mistress, who is dying of love for you.
PYRGOPOLINICES. There are many others besides her who desire
the same happiness and may not attain to it. But who is your
mistress? For I am pestered by such a number of women that I
cannot remember them all.... Speak out, then. Tell me what you
want, little love-messenger.
MILPHIDIPPA. Ah! my famous Achilles, lend an ear to my
prayer; grant what I ask of you; generously save a loving
and a beautiful woman. Draw upon your heroic heart for some
sentiments of softness, of tenderness and of compassion. Do
that, O great demolisher of cities, illustrious slayer of kings.
PYRGOPOLINICES. By Hercules, this becomes tiresome and
importunate. (_To his lackey._) How often have I forbidden you
to promise thus easily and commonly my services to ladies?
PALÆSTRIO (_lackey_). None but brave warriors are born of the
woman whom he honours with his love; and his children live at
least eight hundred years.
MILPHIDIPPA. Misfortune catch thee, fool and mocker!
PYRGOPOLINICES. He is not mocking you. My children live a
thousand years by computations made from the first century to
the last.
PALÆSTRIO. I was afraid to state their number lest this
child should have thought that I was indulging in a gross and
impudent falsehood.
PYRGOPOLINICES. Do you know, child, that I was born on the
morrow of that memorable day on which the goddess Ops gave
birth to Jupiter?
PALÆSTRIO. That is the fact, and if the lord my master had
arrived but one day earlier, the empire of the heavens would
have been his.
After all his boast and brag of his exploits he is seized by the
scullions of Periplectomene, receives from them an ignominious
correction, and departs beaten, yet satisfied.
PERIPLECOMENUS (_to his lackeys_). Bring him away; if he won’t
follow you carry him. Bear him between heaven and earth, or
else tear him into pieces, cut him into shreds.
PYRGOPOLINICES. Oh! my Lord Periplecomenus, I implore you in
the name of Hercules!
PERIPLECOMENUS. There is no Hercules to help you; your prayer
is useless. See, Cario, if your knife is sharp.
PYRGOPOLINICES. I am lost, I am dead!
CARIO (_a scullion_). Not yet, you say that too soon! (_To
his master._) Shall I get to work, sir? Shall I commence the
operation?
PERIPLECOMENUS. No, first I want him beaten back and front.
CARIO. I will set my hand to it with the best will. (_He
strikes._)
PYRGOPOLINICES. Mercy! mercy, I implore you! you have beaten me
enough.
CARIO (_to his master_). Shall I cut? Shall I carve? Shall I
set my knife to the business?
PYRGOPOLINICES. My lord, before he does so, before he opens my
belly, have compassion to hear me....
CARIO. It would be best to let him experience another shower of
blows and then show him the door and give him his dismissal.
PYRGOPOLINICES. May the gods bless you, who plead so well in my
favour! In truth this cudgelling has entirely softened me; I am
metamorphosed into a lamb; let me go, I implore you.
PERIPLECOMENUS. Unbind him.
PYRGOPOLINICES. I am most deeply indebted! I thank you with all
my heart.
(_The Braggart Captain. PLAUTUS._)
The modern Captain’s utterances are very similar:
“To-day some lackeys, finding me alone, belaboured me with
cudgels—an affront which put me in such a passion that I
devoured the walls of a bastion. At last, swollen with
vexation, rancour, rage and fury, I broke Fortune on the wheel,
scourged Hazard and burned Misfortune.”
You see him strutting in the sun along the flagstones of a palace, his
nose in the air, his eye on the trail of roast meat, his hand on his
terrible rapier, dangerous only to the eyes of those who follow him.
To see him bestride the ground you would suppose that the whole earth
belongs to him; that if he wished he could overthrow the buildings by a
flick. But he is magnanimous. How many insults and canings has he not
permitted to fall into oblivion?
It is night! Who goes there? A rival beyond doubt. The Captain will
fell him with a glance. No! He despises him too much; he does not
consider it worth while; the man is but a simple mortal after all! If
it were Jupiter now! We should see fine things. Not one but two men are
approaching, and their gait is peculiar. Let him withdraw; it is the more
generous behaviour towards these poor fellows who might die of terror
at the simple sight of him. “Thus I save their lives,” adds our hero,
stretching out his long legs until they look like a pair of compasses and
accelerating his walk until it almost becomes a flight.
But at the corner of the street a shower of cudgel blows falls suddenly
upon the shoulders of this demi-god. He is knocked down; rogues and
vagabonds hasten to strip him of his riches. The famous coat of mail,
fashioned out of the gold rings which his many mistresses have compelled
him to accept, might have tempted these poor rascals; but, alas! under
his slashed doublet, which they disdain, not so much as a shirt do they
find. “We are robbed!” says one of the miscreants to his companions, and
they vanish, despising their victim.
Hearing no further sound the Captain opens first one eye and then the
other, raises his head, recognises that the danger is past, readjusts his
rapier and turns his steps to other hunting grounds.
“Ce capitan fait grand éclat:
Et sa valeur est si parfaite,
Qu’il est des derniers au combat,
Et des premiers à la retraite.”
“The Captain,” says M. Frédéric Mercey, “antedates the Spanish dominion;
we consider him the contemporary of all those formidable leaders of
Italian bands who distinguished themselves at Anghiari and in those
famous encounters in which a horse, by turning its head or its tail,
might suffice to bring about the loss or gain of a battle. It is
Macchiavelli who assures us of this.
“Under the new masters (_i.e._ the Spaniards) the Captain is transformed
into _Matamoros_; he jabbers in Castilian, assumes the stateliness of
Spain, and corrects as far as possible his poltroonery. Not a day passes
now on which he does not slay a Moor, confound a necromancer or seduce a
princess. His lackey’s garments are made from the material of the turbans
of the infidels whom he has decapitated.
“To-day, after having undergone a further transformation, he still loves
to entertain us with his prowess. One day, at the siege of Trébizonde,
he penetrated alone into the tent of the Sultan, and, seizing him by
the beard, he dragged him through the camp, whilst with his disengaged
hand, he held off his assailants and compelled the entire infidel army
to keep its distance. When he entered the city his cuirass bristled so
with arrows that he might have been mistaken for a hedgehog. The hedgehog
device on his coat of arms dates from that event....
“His gallantry equals his valour, and when beauty is the object of his
onslaught he has such marvellous means of conquest that he never finds
her unyielding. He overthrows towers, bursts through iron doors or, like
a Greek god, descends upon her in the form of a golden rain. Many of his
feats of gallantry have found imitators. Once, for instance, when he
galloped along the banks of the Garigliano in the company of the princess
Gilyme d’Apremont, she, being weary of his amorous insistence, said in
jest: ‘The fire that consumes my knight is very ardent then?’
“‘Cruel, can you doubt it?’
“‘Not at all, but I know a means of relieving you. Fling yourself into
the river.’
“‘Not all these waters could extinguish my flame.’
“‘That is but a gallant figure of speech; and I shall not believe it
until I see you issuing from those waves still consumed by the same love.’
“‘Is that so, beautiful princess?’ he cries, whereupon the intrepid lover
drives spurs into the flanks of his charger and leaps into the middle of
the river.
“He ran great risk of drowning, and it was only by abandoning his horse
that he was able to regain the shore with the water streaming from him,
but still devoured by the same fire. The princess kept her word and
rewarded so noble a devotion.
“Like the Captains his ancestors, Matamoros was magnificent in words,
but his purse was always empty and under his beautiful richly damascened
cuirass he wore but a frayed and tattered leather jerkin.”
[Illustration]
The tradition of the theatre informs us that this rôle of Matamoros made
the fortune of _L’Illusion Comique_.[3] The Captain’s formidable boasts
and his piteous discomfiture had a comic interest which can scarcely be
fully appreciated by us. Boastfulness reigned then in court and town, and
even in the Academy; it may almost be said that it had passed into French
manners. In witness to this may be cited the illustrious Scudéry, who
held his pen in one hand and his sword in the other whilst challenging
Corneille to single combat, so as to prove to him that _Le Cid_ was a
detestable tragedy; or again that admirable eccentric named Cyrano de
Bergerac. Cyrano at least was of no false courage; but if his valour
produced high deeds, in what an extraordinary mass of fanfaronading
gasconnades were they not served up. Corneille, to give words to his
character, needed no more than to translate into verse the prose of this
great duellist.
“It would be necessary, I think, sir, that God should
accomplish something as miraculous as the wish of Caligula if
he would make an end of my quarrels. If the entire human race
were assembled under a single head, or when but one should
remain of all living men, there would still be one duel left
for me. In truth it must be that your departure having made a
desert of Paris the grass is spreading in every street, since
wherever I go I find myself always on a lawn. Sometimes I
conceive that I am become a hedgehog; since no one may approach
me without being pricked. Had you not also noticed that there
is at present more shadow on the horizon than at the time of
your departure? It is because, since then, my hand has so
peopled hell that it regurgitates upon the earth.”
In the encounter in hell between Gaultier Garguille and Tabarin, Gaultier
Garguille says:
“If you were still in the other world you would split your
sides with laughter to see the proud folk of to-day who,
striding superbly hand on hip, like pots with handles,
moustachiously disdain all whom they meet, whilst their
fulminating swords are filling all graveyards; and, what is
still worse, by their eyes, glowering fiercely under a trailing
plume, they cause Jupiter to tremble until he is on the point
of abandoning to them his lightning and his eagle, that he may
have peace, and this notwithstanding that they inspire fear in
none but snails and flies and frogs.”
No type was so successful in Europe in the sixteenth century, and more
particularly at the beginning of the seventeenth, as that of the Captain,
both in improvised and in written comedy. In Italy, Spain, France and
England, the number of pieces in which the Captain, under very different
names, played the principal rôle was very considerable. Scarron wrote
round this character a sort of _tour de force_ in verse in one act and in
one rhyme—_ment_—entitled _Les Boutades du Capitan Matamore_, 1646:
MATAMORE
J’ai de l’amour infiniment
Pour un bel œil qui, puissamment,
Me trouble impérieusement;
Il demeure en ce logement,
Marchons-y délicatement.
Holà! sortez hâtivement,
Sinon, parbleu! robustement
J’écraserai le bâtiment.
ANGÉLIQUE
Hé! que frappe si rudement!
MATAMORE
C’est un faiseur d’égorgement.
The first Italian Captains date from the fifteenth century, and their
costumes have varied according to their epochs. At first they wore buff
jackets, a long sword, a steel helmet or morion, and they were always
masked. These masks were flesh-coloured, with a prominent nose and
terrific moustachios.
“The ancient Italian Captain,” says L. Riccoboni, “was
succeeded by the Spanish Captain, who dressed himself in the
fashion of his country. Little by little the Spanish Captain
overthrew the ancient Italian Captain. At the time of the
passage of Charles V. into Italy this character was introduced
into the French theatre. Its novelty earned it the suffrages
of the public; our Italian Captain was silenced and the
Spanish Captain remained master of the battlefield. It was his
character to be boastful; but he was destined in the end to
receive a cudgelling from Harlequin.”
In Italy and in France the Captains bear such Hispaniolised names as:
el Capitano Sangre y Fuego, el Capitano Cuerno de Cornazan, el Capitano
Escobombardon della Papirotonda, el Capitano Rodomonte, el Capitano
Parafante.
The Germans in the seventeenth century also had their Captain,
_Horribilicribrifax_, who was but a copy of the Milanese Captain
Spavento, the Castilian Matamoros, and the French Capitaine Fracasse.
In the sixteenth century the Capitan Spezza-Monti, known in France under
the name of Tranche-Montagne, “closed his eyes when fighting his enemies,
so as not to see their severed limbs as he sliced them off.”
Callot, in his _Petits Danseurs_, shows us some of these Italian Captains
of the sixteenth century; among others is the Capitan Taglia-Cantoni,
dressed in tight garments, wearing an enormously plumed hat, and shod in
cannon boots, adorned with lace on the inside. His Captain Zerbino is
distinguished by a triumphant panache and a mask adorned with spectacles.
His Captain Cerimonia is represented with one leg advanced, and his
hand on his rapier, so that, entirely thrusting up his cloak behind,
the point of it menaces heaven. He is extremely ceremonious as is
indicated by his name. Meeting Signora Lavinia (Diana Ponti), he seems
to be bending a soft glance upon her through his mask, and he is in the
act of doffing his slashed hat. The Captains Mala-Gamba and Bella-Vita,
both knock-kneed, are saluting each other with precaution and defiance.
They wear enormous ruffs and exaggerated garters on the outsides of their
boots. Their sleeves and breeches are slashed after the fashion of the
time of François I. The Captains Cardoni, Babeo Esgangarato, Cocodrillo
and Grillo, wear the costume of dancers.
ii
In the Italian troupe of the _Gelosi_ which went to France in 1577,
the rôles of Captain were played under the name of CAPITANO SPAVENTO
della Valle Inferna (Captain Terror of the Vale of Hell), by Francesco
Andreini, born at Pistoia, and already well known in Italy since 1558. He
played all known musical instruments, and spoke six languages—Italian,
French, Spanish, Slav, Greek and Turkish. He performed the parts of
Doctors and Captains equally well, and he created the character of the
Dottore Siciliano and that of a magician named Talcirone. On his return
to Florence in 1578 he met in this same troupe Isabella, who was then
sixteen years of age, and greatly admired for her beauty, her talents and
her virtue. Francesco Andreini fell in love with her and married her. In
the following year, 1579, Isabella, who was still in Florence, gave birth
to a son, Gian Battista Andreini, known later on under the name of Lelio,
and author of the _Teatro Celeste_ and _L’Adamo_. Andreini went again
to France in 1600, with the second troupe of _Gelosi_, still under the
direction of Flaminio Scala; but as the troupe was returning to Italy,
Isabella died suddenly at Lyons (1604). Sorrow-stricken and inconsolable,
Francesco Andreini quitted the theatre with his son; the latter, however,
went back to it in the capacity of director in the following year.
Andreini the elder never returned to the stage, nor concerned himself
further with his art save as an author. He produced, in 1607, _Le Bravure
del Capitano Spavento_, which was translated into French under the title
of _Bravacheries du Capitaine l’Epouvante_. Francesco Andreini was a
member of the Società degli Spensierati of Florence.
Whilst a comedian in the troupe of Flaminio Scala he was the author of
the preface of Scala’s book, which contains some fifty scenarii. His son,
Gian Battista Andreini, discharged the rôles of juvenile lovers under the
name of Lelio, as we shall see.
Francesco Andreini died in 1624.
Fabrizio de Fornaris, a gentleman of Naples, born in 1560, was renowned
for his comic spirit and his wit under the name of Capitan Cocodrillo.
He went to France with the troupe of the _Confidenti_ in 1584 and 1585.
He caused _La Fiammella_, a pastoral play by Bartolomeo Rossi, to be
performed by his comrades, and he published it in 1584. In the following
year he published a comedy of his own, entitled _Angelica_, which had
been performed impromptu, scoring considerable success, particularly at
the house of the Duke of Joyeuse, to whom it was dedicated. Fabrizio de
Fornaris returned to Italy, and died there in 1637.
In 1618, the charlatan Mondor, born at Milan, who performed his farces
on the trestles of the Place Dauphine with his associate Tabarin, played
the rôles of Captain in certain Tabarinic farces, under the name of
Rodomonte, an anagram upon his own name. As all the world knows, it
was Ariosto who first gave to the world the terrible Saracen Captain
Rodomonte.
RODOMONT. Cavaliers, musketeers, bombards, canons, morions,
corslets! Hither, comrades! I am Captain Rodomont, the bravery,
the valour of all the world; my sword has been triumphant
throughout the whole universe.
TABARIN. It is true, by my faith; there is none who can ply a
two-legged sword better than he.
RODOMONT. What are you doing in this house, Tabarin? What are
you doing, coward? I want to speak to you. Hither, coward!
Hither, pig! I want to kill you! Be dead![4]
Mondor was a man of handsome presence, who expressed himself extremely
well, and who had received a good education, as may be judged from the
lessons in science and philosophy which he delivered to his public in the
form of dialogues with his lackey Tabarin.
In the _Opuscules Tabariniques_ is the following passage:—
“Mondor is a kind of wit and a man of some letters, capable
if he should wish it of a more honourable vocation. He is
well-bred and courteous, removing his hat very gracefully and
with a gentle smile when he returns a handkerchief or a glove.”
In the troupe of the _Fedeli_, which came to Paris in 1621 and again
in 1624 under the direction of G. B. Andreini, the rôles of Captain
were played by Girolamo Gavarini, of Ferrara, known in the theatre as
_Capitano Rinoceronte_ (Captain Rhinoceros).
Niccolo Barbieri (Beltrame) relates in his _Supplica_ the death of this
comedian on the 2nd October 1624, and says that upon his body was found
“a very coarse hair-shirt, which occasions some surprise, for whilst we
were well aware that he was pious and devout, we had no suspicion that
he went to such lengths as this.” He adds that “people should not risk
inconsiderately to speak evil of comedians, remembering that frequently
there are very honourable men in their ranks and, better still, even
saints at times, such as Saint Genest, Saint Ardélion, Saint Sylvain and
San Giovanni Buono.”
Abraham Bosse performed the part of Matamoros from the beginning of the
seventeenth century, armed to the teeth, in slashed and tight-fitting
garments, and under a plumed hat of grey felt, similar to that worn by
Spavento.
iii
CAPTAIN SPEZZAFER wore at first the costume of a gentleman of the court
of Henry IV., a round, plumed hat, beard and moustachios, a heavy ruff
and doublet, and very wide breeches, in keeping with the mode of the
period. But in 1668 he modified the shape of his costume; and his manner
of wearing the sword, very high up and suspended from a wide leather
belt, gave him a certain similarity with Crispin of the French comedy.
The colours he affected, however, were very different. Whilst Crispin
is dressed from head to foot in black velvet, Spezzafer is arrayed in
heavy silk of a bright yellow; his garments are cut after the fashion
of those of soldiers of a few years earlier, under Louis XIII. He wears
moustachios and a grey cocked hat, surmounted by a feather.
Spezzafer, whose name was Giuseppe Bianchi, was first seen in Paris
in 1639, and again in 1645, with the troupe whose director he was and
whose principal actors were the following:—Barbançois (_Polichinelle_),
Bastona, Bonnetti, Caluci, Cialace (_Pantaloon_), Bonami (_dancer_),
Franchi, Grandini, Micael Lardi, Merli, Magni, Nardo, Nicoli, Pozzi,
Rinaldi, Usili; Mesdames Brigida Bianchi, Orsola Bianchi, Luigia Bianchi,
Gambelli, Marizini, etc.
He died in Paris in 1680.
“His death being a subject of conversation at Versailles, M——,
a doctor, claimed to resemble him; but the Prince of —— assured
him of the contrary, upon the grounds that the Captain had
never killed anybody. This Spezzafer was married to a woman of
very equivocal conduct, and when in the comedy of _Arlequin
Roi par Hasard_ he came to solicit the governorship of a place
on the frontier, Harlequin would answer him: ‘How should you
be able to govern it, you, who in twenty years have never
succeeded in governing your wife?’ No doubt this pleasantry
never failed to provoke the laughter of the public, but it must
have been very bitter to him who was its butt.”
In one of Gherardi’s plays Captain Spavento finds it necessary to
purchase under-clothing. It is what we may call a _scène intime_, for it
is not customary to see Captains acting like simple mortals; they are
always tuned to a diapason far too high ever to permit them to descend to
the necessities of existence.
“It is said,” Harlequin tells him, “that you do not wear a shirt.”
“That was once my custom,” replies the Captain, “because then, being of
an extremely furious nature, when once I was enraged, the hair of my
body, which was abundant, stood up, piercing my shirt on every side,
and putting so many holes in it that one might have taken it for a
colander. But having become much more moderate since then, I now wear
under-clothing like any other fellow.”
After the departure of Harlequin Spezzafer approaches a shop.
SPEZZAFER. Now here, opportunely, is a linen shop. Let me see
if they keep what I require.
A SEMPSTRESS. Sir, we have very beautiful Dutch linen and other
things.
SPEZZAFER (_taking up a shirt from the counter_). I shall be
delighted to buy something from you. (_Aside._) This girl is
pretty, well made, and her eyes are blue. (_Aloud._) This shirt
would do very well for me, but I think it is too small.
THE SEMPSTRESS. Too small! you cannot think that. It is three
quarters and a half long.
SPEZZAFER. How much do you want for it?
THE SEMPSTRESS. It will cost you ten ducats, not to overcharge
you.
SPEZZAFER. Ten ducats!
THE SEMPSTRESS. Yes, sir. I make only a livre on each sou.
SPEZZAFER. I will give you thirty sous.
THE SEMPSTRESS. Thirty sous! It is easily seen you’re not used
to wearing shirts.
SPEZZAFER. There! There is a ducat, not to haggle further. Do
not compel me to go elsewhere.
THE SEMPSTRESS. Oh, very well, take it then, on condition that
you will do me the honour to come again. This is the sign of
_La Pucelle_.
In the middle of the eighteenth century the costume of the Italian
Captain resembles that of a soldier of the time. He wears a
three-cornered hat, long hair tied in a queue, and coat, waistcoat and
breeches of military cut. The long sword which he carries pointing
upwards gives him still a little of the air of his ancestors.
iv
GIANGURGOLO—which is to say Jack Glutton—is the Calabrian type of
Captain. Like Matamoros he is passionately devoted to women; but he is
frightened of them; he is always afraid of discovering a man under the
petticoat. Nevertheless he carries the great sword of the Captain and
has adopted his soldierly gait. Like his primitive type he is boastful,
a monstrous liar, timid beyond all measure, and moreover as famished as
a savage. Yet he will go four days without eating for fear of meeting
with a rebuff, which would make it necessary for him to become angry
and perhaps to fight—in other words, to be beaten. Thus he has recourse
to theft to nourish himself, because he never has a farthing. He prowls
about the stalls of the macaroni merchants; lifting up his great
cardboard nose, he sniffs and nourishes himself upon the smell of the
edibles. If by good fortune he can put his hand upon victuals, it is
amusing to see the quantity whose disappearance he can contrive. His
stomach is a gulf. But, for the sake of a few pounds of macaroni, a few
dishfuls of polenta, one or two _salami_, how much shame must he not
endure! He is a compound of Gargantua, Matamoros and Pierrot. He is,
moreover, foolish and vain and proclaims himself a Sicilian gentleman.
“The earth,” he says, “trembles under me when I march.”
The members of the watch are a terror to him. He has a guilty conscience,
and at their approach, notwithstanding his titles, his nobility and his
redoubtable arms, he could gladly squeeze into a rat-hole. When he is
quite certain that he is dealing only with poor inoffensive people he
causes himself to be served on a grand scale, and repays them by enraging
furiously. If in the moment of his fury a child to amuse itself should
shout out behind him, he will disappear so quickly and for so long that
years may pass before he is seen again in the country. He wears a long
and pointed felt hat, a rapier, a scarlet doublet whose sleeves, matching
his breeches, are of pale yellow striped with red. Francesco Ficoroni
(in his _Dissertatio de larvis scenicis et figuris comicis_) gives the
reproduction of an ancient mime engraved upon onyx, which very much
resembles Giangurgolo in headdress, long nose and ungainly posture.
v
IL VAPPO, or Smargiasso (fanfaron), is a Neapolitan type, representing
the spadassin of the end of the eighteenth century. He is a great
brawler, an excessive boaster, and above all an incredible poltroon,
like the other varieties of the Captain. He wears an ample square-cut
riding-coat, a three-cornered hat of an exaggerated height, yellow
breeches and a long rapier, whose old and rusty hilt rattles as he
moves. He is a clumsy, awkward fellow, striking terrific postures, a
Franca-Trippa of Callot, dressed in a slightly more modern manner.
vi
The Romans also have a sort of Captain, ROGANTINO, who has the same
manners and the same character as their Marco-Pepe. In Bologna the
Corporal Rogantino is the chief officer of the watch; he is brutal,
speaks with a bizarre accent, vibrating his rs, and, when he has to
effect an arrest, if the guilty escape him he will often seize an
innocent man; should anyone attempt to hinder him, he wants to strike and
incarcerate everybody.
His scenes conclude in a general mêlée from which Rogantino issues
invariably in a pitiable condition. “They have beaten me,” he says, “but
I told them what I thought of them.” This character is preserved in Rome
to this day, together with Pulcinella and Cassandrino, as one of the
heroes of the marionette booth.
IV
COLUMBINE
In the _Mostellaria_ of Plautus, Philematium, a musician, has for
waiting-woman a certain Scapha, who converses with her in terms very
similar to those in which Diamantine converses with Aurelia, or Columbine
with Isabella. In the following scene we are permitted to be present at
the toilet of a woman of antiquity.
PHILEMATIUM. See, I beg you, Scaphe, whether this gown suits
me. For it is my aim to please Philolaches, who is at once my
lover and my master.
SCAPHA. Why do you not seek to acquire provoking ways, since
in yourself you are entirely lovely? Lovers do not care for a
woman’s gowns, but for what they contain.
PHILEMATIUM. And now what do you say?
SCAPHA. Concerning what?
PHILEMATIUM. Look at me closely and you will agree that this
gown improves my beauty.
SCAPHA. The force of your beauty is greater and carries more
influence than your raiment. All that you put on borrows grace
and value from yourself.
PHILEMATIUM. I do not want you to flatter me.
SCAPHA. If I dared, my dear mistress, I should say that you are
very foolish, since you prefer to be wrongly criticised rather
than to be justly praised. Strange taste! As for myself—by
Pollux! I would rather receive praise which I do not deserve
than reproaches for faults of which I am aware.
PHILEMATIUM. I detest people who seek to please me by
falsehood. If you find me wanting in anything, have the
goodness to correct me.
SCAPHA. I certainly think that you act grossly against your
interests when you give yourself entirely to Philolaches. You
count upon none but him; you are so submissive, complaisant
and obedient to this young man that all other lovers count for
nothing with you; it does not become a courtesan to have but
one intrigue; she should leave that to ladies of high degree.
PHILEMATIUM. Since my dear lover has delivered me from shameful
bondage I do no more than my duty in showing him a hundred
times more tenderness than when I flattered him to obtain what
he has done for me.
SCAPHA. In that case consider him as a husband in conscience
and in honour as well as in tenderness and, upon that footing,
allow your hair to grow like that of a married woman.[5]
PHILEMATIUM. See whether my headdress is well arranged. Give me
my white.
SCAPHA. What for?
PHILEMATIUM. To rub it into my cheeks to beautify me.
SCAPHA. It is like whitening ivory with soot.
PHILEMATIUM. Give me also my rouge (_purpurismum_).
SCAPHA. With these colours you are about to spoil the most
beautiful work of nature. Confine yourself to the bright tints
of your youth. You require no white-lead nor rouge of Melos nor
any other sort of plaster.
PHILEMATIUM. Do you not think that I should do well to rub
myself with scent, and to perfume myself?
SCAPHA. Beware of doing it! A woman smells best when she smells
of nothing, for what can be thought of those women who perfume
themselves, and proclaim themselves by their scents? They are
treated as toothless hags, who seek to disguise themselves
under paint and perfume.
PHILEMATIUM. Consider well my long robe and my jewels. Do you
find me well adorned? Does everything suit me?
SCAPHA. It is not for me to judge; it is Philolache’s taste
alone that is to be consulted on that subject. Purple is
convenient for dissembling age, and as for gold, it suits no
woman.
ii
From the flattering, cynical and corrupted slave was born in the Italian
theatre the _servetta_ or _fantesca_, a confidential waiting-maid, known
later in France as the _soubrette_, a character confounded with that
of sophisticated and malicious village girls. As early as 1528 we find
women playing this rôle in the lively and noteworthy comedies of Angelo
Beolco (Ruzzante) performed at the theatre of Padua. She is called Betta
and Bettia (for Elisabetta), Gnua (for Genoveffa), Gitta (for Gianetta),
Nina, Besa, etc. Usually these are peasant women, who betray their
husbands or their lovers for very little, “a piece of bread or a ribbon,”
or even, very often, merely out of a spirit of mischief. Thus Bettia is
enclosed with her lover Tonin, a man-at-arms, and speaks from the window
to Ruzzante, her husband, who bids her open the door and return home with
him, in which case he will forgive her fault.
“I care nothing about your forgiveness; I do not need it. At home it is I
who have to labour and I am sick of it. Whilst you are glued to a chair
and never do anything I must set my hands to everything. Go and seek
another servant to clean your pots and pans, and to do your house-work.
Do you think that I, who am as fresh and lively as a fish, shall submit
to having no society but yours? I am here, and here I remain. I am sorry
about your honour; but you have brought this upon yourself.”
In 1530 we find waiting-women in the troupe of the _Intronati_ under the
names of Columbina, Oliva, Fiametta, Pasquella, Nespola and Spinetta.
But the most famous actress in this line was Silvia Roncagli, born at
Bergamo, who, under the name of Franceschina, went to France in the
troupe of the _Gelosi_ in 1578. She returned to Italy with that company
and played in Florence the rôles of waiting-woman to Isabella (Isabella
Andreini). She spoke French perfectly, and at times permitted herself
entirely French improvisations. The soubrette in the troupe of the
_Fedeli_, which went to Paris with G. B. Andreini, still bore the name of
Franceschina.
The wife of Tabarin, who improvised on the trestles of the Place
Dauphine, assumed also the same _nom de guerre_. L’Etoile claims that
she was Italian; he is certainly confusing her with Silvia Roncagli. Her
real name was Anne Begot, and her reputation was much better than was
supposed, for the stupid people of Paris took the farces and the follies
which she uttered literally as being expressions of herself.
iii
Patricia Adami, born at Rome in 1635, was known under the name of
DIAMANTINA. She played first in Italy and later in France. In 1600,
after the decease of her husband, Adami, a comedian who died young, she
made her first appearance in Paris, and her versatile talents caused the
public very quickly to forget the actress who had preceded her in 1653,
summoned to France by Cardinal Mazarin. Of the latter no more than her
theatre-name of Beatrix is known, and this from the quatrain of Foret:
“Mais pour enchanter les oreilles,
Pâmer, pleurer, faire merveilles,
Mademoiselle _Béatrix_
Emporta, ce jour-là, le prix.”
Patricia Adami was of slight stature and rather brown of skin, but
extremely pretty, and of a great vivacity on the stage. Agostino Lolli,
who played the parts of Doctor, fell in love with her and they were
married. She continued her successes and persevered in her employment
until a younger star rose to eclipse her—that is to say, until the début
of Caterina Biancolelli (Columbine). In 1683, Diamantina, having grown
old, withdrew altogether from the theatre.
iv
The type of soubrette remains always the same. From the days of Plautus
to those of Gherardi, and from those of Gherardi down to our own, it has
undergone but little variation; but the soubrette became personified in
the character of COLUMBINE by Teresa, Caterina and the second Teresa
Biancolelli—grandmother, granddaughter and great-granddaughter. The most
remarkable of the three by her versatile talent and her numerous creation
is Caterina Biancolelli, daughter of the famous Domenico, and wife of
Pierre Lenoir de la Thorillière, a pupil of Molière’s and a distinguished
actor in his company.
She is sometimes soubrette, sometimes mistress, advocate, dancer, singer
and swaggering gallant. It is said of her that she filled with equal
ease all rôles, and that she spoke fluently several languages, dialects
and jargons. She appears to have been a very well-educated woman of real
talent. “She was small and brunette, but of a very comely countenance.
She had more than beauty; she had physiognomy, a fine air, easy gesture
and a sweet and pleasant voice.” Born in 1665 of Giuseppe-Domenico
Biancolelli and Ursula Corteze (known in the theatre under the name of
Eularia), she took the surname of Columbina, a surname which had been in
vogue in the theatre since 1560; her paternal grandmother had already
borne it and had been painted in walking costume, holding a basket
containing two doves (_colombes_) in allusion to this her stage name.
This portrait was preserved in the house inhabited by Domenico in the
village of Bièvre, near Paris.
Caterina made her début on the 11th October 1863, in _Arlequino Protèo_.
She came on and in Italian addressed her father who was playing
Harlequin: “I was told that your lordship desired to speak with me.
But what a droll figure is your lordship’s! You have the air of a
turkey-cock.”
“How? Of a turkey-cock?” replied Harlequin; “I am the chief comedian of
a troupe of turkey-cocks—I mean of a troupe of comedians. But I sent for
you because I know that you have great talent for comedy, and I am going
to give you a rôle in _The Burning of Troy_: I will represent the horse,
you shall represent the fire,” etc. Columbine rejects the piece, which,
she says, would end in smoke and hurt the eyes of the spectators. Choice
is made of _The Loves of Titus and Berenice_. Columbine announces that
she is going to _imberenice_ herself (imberenicciarmi), and Harlequin
goes off to _titusine_ himself (intitusinarmi).
She scored a great success, and from the moment of her début she gave
a free rein to her wit and audacity in improvisation. As soubrette to
Isabella she remonstrates with her mistress, who is desolated at the
prospect of marrying a man whom she does not love.
“You will live” (she tells her) “as live the majority of wives
in Paris. In the first four or five years you will be prodigal,
and then when you shall have consumed the greater part of your
husband’s fortune in moveables, gowns, equipages and jewels,
you will part company with him; your marriage-portion will be
returned to you, and you will live thereafter as a great lady.
How simple you are! Do you think rich men are married to be
loved?”
Elsewhere she deals in home truths with her master:
“Quite frankly, sir, if you do not take care, you will, for
all your millions, become the laughing-stock of Paris. It is
well known that there is no man, be he great or little, who has
not sometimes something in his head; but it is a shame to see
you without occupation, lamenting your life and haggling from
morning to night about the merest necessities of the house!
Alas! for the days of your extravagance, when nothing was
talked of but your ostentation and good humour. Whenever you
returned from town you would always chat with me for a moment,
your hand under my chin. It was Columbine here, Columbine
there; now a ribbon, now a ring, now a fan. In short one had,
now and again, some little mark of your remembrance. Now you
come home a hundred times without once saying: ‘God keep you.’
You never cease from grumbling, you become as ugly as yellow
lard, as cantankerous as a devil. Of your fifty lackeys you
have dismissed fifteen; there remain only three coaches here,
and I think—God forgive me!—that you retrench your wife’s
expenditure in dress.”
On the subject of coquetry, Columbine thus admonishes Isabella:
“Things must never be allowed to go to extremes. But I assure
you that a little pinch of coquetry scattered through the
manners of a woman, renders her a hundred times more lovable
and desirable. I but repeat the words of my mother, who was
a marvellously well-informed woman on this subject. I have
heard her say a hundred times that it is with coquetry as with
vinegar: when too much is put into the sauce it becomes sharp
and detestable; when it contains too little it is so faint as
not to be tasted; but when you achieve that mediocrity which
arouses appetite, it will induce you to eat your very fingers.
It is the same with woman. When she is coquettish at the
expense of her honour, fie, fie! that is not worth a devil.
When she is not coquettish at all, that is still worse; her
virtue seems confounded with her temperament, and you would
suppose her merely a lethargic beauty. But when a beautiful
woman has just so much sparkle as is required to please, faith,
if I were a man, that should tell with me.”
In _Le Banqueroutier_ to prove to Isabella that her heart is more tender
than she cares to confess, this is what she imagines:
COLUMBINE. Bring me a mantle, a scarf, a wig and a hat
belonging to mademoiselle’s brother. I will beguile our leisure
by counterfeiting one of these sighing lovers.
ISABELLA. But what shall I call you?
COLUMBINE. You shall call me “Chevalier.” And be on your guard,
for, faith, I shall press you closely. You laugh? Had God but
made a man of me I should have been a dangerous rogue. (_She
goes out, to return dressed as a man._) Faith! mademoiselle, it
is not without trouble that one penetrates to your apartments.
If your brutal porter but wore laced breeches he would be taken
for a Swiss. Do you know that I have spent literally two hours
at your door, and that this rascal would not have consented
to open if it had not occurred to me to tell him that I am a
relative of yours? Count me a rascal if I do not speak the
truth. By the way, have I told you that I love you?
ISABELLA. That statement has not yet reached me.
COLUMBINE. We men of feeling are sometimes so inattentive
that it is necessary to guess our meaning. I find you most
touchingly blossoming.
ISABELLA. Fie! Chevalier, you must not look at me. I am not
personable to-day. These last two nights I have been so ill
that I have not closed an eye. You will understand that one may
not be beautiful after such a defeat to one’s health.
COLUMBINE. You have, perdition catch me, more health than I
have need of. My only fear is lest your illness should be of
the heart. Lovable as you are it is not possible that you
should not bear some passion in your soul. Should it be so,
conceal it from me, for I would sooner that five hundred devils
should seize me than——
ISABELLA. How, Chevalier! Are you jealous?
COLUMBINE. As the devil! My beautiful, will you compel me to
sigh for ever? When will you sup with me, chez Lamy?
ISABELLA. Chevalier! You are wanting in respect. A lady of my
quality in a tavern!
Little by little Columbine becomes impassioned and plays so
well her rôle of a lover that Isabella sighs: “Alas, Columbine!
what a pity that you are not a boy!”
Columbine is frank, and calls all things by their proper
name. But if at times her mistress does not listen to her she
pretends that she desires to quit her service knowing full well
that this will never be permitted.
COLUMBINE. If you were to give me three times my present wages,
I would not remain another quarter of an hour in your service.
You may think that I am ruled by money. I love my reputation,
mademoiselle, and that is all that matters.
ISABELLA. I do not think, Columbine, that your reputation has
run any risks with me.
COLUMBINE. All that is very well, but I am going to leave you.
ISABELLA. How! without telling me the reason?
COLUMBINE. I leave you because my heart is in the right place,
and I am dying of shame to see how little progress you have
made in six months. From morning to night I wear myself out
body and soul to teach you that beauty unadorned makes no
dupes, and that a marriageable girl must adapt herself to all
sorts of rôles if she is to succeed. Instead of profiting by my
lessons you remain tranquilly confident of your charms and you
leave the care of your fortune to your star. A fine way that to
go about getting a husband!
ISABELLA. You are wrong to scold me, Columbine. Since you
have been with me I have been no more than the echo of your
remonstrances, and in company I never speak save on the lines
which you have indicated to me.
COLUMBINE. You go about it in a fine way! Virtue of my life!
When marriage is the aim, more artifice is necessary. I have
told you a hundred times to assume a severe and haughty air
with those who seek you in marriage. Man is an animal that
desires to be mastered. He attaches himself only to those
who repulse him. From the moment that you seem gentle and
complaisant any fatuous suitor may suppose your heart to
be garrotted by his charms. But when you treat him with
indifference, you will see him supple, arduous, attentive,
sparing no pains or expense to succeed in pleasing you.
ISABELLA. It seems, then, that I am still a novice, for I had
thought that sincerity sustained by honesty must most surely
win affection.
COLUMBINE. Whence are you with your honesty? Go on singing
that tune and you’ll die an old maid. Get it into your head,
mademoiselle, that with the man of to-day it is necessary to be
astute, alert, and roguish even, if necessary. The great thing
is to become a wife; the rest is in the hands of God.
In _L’Homme à Bonnes Fortunes_, Columbine is the younger sister of
Isabella. She is but fifteen years of age, and desires already to be
married.
_Columbine dressed as a little girl, and Isabella_
ISABELLA. You are really very foolish to stuff your head with
silly notions of love and marriage. Is such conduct becoming in
a younger sister? Were it not better that you should renounce
the world?
COLUMBINE. All that is very easy to say, my sister, but you
wouldn’t speak as you speak if you felt as I feel.
ISABELLA. And what do you feel, pray? And what do I feel who am
your elder? Do you hear me complaining of the tiresomeness of
the spinster state? You’re an amusing urchin!
COLUMBINE. An amusing urchin? I am not as much an urchin as I
seem: and I should have become a wife long since if my father
had permitted it, for I have been told that one may be married
at the age of twelve.
ISABELLA. But do you so much as know what a husband is, that
you talk like this?
COLUMBINE. Should I want one if I didn’t know?
ISABELLA. Hey! And where have you learned all these fine things?
COLUMBINE. One doesn’t need to learn them. Marriage must be a
very agreeable state, since the mere thought of it brings so
much pleasure.
ISABELLA. You are very much out in your reckoning if you think
marriage is agreeable. A fine thing to have a husband who is
always grumbling! A fine thing to have the care of servants! A
fine thing to suffer the inconvenience of pregnancy! That alone
were sufficient to make me renounce marriage for ever. You are
not fit for marriage. It is not a child’s game.
COLUMBINE. And I tell you that I am as fit for marriage as you
are. And although I may be wrong, if I were married at once I
am sure I should not die of it.
ISABELLA. Really! I think I am very patient to listen to all
these expressions of your petty humour! There is no one so
bereft of sense as to desire to take charge of you.
COLUMBINE. Eh! la, la, it is not such a heavy charge, and
everybody is not afraid of it. Less than a week ago, in a shop
at the Palais, a gentleman of condition told me how much he
liked me, and how glad he would be to marry me.
ISABELLA. And what did you answer him?
COLUMBINE. I told him that I was still very young for that, but
that next year——
ISABELLA. You will be older and more foolish. Can’t you see
that he was mocking you, and that you are becoming ridiculous?
You ought to die of shame.
PIERROT (_entering_). How now, mesdemoiselles! What a noise you
are making. You seem to be flattering one another after the
fashion of cat and dog.
COLUMBINE. Pierrot, it is my sister who is angry. She would
have no husbands but for herself.
PIERROT. The glutton!
COLUMBINE. My poor Pierrot. You who are so beautiful, tell me:
is it necessary that I should be a spinster all my life?
PIERROT. Impossible! Look now, girls should be married when
they are young; youth is game that won’t keep.
ISABELLA. But then, is it just that I should resign my rights
to a younger sister?
PIERROT (_to Columbine_). It is true that so far you are but an
embryo, and I have seen larger ones in bottles.
COLUMBINE. I admit, Pierrot, that I am still small, but——
ISABELLA. Silence! There is no enduring your impertinences. I
will leave you.
After the exit of Isabella, Columbine entrusts Pierrot with
the delivery of a letter to the gentleman whom she met at the
Palais. “Since I know how to write,” she says, “why should I
not write?”
“Quite so,” replies Pierrot, and he departs with the
love-letter, exclaiming: “A fine thing nature! It thinks of
marriage whilst in the shell!”
Some scenes later Pierrot brings the reply from this gentleman
of condition whom Columbine already loves, and who is none
other than Harlequin.
COLUMBINE. Well, my poor Pierrot, did you bear my letter to
this viscount?
PIERROT. I did, and he sends you a little note in return.
COLUMBINE (_snatching the letter from him_). Give it me quickly.
PIERROT. Peste! How sharp-set you are upon the quarry.
COLUMBINE (_reading_). “Love is like an itch; there is no
concealing it. Wherefore may the plague catch me if I do not
come and see you to-day.—VISCOUNT OF BERGAMOTTE.”
PIERROT. Now there is a man who writes tenderly.
COLUMBINE. He loves me, for he says so, and I hope that we
shall soon be married.
It is always Harlequin who is, will be, or has been the lover or the
husband of Columbine. But Harlequin is not set upon being faithful. He
courts other women, and goes even so far as to introduce one into the
conjugal domicile, pretending himself a bachelor. But his duplicity is
discovered, and Columbine comes to an understanding with Angélique, her
rival, and they both avenge themselves by cudgelling the too-perfidious
Harlequin.
Sometimes Harlequin has abandoned her in Venice, to go to seek his
fortune in Paris under the dress and style of the Marquis Sbruffadelli.
Columbine pursues him with her vengeance, and assumes all manner of
disguises to frighten him, for she has given out that she is dead,
thereby causing great joy to Harlequin, who is in haste to marry Isabella.
Columbine unites herself with Pasquariello, and they vie with each other
as to which shall play the more tricks upon the ungrateful Harlequin.
First she comes as a Spaniard, addressing Harlequin in Castilian; he
does not understand a word of it, and interprets what she says in his
own fashion. After putting him in a rage, she discloses herself, crying:
“_Perfido traditore, m’avrai negli occhi, se non m’hai nel cuore!_”
(Perfidious traitor, you shall have me in your sight if not in your
heart). Harlequin, terrified, cries for help. She runs away to return as
a soubrette and enter the service of her rival, Isabella. There Harlequin
attempts to flirt with her, and implores her to come and mend and starch
the only three shirts that he possesses. Columbine, pretending not to
know him, speaks to him of Harlequin, alluding to him as a wretch, a
villain, who caused the death of a certain heart-broken Columbine.
“In truth,” says Harlequin, “there are great villains in the world! But
is she really dead?”
“Alas, it is but too true,” she replies. Whereupon Harlequin makes
philosophy upon love and death.
Columbine interrupts him by revealing herself: “_Perfido traditore,
m’avrai negli occhi, se non m’hai nel cuore!_” This threat comes up
again and again; it is the drop of water which, falling incessantly upon
the rock, ends by piercing it. She reappears as a girl from Gascony
and speaks its dialect; again as a Moorish girl, in which character
she dances and pulls the beard of Harlequin. She turns up as a master
of arms, as a picture, as a doctor; as a woman she lodges a complaint
against Harlequin, and returns as a lawyer to plead against him. Finally
Harlequin, worn out by this unceasing persecution, marries her.
Caterina Biancolelli played in Paris until the closure of the
Comédie-Italienne in 1697, whereupon she withdrew entirely from the
theatre.
It was on the stage of the Comédie-Italienne that Columbine assumed for
the first time the costume of Arlequine in _Le Rétour de la Foire de
Besons_, in 1695. Afterwards this costume became a favourite one in the
fairs. The popularised character of Columbine was traditionally dressed
as Arlequine on the trestles in the farces, and very often in pantomime.
It was the same in the case of Pierrette, who became the familiar
companion of Pierrot, dressed in white with powdered face.
The costume of Columbine is very varied: now a soubrette, now a
cavalier, now a little girl, now a lawyer, now a doctor, now the wife of
Harlequin, whose mask and costume she wears. In the plays of Gherardi
she wears the high comb of the period and a costume which would leave
her undistinguishable from the leading lady but for the little apron,
traditional in the theatre, and characteristic of the soubrette.
In more modern pantomime Columbine is usually the daughter, niece or ward
of Cassandre. Her love affairs with Harlequin are nearly always crossed
by the paternal will, which favours Léandre, the rich and powerful
Léandre, the beautiful Léandre, so called in derision. But she has also,
nearly always, a good fairy, or magic godmother, who saves her, and
notwithstanding Cassandre, Pierrot and Léandre, she marries the Harlequin
of her dreams.
v
In 1716, Margherita Rusca went to Paris as a member of the Regent’s
Italian Company. Wife of the famous Harlequin Antonio Vicentini
(_Thomassin_) she played the parts of waiting-maids under the name of
VIOLETTE. She was born at Bologna in 1691, and died on the 28th February
1731, in Paris.
Violette’s character is practically the same as that of Columbine. Like
Columbine she is Harlequin’s mistress, but in point of malice she returns
him as good as he gives.
VIOLETTE. Good morning, my dear Harlequin. What sort of a night
have you had?
HARLEQUIN. I do not know, for I was asleep, and therefore can
tell you nothing about it. And you?
VIOLETTE. Oh, as for me, I don’t know whether I slept, for I
did but dream all night, and when you dream you don’t know what
you are doing.
HARLEQUIN. And you dreamed of me, no doubt?
VIOLETTE. No, I dreamed of that great baker lad who was your
rival in Rome.
HARLEQUIN. Traitress! And what did you dream touching this
baker boy?
VIOLETTE. I dreamed that I received a letter from him in Lyons,
in which he promised to come instantly to Paris.
HARLEQUIN. Fie! I don’t like it at all. Such dreams are
_cornuti_.
In the eighteenth century we find the soubrettes taking the names of
Zerbinette, Olivette, Tontine, Mariotte, Genevotte, Babet, Farinette,
Perette, Finebrette, Fiametta, Giannina, Catte, Ghitta, Checchina,
Smeraldina, etc. Amongst the principal actresses performing these parts
in the Italian comedy in Paris was Hippolyte de la Tude, known by the
name of Clairon, who made her début at the Théâtre-Italien on the 8th
January 1736, in the soubrette rôle in _L’Isle des Esclaves_. Of the
début she speaks herself in the following terms:—
“... I was taken to the house of my benefactress, where
Deshayes, an actor of the Comédie-Italienne, gave me a hearing.
He was so pleased with me that he presented me to all his
associates. I was admitted to this theatre, and I was given
a part to study. Permission for my début was obtained, and
finally I made my appearance on the stage before I had reached
the age of twelve.
“The applause which I received reconciled my mother to the
career which I had chosen. I was given preceptors in writing,
dancing, music and the Italian language; my industry, my ardour
and my memory amazed my teachers. I devoured everything; I
retained everything. But my excessive youth, my short stature,
the lack of protection, and the fear entertained by the famous
Thomassin lest my talent should be hurtful to his daughters,
who were not yet established, compelled me at the end of a year
to seek my fortune elsewhere. I was engaged in the company of
Rouen to perform all the parts suitable to my years, and to
sing and dance. I was intent upon playing comedy and nothing
else mattered to me.”
vi
On the 6th May 1744, Anna Veronese, having adopted the stage name of
CORALINE, made her first appearance as a soubrette. She was born in
Venice, and was a daughter of Carlo Veronese (_Pantaloon_). “Both made
their début in the same piece, _Le Double Mariage d’Arlequin_. The father
was about forty-two years of age, and the daughter hardly fourteen; they
gave the greatest possible satisfaction, and both were equally well
applauded.” The talents, like the beauty of Coraline, increased from day
to day, and she was long without a rival in the theatre.
[Illustration]
Her gifts inspired Marmontel, whilst Jean-Jacques Rousseau has the
following to say of her in his _Confessions_ (1743-1744):—
“None would suspect that it is to me that lovers of the theatre
in Paris owe Coraline and her sister Camille. Yet, nothing
could be more true. Veronese, their father, was engaged,
together with his children, for the Italian troupe; and, after
having received two thousand francs for the journey, instead
of setting out, he remained coolly in Venice, at the theatre
of San Luca (or possibly it may have been San Samuele, for
proper names elude me). Thither Coraline, no more than a child
at the time, was drawing a large number of people. M. le duc
de Gesvres, as first gentleman of the chamber, wrote to the
ambassador, claiming the persons of father and daughter. M.
de Montaigu, in giving me the letter, gave me no instructions
beyond saying, ‘Look at that.’
“I repaired to M. le Blond to beg him to speak to the patrician
who owned the theatre of San Luca, and whose name, I think,
was Zustiniani, to the end that he might dismiss Veronese, who
was engaged for the service of the King of France. Le Blond
performed the commission indifferently, Zustiniani temporised
and Veronese was not dismissed. This made me angry. The season
was that of carnival. I put on a mask and had myself borne to
Zustiniani’s palace. All those who observed the entrance of my
gondola and the ambassador’s livery were astonished. Venice had
never seen the like. I enter, I am announced under the name of
a masked gentleman (_una siora maschera_). The moment I was
introduced, I removed my mask, and named myself. The senator
turned pale in his stupefaction. ‘Sir,’ I said to him in
Venetian, ‘it is with regret that I importune Your Excellency
with my visit, but you have in your theatre of San Luca a man
named Veronese, who has been engaged for the service of the
king, and whom you have vainly been requested to surrender. I
come to claim him in the name of his Majesty.’
“My short speech took effect. No sooner had I departed than
Zustiniani ran to give an account of his adventures to the
inquisitors of State, who gave him a wigging. Veronese was
dismissed that very day. I sent word to him that if he did not
set out within a week I would have him arrested. He set out.”
In 1749 Collé, in that satirical and unjust journal of his which,
published after his death, came somewhat to modify men’s opinion of him,
wrote on the subject of the first performance of the _Rétour de la Paix_,
of Boissy, at the Théâtre-Italien:
“... It must also be agreed that the actors and actresses,
not excluding Coraline and Camille, are very, very mediocre
at their best, and thence descend to the detestable. Yet this
theatre is well frequented notwithstanding that its comedians
are fatuous, ridiculous and bad, and that they never know a
word of their parts; Harlequin is cold, Scapin has but one
scene and some grimaces; the women inspire horror with the
exception of Coraline, who has the graces of youth and of
beauty and some spirit, but who, notwithstanding that, is of no
intelligence, and has the bad habit of giggling when she is on
the stage. Sylvia is old, and Deshayes extremely mediocre. None
the less theirs is to-day the best frequented spectacle. What
can one say to it? Although the French comedians have fallen
low, and are impossible in tragedy, they are at least endurable
in comedy by comparison with the Italians; and to say this is
to say much, for they are worth very little.”
Notwithstanding the judgment of Collé, the vogue of Coraline was
enormous, and we are compelled to think that she had more than youth and
beauty, since a whole series of plays was written specially for her. A
great number of pieces appeared one after the other, bearing such titles
as: _Coraline Magicienne_, _Coraline Jardinière_, _Coraline Protectrice
de l’Innocence_, _Coraline Fée_, _Coraline Intrigante_, _Coraline Esprit
Follet_, _Les Folies de Coraline_, _Arlequin-Coraline_, _L’Heureux
Désespoir d’Arlequin et de Coraline_, etc.
Anna Veronese left France probably in 1750, for, under the name of
Coralina, she was playing in the comedies of Carlo Goldoni at Venice in
the years 1751 and 1752. Camille, who had been for several years playing
the same parts, quitted the company and entered that of Sacchi, in which
she shone until 1769 in the improvised fairy spectacles of Carlo Gozzi.
It will be seen that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the
type of soubrette, daring in her language and in her actions, is to be
confused and identified with that of the waiting-woman of Molière and his
successors. This type retains to-day in Italy nothing peculiarly its own.
vii
The frank speech and the free ways of the woman of the people were
personified in Naples in the character of LA GUAIASSA, a type speaking
and acting like the matronly women of that class and country. She was
compounded of triviality and a certain natural wit which reminds us of
the chatterings of the ancient Citeria of the Latin farces. But the
chief characteristic of La Guaiassa was a real and great goodness of
heart under a gross exterior; ignoring everything that is beyond the
narrow horizon of her alley (_vicolo_), and never having journeyed beyond
the neighbouring street, hers was the good sense of honesty. This rôle
was played in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century by a
celebrated woman, who captured the hearts of the Neapolitan public fully
as much as did Pulcinella. She expressed herself admirably in the dialect
of the Neapolitan streets. Though handsome, her countenance lent itself
marvellously well to her rôle. She was a Roman, and off the stage spoke
the purest Italian. The news of her death in the fifties carried with it
a sense of loss to the entire kingdom of Naples.
The unlimited licence allowed to the Italian soubrette and to La Guaiassa
was never fully admitted in the French theatre; not even in the days when
the public taste itself was least refined and its ears least prudish.
Molière and Gherardi are contemporaries, but it is easily seen how much
the Columbine of the latter exceeds in crudity the Dorine of the former.
It is not only to the superiority of the talent of Molière that we must
attribute his inferior audacity; the same public which, in the same
theatre, on alternate days attended the performances of the Italians and
the French, would never have tolerated in the French Company the same
freedom of speech which they permitted to the Italians.
This is the more remarkable because, by a singular but verified anomaly,
the morals of the Italian actresses, singers and dancers have always been
superior to those of the French, and their domestic conduct better. The
Marquis d’Argens, in his very philosophical—as the word was understood in
his day—letters, gives the following certificate of good conduct to the
Italian actresses:—
“There is a greater difference between the characters of the
Italian and French comédiennes than there is between our opera
and theirs. Education, prejudice, custom and remuneration are
the four things which produce the difference existing between
the morals and the habits of life of the two. It has been one
of our affectations to cast ignominy and infamy upon those who
by their talents render our country illustrious. The Italians
are very far from having any such ridiculous prejudices. True
lovers of art, they are careful not to wither those who produce
it. Senesini, Scalsi and Farfalini are beloved and cherished
in Rome; not only are they not considered unworthy of burial,
but, when one is compelled to render them the last honours, to
the sorrow of losing them will be united all that will go to
proclaim how much they were esteemed.
“It is by these distinctions and these rewards that the Italian
comédiennes are inspired with sentiments unknown to our own;
they share in the honours of civil society; they are encouraged
by the respect in which their talent is held, and, since their
profession includes nothing that is not brilliant, they are
careful not to render themselves contemptible by debauchery.
“Our French comédiennes, on the contrary, seem to wish to
profit by the idea which we have of them; they avail themselves
of the advantage of being regarded as libertines and, since
their art exposes them to contempt, they cease to be restrained
by sentiments which would be useless.
“It would be ridiculous to demand that Italian actresses should
conduct themselves better than other women; it is more than
sufficient that, being more exposed than ordinary women, they
should, nevertheless, be as virtuous. If after reading my
letter you do not agree with me, examine the French and Italian
troupes in Paris, and you will perceive living arguments to
support me.”
V
PIERROT
There was in the sixteenth century, in Bologna, a sort of improviser, or
popular poet, named Giulio-Cesare Croce who sang in the public places to
the accompaniment of stringed instruments, which caused him to be given
the surname of _Della Lira_. The burden of his songs was a lament on the
life and adventures of a fictitious personage named Bertoldo. Perceiving
that the crowd listened attentively and took pleasure in his burlesque
epic, he conceived the notion to print his songs in prose and to offer
them for sale. The public snatched at these books with enthusiasm, a
circumstance which led to his increasing the _Life of Bertoldo_ and
adding that of his son _Bertoldino_, which latter enjoyed no less success
than the former.
Croce was born in 1550 in the Bolognese village of Persiceto. At the
age of seven he lost his father, and went to live with an uncle, a
farrier at Castel-Franco. After having been admitted as a master of
his trade of blacksmith, he settled in Bologna, was twice married, and
became the father of fourteen children. It was there that the spirit
of improvisation seized him and brought him his great reputation. The
_Cavalieri_ of Bologna paid him a pension in his old age, and he died in
1609.
Some years after the death of Croce _Della Lira_, Camillo Scaligero
_Della Frata_ composed a third volume, containing the _Life of
Cacasenno_, the son of Bertoldino. This series enjoyed such a success
in Italy that it ran into a large number of editions, and at the end of
the seventeenth century the Bolognese painter, J. M. Crespi, illustrated
various passages of these popular ballads; these were engraved by
Lodovico Mattioli, and, instead of issuing a new edition of the romance
in prose, several wits shared among themselves the labour of composing
a poem in twenty cantos. Twenty-six authors, all of them Bolognese,
Ferrarese or Lombards, co-operated in this task. The result was a superb
volume _in quarto_, adorned with pictures and accompanied by notes,
arguments and allegories, with Tuscan and Bolognese texts and a Bolognese
vocabulary. This work appeared first in 1736 and then in 1740, published
by Lelio della Volpe, “At the Sign of the Fox.” A third edition appeared
in 1747 in Venice, printed in Bolognese and in Venetian. Such was the
vogue of this little poem that it was translated into modern Greek and
enjoyed the greatest success in Greece and in Turkey. The fame of this
buffoon creation has not yet ceased; to this day in Italy all who can
read have read _La Vita di Bertoldo_, and nurses relate it to their
nurslings. Bertoldo is better known in Italy than Bluebeard or Tom
Thumb elsewhere. In general the principal features, sallies, retorts,
witticisms or episodes of _La Vita di Bertoldo_ are so celebrated that
they have become proverbial, like “the peace of Marcolfa.”
Marcolfa was Bertoldo’s wife, a good woman, who, after quarrelling during
the day with her husband, made the peace with him in the evening, and she
found this peace-making so pleasant that, so as to provide occasion for
it, she would frequently set up little disputes.
Croce _Della Lira_’s little poem begins as follows:—
“In the tenth century of our era, King Alboin reigned over
Lombardy and resided in Verona. This prince, who had conquered
all Italy, was none the less very good, very gentle and very
just.
“At the same time there lived in a little Veronese village
a peasant named Bertoldo, whose countenance was ridiculous,
whose head was as big as a pumpkin, whose hair was flat and
red, whose ears were enormous and whose little eyes were
red-rimmed; his nose was thick and flat, and red as a beetroot;
his wide mouth was a slit from ear to ear; he displayed two
teeth like the tusks of a boar, and his beard was coarse and
dirty. His figure was no better than his face; his hands were
large, his legs massive and crooked and his skin rough. But
his wit was sharp and subtle, his judgment sound, and he was
the pleasantest fellow in the village of Bertagnana, in which
he lived. His fellow-citizens preferred his moralisings and
his discourses to those of their priest. He adjusted their
differences more satisfactorily than their lords and judges;
and, lastly, he made them laugh more than the charlatans and
buffoons who sometimes passed through the village.
“He was the youngest of ten brothers and had barely enough for
his own subsistence, that of his wife, Marcolfa, and a child
named Bertoldino.
“One day Bertoldo was taken with a fancy to see the city and
the court, this from mere curiosity, without any particular
intention.
“Arrived in the market-place in Verona, he was in the act of
looking at the king’s palace, which he took for a great church,
when he perceived two women who were fighting for a mirror. An
officer of the guards came to inform them that the king desired
to know the subject of their difference. Thus Bertoldo learned
that Alboin was a good prince, who lent an ear to everybody. He
saw that the gates of the palace stood open and that the guards
hindered none from entering. He went in and penetrated to the
audience chamber where the king was enthroned. There were
some other seats, placed below and destined for the greater of
his lords, who, nevertheless, remained respectfully standing.
Bertoldo sat down without ceremony. Some courtiers, observing
the impertinence of the peasant, and his grotesque countenance,
admonished him that it was indecent to sit in the presence of
the king.
“‘Why so?’ demanded Bertoldo. ‘I sit down in church in the
presence of God!’
“‘But do you not know that the king is a personage elevated
above all others?’
“‘Per Bacco, he is not as high as the cock on our village
steeple, which even tells us what the weather is going to do.’
“These words are reported to the king, who then questions
Bertoldo:
“‘Who are you?’ he demands.
“‘A man.’
“‘When did you come into the world?’
“‘When it pleased the good God to send me, and my parents to
bring me into it, for it is a matter with which I was not
concerned.’
“‘What is your country?’
“‘The world.’
“These replies stimulated the good king’s curiosity. ‘What,’ he
asked, ‘is the fleetest thing in all the world?’
“‘Thought.’
“‘Which is the best wine?’
“‘That which is drunk in your neighbour’s house, for it costs
nothing.’
“The king’s fool was named Fagotto. He became extremely jealous
of the friendship which the king began to show Bertoldo and of
the credit which the latter began to enjoy at court. He had the
audacity to pit himself against him, thinking to surpass him in
wit.
“‘How,’ quoth the fool, ‘would you set about carrying water in
a sieve?’
“‘I should wait until it was frozen.’
“‘How would you catch a hare without running?’
“‘I should wait until it was on the spit.’
“Fagotto set him no riddle which he could not answer on the
spot. In the heat of the dispute Bertoldo desired to spit. He
begged permission of the king.
“‘I grant it willingly,’ said the king, ‘but choose a place in
my palace where there will be nothing to spoil.’
“Bertoldo, after having sought awhile, spat upon Fagotto.
“Alboin the Debonnaire conceived a friendship for Bertoldo,
perhaps because the latter did not conceal the truth from him,
and set about inducing him by facts to contradict the things he
had said the day before.
“Bertoldo, to afford the king a proof of the inconsequence, the
indiscretion and the inquisitiveness of the fair sex whispered
in the ear of a woman of the town that the king had pronounced
a decree according seven wives to every husband. The revolted
sex came in a crowd, shouting, screaming and insulting the
King Alboin, to demand the revocation of his absurd decree.
The king had a great deal of trouble to make himself heard,
but he contrived it in the end, and informed them that they
had been misinformed. On another occasion the ladies of the
court claimed the exercise of political rights. Bertoldo gave
them a box inclosing a bird, with the prohibition to open it
within the following twenty-four hours. Two hours later the
bird had taken flight. Thus Alboin proved to them that their
inquisitiveness and their disobedience excluded them from
affairs of state. But the Lombard monarch had a proud and
haughty wife, who determined to avenge herself upon Bertoldo.
“Bertoldo was summoned to the presence of the queen and, after
insults and blows administered by the ladies of the court, he
was thrust into a great sack, which was tied at the neck, and
in which he was left, the intention being to throw him into the
river that night. A guard was set to watch him. The unfortunate
Bertoldo ransacked his mind for a way out of the worst pass in
which he had ever found himself.
“He persuaded the guard that he was thus imprisoned for very
singular reasons, and that he would explain them if the fellow
would untie the sack, and permit him to whisper in his ear the
truth of the matter. The guard believed him and permitted him
to put his head out of the sack. Bertoldo then told him that
he was a great nobleman, that it was desired to compel him
to marry a lady who was rich and beautiful, but of suspected
chastity; that he preferred to drown sooner than make such a
marriage, and that he had been imprisoned by way of compulsion;
that in the evening they would come again to seek to drive him
into this marriage, but that he would prefer to drown. The
guard answered him that he was a fool, and offered to take his
place and marry the damsel. Bertoldo got out of the sack, tied
up the guard in it and departed from the palace.”
This farce of the sack has since been transported into many Italian
scenarii and French farces, and Molière, in _Les Fourberies de Scapin_
has written round it a whole scene in the Italian manner.
“Bertoldo was recaptured and taken back to the palace. The
queen obtained her complacent monarch’s consent that her enemy
should be hanged, and the king announced this to his dear
Bertoldo, excusing himself by the fact that he was compelled to
the step so as to be agreeable to his wife.
“‘Sir,’ said Bertoldo, ‘I understand your reasons. It is
necessary that the little should suffer for the caprices of
the great. But, since I am to hang, I ask a favour: It is that
I myself shall have the choice of the tree; for after all if
a man is hanged to his own taste he is in part consoled.’ The
king consented.
“Bertoldo found fault with every tree proposed to him, and
discovered none that suited him. This one was too high, that
one too low. The branches of this one were too weak, the
branches of that one too strong. The leaves of a cypress
were of too sombre a green, and those of a lime too bright.
Bertoldo promenaded thus his escort, which consisted of an
officer, two soldiers and the hangman, for several days, and
visited every wood in the country. They tramped all day and
stopped only to dine and sup in the villages. Bertoldo kept
his guards in good humour, telling them fine stories of old
times, the merriest tales in the world, and thus causing them
to forget the object of their commission. When, in the end,
they bethought them of it, they could not reconcile with their
consciences the hanging of so merry a fellow. They advised him
to return home, and themselves went back to the city.
“The queen, persuaded that her orders had been carried out,
repented of having enforced the death of the unfortunate
Bertoldo, and testified her repentance to the king. The king,
who knew that the sly peasant was not dead, arranged things
in such a fashion that the queen was the first to demand his
recall. The monarch sent to fetch Bertoldo. He was slow to
decide to return to court, insisting that soup and friendship
are never worth anything when warmed up, and that an ounce of
liberty is better than a hundredweight of gold. He received,
however, so many proofs of friendship on the part of the king
and queen that he went; but he bargained: firstly that his wife
Marcolfa and his son Bertoldino should remain in the village,
and continue to cultivate the little corner of land which they
owned in Bertagnana; secondly that he should always retain his
peasant garb, consenting, however, to wear garments without
patches and stockings without holes; thirdly that he should be
permitted always to eat his bread and onion, and his cheese
soup.
“But Bertoldo did not long enjoy the royal favour. Compelled
to go to bed later than was his custom, because often the king
retained him until after sunset; compelled instead of delving
the earth to charge himself with serious affairs, to reason
upon them and to talk himself hoarse (because he could not
write) his health broke down. The doctors compelled him to take
medicine, a thing he had never done in his life, and so he died.
“King Alboin, in memory of the services which Bertoldo had
rendered him, brought Marcolfa and Bertoldino to court. He had
them properly dressed and presented them with a little farm at
the gates of Verona, adding to the gift a coffer filled with
gold pieces.
“Near the farm there was a pond in which the frogs made a noise
such as Bertoldino had never heard in Bertagnana. He conceived
a desire to silence them, and looked round for something to
throw at them so as to scare or kill them. He came upon the
coffer, took the gold pieces, and flung them into the pond at
the aggravating beasts. Some few were killed, but the others
croaked more loudly than ever. Thus he flung away all the gold
that had been given to him. Marcolfa, perceiving what was done,
reproached him bitterly, saying, amongst other things, that if
men were to be silenced with money, such was not the case with
frogs.
“Bertoldino, reasoning from this that animals preferred to be
fed rather than paid, took all the provisions of the house and
flung them into the pond. Fresh remonstrances from Marcolfa:
‘Since we have no more flour we shall be forced to eat the
chickens, and we have but few hens, and they can only hatch a
few eggs at a time.’
“‘Leave it to me,’ said Bertoldino. ‘I am bigger than a hen,
I shall be able to hatch more.’ And driving away all the hens
from their eggs, he gathered the lot into a heap, sat upon it,
and reduced it to a horrible omelette.
“Although admonished and sermonised by the king, who perceived
that the son was as stupid as the father had been shrewd,
Bertoldino continued to commit folly upon folly. He whipped
himself with nettles to drive away the flies. Wishing to hinder
a hawk from taking little birds from a nest he tied them all
together; as a consequence the bird of prey, which had been
taking but one every now and then, carried off the lot at
once. Having seen at court some little pug dogs whose ears
had been clipped to improve their appearance, he cut the ears
of his donkey, and paraded it with ostentation, that it might
be admired. This last deed was the cause of his being sent
back to his village. Marcolfa followed him thither, and they
lived there very happily. Bertoldino married a peasant girl
named Menghina, who bore him Cacasenno, the third hero of this
history. Alboin the Debonnaire, curious to know whether the
grandfather’s wit might not have skipped a generation, summoned
Cacasenno to court with the good Marcolfa. But the grandson was
no greater success than his father. He was lazy and greedy, and
all that is related of him turns upon these two faults. His
last feat, and that which brings the epic to a close, was his
eating a plate of glue which he mistook for broth. He died of
it, or was reduced to the point of death.”
There is nothing surprising in the success scored by this peasant
Bertoldo, who, solely by his wit and his naïve simple sense, makes his
fortune at the court of a great king, soars above all the ridicule which
it is sought to heap upon him, issues cleverly and wittily from all the
traps that are set for him, and surmounts by his wit the short-comings
of his education. Is it possible that Cervantes was acquainted with the
doings of Bertoldo when he created that other type of naïve good sense,
Sancho Pança?
Bertoldo was not long in being transferred from fiction into life. The
types of Bertoldo, of his son Bertoldino, and even of his grandson
Cacasenno, passed on to the trestles of Italy towards the end of the
sixteenth century. In Florence, in Bologna and in Lombardy there was no
troupe of actors without a _Bertoldo_, a sort of lackey, a famous utterer
of truths; but _Bertoldino_ appears to have had a much more enduring
vogue in the theatre. This type, entirely doltish in the original,
becomes, according to the actors by whom it was played, a mixture of
rustic artlessness and shrewdness; he displays a sententiousness akin
to Bertoldo’s, whilst at the same time flinging his gold to the frogs
to silence them. For the rest, the adventures of our two heroes have
furnished a goodly number of scenes, and even of scenarii, in the three
hundred years during which they have been reaping success under different
names, such as Pirolino and Bigolo.
In the sixteenth century the Comédie-Italienne performed in Paris a comic
opera entitled _Bertholde à la Ville_, drawn from an interlude entitled
_Bertoldo in Corte_. This was sung by the Italian Company at the Opéra in
1753.
Nicolò Zeccha was playing these naïve rôles under the name of Bertoldino
at the end of the sixteenth century. Nicolò Barbieri (Beltrame) says, in
speaking of him, that he was a young man of great courage, very skilled
in the use of weapons, and a fine dancer. He was skilled too in killing
birds on the wing, and so fleet a runner that he had many times brought
down stags by pursuing them. Victor Amédée I., Duke of Savoy, invited
him often to take part in his hunts, and accorded to him, in addition to
this honour, full permission to take such horses from his stables as he
might desire, and to hunt when or where he should please in the ducal
preserves, with the right to banish from them all those who enjoyed this
privilege before him. Zeccha was still a member of the _Fedeli_ troupe in
1630.
ii
PAGLIACCIO first made his appearance in the troupe of Juan Ganassa, and
travelled through Italy, France and Spain in 1570.
The name of Pagliaccio (literally, cut straw), which has become the
synonym of madcap or giddy fellow, is no more than a corruption of
Bajaccio (a bad jester): it is the pejorative of _baja_ (mockery),
signifying an utterer of raileries, good or bad.
[Illustration]
In one of the Italian troupes that passed through Florence at the end of
the sixteenth century, in 1598, there appeared a personage named Gian
Farina, his countenance white like Pagliaccio’s and dressed in very ample
linen garments, but wearing in addition the _tabaro_ and a wooden sword.
We cannot ascertain the real name of this actor, who, under his sobriquet
of Gian Farina, enjoyed a certain celebrity as a comedian and was the
director of an itinerant troupe. Like Pagliaccio he was dressed in white,
and his face—as his name implies—was whitened with flour. That it was
also the custom of the French comedians thus to whiten their faces so as
to give more character to their grimaces, we may gather from Montaigne:
“These men of vile condition who seek to recommend themselves
by dangerous leaps and other strange mountebank movements
were compelled to whiten their faces and to indulge in savage
grimaces to induce us to laugh.”
The custom was anterior to Montaigne, for as early as 1502 we find Jean
Serre, and his son Auguste Serre, parading under costumes analogous to
those transmitted to us by Callot.
In point of costume, Pagliaccio is but a variant of Pulcinella; his
pointed hat of white wool and his garment of white linen seem to be no
more than the undress of the Neapolitan macaroni eater. His character,
however, is quite different.
Salvator Rosa, who was deeply interested in the theatre and in its
costumes, has left us the following description:—
“Pagliaccio is dressed in a coat that is extremely full and
pleated, and fastened by enormous buttons; his hat is soft
and white and capable of assuming any shape; he wears a mask,
yet his face is covered with flour. He is stupid, giddy and
awkward, and whilst for ever urging others to the most daring
measures, he is himself the greatest poltroon on earth; he
affects agility, merely to tumble incessantly and drag down
with him his old master, whom he has the air of endeavouring to
support.”
His flour-covered face and his white mask particularly distinguish him in
point of external features from the Neapolitan Pulcinella. In point of
character he differs to a still greater degree. Pagliaccio, the stupid
lackey, is no more than a trestle jester, whose rôle consists in clumsily
imitating, like the English clown, the gestures and movements of the
other mimes, and in receiving constant beatings, to the great amusement
of the audience.
In Italian pantomimes, Pagliaccio fills the place occupied by Pierrot
in France; he no longer wears a mask, his face being merely covered
with flour. He is the rival of Harlequin, and the lackey of Pantaloon.
He is in love with Columbine, but—like the French Pierrot—he is never
successful in carrying her off from Florindo, the lover who is always
dressed in the latest fashion of his time and place. In these pantomimes
the rôles of father fall to the lot of the Doctor or old Tabarino.
In 1670 Zaniazi, half Gilles, half Pulcinella, performed rôles which
greatly resembled those of the doltish Harlequins.
In 1770 Natocelli achieved renown in Italy as a good Bajaccio, whilst in
Paris in 1803 Martini was performing his farces with Podesta, Vanini and
other Italian buffoons in the ancient gardens of Tivoli.
The French Paillasse is of very much more recent date. It would be
towards the end of the eighteenth century that this character made its
appearance in the Nicolet Theatre (La Gaîté) in a sort of satire upon the
debauched young nobility, a piece based upon the _Festin de Pierre_, and
coarsely adapted to the tastes of the boulevard public. Paillasse took
the place of Sganarelle.
Reduced to the utmost misery in consequence of the follies and excesses
of his master, having nothing left in which to dress himself, Paillasse
would assume the tattered covering of an old mattress and successfully
array himself in it to perform his tricks of equilibrium and juggling.
Hence the costume, with blue and white or red and white squares, which
from that date has been favoured by itinerant jugglers and knife throwers.
Paillasse neither wears a mask nor powders his face with flour.
His Indian camisole in squares is short, tight to the figure, with
shoulder-of-mutton sleeves fastened at the wrists; his breeches are wide
and full, but tight below the knee. He wears the white collar and the
black skull-cap.
Brazier says, in his _Histoire des Petits Théâtres de Paris_, when
speaking of the Boulevard du Temple:
“This famous boulevard was a Parisian kermesse, a perpetual
fair, an all-the-year-round market. Here you would find matter
for laughter and amusement by day and by night; it was the
rendezvous of the best society; a crowd of brilliant equipages
were constantly stationed there. Cold and heat were braved for
the sake of listening to a Paillasse who, in spite of Deburau,
was not without merit. This Paillasse, who was named Père
Rousseau, had made himself a reputation by singing in the open
air:
“‘C’est dans la ville de Bordeaux
Q’est z’arrivé trois gros vaisseaux,
Les matelots qui sont dedans,
Ce sont, ma foi! de bons enfants.’
“I myself have beheld the remains of this good fat Paillasse,
and I have bowed respectfully before him.
“I can affirm that never was there a Paillasse more complete
or more amusing; it was not a case of the pale and livid
countenance of Deburau; it was not his wise and grave
performance nor his artistic poses, nor his expressive winks.
Here instead was a full, red, plethoric countenance; it
symbolised the gaiety of the populace at its fullest. It was
impossible not to laugh like a king’s fool at the sight of
his grimaces, at the sound of his hoarse and broken voice; he
achieved in song what Deburau achieved in pantomime, for this
Paillasse of mine was also a great actor. Do not suppose that
he recited like a pupil of the Conservatoire; he knew how to be
witty and mordant in his declamation; his physiognomy was of an
astounding mobility.... We would remain by the hour watching
Père Rousseau, that classic Paillasse! We hardly dared to
breathe, such was our fear of missing one of his gestures, one
of his contortions!”
The farces performed by Rousseau in public at the close of the eighteenth
century were very much what they are still to-day, a tissue of
imbecilities and gross ineptitudes.
PAILLASSE. Sir, since you are so kind, I beg of you to do me a
service.
CASSANDRE. What service?
PAILLASSE. To compose me a compliment for a lady with whom I am
madly in love.
CASSANDRE. It is first necessary that I should know her
qualities. Is she lovable, beautiful?
PAILLASSE. Oh, as for her beauty, there can be but one opinion.
First of all, let me tell you that she has only one eye; but
the one that remains is so engaging, so witty, so seductive,
that it is without equal, and I really think that if it is
alone it is because Nature was incapable of producing such
another.
CASSANDRE. She has only one eye! Well, well, that at least is
one charm.
PAILLASSE. Oh, and her mouth, sir! Oh! you cannot picture it.
She can thrust a whole apple into it without the least trouble.
CASSANDRE. Another advantage; so that, when she wishes to tell
herself a secret, she can whisper it in her own ear.
PAILLASSE. True, sir. And then her nose! It is a model nose,
a curiosity; it has something of the pear, something of the
mulberry, and something of the beetroot.
CASSANDRE. Ah, I see; it is a rarity.
PAILLASSE. Oh, and then her feet! They are so small that I
assure you I can hardly get her shoes on over my own boots.
CASSANDRE. And her figure?
PAILLASSE. Her figure? She is built like a tower; she is quite
round. I beg you, sir, to compose me this compliment, which I
am burning to address her.
CASSANDRE. I consent; but first invite the present company to
come inside and see the extraordinary spectacle which we are
going to give this evening.
PAILLASSE (_brusquely_). Hey, there, you others! come inside!
CASSANDRE (_kicking him_). Animal! Is that the way to address
polite society?
PAILLASSE. You are right. I made a mistake. Hi, there, you
others! come inside!
(_CASSANDRE chases him off._)
iii
At the end of the sixteenth century the French _enfariné_ or the
_barbouillé_, as he was then called, was Robert Guérin, named _Lafleur_,
but better known as GROS-GUILLAUME. He was a comedian of the Hôtel de
Bourgogne, then managed by Valeran, named the _Picard_, which was as much
as to say, a jester and a wit.
Valeran’s real name was Lecomte. “He was,” says Tallemant, “a tall
handsome man. He was the head of the troupe and very generous towards its
members, and he himself took the money at the door.”
Gros-Guillaume was more than a jester; he was a remarkable actor, greatly
esteemed by Henry IV. and by Richelieu, and often commanded to the Louvre
to amuse the Béarnais, who enjoyed performances which ridiculed the
language and affectations of the gentlemen of his court, particularly
those of the Marshal de Roquelaure, concerning whom Tallemant des Réaux
relates the following anecdote:—
“One day the king held him between his knees whilst witnessing
a command performance by Gros-Guillaume of the farce of the
_Gentilhomme Gascon_. Every now and again, to amuse his
master, the Marshal pretended to want to get away to thrash
Gros-Guillaume, shouting, ‘_Cousis, ne bous fâchez_.’ It
happened that after the king’s assassination, the comedians,
not daring to perform in Paris in view of the general
consternation there, repaired to the provinces and made their
way to Bordeaux. There the Marshal was the king’s lieutenant.
It was necessary for the players to obtain his sanction. ‘I
give it you,’ said he, ‘on condition that you will play the
farce of the _Gentilhomme Gascon_.’ They imagined that a sound
cudgelling awaited them, and sought to excuse themselves. They
were, however, prevailed upon to perform. The Marshal went to
see the farce; but the memories it evoked of the good master he
had lost occasioned him so much pain that he departed in tears
almost immediately after the beginning of the play.”
Gros-Guillaume had been a baker. Fat beyond all measure, he wore two
girdles, one above, the other below, his belly. Dressed in white, he
discarded the usual mask of Pagliaccio, but covered his face with flour,
which he would cause to fly all about him by blowing out his cheeks and
by other grimaces. Turlupin, Gaultier-Garguille and he were the only real
French buffoons. With Gaultier-Garguille and Gros-Guillaume, who died
within a few months of each other, the French farce died also.
Gros-Guillaume wore a white linen blouse, pantaloons with wide brightly
coloured stripes, and a red cap. “... This is my valet, Guillaume le
Gros,” says Gaultier-Garguille when speaking of him, “and he is to be
known by his piebald costume in the fashion of the Swiss of Francis I.,
and by his belly, copied from a calabash.”
iv
Pedrolino, Piero and Pierrot are all one and the same personage. Under
the designation of Piero, a lackey, he was seen on the Italian stage as
early as 1574 in a comedy of Cristoforo Castelletti; we find him filling
the same character in _I Bernardi_, by Giovanmaria Cecchi, in 1563, and
in the plays of Luigi Grotto, _La Altiera_ amongst others, in 1587. Under
the name of Pedrolino we find him playing rôles of naïve lackeys with
Bertolin (Zeccha). In the _Gelosi_ troupe, from 1578 to 1604 inclusive,
the rôles of lackey are played by Pedrolino, Burattino and Arlecchino.
PEDROLINO is a very complex type, presenting, in point of character,
the greatest resemblance to the modern French Pierrot; his especial
characteristic is his honesty. In the fifty scenarii of Flaminio Scala he
is almost always the preferred lover of the soubrette Franceschina, who,
none the less, receives the homage of Pantaloon without prejudice to that
of Arlecchino and Burattino. Sometimes he is the husband of Franceschina,
and then he plays the rôle of a Sganarelle; betrayed by his wife and
discovering it, he rebukes her coquetry, but ends by recognising that the
fault is his own, and begs her pardon, which he obtains only after a deal
of trouble.
Lackey to the coquette Flaminia, he refuses to undertake the delivery of
her love letters to her lover Orazio. Flaminia and Orazio abuse him and
call him a rascal. He becomes furiously enraged, whereafter he weeps upon
the bosom of Harlequin, bewailing the loss of his reputation.
As the lackey of Pantaloon, and trusted to keep watch over the wife of
his master whilst the latter sleeps, Pedrolino also falls asleep, or else
he drinks with Captain Spavento and the Doctor, and all three, “drunk
as monkeys,” commit the wildest extravagances and end by falling to the
ground, “where they remain.” On the morrow, Pantaloon, furious to learn
that whilst he slept his wife has been abroad, reproaches Pedrolino, who
is still somnolent and weary from yesterday’s drunkenness. Pedrolino,
remembering nothing, understands nothing of his master’s complaints.
Pantaloon, beside himself with anger, beats him and bites him, to wrest
him from his torpor, and ends by leaving him in tears; but the first
pangs of sorrow being over, Pedrolino swears vengeance. He contrives
so cleverly that all the characters of the piece mystify Pantaloon,
and persuade him that his breath is very unpleasant. Pantaloon ends by
believing it, and submits to the extraction of four excellent teeth.
After that he understands that he has been fooled, and that Pedrolino is
the author of this practical joke. Pedrolino simulates madness to escape
the blows which threaten him.
He is a poltroon and a boaster. Bent upon avenging the wrong done him by
Harlequin, he arrives armed to the teeth, perceives his enemy and hurls
himself upon him with drawn weapons. Harlequin, armed with a door-bar,
receives him firmly. Then, face to face, they heap abuse each upon the
other, whilst depending upon those present to hinder them from coming
to blows. The Captain seeks to separate them, whereupon they strike out
furiously, with the result that it is the Captain who receives this
shower of blows.
Elsewhere, after having boasted that he fears nothing, Pedrolino
perceives Harlequin covered by a white garment, lantern in hand; at
sight of him he interrupts his conversation and flees as fast as his legs
will carry him.
His sorrows do not affect his appetite. We behold him weeping and
complaining after having received a beating. He meets Harlequin, who
brings him on behalf of the Captain a plate of macaroni. Pedrolino
accepts it and continues to weep uninterruptedly whilst eating like an
ogre; Harlequin, deeply affected, weeps also and begins to eat with him.
Burattino arrives and, beholding them eating and weeping, he too bursts
into tears and puts his hand into the dish. Not one of them says a word.
The macaroni, watered by their tears, is soon swallowed, whereafter
Pedrolino, weeping, turns to Harlequin. “Kiss the Captain’s hands for
me,” he says, and goes off. Burattino entrusts Harlequin with a like
commission on his own behalf and makes his exit on the other side, also
weeping. Harlequin, bursting into fresh sobs, goes off licking the plate.
Pedrolino is utterly the slave of fear. Whilst dining under a tree with
Harlequin and the beautiful Dorinda, the repast is interrupted by a
gigantic bear which advances upon them. Pedrolino leaps up; the bear does
the same; and whilst Harlequin, to hold its attention, throws at it one
by one all the apples of the dinner, which the bear very adroitly catches
in its jaws, Pedrolino decamps; Harlequin follows him and the bear
carries off Dorinda, who lends herself without protest to this abduction.
Arrayed in a long white shirt, wearing a straw hat and carrying a
huge staff, Pedrolino is entrusted by his master with a love letter
which he is to deliver to Isabella; but as a result of his habitual
absent-mindedness he loses the letter; he perceives his loss and,
in casting about him for some means of discharging his commission,
he is inspired with the happy notion of committing a theft upon a
letter-carrier. He purloins from the basket the first letter that comes
to his hand and delivers it to Isabella, whence ensues an intrigue of
extreme complication.
In another scenario, dressed as a beggar, with a patch over one eye, he
meets the Captain and begs alms from him whilst regarding him fixedly
with his uncovered eye. The Captain, wearied and rendered impatient by
his steadfast glance, demands the reason of it.
“It is,” replies Pedrolino, “that I am a physiognomist and that I
perceive from your face that you will shortly be hanged.”
The Captain, to rid himself of such disagreeable prognostications, gives
him some money. Another person, for the sake of peace, gives him bread
and wine. Pedrolino sits down in a corner to eat and drink, but, finding
the bread not clean and the wine not good, he throws one and the other at
the legs of him from whom he received them, and goes off to get drunk at
the hostelry.
He is mischievous and he plays practical jokes upon everybody. He dons
the clothes of Cassandre, his master, and impersonates him; he dresses
up as a woman and induces the Captain to abduct him; he gives Harlequin
or Burattino filth to drink; he dresses Pantaloon as a woman to lead him
to a supposed rendezvous, assuring him that such is the caprice of the
lady who awaits him, in her anxiety to save appearances; at the same time
he relates some fable to the Doctor, to lure him to the same rendezvous
at which he himself is present in hiding. After many amorous proposals
between the two cozened old men they finally recognise each other and
almost come to blows.
In some pieces he is an intriguer and a lackey in the service of young
people. But even then his real nature is preserved and he conforms to his
type by his mischievousness and his buffooneries, when, for instance,
morion on head and sword at his side, he imitates the roaring furies of
Captain Spavento.
Such is the rôle of Pedrolino in the collection of Flaminio Scala. It
will be seen therefore that it is quite wrong to attribute to the type of
Pierrot a modern and entirely French origin.
“Down to the middle of the seventeenth century,” says M.
Édouard Fournier in a recent article on the subject of Molière,
“the Italian comedy had but one doltish character, Harlequin:
it was always he who was the butt of practical jokes, it was
always he who received the beatings. But with the advent
of Domenico, all this was changed. As you know, he played
Harlequin parts; but he played them like the man of wit that
he was; well-read, and the friend of men of letters, he found
it impossible, even under a mask, to accommodate himself to a
character of imperturbable doltishness. Moreover he recognised,
as has been wisely remarked by Léris in his Dramatic
Dictionary, the humour of the French public, which insists upon
wit in all performances. Therefore he infused wit into the rôle
of Harlequin, and from then onward Harlequin was a completely
metamorphosed character. Since Domenico justified himself by
his success, none interfered with him. Thus Comedy gained a
character; but on the other hand it also lost one, and one
very much more indispensable than this charming intruder.
How, without the necessary fool, was it possible to sustain
Comedy’s repertory? Obviously an imbecile was essential to the
repertory, to the by-play of the characters and to the lesser
pleasures of the public. A fortunate chance, the inspiration of
Molière, gave him to the world one fine day in the person of
Pierrot.
“It was under these circumstances that Pierrot arrived, it was
thus, as has been well said by des Essarts, that this singular
character made his appearance, ‘French-born, in the Italian
theatre.’”
It was Molière who, first, in his _Don Juan, ou le Festin de Pierre_,
gave a peasant the name of Pierrot. He based this piece upon an Italian
scenario entitled, _Il Convitato di Pietro_ (Peter’s Guest), which had
already been performed in Paris in 1659 by the Sieur de Villiers, a
comedian of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and elsewhere by others.
“Molière was tempted,” says M. Édouard Fournier, “by the
success of the Italian piece, to write his _Don Juan_. The
success obtained by his comedy again in its turn tempted the
Italians. He was inspired by them, they were inspired by him.
In the early part of February, 1673, a bare fortnight before
the death of that great author, the Italians performed in
their theatre a new plot made up of the best scenes of their
old piece, _Il Convitato di Pietro_, and, particularly, of the
most amusing passages appropriated by them from the comedy
of Molière. This comic medley, made up like the dress of
Harlequin, was entitled _Aggiunta al Convitato di Pietro_.
“Among the characters transformed and adapted by the Italians
in this extraordinary scenic hotch-potch was Pierrot, with his
simpleton ways, his naïve love affairs and his unaltered name.
Little attention was paid to this new-comer, so that, haphazard
and, as it were, out of charity, the part was entrusted to a
low-salaried member of the company named Giaratone. He did
marvels. The others had the good sense not to be jealous and
thus, in one stroke and by the one success, the character and
the comedian alike acquired rights of citizenship.
“From this moment Pierrot never again left the Italian Comedy.
In spite of his newness, in spite of his French name, he became
as much a type as any of the others, as Mezzetin, Lelio,
Cassandre, or even Harlequin himself, whose emancipation was
justified by his advent, and who very willingly accepted him
as the inheritor of his old-time stupidity and the victim of
his malice of more recent date. Since there was nothing to
show that he was a character of recent importation, so quickly
and usefully was he employed in all the pieces as a type
now acquired and naturalised for all time, Pierrot had his
successes and his actors, who appropriated his flour-covered
mask and the doltishness which became traditional.
“Amongst these was Hamoche, who did marvels somewhere about
1712, and for whom I am inclined to think was composed the air
_Au Clair de la Lune_, always attributed, but without the least
evidence, to Lulli.
“The costume of Pierrot was already that with which we are
acquainted. Molière, in his _Don Juan_, had given him the white
blouse of a French peasant, such as is still worn by Colin,
the sleepy boy in the last scenes of _Georges Dandin_. Upon
being turned into an Italian character Pierrot was compelled
to change this garment; but he preserved at least the colour.
The garb which he then took, and has never since abandoned,
was borrowed from the Neapolitan Pulcinella. But in the case
of Pulcinella the tunic is shorter, and fits the figure more
closely, whilst the pantaloons are not so wide.[6] Finally
Pierrot covered his face with flour.”
Notwithstanding these ingenious assertions it is impossible to think
that Giaratone should not have possessed the traditions of Pedrolino,
since the character which he introduced into the Franco-Italian theatre
accords in every particular with that Italian ancestor of his: we
discover the same poltroonery, the same gluttony, the same naïveté,
so often malicious, the same stupidity mingled with good sense, and
the same fundamental honesty and candour. As for the costume, nothing
is discoverable to inform us exactly of that which was worn by the
Pedrolino of Flaminio Scala. It is stated in a scenario that Pedrolino is
dressed in a long shirt and wears a straw hat. Was his face floured like
Pagliaccio’s and was he already dressed in white? That is very possible.
Caprice has determined far less than is supposed in those costumes of
classic fantasy which, however transformed, never absolutely abandon the
lines of tradition. Giaratone, informed of the true character of the
old Pedrolino, would no doubt be equally informed on the score of his
make-up, and his dress; as for his Gallicised appellation, it is beyond
doubt the same name, for in the scenarii of Gherardi the characters
address him indifferently as Pierrot or Piero.
It would therefore seem that Giaratone did no more than rejuvenate and
adapt to the Franco-Italian theatre the character of the old Pedrolino,
taking for his performances those shades of character dominant in the
greater number of the scenarii of Scala and abandoning the intriguing
qualities sometimes, but exceptionally, attributed to him. He approached
the type of Bertoldino, a type which, long before his day, had been
confounded with that of Pedrolino. He floured his face after the fashion
of the old French _badins_, who themselves—like Pagliaccio with his white
mask and his flour, Pulcinella and Harlequin with their black masks,
Pantaloon and Brighella with their brown masks, Coviello and the Doctor,
each with his mask of a distinctive colour—derive from the ancient mimes
with their countenances blackened, browned, reddened or whitened, who are
alleged to have been resurrected during the Renaissance, but who in all
probability had never disappeared from the Italian boards.
Just as Pedrolino had been the incarnation of the Italian peasant, so
Pierrot was that of the French peasant, and he became with the French
public the most popular type after Polichinelle.
In the scenarii and theatrical pieces of Gherardi, Pierrot is always a
servant of the Doctor, of Brocantin or of Cinthio, just as in French
pieces and pantomimes he is always the servant of Cassandre. He is a
fellow who always says what he thinks and who recognises no social
distinctions. This privilege of speaking his mind, accorded to the
finesse and astuteness of the soubrette, is similarly granted to the
simplicity and awkwardness of Pierrot. He never fails to lecture his
master.
PIERROT. Sir, sir, I come to tell you once for all that I am
very pleased with you and that I have always loved you better
than you deserve.
CASSANDRE. I am much obliged to you for the honour.
PIERROT. Put on your hat [_i.e._ don’t stand on ceremony]. You
have paid me my wages promptly and I have consumed them in your
service in like fashion.
CASSANDRE. That is not my fault. But, Pierrot, what ails you? I
find you entirely changed.
PIERROT. That is not your affair. I shall be changed if I wish
and I shall not be changed if I do not wish.
CASSANDRE. I beg you to pardon me for having presumed to take
an interest in your concerns.
PIERROT. What I want to know, sir, without all this preamble,
is, what do you intend to give me by way of reward?
CASSANDRE. But you confess, yourself, that I have paid you all
your wages.
PIERROT. Agreed. But have I not also told you that I have
consumed them?
CASSANDRE. That is not my fault.
PIERROT. Oh, sir, let us reckon up the services out of the
ordinary which I have rendered you, and you will see how stupid
you are. Firstly, I have not told your wife that you have a
love affair in the town upon which you are spending the best
part of your income. I leave it to yourself to put a price upon
my discreetness.
CASSANDRE. It is just. That deserves something.
PIERROT. Secondly, you have been ten times drunk without my
permission. I am not compelled to put up with you in such
disorders.
CASSANDRE. That is well reasoned.
PIERROT. Thirdly, I have fallen in love whilst in your service.
CASSANDRE. That certainly deserves a recompense.
PIERROT. As the total sum of the extraordinary expenditure
to which I have been subjected in your service, pay me ten
thousand livres, and I will give you a quittance in full.
CASSANDRE. Your accounts seem to be in order. But whilst
awaiting a settlement, go as far as the post to see if there
are any letters for me.
(_PIERROT goes and returns at the end of an hour. His master is
busy when he enters._)
PIERROT. Yes, sir.
CASSANDRE. What do you want?
PIERROT. I have come to tell you, sir, that I have seen them.
CASSANDRE. Seen what?
PIERROT. Your letters at the post.
CASSANDRE. Where are they?
PIERROT. At the post.
CASSANDRE. And have you not brought them?
PIERROT. No. You told me only to go and see if there were any.
I have seen them and I am come to tell you so.
CASSANDRE. Heaven give me patience with you! I should be better
advised to have gone myself.
PIERROT. Really, sir, if you have not the wit to express
yourself properly, what can you expect?
Again Pierrot is the valet of _Cinthio_ (an old man) in the _Cause des
Femmes_; he believes himself to be alone whilst, as a matter of fact, his
master is finishing his supper within ear-shot close by.
PIERROT. When I come to consider what a woman is, frankly my
poor wit goes all to pieces. However I may shut the door, our
house is always full of counts and marquises. A lackey brings
a letter; his master comes to demand an answer! All night at a
ball! All day in merry-makings or at the comedy! What a life
for a man of my master’s age! Ah, you may do as you like, but
you will never be taken for anything but what you are.
CINTHIO (_rising_). What do you mean, lackey?
PIERROT. I? Nothing, sir, I was not speaking.
CINTHIO. How, rascal, you were not speaking? Have you not just
said that I shall never be taken for anything but what I am?
PIERROT. Yes, sir.
CINTHIO. Well, then, rogue, what am I?
PIERROT. Since you ask me, you are a fool to have married a
she-goat of seventeen years of age who finds no house less
desirable than yours, and who is for ever trailing a mob of
courtiers after her.
Pierrot, like his ancestor Pedrolino, is compounded, it will be seen, of
common-sense and simplicity. In him too there is something of the Sancho
Pança of Cervantes, at once credulous and sceptical, the eternal type of
rustic outspokenness, whom nothing astonishes; it is a type which neither
passes nor changes.
The original character of Harlequin after it had been transformed by
Domenico was bound to, and did, go out of fashion. Wit is a thing
relative to every epoch and to every environment; the jests of that
comedian do not now always seem witty to us; among those which have been
collected it is impossible to cite more than a certain number. Pierrot,
however, might be cited in full; for he exists, and will always exist, on
the stage of life itself.
Giuseppe Giaratone, who was a native of Ferrara, had been—as we have
seen—but a short while in the troupe when he had the good fortune to
create his character of Pierrot on the 4th February 1673. He performed,
now in Italian, now in French, until 1697—that is to say, until the
suppression of the theatre. He married in France a lady of good family
and he lived with her on a little estate which belonged to them in the
neighbourhood of Paris. It was thither that he retired, and there that he
died.
Antonio Sticotti made his début in peasant parts and as Pierrot in 1729
at the Comédie-Italienne. He retired to Meaux, where he occupied the
position of postmaster. He left several comedies which were played with
success.
In the theatres of the fairs the most remarkable Pierrots were Prévot in
1707 and Hamoche in 1712. The latter left his theatre to attempt to join
the company of the Comédie-Italienne, but he was not received there. In
1725 he repaired to the fair of Saint-Laurent, and his introduction was
couched in the following terms: Scaramouche came to announce him to a
personification of the Fair and sang:
“Hamoche vous prie
De le recevoir;
Il tempête, il crie,
Voulez-vous le voir?”
The Fair replied:
“C’est ici son centre,
Qu’il entre, qu’il entre.”
But the forain audience, by no means flattered at being looked upon as
a last resource, hissed Hamoche by way of teaching him a lesson. This
punishment so wounded the poor Pierrot that he withdrew from the theatre
and died of grief.
From 1715 to 1721 Belloni, remarkable for the extreme simplicity of his
performance and for the naïveté and truth of his diction, was another
Pierrot of distinction. Then came Dujardin in 1721, Bréon, Maganox,
Dourdet, in 1741, and Pietro Sodi, a native of Rome, who was a dancer and
mime of very great talent, and the author of many pantomimes, in 1749.
v
The name of Giglio is mentioned for the first time in 1531 in the Italian
troupe of the _Intronati_; but this personage, filling the rôles of
servant and sometimes of lover, is but very slightly related to the
Giglio played in Naples in 1701 by Filipo and Fabienti.
The French GILLES of the eighteenth century is a lineal descendant of
Pierrot. His floured countenance assumes under the brush of Watteau that
elegance of line and that charm at once naïve and comic with which we are
all acquainted.
In 1702 Maillot, the forain actor, played, under the name of Gilles,
rôles identical with those of Pierrot, but, no longer with the same
simplicity and good sense with which Giaratone had equipped this
character. Later, towards 1780, we see the actor Carpentier (Gilles)
appropriating the scenes and the business which had been played by Carlin
Bertinazzi at the Comédie-Italienne.
THE MASTER. Hola! Gilles! Hola! I am always compelled to shout
myself hoarse when I want that rascal. Gilles! Gilles!
GILLES (_arriving very softly and shouting very loudly into his
ear_). Here I am, sir. I am not deaf.
THE MASTER (_recoiling_). A plague on the rascal! Does he want
to frighten me to death?
GILLES. But then, sir, you were shouting like a stick that has
lost its blind man.... I was conferring with the post-man; he
has just brought me a letter, and I was asking him to read it
to me when you called me.
THE MASTER. Whence is this letter?
GILLES. I don’t know. I barely had time to unseal it. Here it
is, sir.
THE MASTER (_reading_). “From the country.”... What country?
GILLES. Limoges, I suppose.
THE MASTER. Then they ought to say so.
GILLES. Oh! but they are not so wise as that at Limoges.
Continue to read, I beseech you.
THE MASTER (_reads_). “My cousin Gilles, this is to advise you
that my aunt your mother is dead....”
GILLES (_weeping_). My mother is dead! Oh, sir, behold me an
orphan. Who will take care of me henceforth?
THE MASTER. But you are big enough to take care of yourself. I
am delighted to see your good natural feelings for your mother.
But we are all mortal.... Let us proceed with the letter. (_He
reads._) “She has left you fifty crowns——”
GILLES. My mother has left me fifty crowns? Now that is what I
call a good woman. Sir, are you quite sure that is right?
THE MASTER. Quite sure. But it seems to me that you are very
soon consoled for the loss of your mother.
GILLES. Oh, she was very old.
THE MASTER. I understand. (_He reads._) “I inform you that your
little sister Catine has become a child of pleasure——”
GILLES. My sister Catine a child of pleasure! (_He weeps._)
I shall kill her! I love honour a hundred times better than
reputation.
THE MASTER. There, there, be comforted.
GILLES. No, sir; I refuse to be comforted.
THE MASTER. Listen. (_He reads._) “In four months she amassed
six hundred livres.”
GILLES (_laughing_). Six hundred livres! But that is very good.
My sister Catine was of a saving disposition.
THE MASTER. It looks like it. (_He reads._) “I must tell you,
cousin, that in the course of a quarrel a fortnight ago she
received a wound in the face which horribly disfigured her.”
GILLES (_weeping_). Oh, my poor little Catine, how I pity you!
Alas, that is the fate of nearly all of her kind.
THE MASTER. Wait, my friend. (_He reads._) “As the wound was
dangerous, she made her will, and you profit by it.”
GILLES. What a good heart that girl had!
THE MASTER (_reading_). “Soon afterwards she died.”
GILLES. Oh, sir, my heart is bursting.
THE MASTER (_reading_). “By this will she leaves you a house
furnished in the best style.”
GILLES (_laughing_). A house furnished in the best style? Now
that was really well done. There’s a good girl for you, a good
virtuous girl!
THE MASTER. A virtuous girl! (_He reads._) “But, my dear
cousin, a very great disaster followed. The house caught fire
and has been burnt, together with all the furniture; what was
not burnt was pillaged, and your fifty crowns were also stolen.”
GILLES. Fire! Thieves! Sir, I am ruined. Write to them quickly
and bid them have recourse to all the town buckets and throw
all the water available on that fire.
In the last years of his theatrical career, Carpentier, who for twenty
years had been applauded as an excellent Gilles, had contracted the
deplorable habit of drunkenness. His director, Barré, had endeavoured by
all means to correct him of a vice which ruined his health and harmed
him in his profession; but Carpentier took no notice, with the result
that from year to year his memory grew more and more infirm until, having
forgotten all his old rôles, he was utterly incapable of learning new
ones. His director was compelled to confine him to accessory rôles in
which he let him do as he liked; thus he was able to continue to allow
him a salary without hurting his feelings.
A year passed without his ever appearing on the boards; then one evening,
in a piece (_Les Savants de Naissance_) in which the whole company was
engaged, Carpentier went to his dressing-room without saying a word to
anyone and assumed the costume of a Gascon hairdresser, a part in which
he was remarkable.
“The comb over his ear, holding a powder-box under his arm,
and a razor-case in his hand, he came to the front and saluted
the audience. Everyone present recognised him and universal
laughter pealed from the spectators; then applause broke forth
not only in front, but even in the wings. Thereupon poor
Carpentier began to weep, exclaiming to his comrades, with
as much joy as modesty, ‘My friends, my friends, they have
recognised me.... They have recognised me!’”
A few days later he committed suicide by throwing himself from a window.
vi
PEPPE-NAPPA is a Sicilian personage who, save for the colour of his
dress, is absolutely the same as Giglio or Gilles; and there is no
Italian mask which in character so closely resembles the French Pierrot.
Whilst Giglio is dressed in white flannel, like the Gilles of Watteau,
Peppe-Nappa’s livery is pale blue. He does not cover his face with flour,
although he is very pale; he, like Gilles, wears a white skull-cap, a
white or grey hat, and shoes of white leather. He is of a surprising
agility, continually dancing and bounding. His eyes and his wan
countenance are extremely remarkable and expressive. He is equally lively
in his gestures. Very swift in his movements and very supple, he seems,
when he collapses upon himself, to be no more than a heap of garments
that can never have been filled by flesh and bones.
He is nearly always a servant, sometimes, for instance, to the Barone
(the Sicilian old man), upon whom he visits his stupidity. But gluttony
is Peppe-Nappa’s greatest fault; he has a predilection for kitchens; if
he may not always eat in such places, at least he may always inhale what
to him is the most delicious of all perfumes.
In a comedy-ballet which is closely related to the _Scuola di Salerno_,
Peppe-Nappa is the servant of a schoolmaster, a sort of doctor, who
gesticulates in his chair in the course of teaching his pupils. Amongst
these, on the school forms, there are some very big girls, towards whom
the Doctor shows more indulgence than towards the others. The class is at
an end; the schoolmaster wants to go out, and requires his black robe and
his tall pointed hat. He rings for Peppe-Nappa, who, after a long delay,
comes in yawning. He approaches his master to learn his orders, but falls
asleep on his feet, leaning up against him. The latter withdraws and
Peppe-Nappa falls down without waking. The furious pedant lifts him up
by the skin of his back and, by kicks and blows, contrives to arouse him
from his slumber; thereafter he sends him for his robe. Peppe-Nappa goes
off and returns dragging the robe behind him; he then helps his master
to assume it. Upon his master complaining that the garment is covered
with dust, Peppe-Nappa goes to fetch a bucket of water and a broom, and,
before the pedant is aware of his intentions, he washes him down from
head to foot as he would wash a wall. This done, the good servant, worn
out by so much labour, seats himself apart and fans himself with his hat.
The furious schoolmaster seizes his ferrule to correct the servant, who
adroitly evades the blows, causing them to fall upon the hands of the
schoolmaster himself. Peppe-Nappa has a singular way of giving his master
his hat. He brings a ladder and leans it against his master’s shoulders
to enable him to put the hat on his head.
After the departure of the schoolmaster, the class is given over to
gaiety. The little boys fight, the little girls cry, and the older girls
run to the doors to admit their young lovers, who come to dance with
them. But Peppe-Nappa, who has been to accompany his master to the end
of the street, re-enters wearing the professor’s long black robe, with
his head buried in the enormous hat. There is great terror among the
youngsters, but they are quick to perceive their mistake, and they are
about to fall upon Peppe-Nappa when he threatens to call the master;
then two of the more astute ones bring him some macaroni and some
eggs to conciliate him. Whilst he is devouring these, and contracting
an indigestion, the whole class disappears, the pedant re-enters and
discovers Peppe-Nappa torpid from excess of food. Hereupon follow
remonstrances and discourses upon frugality, seasoned with blows. The
poor servant attempts, by way of showing his repentance of his past
conduct, to assist his master to rediscover his pupils. The piece ends in
the marriage of all the schoolgirls with their lovers. Peppe-Nappa is the
only one who can find no wife.
vii
The Théâtre des Funambules, founded in 1816 by Bertrand, presented
spectacles of performing dogs, farces, rope dancers and sometimes
pantomimes. The principal mime was Félix Charigny, who, under the name of
PIERROT, filled the part of Gilles.
Towards 1830 the Funambules having been transformed into a pantomime and
vaudeville theatre, there arose in the person of Deburau a man of genius
in his own line, who for fifteen years was able to attract all the lovers
of the old French and Italian farces.
In the hands of Deburau, pantomime was then all that remained of the old
Italian comedy. The character of Pierrot, however, underwent a complete
change. Deburau transformed it as Domenico had transformed Harlequin.
By his incomparable talent, which lent itself to all the shades of the
mimetic art, he made Pierrot now good, and generous out of carelessness,
now a thief, false and sometimes miserly, now cowardly, now daring, and
almost always poor; laziness and gluttony remained his incorrigible
faults.
Deburau transformed not only the character, but the externals of this
personage. His costume was based, first of all, upon that of Charigny,
whom he replaced in 1825. The short woollen tunic, with its great
buttons and its narrow sleeves, that overhung the hands, soon became an
ample calico blouse with wide long sleeves like those of the Italian
Pagliaccio. He suppressed the collar, which cast an upward shadow from
the footlights on to his face, and interfered with the play of his
countenance, and instead of the white skull-cap and the pointed hat of
his predecessor, he emphasised the pallor of his face by framing it in
a cap of black velvet. To-day Pagliaccio would rather be considered the
proper name for this type; but since he was generally recognised for
Pierrot, that name is to be preserved him.
“With him [Deburau],” says M. Théophile Gautier, “the rôle
of Pierrot was enlarged and widened; it ended by occupying
the entire piece, and, be it said with all the respect due
to the memory of the most perfect actor that ever lived, by
entirely departing from its origin and being denaturalised.
Pierrot, under the flour and the tunic of that illustrious
actor, assumed the airs of a master and an _aplomb_ unsuited
to the character; he no longer received kicks, he gave them;
Harlequin now scarcely dared to touch his shoulders with his
bat; Cassandre would think twice before boxing his ears. He
would kiss Columbine and pass an arm about her waist like a
seducer of comic opera; he caused the entire action of the
piece to revolve about himself, and he attained such a degree
of insolence and audacity that he would even beat his own good
genius. The strong personality of the great actor overbore the
type.”
“Et du Pierrot blafard brisant le masque étroit,
Le front de Deburau perçait en maint endroit.”
M. Jules Janin has published a biography of Deburau entitled, “DEBURAU,
_Histoire du Théâtre à Quatre-Sous, pour faire suite à l’histoire du
Théâtre-Français_, 1833.”
“Being unable to develop enthusiasm for the Théâtre-Français,”
he says, “we will become enthusiastic where we can; for
instance, in the boulevard theatres. It is in one of these
ignored theatres, in the meanest and the most infected, by the
light of four wretched candles and in a mephitic atmosphere,
situated alongside of a menagerie which bellows whilst the
actors are singing, that we have discovered, admired and
applauded with all our strength the great comedian, who is also
the great clown, Deburau.
“The greatest comedian of our age, Jean-Baptiste Deburau, was
born on the 31st July 1796. How he comes to be Deburau I cannot
tell you. The fact is, that he has revolutionised his art. He
has in truth created an entirely new race of clowns when it was
supposed that all the possible varieties had been exhausted.
He has replaced petulance by calm, enthusiasm by good sense.
In him we no longer see the Paillasse agitated hither and
thither, without reason and without aim; we behold instead
a stoic who allows himself mechanically to follow all the
impressions of the moment, an actor without passion, without
words and almost without countenance; one who says everything,
expresses everything, mocks everything; capable of playing,
without uttering a word, all the comedies of Molière; one who
is informed of all the follies of his day, and who reproduces
them to the life; an inimitable genius who goes and comes, who
looks, who opens his mouth, who closes his eyes, who causes
laughter and tears, who is enchanting!
“His fate to-day is as brilliant as it was erstwhile sad.
M. Nicolas-Michel Bertrand, the Director of the Funambules,
has given his Gilles an engagement worthy of him. After many
useless labours and many fruitless researches in the archives
of the kingdom of Comedy, we have had the good fortune to
discover the following important document bearing upon the
history of this art:—
“SPECTACLE DES FUNAMBULES
“_Agreement_
“Between the undersigned, M. Nicolas-Michel Bertrand,
of the Boulevard du Temple, No. 18, Paris, Director
of the Funambules Theatre, of the one part,
“And M. Jean-Baptiste Deburau, of the Faubourg du
Temple, No. 28, Paris, artist-mime, of the other part:
“It is agreed between us as follows:
“First, I, Bertrand, engage by these presents M.
Deburau, to perform in the troupe the parts of
Pierrot, and generally all the rôles which may be
assigned to him by me or my manager.
“Second, I, Jean-Baptiste Deburau, engage myself to
perform all rôles, to dance and take part in the
ballets, divertissements, pantomimes and all other
pieces, together with the company wherever sent for
fêtes, private or public, without exacting any extras
beyond the expenses of transit.
“I consent to conform to the rules established or to
be established for the performances, and to content
myself with such lighting, heating and costumes as
may be supplied me by the administration.
“In case of illness the Director reserves himself the
right to suspend the salary of the artist until the
day of his reappearance.
“The artist is under obligation to supply, according
to his costumes, his own linen, stockings, foot-wear,
gloves and grease-paints. The administration will
supply the costumes and properties, etc., etc.
“Subject to the above clause being faithfully
executed, M. Bertrand undertakes to pay M. Deburau
the sum of 35 francs weekly throughout the present
engagement. The present engagement is for three
years. It will begin on Easter Monday of 1828, and
conclude on Palm Sunday, 1831.
“The parties hereunto desire mutually that this
agreement shall have the same force and value as if
drawn before a notary, and the first to infringe it
shall pay to the other damages in the fixed sum of
1000 francs.
“Given in duplicate and in good faith, etc., 10th
Dec. 1826.
“(_Signed_) BERTRAND.
“DEBURAU.
“_Additional clause._
“M. Deburau undertakes moreover the care of the
properties of any piece performed—that is to say,
he will look after them and distribute them every
evening, and lock them up after the performance, etc.
“In consideration of this further clause M. Bertrand
undertakes to pay M. Deburau 10 francs weekly in
addition to his salary, and this is accepted by the
latter.
“(_Signed_) BERTRAND.
“DEBURAU.”
The spectacular pantomime-harlequinades in which Deburau was
extraordinary for his spirit, his gestures, and his facial play, in which
he abandoned himself to all manner of fantasies, were: _Le Bœuf Enragé_,
_Ma Mère L’Oie_, _La Mauvaise Tête_, _Le Billet de Mille Francs_.
_Les Épreuves_, a great pantomime-harlequinade in thirteen scenes, in
the English manner, by Deburau and M. Charles, was cast in the following
manner:—_Harlequin_, Cossard; _Pierrot_, Deburau; _Pandolphe_, Laplace;
_Léandre_, Orphée; _Isabella_, Mademoiselle Isménie; _La Fée_, Madame
Lefèvre.
Isabella is the daughter of old Pandolphe. She is in love with Harlequin,
who is protected by a fairy. Léandre wishes to marry Isabella, who runs
away with her lover. Pandolphe, followed by his servant Pierrot and by
Léandre, the possessor of a talisman, pursues them.
Pierrot is in a public place. Instead of following his master, he is
sniffing round a pastrycook’s shop and at last decides to enter it;
within he discovers his mistake; the shop is a milliner’s. Having no
use for the bonnets that are offered him, he goes out again in quest
of the pastrycook, whose shop is on the other side of the square. But
the shops perform a fantastic _chassé-croisée_, and Pierrot discovers
himself once more at the milliner’s. This being several times repeated,
Pierrot is worn out and ends by being amused. He loses his head and
performs incoherences. He upsets the shoemaker’s stall and then assumes
such absurd and ridiculous poses before the customers of a vintner that
they depart scandalised. After several pleasantries, some of them of a
distinctly coarse order, he draws down punishment upon his head. His
dupes unite against him and, being ten to one, they valiantly pursue
Pierrot. Pandolphe and the beautiful Léandre come to his aid and a battle
royal is fought with broom-sticks.
In the next scene Pierrot, to throw his enemies off the scent, conceals
himself under the garments of a mountebank. He arrives in the midst of a
village fête, and there, assisted by Pandolphe, who plays the fiddle, and
Léandre, who plays the trombone, he beats a big drum as if his aim were
to burst it. The village folk begin to dance, but presently become angry,
for no apparent reason. Pierrot and his acolytes have little chance
against them, and they escape before the blows that threaten.
Next, Pierrot’s head is cut off in a tavern. It is glued on again. The
doctor, who is none other than Harlequin, demands his fee, but Pierrot
pretends that his head is not properly re-attached, and receives a shower
of blows from the false doctor.
In the following scene he is disguised as a woman, no doubt with a view
to escaping from the ill intentions of Harlequin. He is about to do his
washing when, after the fashion of pantomimic fantasy, an Englishman with
red whiskers and an impossible collar comes to order Pierrot to wash some
soiled linen. Pierrot finds the task disgusting, refuses it, and ends by
throwing the Englishman into the tub, whereupon he runs away.
He is again in a tavern, and, after an adventure with a thief, he finds
himself in need of a bath. He seeks the baths, but in that country there
are no baths except for women. He assumes a bonnet and a petticoat,
and enters one of those establishments, wherein he is badly received,
for under a stroke of the fairy’s wand the baths are changed into a
roasting-house and Pierrot finds himself roasting on a grille.
Delivered from this, and having no longer any garments, he enlists and
becomes a soldier that he may be clothed. He quarrels with the corporal
and fights a duel with pistols. Pierrot loads his own weapon with
nothing but a candle, but he plants this candle full in the face of
his adversary. This remarkable feat of arms causes him to be appointed
drum-major on the spot. He immediately holds a review of the drummers,
the oldest of whom is not four years of age.
The piece ends by an apotheosis in which we behold the rout of Léandre,
who has lost his talisman. Harlequin and Isabella are united by a cupid
with cardboard wings, arrayed in a garland of roses, and a sky-blue
tunic: he extends his protecting arms over the two lovers and promises
them a life of eternal happiness.
“It has been pretended,” says M. Champfleury, “that Deburau
died as the result of a fall at the Funambules. Deburau died of
asthma, which had been undermining his health for five years.
“His medical advisers had prescribed for him a long period of
rest; but he thought only of his public. For five years he
was afflicted by a cough that tore his lungs. But the moment
he appeared on the stage the affliction would leave him; he
would become once more for a quarter of an hour young, happy
and healthy. The terrible disease, however, awaited him in the
wings, and would lay its claws on the breast of the mime every
time he made his exit.
“The cough became so tyrannical that Deburau was compelled
to rest. One day he felt better. The bills announced his
reappearance. At most, he had been absent for three weeks, but
as a consequence there was a long impatient queue that would
have filled five theatres.
“Be it noted that the performance was _Les Noces de Pierrot_, a
farce which had been played six hundred times at the theatre of
the Funambules. The shouts and roars of the spectators during
the first half of the evening may be imagined. Outside, those
who had been unable to enter shouted still more loudly. After
the three vaudevilles the usual three knocks were heard.
“The curtain rose slowly. Deburau appeared in his white
costume, a posy in his button-hole, a pretty girl on his arm.
It is impossible to conceive an idea of the enthusiasm in the
theatre; it was frenetic. In the gods four hundred faces were
alight with joy; eight hundred eyes devoured the mime; four
hundred mouths roared ‘Bravo!’ The heights of delirium were
reached. Those who had been unable to enter shouted outside the
door.
“Deburau quite simply placed his hand on his heart below his
bridegroom’s posy. A tear ploughed through the flour on his
countenance.
“A real tear is so rare in the theatre!
“A little while afterwards a slight incident proved the
solemnity of this performance. At the introduction of the
pantomime the peasants—boys and girls—are grouped upon the
stage. Apart, the bailie, who is a traitor, plots his infamies.
The orchestra plays the refrain of the dance.
“Ordinarily Deburau would now execute one of those eccentric
dances the secret of which died with him; it was a mixture of
the steps of the Directoire and of the more audacious steps of
the _cancan_. More than ordinarily affected, his heart too full
of joy, Deburau did not dance.
“‘The _chahut_!’ cried a rough voice.
“‘No, no!’ replied the whole theatre.
“The most vulgar of publics has its moments of exquisite
delicacy. It had understood the emotion of the great comedian.
“Towards midnight there was a great gathering at the stage
door. Deburau came forth. He had preserved, no doubt through a
presentiment, his white bridegroom’s posy. It was the posy of
his nuptials with Death.
“A thousand voices shouted: ‘Vive Deburau!’ But Death, that
cruel ghoul, was in haste to embrace her pale bridegroom.
“He died a few days later (1846).”
A little while before this last performance of which M. Champfleury
writes, an incident took place in a performance of the _Épreuves_ which
showed the public’s affection for Deburau; it was the occasion of the
fall to which his death has been wrongly attributed.
At the end of the tenth scene Deburau was to disappear through a
trap-door, and this was not working properly. He stamped impatiently with
his foot upon the trap, and it was precisely at this moment that it gave
way. His body had lost its poise and, as he went through, his head was
thrown back and struck the stage. The scene being changed, the manager
came forward to announce that M. Deburau was wounded. The audience was
about to withdraw, after having expressed its sympathy with the mime,
when Deburau himself appeared and wished to continue. “Enough! enough!”
was cried on every side by the idolatrous public, but by a gesture
Pierrot made them understand that he was too deeply touched not to
continue, and the theatre shook with the applause and the bravos of the
spectators.
George Sand, who was in one of the stage boxes, having perceived him in
the wings holding his head in an attitude of pain, went on the morrow to
inquire his condition. He wrote her his thanks for the inquiry and at the
same time for an article in praise of him which she had published in the
_Constitutionnel_:
“MADAME,—Permit me to address you my double thanks for the
interest you are kind enough to take in a little accident
which has had no serious consequences for me, and for the
kindly article published in the _Constitutionnel_, in which,
concerning yourself benevolently for my future, you extol
my poor talent with a warmth and a spirit that are really
irresistible.
“I hardly know in what terms to express my gratitude. My
pen is like my voice on the stage, but my heart is like my
countenance, and I pray you to accept its sincere expression.
“I have the honour to be your servant,
“DEBURAU.
“_P.S._—It was my intention to go to thank you in person, but
rehearsals have prevented this. Be good enough, I beg you, to
excuse me.
“PARIS, _9 Feb. 1846_.”
“Deburau was charming in all his ways. He would never be
tempted to the least drop of champagne, out of fear, he
said, for his nerves, and because he required the completest
self-possession for his performances. I have never seen an
artist who was more serious, more conscientious, more religious
in his art. He loved it passionately, and spoke of it as of
a grave thing, whilst always speaking of himself with the
extremest modesty. He studied incessantly and was never weary,
notwithstanding continued and even excessive playing. He did
not trouble to think whether the admirable subtleties of his
play of countenance and his originality of composition were
appreciated by artists. He worked to satisfy himself and
to realise his fancy. This fancy, which appeared to be so
spontaneous, was studied beforehand, with extraordinary care”
(George Sand: _Histoire de Ma Vie_).
Deburau’s son took up his father’s career in 1847. He was perhaps
the handsomest and most elegant Pierrot that was ever seen. By his
suppleness, his grace and charming fantasy, he rightly acquired an
enormous vogue.
Paul Legrand, born at Saintes in 1820, played at first in the Théâtre
des Funambules, comic parts in vaudeville and the rôles of Léandre
in pantomime. It was only in 1845 that he undertook the rôles of
Pierrot. A pupil of Deburau, he succeeded him in this character in
1847. He sustained in that theatre and afterwards with honour in the
_Folies-Nouvelles_ his double rivalry with the memory of Deburau and the
deserved success of Deburau’s son. He was less elegant in shape than
the latter, but none the less pleasing to the eye by his attitudes. He
was full of resources, gifted with a handsome countenance, and a very
characteristic expression, full of comical and bizarre notions and
inventions, and—and this in particular distinguishes his talent—he had
a peculiar power of producing pathetic and dramatic effects. Like the
celebrated Thomassin, he drew laughter and tears at one and the same
time; so that he may be reckoned as a mime of the very first order.
The first creations of Paul Legrand at the Funambules were: _L’Œuf Rouge
et l’Œuf Blanc_, _Pierrot Valet de la Mort_, _Pierrot Pendu_, by M.
Champfleury; _Pierrot Recompensé_, _Pierrot Marquis_, etc.
Summoned to London in December 1847 by Madame Céleste, who was managing
the Adelphi Theatre, he remained for a year in England. But the English,
accustomed to the much more exaggerated performances of their clowns,
could make nothing of the subtle and witty expressions of the French
Pierrot. Legrand returned to the Funambules in 1849, to find himself
replaced there by Deburau’s son. But all Pierrots are brothers. They
played concurrently together: _Les Deux Pierrots_, _Des Trois Pierrots_,
with Dimier, called Calpestri; _Les Deux Blancs_, etc.
In 1853, a new pantomime theatre having been opened (Les
Folies-Nouvelles), Legrand was engaged there, and from that day, being
the master of his actions and able to give a free rein to his fancy, he
invested the type of Pierrot with an originality and a unique colour of
his own.
viii
The English Pierrot, or rather the English CLOWN, is a bizarre and
fantastic creation not based upon any French type. The Florentine
Stenterello alone may be compared with him by his singular methods.
And what an extraordinary fancy has presided over the dressing of this
personage, who seems to have been born among the savages of America!
He is arrayed in a tight-fitting tunic, white, red, yellow, green, in
stripes, in squares or in circles; his face is pasted with flour, set off
with stripes, with moustachios, with impossible eyebrows; his cheeks are
raddled with a brutal carmine; his forehead is carried up to the summit
of the occiput and surmounted by a wig of a blazing red, from the height
of which a little stiff queue lifts itself towards heaven. His manners
are no less singular than his costume. He is not mute, like our Pierrot;
on the contrary, he holds forth in an extremely buffoon manner and is
in addition a very able acrobat. Kemp and Boxwell, circus clowns, were
the types of this personage. It was impossible to see Boxwell without
admiring his strength and his adroitness, and without laughing at his
versatility and bizarre effects.
To define the English clown, M. Champfleury cites the following passage
borrowed from Baudelaire:—
“The English Pierrot is by no means the personage pale as the
moon, mysterious as silence, supple and mute as the serpent,
lean and long as a pole, to which we were accustomed by
Deburau. The English Pierrot enters like a tempest, falls like
a bale, and shakes the house when he laughs. This laughter
resembles a joyful thunderstorm. He is a short thick fellow,
who has increased his bulk by a costume loaded with ribbons
which fill upon his person the same office as the feathers
on a bird, or the hair upon a Persian cat. Over the flour on
his countenance he has plastered crudely, without gradation
or transition, two enormous discs of pure scarlet. His mouth
is increased by a simulated prolongation of the lips carried
out in two carmine strokes, so that when he laughs this mouth
of his seems to open from ear to ear. As for the character,
at bottom it is the same as that which we know: egotistical
heedlessness and neutrality; hence the accomplishment of all
rapacious and gluttonous fancies, to the detriment now of
Harlequin, now of Cassandre, and of Léandre. But with this
difference, that where Deburau thrust in the point of his
finger that he might afterwards lick it, the clown thrusts in
both hands and both feet, and this may express all that he
does; his is the vertigo of hyperbole. This Pierrot passes by
a woman who is washing her doorstep; after having emptied her
pockets he seeks to cram into his own the sponge, the broom,
the soap and even the very water itself.”
This exaggerated personage of the English pantomime is a direct
descendant of the clownish peasants of the theatre of Shakespeare. No
dramatic author ever understood his public as did he. He knew not only
how to captivate the attention of Queen Elizabeth and her court by
presenting such heroes as no longer existed in his day, but he knew also
how to amuse and satisfy his coarse groundlings, who drank and smoked
throughout the performance. He knew how to put into the mouth of his
clowns exactly what each naïve spectator would have said under similar
circumstances. He knew, in short, how to adapt to the English stage the
eternal type of Bertoldo.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century a dancer, acrobat and mime
named Grimaldi made his appearance on the stage of the Comédie-Italienne
in Paris. Dancing one day before the Turkish ambassador, he gave such
a leap in honour of his Excellency that he struck his head against the
crystal lustre suspended above it. One of the girandoles, detached by
the blow, struck the ambassador of the Sublime Porte on the nose and
narrowly missed putting out one of his eyes. The Turk in a passion laid
a complaint before his ministry, demanding no doubt the bastinado as a
punishment for the clumsy dancer. But the minister condemned Grimaldi
merely to make a public apology to the inviolable representative of the
Grand Turk.
Grimaldi had a son, Giuseppe Grimaldi, who had a long career in the fairs
of Italy and France, dancing and singing in pantomime. In 1755 he went to
England to play in the ballet pantomimes at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.
The critics of the time found only one fault with this Italian buffoon,
who became an English clown, that of being too comical. He died in 1788.
One of his sons, Joe Grimaldi, enjoyed great celebrity in England at the
beginning of the nineteenth century as a mime at Drury Lane. Charles
Dickens did not disdain to edit and publish his Memoirs.
VI
LELIO
In our theatres to-day the part of the lover may be the great leading
rôle, or it may fall to the lot of the juvenile lead, or even to that
of the comedian. But in the old Italian comedy the lover was just the
lover; as it happened, however, that he almost invariably found himself
in a comic situation he was nearly always what to-day we should call the
comic lover. The endowments required were a fine figure, a handsome face,
an agreeable voice, and the elegant manners of a gentleman of the great
world. The portraits which have survived show us handsome men dressed in
the latest mode of their day.
But the lover, playing sometimes in two different styles of piece, was
a serious comedian. Ordinarily this part was undertaken by the chief of
the troupe, like Flaminio Scala, who, under the name of Flavio, was an
illustrious comedian.
ii
FLAVIO was a name that had already served to qualify lovers on the
Italian stage before Flaminio Scala.
The young Flavio of Ruzzante in _La Vaccaria_ (1533) is thus described by
his rival, the rich Polidoro:
“Because he is beautiful, gallant, fecund in sonnets, because
he knows music and takes his manners from the court, Flavio
imagines that he will be able to hold the love of Fiorinetta!
But what will he do when he perceives that money conquers
everything? He will curse the contrariness of Fate and the
mercilessness of Heaven.”
Polidoro represents the rich, discourteous and overbearing lover. But the
beautiful, the elegant gentleman of this epoch, he who, without money,
pleases women, who is the mirror of fashion and the flower of wit, is
not without being ridiculous upon occasion, and we suspect Ruzzante of
having designedly shown him under an effeminate aspect in his comedy
_Anconitana_.
Two young gallants of the epoch, sons of a good Sicilian family, are
reduced by romantic vicissitudes to the necessity of earning their
living, and all that they are capable of doing is to seek service with
some noble lady. One of them does so in the capacity of a poet, promising
to praise her eternally in prose and in verse:
“I shall study how to sing the praises of her charms in
choice rhymes, and I shall laud, I shall extol adoringly, now
her enchanting eyes, now her blond tresses, now her lovely
neck, now her white hand, now her soft glance, her words, her
gestures, her grace, her virtues, her garments, her movements;
and that in various manners, in chapters, in epistles, in
epilogues, in eclogues, in songs, in impromptus, in sonnets, in
madrigals, in stanzas, in odes, and in ballads.”
The other brother, contemning the frivolity of such employment, offers
himself in the capacity of a valet and perfumer:
“The ladies to whom I shall give my services need not fear
those pomades and unguents which are plastered on to the lips
of their husbands when they kiss them. I know how to distil
perfumes from plants and trees which not only beautify the face
and neck, but further steep the flesh in sweet odours; I can
distil waters to render tresses curly and golden, waters to
smooth the brow, waters to darken the eyebrows, waters to tint
the cheeks, waters to render the lips rosy, the teeth dazzling,
the neck white, the hands soft. Their virtues, employed on the
different parts of the body, will last three days and three
nights, and they will not be succeeded, as is the case with
vulgar unguents, by that pallor mottled with various colours
which disfigures the countenance on the morrow. I have scents
of musk, of ambergris, of lavender, of styrax, with which I
mingle the juices of certain other herbs or flowers, producing
essences so sweet that I consider these aromas capable of
preserving body and soul. Waters of jasmine, of orange flowers,
of citron, I repute of no account because I shall distil
essences from unknown plants which will be infinitely preferred
to all those that are considered most admirable and most
precious to-day.”
In 1576 Flaminio Scala (Flavio), _comico acceso_ (impassioned comic, or
lover), being then in the prime of youth and the fulness of his talent,
placed himself at the head of the _Gelosi_ troupe and, for twenty-eight
years, was able to command the applause of Italy and France. This troupe,
reconstituted in Venice in 1576, went to Blois in 1577 to perform before
King Henry III.; later the company was seen at the Hôtel de Bourbon,
which at the time was no more than a chapel with a gallery where a
theatre was set up upon occasion for the court fêtes. The ordinary
headquarters of the _Gelosi_ company were in Florence. Thence it went out
to tour the principal cities of Italy and of France.
From 1576 to 1604 the actors playing the rôles of lover in this
remarkable troupe were: Flavio (Flaminio Scala), Oratio (Orazio Nobili,
born at Padua), Cinthio (Cintio Fidenzi), Fabrizio, and Aurelio (Adriano
Valerini, a Veronese gentleman, doctor of law and a fairly good Latin
poet). Valerini left the _Gelosi_ troupe in 1579 to undertake the
direction of the _Comici uniti_. At the head of this troupe he was
received in 1583 by Cardinal Carlo Borromeo in Milan.
The leading ladies (or _amoureuses_) in the _Gelosi_ during that period
were: Isabella (Isabella Andreini), Flaminia, Ardelia, Lidia (second wife
of G. B. Andreini) and Laura.
The soubrettes were Franceschina (Silvia Roncagli), Vittoria (Antonella
Bajardi), Ricciolina (Maria Antonazzoni), Olivetta, Ortensia, and
Nespola. The old women were played under the name of Pasquella.
The lackeys were Pedrolino, Arlecchino, Burattino, Grillo, Mezzetino,
Cavicchio (a peasant), Ciccialboncio (a peasant), Bigolo, Memmei,
Piombino.
The old men were Doctor Graziano, Pantalone, Zanobio, Cassandro,
Cornelio, Tosano, Adorne, Claudio and Cataldo. Captain Spavento was
played by Francesco Andreini and Sireno was one of the first parts played
by Domenico Bruni (Fulvio), who joined the company in 1594.
Bruni, who was the son of an old comedian, was then fourteen years of
age; he was starved and almost naked when given shelter by Scala and
engaged to improvise odd parts until he should reach an age that would
permit him to play lovers. A few years later he passed into the service
of the Princess of Piedmont.
The two most remarkable appearances made in France by Flaminio Scala and
his company seem to be those of 1588 and 1600, when he was accompanied
by the famous Isabella Andreini, her husband and her son. After the
death of Isabella, Flaminio Scala, weary of the theatre, gave up the
direction of the troupe, which was disbanded. He occupied himself then
with the publication of his dramatic works, which amount to over fifty,
and further he assisted his friend Francesco Andreini to publish the
manuscripts which Isabella had left.
Flaminio Scala’s collection is entitled: “Theatre of performable fables,
or of comic, rustic and tragic recreation; divided into 50 days. All
composed by Flaminio Scala, named Flavio, comedian to the Most Serene
Lord Duke of Mantua. In Venice 1611.”[7]
In the scenarii of this collection the scenes are given in great detail
but absolutely without dialogue. Nevertheless no one before Scala had
ever taken the same degree of pains. Until then, nothing had ever been
prearranged beyond mere fragments of detached scenes, business that might
be termed classic, traditions of the Atellanæ, interposed more or less
suitably into the scenarii for free improvisations.
Flaminio Scala was the first to produce scenarii displaying lucidity
and continuity of theme; they deserve indeed to be recognised as his own
work. He performed them all over Italy as well as the comedies of Groto,
of Lasca, of Cecchi, and of Beolco, and even some tragedies and some
opera-ballets. This method of playing in the two styles, the impromptu
and the academic, was continued until the eighteenth century by the
companies that travelled in Italy, France and Germany.
Flaminio Scala’s collection is prefaced by an interesting speech “to
courteous readers” written by Francesco Andreini (known as _Capitan
Spavento_), in which there is proof that Flaminio Scala was the first
serious author and editor of scenarii properly so called.
“The man who is born into this world must, in his youth, apply
himself to ways of merit that he may live honourably, content
himself and please others; for an ignorant man is vicious
and evil to himself and noxious to his neighbour. Thus he
who would arrive at any sort of perfection must make choice
of one of the seven liberal arts and practise it. I shall
not speak of Lysippus and Roscius, of Socrates, of Titus, of
Varro, nor of many others who, from coarse and ignorant that
they were, rendered themselves great and immortal by means of
knowledge and of virtue.... I will confine myself to saying
that the Signor Flaminio Scala, known as Flavio in the theatre,
conforming to these maxims of conduct, devoted himself from his
youth to the noble exercises of comedy (a thing not degrading
to his noble birth) and in this practice he made such progress
that he deserved to be placed in the front rank of good
comedians.... That is why the Signor Flavio, after long years
consecrated to playing in comedy, wishes to bequeath to the
world not his beautiful words, not his magnificent conceits,
but his comedies, which in all seasons and in all places have
brought him the greatest honour. The Signor Flavio might have
elaborated his works (his talent being ample for such a task)
and written them word for word, as authors are in the habit
of doing. But as to-day too many comedies are seen printed
with different versions, thereby undermining all good rules,
he desired, by this _his new invention_, to publish only the
scenarii of his comedies, leaving to the actors’ wit the care
of supplying suitable dialogue.”
[Illustration]
Francesco Andreini adds that, to facilitate the performance and the
production of his pieces, Scala has supplied an argument for each, has
named and described the characters, and has prepared the list of costumes
and properties necessary under the designation of _robbe per la commedia_.
This list is curious as revealing a somewhat complicated _mise en
scène_: thus: “One head resembling that of a prince of Morocco; one fine
valise of leather; one cudgel for beating; one plate of figs and several
lanterns; four lighted white candles; two Hungarian vests; one live cat
and one live cock; two fires with smoke; several shirts in which to dress
up Harlequin as a woman; four hunting dogs and a grotesque hunting-dress
for Harlequin; one casket of jewels, one chemise and one dagger for
Isabella; two boxes of bonbons; one packet of candles and one piece of
cheese; two identical rings; a large cheval-glass and a good deal of
coin; six lanterns; two coats and two false beards with which to dress up
two notaries; a composition to imitate blood from a wound; a basket with
a packet of letters inside; one miniature of a woman; one beard similar
to that of Pantaloon; one travelling suit—_i.e._ one felt hat, boots and
spurs; one shirt, soiled and wet, for the Captain; one practicable moon;
two rockets; one large tree, in which one may sit; four fine costumes
for nymphs; several painted trees; two live babies; one beautiful ship;
one earthquake; etc., etc.”
It may throw a useful light upon a theatrical epoch of which but
little is known to translate as a specimen one of the scenarii or days
(_giornate_) of Flaminio Scala, not as a work of any value to-day, but as
a proof of the relative ability already attained by the authors and the
comedians of the Commedia dell’ Arte.
_THIRD DAY_
“THE WILES OF ISABELLA”
_Argument_
A pretty widow of quality persuades her own brother to conduct
her lover to her upon the pretext that she wishes to marry
him to a young girl whom he has betrayed and abandoned. The
brother, discovering the ruse, and knowing the lover to be
worthy of his sister, consents to their marriage.
_Characters in the Comedy_
PANTALONE, a Venetian.
PEDROLINO, his lackey.
FLAVIO, the lover of FLAMINIA.
ORAZIO, the brother of ISABELLA.
ISABELLA, a widow, sister to ORAZIO, in love with CAPTAIN SPAVENTO.
ARLECCHINO, servant to ORAZIO and ISABELLA.
CAPTAIN SPAVENTO, ISABELLA’S lover.
FLAMINIA, sister to SPAVENTO, in love with FLAVIO.
BURATTINO, an innkeeper.
FRANCESCHINA, his wife.
Two rogues, friends of PEDROLINO.
Two thieves, acting on their own account.
_Properties for the Comedy_
A good deal of coin; costumes for three beggars; a sign for
an inn; a pair of shoes; a knife to cut; a basket with edible
victuals; a lantern; a kitchen spit; a long stick.
_Scene: Perugia_
ACT I
_CAPTAIN SPAVENTO, FLAVIO and later FLAMINIA_
Spavento relates to his friend Flavio that he is in love with
Isabella, a widow of quality and Orazio’s sister. Knowing
him to be a friend of Orazio’s, he begs him to speak to the
latter and to endeavour to obtain for him the hand of his
sister Isabella. Flavio promises to do his best and in his
turn discovers to the Captain that he too is in love and that
he has just written a love letter. Flaminia shows herself at
her window, calls her brother the Captain and bids him come
inside, telling him that letters have just arrived for him;
thereupon she withdraws. Flavio, having observed that she had a
book in her hand, asks the Captain what it is that his sister
studies so assiduously. The Captain replies that from morning
till night she does nothing but read romances of chivalry and
histories of love. Flavio begs the Captain to correct the
letter, which he has written, before despatching it to his
beloved. The Captain takes it, saying that he will give it
for correction to his sister Flaminia, who is better educated
than himself. He goes indoors after reminding Flavio of his
promise to speak of him to Orazio. Flavio rejoices at the good
fortune which thus places his letter in the hands of his adored
Flaminia. (_He goes off._)
_PANTALOON and PEDROLINO_
Pantaloon confesses to his lackey that he is in love with
Isabella and asks his advice as to how to go about making
her his wife. “The way would be to marry her,” replies
Pedrolino. Pantaloon then relates how, after having betrayed
his waiting-woman Franceschina, he married her to Burattino the
innkeeper with a dowry of 500 livres and that further he has
promised to present her with 1000 ducats on the birthday of her
first boy. Pedrolino highly praises such a work of charity and
extols the generosity of his master. Knowing him so munificent,
he will gladly assist him in his endeavours to obtain Isabella
in marriage. Whereupon they go off.
_FRANCESCHINA, BURATTINO, and then ISABELLA and the CAPTAIN_
They enter chatting of their little household affairs, of their
position, which is none too brilliant, but which would be
greatly improved if Franceschina were to give birth to a boy,
since Pantaloon has promised to pay her 1000 ducats on that
day. Burattino tells his wife that this depends upon herself.
Franceschina replies that the fault is his, etc. They mutually
reproach each other and end by quarrelling. The noise they
make brings Isabella to her window. She rebukes Franceschina
for quarrelling thus with her husband. But Burattino answers
her insolently, bidding her to mind her own business. The
Captain, entering at this moment, takes up the defence of his
adored Isabella and threatens to strike Burattino. Isabella
implores mercy for Burattino and sends him away together with
Franceschina after giving them money so that they shall cease
quarrelling.
_The CAPTAIN, ISABELLA, then HARLEQUIN and FLAVIO_
The Captain, after extravagantly saluting Isabella, craves news
of her brother and of Flavio. Isabella replies that she has
not seen them and receives the homage of the Captain, who is
extremely gallant, and utters a thousand honeyed phrases. But
the amorous interview is interrupted by Harlequin, the servant
of the house, who becomes angry with Isabella and compels her
to go with him, threatening to divulge everything to her
brother Orazio, who cannot tolerate the Captain. The Captain in
a rage threatens Harlequin, who strikes him. Flavio separates
them, dismissing Harlequin, who goes off hurling frightful
threats at the Captain. The Captain in a furious rage runs
after him.
_FLAVIO, then FLAMINIA, HARLEQUIN, the CAPTAIN and ORAZIO_
Monologue of Flavio on his love for Flaminia. She appears at
her window. After the customary greetings Flavio asks her
if she has received a love letter of which her brother took
charge, to the end that she might correct it. Flaminia replies
that she has received the letter and that she has not failed
to perceive that it is addressed to herself. Flavio confesses
the truth and declares his passion, but they are interrupted by
the Captain and Harlequin, the latter armed with a cudgel. They
make a deal of noise shouting and fighting. Orazio is between
them seeking to separate them. Flavio runs to his assistance;
and, pushing, shouting and insulting one another, they all go
off.
_BURATTINO and then two thieves_
Burattino, having gone to buy provisions for the inn, with
the money received from Isabella, returns with a basketful of
victuals. But he wishes first to eat four mouthfuls before
going home. He sits down in mid-stage and begins to eat; two
thieves arrive and greet him very politely, seating themselves
without ceremony one on each side of him. One of them opens
the conversation by stating that he is from Cucagna, a country
where the people eat well and copiously. During this time his
companion consumes part of Burattino’s provisions. Having
finished, he begins to talk, and, attracting the attention of
Burattino, who listens to him with gaping mouth, he delivers
himself of a speech in three parts upon indelicacy, and the
rigorous punishment awaiting thieves. Whilst he is talking
the first orator from Cucagna devours the remainder of the
basket’s contents. Thereafter they take their leave with
extreme politeness, and depart. Burattino, recovering from
the bewilderment caused him by their flow of speech, disposes
himself to resume his eating; discovering, however, nothing but
emptiness, he enters his inn weeping. This closes the first Act.
ACT II
_FLAVIO, ORAZIO, HARLEQUIN, and then the CAPTAIN_
Flavio begs Orazio to put aside all rancour and out of
friendship for him to make his peace with the Captain, who is
much more friendly disposed than he supposes. Orazio consents.
The Captain arrives. At sight of him Harlequin runs away,
enters the house and from the window desires to be reassured
that his enemy’s choler has abated. Flavio presently reassures
him and then, having restored peace between Orazio and the
Captain, they all depart rejoicing in this sound friendship.
_PANTALOON, PEDROLINO, then ISABELLA and FLAMINIA_
Pantaloon, who has witnessed the departure of the young people,
thinks that the moment may be favourable to speak to Isabella.
He coughs, scratches the door, and performs other antics to
draw attention to his presence. Isabella shows herself at her
window and out of coquetry announces that she is going for
a walk. At the same time she signs to Flaminia, who is at
the window of her house opposite, to join her in the street.
Isabella and Flaminia enter the stage and allow Pantaloon
and his servant to chat with them. Isabella, pretending to
find his eloquence irresistible, confesses herself in love
with Pantaloon, and Flaminia does the like by Pedrolino. But
Isabella requires a proof of affection, and begs Pantaloon to
come and serenade her that same evening. Pantaloon promises
three serenades, whereafter each lady re-enters her own house,
and Pantaloon, with Pedrolino, both intoxicated with joy, leap
and dance like a pair of fools. This brings out Franceschina
and Burattino, who deride their singular capers. Pantaloon goes
off.
_BURATTINO, FRANCESCHINA, PEDROLINO_
Burattino and his wife continue to jest with Pedrolino. The
latter ends by being angry and threatens vengeance. As the
innkeeper’s laughter is only increased by this, Pedrolino
threatens to make him a _cornuto_. Burattino laughs at the
threat, but Franceschina fetches a broom and falls upon
Pedrolino, who runs away. Thereafter the couple re-enter,
rejoicing in his discomfiture.
_FLAVIO and ISABELLA_
Flavio enters, complaining of his uncertainty on the score
of whether Flaminia loves him or not, and seeking a pretext
for addressing her again. The letter which he has written and
which is in her hands is a means. Isabella, from her window,
has heard the entire monologue, and, to amuse herself, asks
him if he has met Orazio and the Captain, who are seeking him
to invite him to their nuptials, as Orazio is going to marry
Flaminia and the Captain is going to marry herself. This said,
she withdraws, laughing in her sleeve. Flavio is overcome
by this unexpected news. Burattino, seeing him preoccupied,
accosts him and asks him if, by chance, he knows of any means
for the getting of male children. Flavio turns and, without
uttering a word, goes off. Burattino, distressed at not having
received an answer, re-enters his inn.
_PANTALOON, PEDROLINO, three musicians, ISABELLA and FLAMINIA_
Pantaloon and Pedrolino station their musicians under the
windows of Isabella and Flaminia, commanding them to play and
dance. The ladies show themselves and graciously thank the
performers of the serenades for their attention. Pedrolino
and Pantaloon withdraw joyously with the instrumentalists.
Isabella, remaining at her window after their departure, begs
Flaminia, who is also at her window, to honour by her presence
the marriage which she is about to contract with Flavio,
who has long been her lover. The affair, she says, has been
arranged and concluded by her brother the Captain. Flaminia,
wounded to the heart, declines the invitation and withdraws
in tears. Isabella, after this fresh trick, and after having
wounded the hearts of Flavio and Flaminia, but knowing full
well how to heal them, withdraws well pleased.
_PANTALOON, PEDROLINO, BURATTINO_
Pantaloon shows Pedrolino a pair of new shoes which he has
bought for twelve _baiocchi_ (sixpence). Pedrolino, after
having examined them, declares them to be old shoes, and
that it is shameful for a man like Pantaloon to buy such
things. Burattino, who is on his way to consult a doctor,
asks Pantaloon if he will sell him the shoes for the twelve
_baiocchi_ he has paid for them. Pantaloon is quite willing.
“But on one condition,” says Burattino, “that is that each of
you shall stake a halfpenny with me, and that the first to
repent shall lose his halfpenny.” This is agreed. Burattino
takes a knife and begins to cut through the sole of one shoe,
saying, “He who retracts will lose his halfpenny.” Having cut
up one shoe, he takes the other one and begins to perform
upon it the same operation. Thereupon he asks them, “Which
of you two retracts?” and as each replies that he will not
retract, Burattino says, “If neither of you retracts then I
will retract.” Whereupon, throwing down the two shoes, he
continues on his way. Pantaloon and Pedrolino look at each
other and perceive that Burattino has fooled them. They go off
indignantly, and this ends the second Act.
ACT III
_ISABELLA, HARLEQUIN, and then ORAZIO_
Isabella tells Harlequin that she is going to talk with her
brother Orazio, and should he question Harlequin, Harlequin
is to bear out whatever she may say. Orazio arrives. Isabella
then relates to him that Flavio has just arrived at her
house, bringing with him a young girl from Naples, betrayed
and abandoned by the Captain, notwithstanding that he had
sworn to marry her. This young lady has trusted the loyalty
of Flavio, knowing him to be a friend of the Captain’s; but
Flavio, desiring her to obtain reparation, has promised so to
contrive that the Captain shall keep his word. To achieve this
end he has thought of a trick: it is, of course with Orazio’s
permission, to tell the Captain that Isabella is in love with
him, and that he should come to visit her at her house; there,
however, he will find instead the young girl whom he has
abandoned, and thus he shall repair the wrong by marrying her.
Orazio consents and inquires, where is this young lady. “She
is in my house,” says Isabella. Harlequin, being questioned,
answers in the same way. This decides Orazio to go in quest of
the Captain, so as to send him immediately. Isabella goes in,
followed by Harlequin, who can make nothing of the tales of his
mistress and the answers delivered.
_FLAVIO, FLAMINIA, then PANTALOON_
Flavio, in despair from what Isabella has told him, comes to
seek explanations from Flaminia. He knocks at her door and
Flaminia appears. She is very angry with him. She weeps and
complains that he has deceived her, but tells him that he may
marry Isabella, and that she would be the last to throw any
obstacles in his way. Flavio on the other hand overwhelms
her with stern reproaches on the subject of Orazio, whom
she wishes to marry. “I have never dreamt of it,” exclaims
Flaminia. In the middle of their dispute Pantaloon enters. He
seeks to console her and reproaches Flavio for the beautiful
tears which he is causing her to shed. He proposes a way out
of the difficulty. It is that Flaminia should accept him for
her husband and he will renounce Isabella, “whose conquest he
had undertaken.” Flaminia, in her vexation, tells Flavio that
she will marry Pantaloon, old and ill though he may be, a
statement which is but very little flattering to the latter.
Flavio goes off angrily. Pantaloon, left alone with his future
wife, attempts to caress her. He is rudely repulsed. Burattino
goes mockingly to her aid, and Pantaloon, not knowing upon whom
to vent his anger, insults Burattino and goes off.
_BURATTINO, PEDROLINO, then two rogues and FRANCESCHINA_
Burattino watches Pantaloon off, deriding his stupidity, when
Pedrolino, disguised as a mendicant, with a long false beard,
and a patch over one eye, enters begging. Burattino bids him
go to the devil, and seek work. Pedrolino replies that it is
through having worked too hard that he has been driven out of
his own country. At this moment a rogue, a friend of Pedrolino,
arrives disguised as a merchant, pretends to perceive him for
the first time, salutes him, thanks him and gives him money to
recompense him for the great service rendered him in procuring
him an heir. The false merchant announces himself delighted
at having found him, and departs. Burattino, having overheard
this conversation, is anxious to understand the subject of
it more clearly, when a second rogue, also in agreement with
Pedrolino like the first, comes to announce to him that his
secret, whence it results that none but boys are born, has once
more been perfectly successful. Thereupon he also departs.
Burattino then detains Pedrolino, who pretends to wish to go.
He summons his wife, and behold the two of them questioning
this mysterious operator. Pedrolino cannot reveal his secret,
but tells them that they are free to experience the excellence
of his occult knowledge. Husband and wife having consulted
together, they draw Pedrolino by cajoleries into the inn.
_The CAPTAIN, ORAZIO, ISABELLA_
Orazio having taken the Captain into his confidence on the
subject of Isabella’s love for him, the latter is enchanted and
consents gladly to the marriage. Isabella, summoned by her
brother, and having manifested her joy in marrying the Captain,
conducts him upon Orazio’s permission into the house. She
returns to tell her brother that she has had the Captain taken
to her own chamber, where he will find the young Neapolitan
girl whom he so little expects. Orazio laughs heartily at the
farce played upon the Captain, and goes in quest of Flavio, to
advise him of the good success of this affair. Isabella, who
wishes to kill two birds with one stone, calls Flaminia.
_ISABELLA and FLAMINIA. (Night)_
Flaminia expresses her surprise at finding Isabella in the
street at such an hour. “The reason is a very simple one,”
replies Isabella. “My poor brother Orazio is there in the house
weeping and lamenting because you will not have him for your
husband. Be generous, come and console him.” Flaminia, still
angry with Flavio, resolves to go. They enter Isabella’s house.
_FLAVIO, then HARLEQUIN and ISABELLA_
Flavio, at the height of his anger against Flaminia, wishes to
marry Isabella out of spite; he hopes that Orazio will readily
consent to their union. Harlequin, sent by Isabella, comes to
beg Flavio to wait a moment for his mistress, who desires to
speak to him. Isabella arrives, dismisses her servant and makes
false confidences to Flavio. She tells him that she is to marry
the Captain against her will, and that she would very much
prefer Flavio if he would consent. She is a widow and may marry
again as she pleases, whilst Flavio is free, since Flaminia is
marrying another. Flavio, persuaded, consents to wed her. They
enter the house arm in arm.
_PANTALOON, BURATTINO_
Pantaloon, lantern in hand, is seeking his house when Burattino
comes on to tell him that he had better prepare the hundred
ducats promised to Franceschina, because she is undoubtedly
going to give birth to a boy forthwith. Pantaloon, very
happily, goes to seek the money. Burattino re-enters his inn.
_ORAZIO, then HARLEQUIN and the CAPTAIN_
Orazio, becoming impatient at not finding Flavio, makes shift
to enter his house, and knocks loudly at the door, which he
finds closed. Harlequin appears, carrying an enormous lantern
and bids Orazio make less noise, or he will disturb the young
married people. “Ah,” he cries, “your sister Isabella is a
clever woman, to have known how to get herself a husband and to
marry Flaminia at the same time.” The Captain, also lighting
himself with a lantern, comes to grasp Orazio’s hand and to
thank him for having given him his sister to wife. Orazio
understands nothing of all this.
_FLAVIO, FLAMINIA, ISABELLA and the preceding ones_
Flavio and Flaminia enter hand in hand, having made the peace,
and they congratulate Isabella upon having so adroitly carried
through this intrigue. Orazio inquires where is the young
Neapolitan lady. Isabella confesses that the young Neapolitan
lady and herself are the same person, and announces that the
story which she invented was no more than a ruse to induce her
brother himself to give her to the Captain, whom she loves.
Orazio, having conquered his astonishment, finds the Captain
of a rank equal to his own and announces his consent. A great
noise is heard in the inn.
_PEDROLINO, BURATTINO, FRANCESCHINA, and the preceding ones_
Pedrolino runs on, chased by Burattino, who is armed with the
kitchen spit and seeks his life. The others separate them and
demand to know the reason of this quarrel. Pedrolino explains
that, Burattino having mocked him, he, to avenge himself,
had sworn to make a cuckold of him. “That, then,” cries
Burattino, “was your fine secret!” Pedrolino adds that he did
not wish to execute it lest it should injure his reputation.
But Franceschina replies that he lies, and that it was she
who repulsed and beat him. Peace being restored, the Captain
marries Isabella, Flavio marries Flaminia, and thus the comedy
comes to an end.
It will be seen from this long yet succinct scenario, this skeleton or
_ossatura_, as it was then called, that the comedy which was but in its
beginnings in France was already an accomplished thing in Italy; that
it was as soundly invented and developed as those which French authors
began to indite some fifty years later. With the exception of the jests
of the _shoes of Pantaloon_ and the _supper of Burattino_, which have
no connection with the action and which would seem to be two of those
traditional scenes interposed perforce into all performances to satisfy a
certain portion of the public, the scenario of _The Wiles of Isabella_,
like all those of the same collection, is very ably put together and
leaves nothing to be desired from the point of view of proportion and
logical development. When compared with the contemporary works of such
Frenchmen as Jean de la Taille it will readily be seen that the Italians
were very much the masters. It is true that the pupils profited fully
from the lesson, and that in the seventeenth century they were able to
indulge in reprisals. But to Italy must be given the credit due to her
of precocity in the arts. It is to be remembered that whilst she culled
through the ages the fruits of her ancient civilisation, France strode
towards the future, her hands empty of those riches which the past had
bequeathed to Italy.
That which was made for France by her great masters was as the labour
of bees; the flowers did not bloom on French soil; the flight of these
ingenious and mighty spirits crossed the Alps and the Pyrenees, to
gather the precious nectars and return with the honey. France is rightly
proud of them, but it is necessary to be just. Before Molière, before
Corneille, before Calderon and Lope de Vega, and forty years before the
birth of Shakespeare, Angelo Beolco (termed Ruzzante) had—as we shall
see—created the modern theatre.
iii
Giovanni-Battista Andreini, the son of Francesco Andreini and the famous
Isabella, was born in Florence in 1579. He seems to have been the first
actor to bear the name of LELIO in the theatre. In the _Gelosi_ troupe he
replaced Domenico Bruni (Fulvio) in the capacity of lover.
After the death of Isabella Andreini in 1604, the _Gelosi_ troupe
was disbanded. G. B. Andreini undertook in 1605 the management of
the _Fedeli_ troupe, which was recruited by more than one of the old
_Gelosi_. In 1601 G. B. Andreini had married in Milan Virginia Ramponi,
a young and beautiful Milanese, known by the name of Florinda. After her
death Andreini married in second nuptials the celebrated actress Lidia.
In 1613 Andreini wrote a blank verse piece in five acts dedicated to
Marie de Médicis, which was performed in that same year in Milan. This
piece, of a religious character (_rappresentazione sacra_), is entitled,
_Adamo_. The characters in it are Adam and Eve, the Eternal Father, the
Archangel Michael, Satan, Lucifer, the elementary Infernal Spirits, the
Seven Deadly Sins, the Seraphim, the Angels, Death, Hunger, the Flesh
and the Serpent. In short, it is a mystery play of the fifteenth century.
The Milanese edition of 1613 is extremely curious, with its engravings
by Procaccini interposed in every scene. Its dedication to the Queen of
France stirred in her the curiosity to know the author and the company.
He went therefore to Paris in 1613, and remained there, playing several
of his pieces, until 1618. He was installed at the Hôtel de Bourgogne
from 1621 until 1625. He lost his father in that year and bade farewell
to France in a work half theatrical, half mystic, entitled _Teatro
Celeste_.
“_Teatro Celeste_, in which we see Divine Mercy calling several penitent
and martyred comedians to the ranks of the blessed in Paradise, in which
those who practise the profession of the theatre are poetically exhorted
to follow their art without offending virtue, and not only to leave upon
earth an honoured name, but further not to close against themselves by
vice the path which leads to Paradise. Dedicated to my most illustrious
and most reverend lord and very respected patron the Cardinal de
Richelieu. By Gio. Batt. Andreini of Florence, known in the theatre as
Lelio.”
In this work Andreini sings the praises of pious comedians. He puts
forward his claims in favour of his profession. One of his sonnets is in
praise of St Ardélion, a pagan actor, a martyr like St Genest. Another is
in honour of Giovanni Buono of Mantua, who, retiring to a cloister, lived
in penitence and was considered a saint: “he who so long excited laughter
is transformed into a fount of tears.”
Again, it is the beatification of Brother John the sinner, the ancient
comedian of Adria, who, in his conventual cell, “affords the angels the
spectacle of his mortifications and his piety.”
Further on we have the praise of comedians who lead virtuous lives in
the practice of their art. A whole sonnet is consecrated to the memory
of his mother, Isabella Andreini. He compares human life such as it is
in the world’s theatre to a mad theatrical performance. The poet exhorts
actors of disordered life to re-enter the path of good conduct. Then, in
his last sonnets, he bids farewell to the theatre and to the world and
aspires to do penance. “Deceiving stage, I go! Never again shall I tread
thy boards, tricked out and proud. I abandon all that vain lustre even as
I withdraw from the lovely land of France.”
Andreini departed, in fact, with his troupe (the _Fedeli_); but he
remained nevertheless their Director until 1652, when at last he retired
at the age of seventy-three, “honoured by the favour of princes,
appointed master of the hunt of the Duke of Mantua and a member of the
society of the _Spensierati_.” He wrote so great a number of pieces,
pastoral plays, comedies and scenarii, that no biography has yet been
able to include a complete list.
In the year 1622 he published in Paris _La Sultana_, _L’Amor Nello
Specchio_, _La Ferinda_, _Li Due Leli Simili_, and _La Centaura_.
His pieces are redolent of the taste of the epoch; they are full of
obscenities. Riccoboni says of him:
“Giov. Battista Andreini was a man of wit and of letters, and
I am sure that had he lived fifty years earlier he would have
followed the path trodden by others and would have left us some
good comedies; but after all he was both author and comedian,
and he could not write anything of a fashion other than that of
the wits of his epoch and other than his interest urged him.”
iv
Marco Romagnesi, an actor of talent, known under the name of Orazio—also
written Horatio—went to France somewhere about 1645 together with
his wife Brighida Bianchi (Aurelia). Loret gives an account of the
performances which took place at Vincennes in 1659, in which “the husband
of Aurelia did marvels.”
ORAZIO in dress and manners is a gentleman of the period. He wears a
moustache and the _royale_ of 1643—a cut of beard invented by King Louis
XIII., who “was one day taken with the fancy to have the beards of all
his officers cut in such a fashion as to leave them merely a little tuft
on their chins.” A lampoon was written on the subject:
“Hélas, ma pauvre barbe,
Qu’est-ce qui t’a faite ainsi?
C’est le grand roi Louis,
Treizième de ce nom,
Qui toute a ébarbé sa maison.”
“However ridiculous that may be, all the world appeared presently
with a beard _à la royale_,” and the long love-lock, termed at first
_moustache_, and later _cadenette_, in commemoration of M. Cadenet de
Luynes, who wore the most beautiful love-lock that was ever seen, tied in
a coloured ribbon. This fashion, which had already been in vogue for some
years, was still considered in good taste, as well as the great felt hat
decked with white plumes.
Orazio’s costume consists of a pale green doublet, a colour in the very
best of taste; breeches of white satin, laced with silver and decked with
ribbons tied into a knot in the place of the old garters, which had now
passed out of fashion; silk stockings, and shoes with large pale green
rosettes. A white baldric embroidered in silver carried his long rapier;
he leaned upon a cane, and was curled, pomaded and perfumed.
There you have Orazio marching to the assault of the heart of Aurelia or
Isabella, and, like the lover conceived by Saint Amant in his enumeration
of the reformations which he considers to be a lover’s due, he no longer
smokes.
Notwithstanding this extreme care of his person, and under this
effeminate exterior, Orazio is a cavalier as dangerous to his rivals
as to the ladies who have caught his eye. Like Don Juan, fathers,
tutors, husbands, brothers and servants cannot turn him aside from his
enterprises. He has always a sword-thrust ready for his rivals, a cuff
for his lackeys, and flattery that is honeyed, persuasive, and fraught
with a dash of raillery, for his mistresses. He is a gentleman of the
_dernier bien mis_, as the phrase ran then; one who knows of life nothing
but its luxuries: dress, horses, duels and women. He quits the arms of
Aurelia to run and throw himself at the feet of Isabella, and if on the
way he meets the soubrettes Beatrix or Diamantine, he forget his latest
passion to dally with them, and to betray even his valet. As prodigal of
his life as of his purse, he is brave to the point of temerity, and his
rivals all give way before him. The type of Orazio is something more than
a lover; he is a hero of gallantry whose device is: “Fais ce que veux,
advienne que pourra.”
Romagnesi played these parts down to the time of his death in 1660.
In 1653, Turi, born at Modena, a son of the actor who played the parts of
Pantaloon, was to be seen in the rôles of second lover under the name of
Virginio. After the death of his father he left the theatre at the age
of forty and withdrew to Modena, where he took the habit of the order of
barefoot Carmelites. A few days after having pronounced his vows he died,
and he was interred in the convent (1670).
In 1660, the Italian company being definitely established in Paris, the
cardinal summoned from Italy a leading lover (_primo innamorato_) to make
good the loss which the company had just sustained in the person of Marco
Romagnesi. An actor whose stage name was Valerio came to take up this
position and occupied it until 1667.
Andrea Zanotti of Bologna, known in the theatre under the name of
Ottavio, made his début in Paris on the Italian stage in second-lover
parts, which he played from 1660 until 1667, when he was promoted to
leading lover. Towards 1684 Zanotti retired from the theatre and returned
to Italy with his family. He was an excellent comedian. He was surnamed
“the old Ottavio,” to distinguish him from Giovanni Battista Constantini,
who played in 1668 also under the name of Ottavio.
v
After the departure of Ottavio, Marco Antonio Romagnesi took up the
leading parts, and played them until 1694 under the name of CINTHIO,
which was already in existence. A lover whose real name we have been
unable to ascertain had already borne it in Rome in 1550.
It is under the pompous name of Cinthio del Sole that Marco Antonio
Romagnesi, born at Rome, made his first appearance in Paris in 1667.
He was the son of Marco Romagnesi and Brighida Bianchi. He succeeded
Valerio, whose family name is unknown. We behold him, in the collected
plays of Gherardi, dressed after the fashion of a young man of quality
at the end of the seventeenth century, with the huge Louis XIV. wig, the
pointed lace collar, waistcoat and coat of a long cut, a sash round his
middle, a round hat slightly cocked, the crown encircled by feathers.
This is the classic costume of the young men of Molière, of Léandre,
Ottavio and all lovers.
In _Colombine Avocat_, Cinthio, passing in front of Harlequin, who,
pretending to be a marquis, is richly but grotesquely dressed, surveys
him from head to foot and then takes him by the sleeve to ask him, “Is
that the fashion?”
HARLEQUIN. Yes, sir, the fashion. What has it to do with you?
CINTHIO (_coldly_). Are you not called the Marquis Sbrufadelli?
HARLEQUIN. Yes, sir, the Marquis Sbrufadelli is my name. What
have you to say about it?
CINTHIO. And you are to marry Isabella, the Doctor’s daughter?
HARLEQUIN. Certainly, and none shall hinder me. I am a
gentleman of quality, and a man of heart, by heaven!
CINTHIO (_deriding him_). Ha, ha, ha! the lovely fellow!
HARLEQUIN (_thrusting down his hat with one hand, and placing
the other upon the hilt of his sword_). What? To a man such as
I? By death! By——
CINTHIO (_drily_). What are you going to do with that sword?
HARLEQUIN (_suddenly softening_). I want to sell it, sir. You
don’t happen to want to buy it, do you?
Upon the death in 1694 of Angelo Lolli, who played doctors, fathers and
tutors, Romagnesi took his place and played such parts until 1697, under
the names of Cinthio, old Oronte, Persillet, Grognard, the Bailie of
Bezons, the Doctor, etc. He remained in Paris until the suppression of
the Théâtre-Italien, and died there in 1706. He had married in Italy in
1653 Giulia della Chiesa, who never played in comedy, and who died in
London in 1675 on the occasion of a journey thither made by the Italian
troupe.
“Cinthio was a man of wit who wrote both in prose and in verse.
In 1673 he printed in Italy a volume of heroic, amorous,
sacred and moral poems which were highly esteemed by the most
famous Italian poets. He was a sound philosopher, very learned
in letters, affable in conversation, polished in manners
and very honest in his sentiments. His family was noble and
distinguished.”
He wrote a large number of scenarii for the theatre.
Under the name of Aurelio, Bartolomeo Ranieri, a Piedmontese, had
succeeded Zanotti (Ottavio) in the parts of second lover. His début in
Paris took place in 1685. He was just a mediocre actor, “but he was
unable to control his tongue and his political opinions, wherefore the
court, informed of his malevolent reflections, commanded him to return to
Italy.” He departed in 1689 and went to resume his interrupted studies
of divinity. He took Holy Orders and Riccoboni speaks of having several
times beheld him in the discharge of his sacred office.
vi
On the 2nd November 1688, Giovanni-Battista Constantini, a younger
brother of Angelo Constantini (Mezzetin), who had left his native place,
Verona, made his first appearance in Paris under the name of OTTAVIO.
“On the 2nd November 1688 the Italian comedians performed for
the first time a comedy entirely in Italian entitled _La Folía
d’ Ottavio_. The title-rôle, which is that of a lover, was
filled by a young man who is a son of Gradelin and a brother of
Mezzetin. He was applauded by the entire assembly. He performed
on seven different kinds of instruments—namely, the flute,
the theorbo, the harp, the psaltery, the cymbal, the guitar,
the hautbois, and to these he added on the morrow the organ.
He sings agreeably and dances very well. He is of a very good
shape” (_Note of M. de Tralage_).
Ottavio succeeded Aurelio in the parts of second lover. In 1694 he
assumed the leading rôles, when Cinthio abandoned them for those of
doctors and fathers. In 1697, after the expulsion of the Italian
comedians by order of Louis XIV., Constantini returned to Verona, and
rendered important services to the French generals during the war of
1701. The Imperialists avenged themselves by pillaging his property.
“The Chevalier de Lislière, sent by the King into Italy to
reconnoitre the positions, encampments and movements of the
enemy, attests that the Sieur Constantini Ottavio, a gentleman
of Verona, has given essential proofs of his zeal and of
his attachment to France; he undertook several journeys
by order of the generals, and he was so useful that he was
the first to bring them news of the advance of the enemy in
Italy. This he did at his own expense, refusing the emoluments
which the generals offered him; the enemy, learning this,
and being informed of his zeal for France, have wrecked his
property in the neighbourhood of Verona. He has asked me to
give him this certificate, and as I was frequently charged
with communicating to him in the orders of the generals, I am
unable to refuse my testimony of the zeal and attachment of the
said Sieur Constantini to the interests of France, and of the
disinterested manner in which he has afforded proof of this.
“Given at the camp of Saint-Pierre de Linage, the 12th June
1701.
“(_Signed_) LISLIÈRE.”
Ottavio returned to Paris in 1708 completely ruined, and in recompense
for the services which he had rendered to the army before Verona he
received from the King, through the interest of the Marshal de Tessé,
the post of inspector of all the barriers of Paris. This important
office enabled him to set up a sort of Italian theatre at the fairs of
Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent in 1712. But, as he was an extravagant
man and of but little method, he did bad business. Later on, when the
Italian troupe was summoned to France by the Regent Orléans in 1716, he
went to offer his services to his compatriots, who accepted them with
pleasure. But whether through disorder, or the incapacity of the people
he employed to set up the machinery and carry out the repairs at the
Palais-Royal, his comrades dispensed with him at the end of a month.
He died at La Rochelle in 1731. “He was a man of wit and of talent but,
like his father Gradelin and his brother Mezzetin, the unbridled love of
women and of the table left him in indifferent circumstances throughout
his life and in misery at the end of it.”
Giovanni-Battista Constantini married in Italy a very beautiful woman
named Teresa Corona Sabolini, who played under the name of Diana. But she
never accompanied her husband on his journeys into France.
In 1694 Carlo-Virgilio Romagnesi, the grandson of Aurelia and Orazio,
made his début at the Comédie-Italienne under the name of Léandre. Gifted
with a handsome countenance and an innate talent for the dramatic art,
he played all the lovers’ parts until 1697. When the Comédie-Italienne
was closed he joined the troupe of Tortoretti, and toured with him
through France. He fell in love with Elisabetta, the daughter of
Giovanni-Battista Constantini, who was also touring the country, went
with him to Lorraine and then returned to Paris in 1707, where he married
the lady. He died in 1731.
vii
“Luigi Riccoboni, who played under the name of Lelio, was born
at Modena in 1674. He was the son of a celebrated comedian,
Antonio Riccoboni, and, following in his father’s profession,
he was seen, always with success, in the rôles of leading
lover, under the name of Federigo. He joined the company of
Signora Diana, the wife of Giovanni-Battista Constantini,
known in the old troupe under the name of Ottavia Diana. She
induced him to abandon the name of Federigo for that of Lelio,
which he always bore thereafter both in Italy and in France.
Riccoboni had married in first nuptials the sister of Francesco
Materazzi, who played the parts of Doctor in the troupe of
the Regent d’Orléans. This first wife was named Gabriella
Gardelini, and played soubrettes; but she abandoned this line
for that of second lady. She died young and without leaving
any children to Riccoboni, who later married Elena Baletti
(Flaminia).”
Luigi Riccoboni had been entrusted with the formation of the Italian
troupe which went to France in 1716 under the title of _Comédiens
ordinaires de S. A. S. monseigneur le duc d’Orléans, régent de France_.
He was then twenty-two years of age. He retired in 1729, together with
his wife Flaminia and his son Francesco Riccoboni; but Flaminia and her
son returned to the theatre a little while afterwards.
Lelio played with a great deal of spirit; “No one ever expressed
overwhelming passion with so much verisimilitude.” To his gifts as an
excellent actor he added those of a distinguished author. He wrote some
thirty pieces and, moreover, a history of the Italian theatre, an Italian
poem on the subject of declamation, and observations on comedy and on the
genius of Molière. Upon retiring from the stage he repaired to the court
of the Duke of Parma, who gave him the management of the theatres of his
duchy and of his house. After the death of this prince, Lelio returned to
France, where he died in 1753 at the age of seventy-nine.
“In the year 1690, at the age of thirteen” (he writes in his
_History of the Italian Theatre_), “I began to frequent the
theatre. Almost all the comedians of those days were ignorant
fellows; lovers’ parts were played by the sons of comedians,
men of no education, or else by young people who embraced the
profession out of principles of libertinism.”
Riccoboni speaks, in this history, of an actor who, like himself, sought
to uplift the _bonne comédie_—that is to say, the classical comedy
written in verse and learnt by heart.
“As in all professions,” he says, “there is often to be found
in this one a man of wit and of taste who detaches himself from
the others; during the last days in which the comedians were
still at liberty to go to perform in Rome during carnival,
a young man of that great city was attracted to comedy, and
followed the troupe. He had the good fortune to fall into the
hands of Francesco Calderoni (Silvio) and Agata Calderoni
(Flaminia), his wife, the grandmother of my own, who, having
preserved a remnant of this art (classical comedy), opened a
good door for him and showed him the good path.
“This young man, in his quest of distinction, passed through
all the degrees of comedy and, by his application and study,
succeeded in becoming the head of a troupe, and the greatest
actor of his day. He of whom I speak is named Pietro Cotta,
surnamed Lelio; he has always been accounted a man of great
probity, the avowed enemy of all equivocal thought and of all
that licence which, at the end of the last century, was so very
much in evidence in our disordered theatres.”
In fact, Cotta’s aim was to uplift comedy in every sense. It was in
Venice that he produced, for the first time, _L’Aristodemo del Dottore_,
and he took care to inform his public “that there was no Harlequin in
the piece, but that the subject was very moving.” This new species of
spectacle attracted only a small number of admirers. _Rodogune, Iphigénie
en Aulide_ did not amuse the great public. Some other directors sought
to imitate this new classical school, but without success. The public
demanded Harlequin, Brighella, and Pantaloon, cudgel-blows and broad
buffooneries. Pietro Cotta retired in disgust.
Riccoboni went to France imbued with this mania for tragedy, but in
France there was no need of Italian comedians to provoke tears; laughter
was wanted. Therefore Riccoboni, having missed his aim in France,
withdrew to Parma, where he gave performances of tragedies and French
classic comedies translated into Italian; in these Pantaloon and the
Doctor became truly noble fathers, and the lackeys, Harlequin and
Scapino, similarly lost their original characteristics.
Riccoboni, it is plain, was consumed by the singular desire to destroy
the Italian comedy, this Commedia dell’ Arte to which he owed his best
successes, and of which he speaks in his book like a competent and
intelligent man. Perhaps his sombre physiognomy, “which aided him to
depict terrible and extravagant passions,” suggested to him the idea of
throwing himself into the serious and tragic style. Nevertheless he had
enjoyed a real vogue in his real line.
“The success of _L’Italien Marié à Paris_ and the liveliness of
the dialogue in the scenes between Lelio and Flaminia caused
many to doubt that they were really being played impromptu.
The enemies of the Italian company and French comedians added
weight to these suspicions. This question was continually
discussed in Paris, especially at the Café Gradot, where
literary people then assembled.”
The two volumes of Riccoboni, entitled, a little presumptuously,
_Histoire du Théâtre Italien_, form a work which it is useful to consult
on the subject of the Italian theatre, although it is very incomplete,
and written indifferently, yet agreeably, by an Italian who employs a
French entirely his own, but who is wanting neither in wit nor good
sense. He appreciates with exactness and subtlety the art of the theatre,
although in the application of his theories he is very often wanting in
taste, a circumstance which goes to prove that criticism is very much
easier than practice.
Luigi Riccoboni took with him into France as second lover, in 1716,
Giuseppe Baletti, surnamed Mario, who, in 1720, married Giovanna-Rosa
Benozzi, very well known under the name of Silvia. Giuseppe Baletti, who
was born in Munich, died in 1762.
On the 13th April 1725, Giovanni-Antonio Romagnesi, the son of Gaetano
Romagnesi and grandson of Marco-Antonio Romagnesi (_Cinthio_), made
his first appearance at the Comédie-Italienne in the rôle of Lelio,
was well received, and continued to appear in lover rôles under this
name. He was born at Namur in 1690. His mother, Anne Richard, after
the death of Cinthio, married again, in Brussels, a man named Duret.
This man ill-treated his stepson, who had already made his début in
his mother’s company with considerable success. He was then fifteen
years of age. Incensed by the harshness of his mother, and in despair
under the ill-treatment of Duret, he resolved to leave them and to
become a soldier. He enlisted with a captain who treated him no better
than his parents had done, notwithstanding that the youth, to make a
friend of him, had presented him with his watch, the most precious of
his possessions. In the end Romagnesi, unable longer to endure his
ill-treatment, deserted and joined the troops of the Duke of Savoy, where
he enlisted with another captain whose brutality was even worse than
that of the first. Falling thus from Scylla into Charybdis, he wrote
to Quinault, who was then in Strasburg, and informed him of his sorry
plight. Quinault replied, inviting him to go to Basle, where he would
find the means to reach Strasburg. Romagnesi deserted for a second time,
and, travelling from convent to convent, he managed to keep alive and to
reach the gates of Basle without a halfpenny, and in rags.
But, at the gates of Basle, he discovered that no one approaching from
the side of Savoy was admitted until he had undergone a searching
interrogatory. What was he to do? A hundred paces from the town he
perceived a herd of pigs driven by a child of ten. He advanced upon the
boy and, taking possession of his whip, ordered him in a voice of thunder
to wait an hour before re-entering Basle. He then set out, driving before
him four or five of the largest pigs. “You will find them again,” he
said, “at the entrance to the faubourgs of the city.” Thus, driving his
pigs before him, he entered without hindrance in the wake of his herd,
which he left at the place indicated to the boy.
He ran to the post, but failed to find there any letter from Quinault.
The carrier would arrive only upon the morrow. This delay was hard upon
a man who had not eaten that day, who did not know a soul in the city,
and who had not a farthing in his pocket. He went to an inn, demanding
supper and a bed, but his shabby appearance inspired no confidence in
the hostess; she demanded payment in advance. Romagnesi then confessed
that he was without money, but assured her that he would receive a
remittance on the morrow, and be able to repay her. The fulfilment of
such a promise seemed doubtful; it was in vain that he employed all his
eloquence; it was wasted labour. He was on the point of being dismissed
when a neighbouring baker, touched by the speech which he had overheard,
undertook to pay his bill for him, should he fail to do so himself.
On the morrow the baker went to the post with Romagnesi. They found a
letter from Quinault in which he announced his arrival that evening.
In effect, he arrived, and it would be difficult to express the joy of
Romagnesi, “which he expressed whilst tenderly embracing Quinault and
weeping for gratitude.” Quinault kept the baker to supper when he learnt
the service which the man had rendered to his protégé.
On the morrow, having equipped his new friend more suitably, Quinault
set out with him for Strasburg. As Romagnesi’s desertion was occasioning
Quinault some uneasiness, he thought it prudent to inform the Commandant
of the place and the Intendant of the city. He related to them in detail
the adventures of young Romagnesi in the most favourable possible light.
Protection was accorded him, with the assurance that Quinault could
cause his actor to make his début whenever he thought fit. At the end
of a fortnight Romagnesi made his first appearance, and scored a great
success. His uneasiness ceased entirely, thanks to an amnesty which
was published and to a formal dismissal from his captain, who had
received the order to issue it. After two years in Strasburg Romagnesi
quitted Quinault’s company to enter Ottavio’s performing in Paris at the
fairs of Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent which had become known as the
Opéra-Comique. He undertook there, and always with success, the rôles
of lover. It was there, in 1716, that he began to write pieces for the
forain theatres.
Ottavio, having done bad business, gave up his theatre. Romagnesi then
went to tour the provinces until 1718, when he returned to Paris and
appeared at the Théâtre-Français; but he was not received there. He
went to Bordeaux, Brussels, Cambrai; whence he returned to Paris again
in 1725, and appeared at the Comédie-Italienne in _Les Surprises de
l’Amour_. He was accorded a good reception in this theatre, “of which he
long sustained the glory as much by his talent for declamation as by the
success of the pieces which he performed there,” which amount to some
sixty-two.
“Romagnesi was tall and well made; his voice was a little muffled, and
he appeared to labour when he had to recite any rather lengthy couplet.
He was a good actor in all lines, but excelled particularly in drunken
rôles and in impersonating Swiss and Germans.” He died suddenly at
Fontainebleau in the arms of Mademoiselle de Belmont, on the 11th May
1742. The curé of Fontainebleau having refused him burial, his body was
interred in Paris in the church of Saint-Sauveur.
Francesco Riccoboni, the son of Luigi Riccoboni and of Flaminia, was born
in 1707 at Mantua. He took up the parts played by his father under the
same name of Lelio. His first appearance took place on the 10th January
1726, and in 1729 he left the theatre together with his father. He
re-entered it with his mother in 1731, and there played and danced with
success until 1736. He then went to tour the provinces, returned to the
Comédie-Italienne in the following year, and left the theatre for good
in 1750. He was the author of several Italian pieces, and died in 1772.
He occupied himself also with alchemy. He married Marie-Jeanne Laboras
de Mézières, who was at once an actress and the author of many esteemed
romances.
Antonio-Luigi Baletti, the son of Mario and Silvia, was, on the 1st
February 1741, received at the Théâtre-Italien under the name of Lelio
to declaim and dance. On the occasion of his début his mother Silvia
addressed a speech to the public in which she craved their indulgence for
a child who, notwithstanding maternal representations, had insisted upon
facing the dangers of a first appearance. He was well received, together
with Carlo Bertinazzi.
On the 23rd February 1670, the comedians gave a benefit performance in
his favour of the _Serva Padrona_, to compensate him as far as possible
for an accident which he had suffered in the theatre.
In the last act of _Camille Magicienne_, Pantaloon leads on some soldiers
to force an entrance into a tower in which Camille has imprisoned Lelio
and Flaminia; it was customary to discharge several shots against this
tower. One of the soldiers who was to take part in the assault had,
whilst waiting, placed his gun beside that belonging to the sentry of the
theatre, who had quitted his post. The scene being reached sooner than
was expected, the soldier was called; inadvertently he took the weapon of
the sentinel, which was loaded, and put a bullet through the thigh of
Baletti (Lelio). The performance was suspended, but the incident had no
serious result.
In 1759 Zanucci undertook the rôles of Lelio or Mario in the forain
theatres. Other principal lovers were: Dulaudet (1714), Deshayes (1718),
Raguenet (1750), Joly (1737), Brou (1740).
viii
The earliest type of LEANDRO is a fresh and rosy lover, fluttering
ribbons and lace. He is the accepted suitor of the beautiful Lavinia,
of Isabella or of the naïve Beatrice. Thus he was at the time of his
creation in 1556 in the Italian companies.
Corneille, Molière, Destouches present him in their pieces under a
seductive exterior. His aspect is the same at the Théâtre-Italien down
to the end of the seventeenth century, and we have already said that
Carlo Romagnesi, renowned for his beauty, had made his début at the
Comédie-Italienne in 1694.
This rôle, after the death of Carlo Romagnesi, was suddenly transformed,
both in Italy and in the forain theatres; it came then to be that of a
ridiculous personage entitled _Leandro il bello_, and this surname of
“the beautiful Leandro,” which was well deserved by Carlo Romagnesi, was
no more than a derision when applied to the Leandro who was thereafter to
be found in pantomime. The transformation was not infelicitous. Leandro
has the privilege of making us laugh. To see this personage strutting
the theatre like a cock, his head lost in his ruff, his sword pointing
upwards behind him and threatening the eyes of his neighbours or becoming
entangled in the legs of his lackey, it would seem that we have not here
a lover, but a sort of Matamoros. And as a matter of fact, this beautiful
Leandro is always the son of some captain, a great slayer of Saracens;
he too is in love with Isabella or Columbine; he deigns to condescend
even to this soubrette when she is the daughter or ward of Cassandre;
but notwithstanding his beautiful curls, his lace ruffles, his doublet,
peaked like that of Polichinelle or of Matamoros, the sword of his
ancestors, his titles, and the parchments which he always bears upon him,
he never succeeds in receiving anything but kicks aimed at his stomach,
but, thanks to the promptitude of his evolutions, always delivered at
another address.
He is a Spaniard, a hidalgo of the old rock. He is no doubt rich, to
judge by the silver embroideries upon his pink or yellow garments, and
the simple Cassandre never fails to be imposed upon by his exterior. When
he speaks, he bleats horribly. He holds himself as stiffly as a pine-tree
(it is supposed that he wears corsets); he boasts to her whom he desires
to marry of his _bonnes fortunes_, for which he has never failed to pay
dearly; he submits to beatings from Harlequin, and flees at the approach
of any danger. He is totally ignorant of everything, with the sole
exception of the art of heraldry. Awkward and very susceptible, he never
suffers anyone to pass in front of him; he frequently carries his hand to
his rapier, but no one can remember ever to have seen its blade.
Sometimes he is dressed like a marquis of Louis XV., but he possesses all
the virtues of the hidalgo, whether under his hempen wig or under his
short red hair.
In _Cassandre aux Indes_, a farce of the boulevard theatres (1756),
Leandro is in love with Isabella. Cassandre on his departure for the
Indies had confided his daughter to the guardianship of Harlequin; the
latter permits himself to be bribed by Leandro, who desires to penetrate
to the presence of Isabella. After having ransacked the pockets of
the lover, the lackey finds there: “A book to learn to read; a paper
snuff-box; a book of puerile civility; a solar quadrant and a chain; a
patch-box in white metal; a currycomb; a leather glove.” All this is not
worth very much, so that Harlequin demands that he shall write him a note
for ten crowns in exchange for which Leandro may have speech of Isabella.
Leandro, who is unable to write, makes a cross upon a piece of paper.
The conventional jests on the subject being exhausted, Harlequin goes in
search of Isabella.
LEANDRO. I am going to pay her a little impromptu compliment
carefully prepared.
(_ISABELLA enters followed by HARLEQUIN. LEANDRO, without
removing his hat, addresses her the following compliment._)
Lady, the admiration of your beauty has filled my heart with
love of your fine eyes; and should you feel a reciprocity for
your very humble servant, there is no happier man upon earth
than I should be in all the world.
ISABELLA. Sir, it would be impossible to find a compliment more
gallantly expressed, and I tell you frankly that you would suit
me very well as a follower, were it not for a detail which is
but a bagatelle, namely, that I am distressed to see that you
are suffering from scurvy.
LEANDRO (_his hat still on his head_). Lady, I assure you that
is no longer the case. I was cured at the age of sixteen. A
scurvy gentleman would be an impossible thing!
ISABELLA. Sir, I have the honour to tell you that I perceive
from my window that you are making eyes at me. It might be
fitting that I should be moved to love you, but I have noted
something which stifles my tenderness; in short, if you are not
suffering from scurvy, you are clearly suffering from ringworm.
LEANDRO (_still without taking off his hat_). If a man were to
offer me that insult, I should cut his face in two; but since
it is you, lady, the respect which I must bear to my affections
compels me to respect you.
ISABELLA (_dropping a curtsy to LEANDRO_). Farewell, sir. I
found you an ass, I leave you an ass.
HARLEQUIN (_laughing and mimicking ISABELLA_). I found you an
ass, I leave you an ass. (_Exeunt._)
LEANDRO (_alone_). What does it mean? I don’t understand. Oh,
heavens, I did not take off my hat! Behold me lost for all
time! Is it possible that I, who would take off my hat to a
dog, should not have taken if off to my charming mistress? She
will desire no further commerce with me. I am in a fury, which
causes me the greatest sorrow. There is nothing left for me but
to go and drown myself; if only I had poison at hand, I believe
that I should pass my sword through my body!
Polidoro, the ridiculous lover of the fifteenth century, in a comedy
of Beolco (Ruzzante), is the true modern Leandro, ugly, ungracious,
unhealthy, but rich and confident of the power of his ducats.
“In short,” he says, “money is the true means of obtaining everything. I
have taken my precautions to monopolise the favours of my beautiful lady,
because I am not one of those who consent to be alone in the expense and
accompanied in the pleasure.” To him enters the little servant of Celega,
the _entremetteuse_.
POLIDORO. Go ahead, Forbino, and tell thy mistress that I am
coming. Make haste!
FORBINO. I go, but at least give me something for the good
news which I brought you on the subject of your rival Flavio.
POLIDORO. I shall give but too much to thy mistress.
FORBINO. Devil take her. I want you to give me something for
myself also.
POLIDORO. Be off quickly, rascal. Hast learnt to be insolent!
FORBINO. A plague on you! I would give a ducat, if I had it,
that Flavio should get the better of you, that he should find
the money that he lacks, and that you should be left in the
street to sing the _todolina_!
POLIDORO. Gallows-bird! If I come at thee!
FORBINO. Give me something.
POLIDORO. Cuffs will I give thee.
FORBINO. None but a fool could wish ill to Flavio. He is worth
a good deal more than you, who in all your life have never
given me a coin.
POLIDORO. Wait! I will give thee one that is worth ten.
FORBINO. Only a fool would wait. My compliments to you.
In the following century the name of Polidoro is bestowed upon old men,
as in _Gli Affliti Consolati_, by Alfonso Romei of Ferrara, in 1604. In
a burlesque fairy play (_Les Pilules du Diable_), which took Paris by
storm, Leandro was called _Sotinez_.
Laurent the elder, a remarkable mime who had played Harlequins in
many little theatres, gave this personage a costume, gestures and a
physiognomy entirely noteworthy, and in the true colour of the Italian
farce.
VII
RUZZANTE
There is no such thing as useless labour. However arid or trivial a
subject may seem, from the moment that you embark upon a study of it,
your researches will always lead you to some serious discovery that will
compensate you for your trouble.
Our thanks are due to thee, brave and good Ruzzante, thou mighty dead
whom we have found lying in the dust of oblivion; thou whose work, rare
in Italy and unknown elsewhere, has permitted us at last to look upon the
Commedia dell’ Arte as a Muse of the same blood and the same nobility as
those of Shakespeare and Molière.
Of the life of Shakespeare very little is known; nothing is known of
that of Angelo Beolco, surnamed Ruzzante, born at Padua in 1552. Was he
an actor by profession, or was he no more than an amateur in the pursuit
of his avocation? The only information of any consequence in existence
is that afforded by a page of Bernardino Scardeon in his work, _De
antiquitate urbis Patavii_, 1560:
“Angelo Beolco, known under the name of Ruzzante, was in
Padua what Plautus was in Rome as an author and Roscius as an
actor. He has even surpassed them, for there is no comedy of
antiquity, _prætextæ_, _togatæ_, _mixtæ_, or _atellanæ_, that
can sustain comparison with the comedies of Ruzzante, which
were played throughout Italy, afforded so much pleasure and
attracted such crowds of men and women. As for himself, he was
so superior to other actors that whenever he was on the stage
the public neither saw nor heard anyone but him.”
It might be added by us that Ruzzante surpassed Plautus in the
composition of comedies, and as for his having been superior to
Roscius as an actor,[8] we are compelled to admit it, judging from the
incomparable naturalness of his compositions and his language.
Ruzzante’s was a brilliant epoch. It was in the hour of the awakening
of comedy in Italy that he too awakened in all the strength and freedom
of his eminently original genius. Very inferior to him on the score of
individuality and novelty are his illustrious predecessors: Ariosto, who
at the age of twenty (in 1494) had already produced at the court of the
Duke of Ferrara his comedy entitled _I Suppositi_; Niccolo Macchiavelli,
author of _La Mandragora_ (1504) and _La Clizia_ (1508), which latter Leo
X. commanded to be performed before him in Rome by the _sempiterni_ or
the _intronati_, the academic actors of Florence and Siena; and Bernardo
Dovizi, Cardinal of Bibbiena, author of _La Calandra_, written in 1490.
These did not create a new style; they revived a dead one. They walked in
the ways of the masters of antiquity, and whilst they may have overtaken
them they did not surpass them. Ruzzante, far more daring and creative,
completed and embellished all the subjects to which he set his hand. He
created a comedy of realities in the midst of the pastoral idylls of the
Venetians by which he was surrounded.
Ruzzante would certainly have been the Molière of Italy if, instead of
spending his days in improvisation, he had employed them in writing; for
it is only in the last years of his life, which was all too brief (he
died at the age of forty), that he co-ordinated and wrote the greater
part of his subjects as well as his charming discourses to the Cardinals
Cornaro and Pisani, etc.
It was his custom to reside during the summer at Codevigo, the Venetian
villa of Aloysio Cornelio, a munificent and liberal gentleman who was his
Mæcenas, and who cherished Ruzzante and his troupe. In return this troupe
gave many performances at Cornelio’s house.
According to Scardeon, the city of Padua was about to honour Ruzzante
when he died, on the 17th March 1542. His friends and numerous admirers
raised him, in 1560, a tomb in the church of San-Daniele in Padua, near
the Prato della Valle, with the following epitaph in remembrance of him
and “in earnest of affection, esteem and admiration”:—
V. S.
ANGELO BEOLCO
Ruzanti Patavino, nulli in scribendis, agendisque comœdiis
ingenio, facundia, aut arte secundo, jocis et sermonibus
agrest. applausu omnium facetiss., qui non sine amicorum mœrore
e vita discessit anno Domini MDLII die xvii martii, ætatis
vero xl. Jo. Baptista Rota Patavin. tantæ præstantiæ admirator
pignus hoc sempiternum in testimonium famæ ac nominis P. C.
anno a mundo redempto MDLX.
Ultimately, however, this inscription having been found too profane—we do
not know by whom—it was removed.
Bernardino Scardeon tells us that Ruzzante was of a joyous and amiable
character, invariably pleasant and affable. His face, to judge from the
portrait of him which survives, denotes a fine wit, gifts of observation
and satire, and a firm and melancholy character.
Almost all the characters of his comedies bore surnames which afterwards
became generic names, and so remained in the theatre.
“In the performance of his comedies, his stage companions were young
people of the nobility of Padua, such as Marco Aurelio Alvarotto, called
_Menato_; Girolamo Zanetti, called _Vezzo_; Castegnola, called _Bilora_;
and some others who were able to imitate the language of the peasantry.”
It is even possible that Aloysio Cornelio himself, Ruzzante’s splendid
protector, took part in their performances, and may have been, by
antithesis, the character of the miserly Pantaloon, who, under the name
of Cornelio, fills so large a number of rôles in Ruzzante’s pieces.
Benedetto Varchi, the famous author of _The History of Florence_,
speaking of the various kinds of comedy, writes on the subject of the
ancient plays:
“If one may judge from experience and give faith to
conjectures, I think that our _zanni_ are more comical than
were their mimes, and that the comedies of Ruzzante of Padua,
treating of rustic subjects, surpass those which the ancients
called _atellanæ_.”
“Our best writers” (says Riccoboni) “have been loud in praise
of Ruzzante. His comedies, superior to the Latin atellanæ in
comicality, admit all the dialects of the corrupted languages
of Lombardy. It was he who settled for the theatre the
character and the language of Scapin, Harlequin, Pantaloon and
the Doctor.”
In truth Ruzzante was the first to open the doors of comedy to popular
dialects. All his characters speak different languages, from Paduan,
Bergamese, Bolognese, Venetian and Tuscan to Latin, Italianised Spanish
and modern Greek. But it is the dialects of Padua, Venice and Bergamo
that are chiefly employed by him.
His early efforts were in the academic manner, and he sought to rival
by the purity of his style Bembo, Speroni and the other authors of his
epoch. Notwithstanding that he had quite as much talent as his colleagues
he was dissatisfied with his success. Perceiving too that he remained
far below the level at which he aimed, he devoted himself to the study
of rustic dialects, and of the customs, manners and characters of the
peasantry. So admirably had he acquired their language and their ways, so
exactly did he seize all their naïveté, originality and humour, that he
deceived the very rustics, who, when they saw him disguised, assumed him
to be one of themselves. Beolco manifested a quite peculiar predilection
for them, and criticised for their profit the manners of the great, the
learned and the luxurious.
“Would you not be a hundred times more worthy” (he asks in one
of his prologues), “if you were to content yourselves as we
do in our country homes with eating good bread and good solid
cheese, and drinking an honest red wine, rather than consume
sauces and all sorts of dishes which swell your stomachs? You
would be fresh and rosy as apples instead of withered as you
are. I dare swear that if one of your gentlemen came to grips
with one of our women he would be worsted? Why? Because our
women are not nourished upon sweetmeats but upon natural food,
and because, living as they do in the open air, their limbs are
stronger and their thews more vigorous.”
Ruzzante never misses an occasion to exalt the uses of rustic language.
In a letter written in Paduan, addressed to the Most Reverend Cardinal
Cornaro Vecchio, he says:
“I do not see why, since I take my peasant characters and
present them on the stage, I should expect them to use Tuscan
(_in lenguazo fiorentinesco_) rather than Egyptian. At present
the world is all awry, and everyone seeks to lift his head
higher than is possible to him. No longer is anything done
according to nature; every man permits himself to be dazzled
by the pretensions of his neighbour instead of remaining in a
state of simplicity. It is also sought to change our language
rather than to allow us to speak in the language which is
proper to us. Instead of keeping to his own straight road,
everyone runs to that which dazzles him, and that, as I say, is
bad. Shall I do the same, I who am a Paduan of Italy (_che a
son Pavàn, della Italia_)? Shall I go and convert myself into a
Tuscan or a Frenchman? No, by the blood of the scorpion! No, I
shall not. It is my desire to remain and to walk in the way of
truth and of naturalness.
“Let no one amongst you be surprised to hear me speak a
language that is not Florentine; I will not exchange my
language for any other. I think that I may just as sincerely
desire your health, fortune and happiness in my coarse Paduan
as another might do in a finer and lighter tongue.”
Beolco played a number of parts in his own pieces, and came forward
always to announce the argument. Arrayed usually in an allegorical or
fantastic costume, he would deliver his little address to the public:
“Let us amuse ourselves a little. Is there anyone amongst you
who knows who I am? You have the air of wishing to reply that
I am Mercury, or a reciter of arguments of comedies. No, you
will never guess it! I won’t leave you in doubt any longer. I
am an elfin spirit. Do you know why I show myself, why I permit
you to see me? Do you know whence I come? From the other world;
and I will tell you why. One of those who is there, called
Actius by some and Plautus by others, has sent me to tell you
that since a comedy is to be played this evening you are not to
blame me if it is not in Latin and in verse and in beautiful
language, because if to-day he were among the living he would
not write comedies in any other style than that of this which
you are about to witness. He begs you not to judge by this one
those which he left written; for he swears to you by Hercules
and Apollo that they were recited in other days, in terms very
different from those which you see printed now, for the good
reason that many things which look well upon paper look ill
upon the stage.”
It seems to us that the whole _raison d’être_ of comedy improvised in
free dialect is to be found in these few words.
Everywhere, whether from personal instinct, whether from contagion from
the pastoral mode, Ruzzante presents apologias of the rustic life.
Nevertheless it must not be assumed that he was a writer of _bergeries_
like Florian; he is a realist in his pictures of the miseries and
passions of the precarious and savage life of the peasants of his day.
The brutal passion which induces him, in _La Fiorina_, to carry off by
force a young girl, gagging her by the aid of a friend, is probably an
instance copied from nature in those days of war and rape and violence.
But if he dares to present such dramas upon the stage with an almost
ferocious recklessness, he also makes heard the voice of indignation or
of pity.
“By the blood of the ill of the cripple!” (exclaims old
Teodosia—we cannot undertake to explain this bizarre
malediction), “we see strange things to-day. Ill living is the
fashion, and I think that before long we shall know no safety
in our huts. Consider what a surprise awaits this poor father
and this unfortunate mother! I am overwhelmed by the desire to
weep.”
In a letter which he addressed under his stage name to Cardinal Francesco
Cornaro, he thanks Rome for having sent to the city of Padua this noble
prelate who revives his failing hopes. These letters, written in the
old Paduan dialect, are his masterpieces. They are the inditings of a
naïve peasant who has the right to say anything. Therefore they are gay,
because to ensure their being read it was necessary that they should
excite laughter. But this laughter is fraught with tears. They are not
the letters of a historian paying his court, they are those of a brave
and generous man who loves his country and speaks the truth. Here are a
few brief fragments—very brief lest we should be charged with too great a
digression from our subject:
“Rome, our grandmother, who gave you your hat, O good cardinal,
did not give it you to shield you from the sun, and to save
your complexion, but so that it may shelter us all; and under
your purple cloak it is your duty to gather us all to your
heart as a hen gathers her chickens. Restore to us our trust
and our peace. Consider what this country has become. No
longer are young men and maidens to be heard singing on the
highways and in the fields. The very birds sing no longer,
and I believe—may the plague choke me!—that the voice of the
nightingale is no longer as beautiful as of yore. No longer
do we see games and merry-makings. Such is the misery that
has fallen upon our land that one may truly say: blessed are
the dead who are beyond the touch of war, of ruin and of
pestilence! We are worse off than in the days of the great
slayings, days in which men saw incredible happenings, days in
which fathers butchered their sons. To-day the times are so
ill that husband and wife will go each a separate way to seek
a livelihood. And love too has departed hence. Seek to find
me a lover! There is no longer anyone who will take a wife.
Wives must be nourished and how may that be done when there is
nothing in the house? So that, instead of sighs of love one
hears naught but groans of hunger. Charity goes knocking from
door to door, and none will give her shelter under his roof. We
no longer dare so much as to weep when following the bier of a
beloved dead, lest we should drench too many handkerchiefs.”
(Then, adopting a tone of pleasantry, he proceeds:) “Be our
friend, for I am well disposed to be yours. You may invite
me as often as you will to dine with you; I can refuse you
nothing, not even good advice.”
It is necessary to remember that Ruzzante lived in the early days of
the sixteenth century, amid the wars of Francis I. and Charles V., who
were disputing for the possession of Italy, when the terrible invasion
of the German army was descending upon Rome, leaving behind it a country
devastated and in ashes. The holy city was taken by assault, sacked and
given over to two months of pillaging by the Lutherans. Florence was
ravaged by the plague; and Ruzzante’s own country, Padua, was desolated
by famine. And so, in his comedies, he pours furious curses upon
Spaniards and Germans.
“May the plague consume them all,” he cries, “wars and soldiers, soldiers
and wars! But we must laugh nevertheless, my friends, we must render
ourselves numb to our sufferings!”
It is also noteworthy that in the midst of the liveliest buffooneries
Ruzzante will often confront us suddenly with a terrible situation, a
flash of real passion, a profound reflection or a cry from the heart. The
serious side of his spirit reveals itself in the most concise, but also
the most energetic manner, and in the truest and most touching terms;
unfortunately these are often untranslatable because the dialects are
inseparable from the characters. He was a thousand times right in his
contention that had he given these another language they would have been
no more than conventional types.
[Illustration]
Chiefly to concern us here, however, is the buffoon side of Ruzzante, for
it is through this that he belongs to the Commedia dell’ Arte. His gaiety
is very often bitter, tragic and hideous, some of his pieces bear no
title; they are printed simply under the designation of dialogues.
BILORA. Who could have foretold that love would so rudely
have thrust me out of my own house, to throw me amid people
whom I do not know? It is said that love will not or cannot
do anything. But I see instead that it does what it likes. As
for me, it is love which has compelled me to come to seek my
hidden wife. Had it been otherwise I should not have tramped
all yesterday, all last night and all this morning through
woods and fields. I am so tired that I can scarcely stand. A
lover is drawn by his love more irresistibly than by three
pairs of oxen. There are those who say that love lodges with
young people and drives them mad. For my part I see that it can
also haunt old men, for had it not pierced the heart of that
old gossip—may a scorpion eat him!—he would not have brought
my wife into this town. Could not that old usurer have taken
pleasure in his ducats without seeking it in my wife? By the
blood of the scorpion! it was an ill turn to have served me!
But I shall so contrive that in some way I shall wrest her from
him. Ah, but who knows whether I shall so much as get a glimpse
of her? I should have done well to have gone to his house....
I am dying of hunger and I have neither bread nor money with
which to buy it. If I but knew at least where she is living,
that is to say where he has lodged her, I should so move her
that at least she would give me bread.
(He is about to withdraw when he meets an old acquaintance.
This is Pittaro, an old peasant whom he qualifies as barba, as
who would say bearded.)
PITTARO. Eh, _cagasangue_! Is it Bilora? What are you seeking
here?
BILORA. I am come about the affair of Messer Andro—help me to
pronounce his name—Androtene or Ardochene, that old foreign
gentleman who carried off my wife.
PITTARO. You were wrong to come. What do you expect of your
wife, who seems to have forgotten you? It will hardly suffice
just to go and ask for her to ensure her returning with you.
She is leading a pleasant life with him, without care or
trouble; she eats and drinks as much as she pleases and she is
well served, for there is a lackey to wait upon them both.
He relates that old Andronico is madly in love with Bilora’s wife and
that she appears to manifest some attachment for him. He advises Bilora
to depart, assuring him that there is nothing to be done, but Bilora does
not heed the advice.
“Would it not be better that she should return home with me? If I were to
meet the old man I might strike him. I want so much to see my Dina! Is
she alone at the house?”
Pittaro repeats that no course is open to him but to depart. That he must
not be seen thereabouts. But Bilora consigns him to the devil; he is so
tormented with love, fear and rage, that he cannot resist his desire to
behold his wife. He knocks at the door of the house; Dina appears at the
window.
DINA. Who knocks? Who is there? Is it you, poor man? Depart in
peace.
BILORA. Yes, I am very poor, but that is no reason why I should
depart. I am your friend; approach, Dina. It is I.
DINA. And who are you? What friend? The master is not at home.
Begone!
BILORA. Ah, Dina, come here a moment, it is I. Is it possible
that you don’t recognise me?
DINA. I tell you to be gone, and that I don’t know you, that
the master is absent. He went out upon business and I have no
wish to gossip.
BILORA. Oh, my dear Dina! Do come here! I wish to speak to you
sincerely. It is I, Dina. Do you not see that I am Bilora, your
husband?
DINA. Alack! Is it indeed you? What do you seek here? Speak!
BILORA. What are you saying? Come down here that I may see you.
DINA. I am coming.
BILORA. Yes, come with me, and I shall hold you good and true
as you were before.
DINA (_below_). Good evening! I am here since you insist. How
are you? Are you well?
BILORA. I—I am well. And you? How well you look!
DINA. Heaven be thanked! Nevertheless, to tell you the truth I
feel none too well. This old man wearies me.
BILORA. Youth and age never can agree. You and I would be
better suited to each other.
DINA. And then, he is always ailing. He coughs at night and
keeps me from sleeping. At every hour he comes to seek and
weary me, to take me in his arms and kiss me.
BILORA. Well then, tell me, would you not sooner return home,
or do you wish to remain here with this old man? Speak!
DINA. I should be glad enough to come, but he does not wish it.
Neither does he wish that you should come here. If you but knew
the care he takes of me, how he caresses me! By the fever! he
loves me dearly and I am very well with him.
BILORA. But what does it matter what he wishes if you wish it?
Oh, I understand. You don’t wish it either, and you are telling
me lies, eh?
DINA. How shall I answer you? I should like to come, and yet I
should not like to come (_vorràe e si no vorràe_).
BILORA. Heaven is not propitious to me to-night. Will it be
long before the old man returns?
DINA. He should return almost at once, but I should not like
him to find me with anyone. Come, my dear. You will return in
secret and we will come to an understanding.
BILORA. Yes, we will come to an understanding by means of
kicks! Take care, by the blood! If I begin I shall be worse
than a soldier!
After further threats from Bilora, Dina tells him that she will advise
him when the old man returns home, so that Bilora may demand of him
her return, whether he wishes it or not. Dina will do what her husband
wishes. After that Bilora asks her for a piece of bread, saying that he
is dying of hunger because he has not eaten since he left home. But Dina,
saying that she can abstract nothing from the house, gives him money to
go to an inn, where he may eat and drink at his ease. She re-enters the
house, and Bilora goes off, after some reflections upon hunger and love,
and after cursing the old man and considering the coins which Dina has
given him, whose effigies supply him with witticisms that it would be
difficult to translate.
Messer Andronico then enters, discoursing alone upon women, and upon
love at a ripe age. He knocks at the door, saying: “Open, my pretty, my
beauty.” The door opens, and he is about to embrace her when he discovers
that it is his lackey, Tonin, who has received his honeyed praises, and
whom he now denounces for a brute and a donkey. Thereupon both go within.
Bilora and Pittaro re-enter. Pittaro asks him whether he has fared well,
if the wine was good, and so forth. Bilora, after replying that he is
“full,” begs him to be the mediator between himself and Messer Andronico,
whom he continues to call _Ardoche_: “You will tell him that Dina has
a husband, and that he must let her go, whether he desires it or not,
because she desires it. And that I will kill him if he refuses—that I am
a soldier, and a bravo, which will intimidate him. If he surrenders her
all will be well; if not, let him look to himself.”
Bilora goes off, and Pittaro, after having knocked at the door, and
undergone the usual interrogations from Dina, is permitted to speak to
Messer Andronico.
PITTARO. Good evening, Messer and Excellency.
ANDRONICO. What brings thee, Pittaro?
PITTARO. I want ten words with you in confidence. Come this
way, sir.
ANDRONICO. What is there, then, so interesting?
PITTARO. You shall learn. You know without my telling you that
you carried off Dina, the wife of that poor lad Bilora. He
has lost his head over the affair. I beseech you, Excellency,
in your own interest, to let her depart with her husband. For
reflect, my very dear sir, that it was highly imprudent in you
to have carried off the wife of another. And further let me
tell you as a friend that she is far from old, whilst you are
too advanced in years to have so young a woman. Forgive me,
Messer, the frankness of my speech.
ANDRONICO. Do you want the truth? I shall do nothing of what
you ask because I cannot give her up. Do you understand? I am
resolved to spend my life with her. What the devil! Do you
think I should let that girl return to the country to suffer
with that great coward Bilora, who gives her more cudgellings
than bread? No, no! I want her for myself. I will not throw
nutmeg to swine. Do you suppose that I should have carried her
off as I did to let her go again so easily? I, who have worn a
cuirass and carried a shield all summer, like a Rodomont? I,
who have gone armed day and night, who have suffered so much
fatigue to save her trouble? Bid Bilora seek elsewhere what he
requires.
PITTARO. But what is he to do? Do you want him to go mad?
ANDRONICO. And what of me? Do you want me to die of despair?
Let him go mad, how can I help it? You are tiresome. You begin
to anger me. Go to the devil! And not another word on this
subject!
PITTARO. Do not become heated, sir. Let us be wise. Let us call
Dina, let us question her, and let us see what she will say. If
she wants to go, let her go; if she does not, keep her and do
as you please. What do you say?
ANDRONICO. No doubt you are right. But do not suppose that
she will be of the same way of thinking. She has just told me
that she will never leave me for any other man in the world. I
cannot believe that she could so quickly change her mind. Still
I will do as you ask, and thus you shall learn the truth. (_He
calls._) Dina, my pretty! listen! come here!
DINA. Did you call me, my master?
ANDRONICO. Listen, my pretty: this good man is seeking you on
behalf of your husband, and we have agreed that if you want to
leave me I shall let you go, that if you want to remain you
shall remain. You know that you are happy with me, and that I
shall never let you want for anything. Do as you will and as
you please, I say no more.
DINA. To go with my husband? I don’t want to! To be beaten? My
faith, no! I would to heaven that I had never known him, that
greatest of all the cowards that eat bread! I say it once for
all, I don’t wish to return to him.
ANDRONICO. Well, well, well! Are you satisfied? When I told you
this you would not believe me.
PITTARO. But listen, girl! She herself told Bilora, not
half-an-hour ago, that she wanted to return to him, but that
you did not wish it.
DINA. I? I never said anything of the sort. To whom did I say
it? As the good wife says, I leave that lie to him who invented
it.
ANDRONICO. Go in, my dear, and do not trouble yourself further.
(_To PITTARO._) What do you say now? What further can you ask?
PITTARO. I, sir? Nothing further. I want what she wants. But
let me tell you that Bilora is a man to be feared; he bears you
no good will, and you would do well to return his wife to him.
ANDRONICO. What do you mean by that? Explain at once. Do you
threaten me? Do not anger me. I am quite cool, and I tell you
frankly that you are a fool. Begone at once. Once for all I
will not surrender Dina. Do you understand? I am going home.
See to it that I do not find you here when next I go forth. Let
that suffice.
Pittaro promises to depart and never to be seen again. After Andronico
has gone in, Bilora enters. Probably he has heard everything for he
reproaches his gossip with not having succeeded. Thereupon Pittaro,
becoming impatient, and angered already by Andronico, tells him that he
is tiresome; but he tells him this in the energetic words which in those
days were still permitted in the theatre. Whereupon he seeks to lead
Bilora away with him, but since Bilora refuses, he bids him go to the
devil, and departs.
BILORA (_alone_). No, I shall not go. My affairs are all upside
down; it is enough to make a schoolboy die of laughter, and
I don’t know what to do. This old man has ruined my life. It
would be better that he were dead and buried. Let him but
come forth and I shall tell him what I think of him, and so
manhandle him as to knock the life out of him. Yes, but he
will scream in fear if I do that! Better perhaps to do as the
Spanish soldiers do; that will not leave him time to say eight
words. Let me draw my knife from its scabbard. Let us see if
the blade is bright. By the scorpion, it is none too bright, so
perhaps he won’t fear it. Accursed old man, may you but come
quickly, I shall flay you alive. I shall take his clothes and
I shall sell them, together with my cloak, to buy a horse so
as to travel far. I shall turn soldier and live in camps, for
henceforth I shall hold my house in horror. Whoever likes can
have it. Ah! would he but come forth. Chut! Here he is! May the
plague burst the old fool. The moment is choice, provided that
no one comes. Here he is! Ah! now he shall not escape me.
ANDRONICO (_in the doorway speaking to the servant_). What
animal is that, wandering round the house at this time? Some
drunkard? Do not come, Zane, remain indoors. I am going to take
the air to calm myself; keep Dina company and then come and
seek me in the fourth hour of night with a lantern.
ZANE. I shall come as soon as possible. Do not be uneasy.
ANDRONICO. Zane, shut the door. I shall go this way.
BILORA. May death eat thee, thou worn-out old man! Take that!
and that! (_He strikes him._)
ANDRONICO. Oh, my sweet son! Oh, my lad! Mercy, mercy! To me!
to me! help! fire! fire! fire! I am being murdered! Treason!
Fire! fire! To me! I die! I am dead! (_He falls._)
BILORA. Fire! Ay—into the fire of hell shalt thou go. Return me
my wife now. Did I not tell you to let her be? But he is dead,
he does not move a limb. Ah! you have laughed your fill, eh?
Didn’t I warn you, eh?
This ends the piece. This _dialogue_, whose energy and colour is lost in
translation, is, as will be seen, a tragedy, but a real tragedy; just
so might it have been in reality upon some Venetian _traghetto_, one
of those flights of steps so often drenched with blood, to be washed
a moment later by the waters of the canal as they bore away the body.
The original is most arresting. It contains no fiction, no ideal. Each
character thinks and speaks as in actual life. But how extraordinary
the humour and how rude the fibre of a public that could laugh at these
scenes of despair and murder that were seasoned by the most frightful
jests!
Bilora’s monologue is remarkable for its truth to life in an epoch in
which dramatic convention was surcharged with emphasis: we behold an
assassin who premeditates and does not premeditate; one who desired and
did not desire. He wanted to beat and to insult his man; if the man died,
so much the worse. The peasant is neither brave nor evil; he is not proud
and he has not the honour of the gentleman; he loves his criminal wife,
he regrets her, he desires her, he will have her, he will beat her and
he will love her again. That is the child of nature. One can understand
how much an actor of intelligence might extract from such a situation,
fraught with laughter, tears and terror.
The dialogue we have just indicated seems a sort of revenge taken by the
fancy of Ruzzante upon that which follows, in which he plays the part of
a poltroon, or rather of the soldier captain.
MONOLOGUE OF RUZZANTE RETURNING FROM THE WARS
Behold me at last arrived in Venice. I was as impatient to get
here as the lean mare is impatient to see the grass sprouting
in springtime. At last I am going to see my Gnua (_Genoveffa_)!
To hell with camps and wars and soldiers! I shall no longer be
disturbed by rolling of drums and braying of trumpets which set
me trembling. I shall no longer hear the cry “To arms!” I shall
no longer be afraid! When the cry “To arms” rang out, it was as
if I had a press upon my stomach. And then the musket-shots!
I tremble no longer; I am brave now; I shall be able to sleep
and dream as much as I like. I shall eat when I like, what I
like, and too much if I like. I shall digest. I shall go as
I please. Saint Mark! Saint Mark! I am at last in safety. I
travelled swiftly; I have done more than sixty miles a day. I
came hither in three days from Cremona! It is not as far as
people say. They will tell you that from Cremona to Brescia it
is forty miles; it is but a stride. From Brescia to Peschiera
they say it is thirty. From Peschiera here, what can the
distance be? I came in a day although it is true that I walked
all night. Faith! my legs are aching, although I am not tired.
The fact is that fear drove me and hope sustained me, and my
shoes bore the burden. I want to look at them. May the scorpion
eat me! Now here is one with no sole left. That must have been
in the war. If I had had the enemy behind me I could not have
walked faster. I look like a thief in these clothes, which I
stole from a peasant. But the clothes do not matter. I am in
safety.... Then I took a boat at Fusine. If I had been killed
in the war and I were no more than a ghost I should not be here
now. Ah, but no! ghosts don’t eat. I am myself. I am alive. I
must go and look for Gnua and my gossip Menato, who has also
come to live in Venice. But here he comes. Heh! gossip, it is
I, Ruzzante!
MENATO. Is it you, gossip? I should never have known you. You
are so changed! But be welcome. Do you come from the wars?
Have you been sick or in prison? But what an evil countenance,
gossip! You have the air of a brigand. Forgive me, but I have
seen more than a hundred men who were hanged, and never one
with so evil a countenance as yours.
RUZZANTE. That is the effect of misery and war, of bad
drinking, bad eating, hunger and thirst. Had you but been where
I have been!
MENATO. You talk like a book, my friend. Have you then learnt
to speak Florentine?
RUZZANTE. He who travels the world must make haste to learn. I
speak French too, but were I to address you in that language of
a certainty you would not understand me. I learnt all through
fear in a day, and I glory in it.
Hereupon follow several untranslatable pleasantries upon alleged
Florentine and French words, with explanations in the Paduan dialect
and interpretations by Ruzzante. Menato then turns to the subject of
the rags worn by Ruzzante. Ruzzante tells him that he conquered them,
sword in hand, from a peasant whom he had wounded. “A plague on these
good-for-nothing peasants,” he says.
MENATO. But, gossip, now that you are a soldier, you no longer
believe yourself a rustic, eh? Are you become such a roarer
that you would eat iron?
RUZZANTE. Had you been where I have been, you would also have
learned to eat not only iron, but weapons and baggage as
well, for having no money by which to live I sold all that I
possessed at an inn.
MENATO. Is that all that you have brought from your assaults
upon the enemy?
RUZZANTE. I never sought to do the enemy any ill. Why should I
have done so? The enemy never did me any harm. I made war upon
cows and mares, and sometimes I took prisoners.
MENATO. You look so much like a bad soldier that no one who
sees you will believe that you have ever been to war. I had
looked to see you return crippled in a leg or an arm, or with
your face scarred or an eye missing.
RUZZANTE. Valour does not lie in wounds and cripplings. Do you
imagine that four men could make me afraid? Had you but been
where I have been you would take another tone. You would have
done things which you have never done. It is not necessary
to limp or to be short of an arm to go through one of those
battles in which one can do nothing against so many. In those
affairs no one knows anybody, gossip. You hear everyone crying:
“Kill! kill!”—Harquebus shots here, and partisan strokes there.
You see your comrade drop dead, and then it is your turn; and
if you attempt to run away the enemy charges you, and a shot
out of somewhere breaks your spine. I tell you that courage is
necessary to attempt to escape or to go into hiding. And do you
suppose that anyone wastes his time trying to hide? Now look
at me who am speaking to you. I pretended to be dead and all
the cavalry rode over me. If the mountain of Vesuvius had been
rolled over my body it could not have been worse. I am telling
you the truth. It is necessary to have courage to come back
alive. Once as I was running away a cavalier and his horse that
were also running away, trod on my heel and stripped my shoe of
its sole as you can see.
Menato inquires whether all his campaigns have brought him any
money. To this Ruzzante replies with his sacramental phrase:
“If you had been where I have been you would not have brought
back more than I have.”
But the aim of his journey is his well-beloved Gnua, who,
according to Menato, has forgotten him, and is at this moment
established in Venice with the familiar of a cardinal. To this
Ruzzante announces that it is a little thing for him to kill a
man, and that he will kill this one even if he should be four
men.
RUZZANTE. But here is Gnua, gossip. Here she comes, faith! Now
we shall see whether she will caress me. Hola! tell me, then,
pretty one, don’t you see me? It is I.
GNUA. Ruzzante! Is it thou? Alive? But in what rags, and what a
piteous countenance! You have profited nothing then?
RUZZANTE. I have profited enough for you since I bring you my
carcass safe and sound as you can see.
GNUA. As for your carcass I can do very well without it. I had
imagined you would have brought me some fine robe. I must go. I
am expected. Let me go.
RUZZANTE. To the devil with the love I bore you! No sooner have
you seen me than you want to go again. I, who have returned
from the wars on purpose to see you.
GNUA. You have seen me enough. To tell you the truth I don’t
want you to be a cause of trouble, for there is someone who is
entertaining me very comfortably, and who knows nothing of our
past adventure.
Ruzzante informs her that he is as capable of entertaining her
as this other one; but Gnua has no wish to die of hunger with
him. “After four months of business in the wars,” she says,
“you might at least have brought some money back. But I don’t
believe you were ever at the war. You have the face of a liar,
and you probably spent your time in some apothecary’s shop. I
should prefer you if you had returned short of an arm or a leg,
and perhaps blind or with your nose slit, anxious to earn money
for me as you promised. He swore to me,” she says to Menato,
“to die or to return rich, and you see in what condition he
returns; that is proof enough of how little he thought about
me.”
RUZZANTE. I tell you that I was unfortunate.
GNUA. That is very possible, but I who have not been, and who
do not want to be, unfortunate, am not going to be wretched
with you. Go! Look after your own affairs, and I’ll look after
mine. I am going back to my man.
RUZZANTE. To the devil with your man! I know no man of yours
other than myself.
GNUA. Let me go, wretch, rascal, liar, good-for-nothing!
RUZZANTE. Come with me, I tell you. Do not make me angry. I
have changed, and you shall no longer lead me by the nose as
you used to do.
MENATO. Listen, my good girl, come with me! He is capable of
killing you.
GNUA. He? Don’t mind him. He is equal to killing nothing but a
flea, the boaster!
The _Bravo_ (it is thus that Gnua’s lover is named) enters,
falls upon Ruzzante and beats him until he falls. The Bravo
carries off Gnua. When he has gone Ruzzante raises his head and
addresses Menato:
RUZZANTE. Have they gone, gossip? Make quite sure!
MENATO. Be at ease, gossip; they have gone, there is none here.
RUZZANTE. But the others, have they gone too?
MENATO. What others? I saw only one.
RUZZANTE. You are blind! There were more than a hundred of them.
MENATO. Oh no, by the scorpion!
RUZZANTE. Oh yes, by the scorpion! Do you pretend to know
better than I? They were a hundred against one. If I hadn’t
pretended to be dead so quickly they would have made me so in
reality!
MENATO. You told me that you were so brave that in battle you
knew neither friends nor relatives.
RUZZANTE. Certainly! But what do you expect of one man against
all the world. You should have come to my aid. Do you think
that I am a Roland?
MENATO. I assure you, gossip, that there was only one man, but
I imagined that you allowed yourself to be ill-treated so as to
rise up and fall upon him when he should have thought you dead.
I expected you to prevent him from carrying off Gnua. Do you
understand, gossip?
RUZZANTE. I don’t, gossip; I didn’t even think of it. I flung
myself down, I pretended to be dead as I used to do in battle
so as to save my life. It is the safest way when so many
enemies fall upon you.
MENATO. Gossip, on my faith, I tell you that that man was
alone. Why didn’t you defend yourself with your lance?
RUZZANTE. One against a hundred? There is nothing to do but run
on those occasions.
MENATO. Gossip, there was only one, I tell you!
RUZZANTE. Very well then, if there was only one it is some
treason or some enchantment of Gnua. What do you think? Do
you think she is a sorceress? In the old days she led me to
suppose that she was the most beautiful girl in the world; yet
that is not true. There are many more beautiful than she. Now
she contrives that one single man shall seem a hundred to me;
therefore—may the scorpion eat her!—I will get her burnt for a
witch. You are very sure that there was only one? You see what
a valiant man I must be to have been able to bear so many blows!
MENATO. By the scorpion, there were blows enough to kill a
donkey! I could not see the sky, they rained so fast. Are you
not hurt? I don’t understand how you happen to be still alive!
RUZZANTE. Habit, gossip. I am accustomed to it. I feel nothing.
I have but one regret, and that is not to have known that
there was only one. I should have performed the most beautiful
drowning that was ever seen. I should have taken him and her
and flung them together into the canal. Ah, scorpion! That
would have been droll, and we should have laughed a little! I
don’t say that I should have beaten him! The love of Gnua is
not worth so much trouble. But I should have flung him into
the water. Do you understand, gossip? And of a certainty there
would have been matter for laughter. Oh! oh! oh! oh!
We will conclude our quotations with an admirable letter of Ruzzante’s to
his friend and comrade in the theatre, Marco Alvarotto (Menego-Menato).
Being in possession of no details touching the life of a man so
supremely remarkable and interesting, and bearing in mind that if our
aim here is to present the history of the types of the Commedia, it is
also our aim, as far as possible, to present the history of forgotten
talent and vanished glories, we think that we should reveal the
aspirations and, as it were, the very soul of Ruzzante summed up in this
letter. We behold in him a man young and handsome, melancholy like all
great buffoons, suffering, probably, from weariness of spirit rather
than from a dissolute life, for the chastity of his compositions is
remarkable in an epoch in which libertinism presides in every dramatic
and literary effort. Consider the subject of _La Mandragora_ and that
of _La Calandra_, and that this is the age of Aretino and so many other
illustrious debauchees. From time to time Ruzzante manifests the cynicism
and rude expression of his age, but this cynicism on the lips of peasants
shocks far less than when it is found on those of fine gentlemen. The
basis of his subjects is a moral lesson, sometimes tragic, sometimes
moving. The eternal _becco comedia_ in Ruzzante’s work is as often
terrible as ridiculous, and when the author presents to us a pure girl
like Nina, in _La Piovana_, she is truly adorable. Further he conceals
under the flowers of allegory a fine and delicate spiritualism as we may
see.
“_To Messer Marco Alvarotto_
“Marco, my dear master, I rejoice with you in the pleasures
you experienced at the hunt, and believing that on your side
you would wish to participate in a joy which I have lately
experienced, I am about to relate it to you.
“You will know that, finding this world the most beautiful
country in the world, I took one day the firm resolve to
remain in it for ever, or at least to be one of the last
to quit it. Knowing full well, however, that it is no more
the privilege of honest men than of any others to enjoy an
existence which shall be more than an existence, I have
indulged myself at length upon this subject in my little
books[9]; these assure me that it is possible to live very long
and even eternally, but that first it would be necessary for
me to find a certain lady whom some call Modesty and others
Wisdom, who has it in her power to bestow as long a life as
one may ask of her; for some great personages long since dead
are still living in their works. To this I answered: ‘Oh, my
brothers, my little books, you are trifling with me; this
lady is like that herb which has the virtue of rendering
invisible whoever wears it, but which is nowhere to be found.’
Nevertheless I did not insist, knowing my books to be truthful
and akin to honest men, who would not tell a falsehood for
a thousand ducats. Thereupon I firmly resolved to seek this
lady, and even though she were more hideous than Envy so truly
to pay her my court as to persuade her promptly to come with
me. But after having ransacked all my world of writing matter,
after having sought and after having voyaged in my mind farther
than the ships of Spain, without even finding a track of her
footsteps, I fell one day into despair, like the gambler who
is unlucky at the first throw. I cursed all writings, and in a
passion I went to seek repose in the country.
“I was left alone by the hunt on one of our little hills called
Este, awaiting the return of my dogs from behind another hill
where they were chasing a hare. They were already so far that
I could no longer hear their voices. It seemed to me that all
things fell silent about me, and, whether as a result of this
silence, or whether from weariness of mind, sleep entered
gently and unperceived into my eyes, and he was no sooner
within than, as it were, he set a chain upon the door and drove
me out of myself. I desire to be, and I ought to be, grateful
to him all my life, however long it may be, for the sweet and
pleasant dream which caused me to see and hear things so
lovely that it will be lovely to repeat them and even more
lovely to believe them. Thus closed and double-locked as I have
said, I beheld first of all our good and brave old Polo as he
was in other days, so clearly that I did not have the courage
to ask him whether he was living or dead. He was dressed in a
festal robe, and seemed to be coming from the barber’s, with a
countenance which announced rather that he had dined well than
that he had fasted. I cannot think how he came by his knowledge
of my desire to live for ever (I believe the soul to be a thing
divine), but, after wishing me a good day and a happy year,
after having rubbed his nose on the right and left, after
having twice drawn breath, he began to speak: ‘Ruzzante, you
have wearied yourself more over your books than ever I wearied
my arms upon animals, and you will never be able to find the
woman you seek unless I assist you and point her out to you. It
is your mania for calling things by names which do not belong
to them that leads you into error. You think her name is as you
say. You seem to me much in the same case as that fellow who
read _Balotta_ upon a book on which was written _Checarello_.
But come with me and I will lead you to her court, where you
shall find many good companions to move you to laughter, even
as you move others to it with your comelies or comegies (_con
le to comielie, ò comiegie_), I know not what you call them.’”
It would take up too much space to translate here the entire discourse
of the old peasant Polo to Ruzzante. He informs him, in short, that she
whom he calls Wisdom is named Gaiety, and that he will be so happy upon
beholding her, so joyous and so gay, that he will find by her that future
existence which he seeks. “No longer will he suffer his dreadful pangs;
no longer will he know pain; he will be able to breathe with all his
lungs. An hour, a minute of this well-understood existence is better than
a thousand years of a life which is unperceived.” The peasant describes
in his rustic fashion the happiness of existence. For him, to sing,
to dance, to drink as much as he thirsts, to have apples, well-cooked
beetroots and good chestnuts, to saunter and do nothing but look on, is
not that the way of happiness, of gaiety and of joy rather than for a man
to dribble his brains into books? They go along talking thus in quest of
Gaiety, and their way runs through a fresh and smiling countryside, to
which Polo draws Ruzzante’s attention: “Have you ever seen a more lovely
country, so surrounded with flowering hills and shaded woods, turning a
quicker green from the last rains, these little streams bubbling over
stones and losing themselves among herbs and flowers? Do you hear that
little bird singing his song, _hairo, hairo, hairo_?” Across this earthly
paradise, before the eyes of Ruzzante, is unfolded a whole world of
allegorical figures, which come and go; these Polo explains to him after
his own fashion:
“‘Look your fill; we are in the land of Gaiety. Consider
first this woman, here at my side. This is Prudence, Gaiety’s
principal cook. Then come Contentment and Pleasure, riding on
horseback, in a carriage or in a boat. Look at this one rolling
along the ground with his mouth so widely open that one may
deem him on the point of bursting; this is Laughter. Look at
that woman, beautifully attired and bejewelled; she is Fate.
At her side is her brother Dance, who has removed his shoes
that he may leap the better. Behold, he is dancing! These two
ladies who come hand in hand are Mirth and Joy. The latter
seems unable to contain herself, so constantly does she desire
to sing, to dance, to gambol or play the lute. Further off is
Kindness, embracing Friendship. Here are Peace and Charity.
Look quickly that you may behold the Passing Hour which never
more returns. There is one who goes before her whose name is
Cock. He is the first to hear her. He advances, greeting her
with song. Look at that one who is separated from the company,
dressed in black. She is Corruption; it is she who spoils
existence as the beasts destroy the plants. And there is
Sadness with folded hands, her head upon her knees: to behold
her glassy eye you might conceive her dead. Take no heed of
this little fellow with a bow and a quiver at his hip; he is
the worst of all; you could never believe how profoundly he is
malicious. There is no existence so beautiful but that he will
thrust himself in to ruin it with his wiles and his malice. His
name is Love, but he is not the good Love, the child of God
and of Liberty. I cannot think who were the parents of this
evil child, but I suspect that they were Malice and Misfortune.
Come on, run as if the plague pursued you. Do you not see?
Jealousy is beside him with her scarlet raiment full of holes,
to enable evil designs readily to enter in. Pain, drawing her
lamentations, runs before Arson, which rolls upon the ground
like a rabid dog. There is Caprice which never knows peace,
which is never well where it is, which ever desires to be where
it is not, which desires to be and not to be, and also desires
to be another and yet not to be that other. Do not look because
by dint of looking at all these we shall lose sight of Gaiety.
Why do you stare at Love? Let him be.’
“Whilst he was speaking thus it seemed to me that I heard
music. Not that of songs and instruments, but a something more
harmonious, like a concert. It seemed to me that all this
made up so beautiful a thing that it would be impossible to
relate it in a thousand years, even with a thousand tongues. I
wanted to look attentively so as to miss nothing, such was the
pleasure I gathered from this spectacle. But my eyes seemed
hindered I know not by what heaviness. Making yet another
effort to open them the dream took flight, and I found myself
restored to reality.
“At the same moment I beheld my dogs returning, driving the
hare before them. They were so tired that one of them came to
lie down before me and to let me take the palpitating hare from
his jaws.
“I remembered my dream, and I bethought me that the music which
I had heard greatly resembled the voices of my dogs. It seemed
to me also that the cause of all those lovely things which I
had seen coming and going in my dream were my dogs pursuing the
hare, which, by passing again and again before me, caused me in
the end to open my eyes.
“There you have my _divertissement_; laugh over it with some
good companion. I kiss your hands and commend myself to you and
to our friends, to whom I augur happiness and an existence as
eternal as that which I was seeking.
“RUZZANTE.
“_From Padua, on the feast of the Epiphany, 1535._”
It would be wrong for the _commedia sostenuta_ to claim Ruzzante; he
belongs to our subject every whit as much as Gozzi and Goldoni, those
ungrateful successors of his who never mention his name, and who very
possibly never read his works. In accordance with the ancient Italian
custom, Beolco wrote his comedies after he had played them with his gay
and clever comrades; he performed them at least partly in impromptu.
Moreover in some of his pieces many scenes are no more than indicated in
a few words, to be played and improvised by the actors; for instance:
“The Bravo enters and falls upon Ruzzante, etc.
“They now sing, and when they have done, Nale enters, and
drawing his sword, advances upon Menego saying: ‘Draw,
traitor!’ Menego, frightened does not draw but runs hither and
thither receiving many blows.”
Elsewhere: “Hereupon the priest makes a few signs and noises
are heard which terrify Menego and Duozzo, whom the priest
reassures, etc.”
Some of the works of Ruzzante were preserved in the family of his
protector Cornelio; others were published, some in their original text,
some translated into Italian. Five of his comedies printed severally for
the first time in 1551, and some of them reprinted more than once, were,
in 1563, collected into an octavo volume in Venice by Giovanni Bonadio.
These were _La Piovana_, _L’Anconitana_, _La Moschetta_, _La Vaccaria_
and _La Fiorina_.
An edition of the complete works of Ruzzante was issued in 1584 in
duodecimo by Giorgio Greco at Vicenza. It bore the title:
_Tutte l’opere del famosissimo Ruzzante di nuovo e con somma
diligenza rivedute et corrette, et aggiuntovi un sonetto et
una canzone dello stesso autore. Al molto magnifico signor
Vespasiano Zopiano gentil’huomo Vicentino. Ristampate l’anno
del Signore 1584._
Another edition appeared in Vicenza in 1598, and a third and last
edition, which is the best known, was published in 1617 in Venice by
Domenico Amadio:
“The works of the celebrated Signor Angelo Beolco, a nobleman
of Padua, surnamed Ruzzante, are,” says the publisher in a
preface to the readers, “so beloved and appreciated by all
the world for their sentiment, wit, delicacy and erudition,
that they are sought after by everyone as a most learned and
interesting collection. Having regard, then, to this general
desire, I have reprinted them with care, and I deliver them to
the public revised, corrected, and conforming entirely with
the originals on the score of purity of style and primitive
simplicity. In delighting you with this book, I trust that the
nobility of your soul will take into consideration my labour
and my good intention, which are always at the services of the
pleasure and the well-being of all.”
This last edition includes the following works of the _very celebrated_
Ruzzante: with the apologetic titles of the editor:
_La Piovana_, “or the history of the purse.”
_L’Anconitana_, “a comedy which treats of love and which cannot fail to
give pleasure.”
_La Rhodiana_, “a surprising and very laughable comedy, full of very
piquant sayings in various languages, by the very celebrated Ruzzante.”
This last comedy is attributed to Andrea Calmo, a Venetian actor and
author, a contemporary of Ruzzante’s. There is reason to believe that it
was written by Ruzzante after having been played from a scenario supplied
by Calmo. That at least is what appears to be proven by the following
fragment of the prologue:
“... It is the custom in Carnival time to amuse you with divertissements
and performances of this style, but we should have been unable to have
done it this year without the assistance of one of our companions, who,
although unable to leave his own troupe, suggested to us and brought us
the work which you are going to see performed this evening. We have been
compelled, then, to have recourse to his good memory which has given us
this work, a work which will undoubtedly please you if you will not make
too much noise.”
_La Vaccaria_, “a comedy no less witty than amusing.”
_La Fiorina_, “a comedy no less piquant than delectable.”
_La Moschetta_, “a comedy no less amusing than agreeable.”
Three discourses by Ruzzante, “written and recited in rustic language.
Works full of wit and sallies, and marvellously amusing.”
Two dialogues “in rustic language, moral, witty and agreeable.”
A dialogue “very facetious and very droll, played at the hunt in 1528.”
The characters in the plays of Ruzzante are: In the rôles of fathers and
of ridiculous and battered husbands, Messer Andronico, Messer Cornelio
(old men of Venice), Demetrio Placido, Diomede, Ser Thomao, Pittaro,
Sivello, Pasquale, Tura and Maregale; the lovers are Tancredo, Theodoro,
Gismonde, Flavio, Roberto, Federico, and Polidoro (a ridiculous lover);
the leading ladies are Ginevra, Isotta, Fiorinetta, and Beatrice; his
peasant girls are Gnua, Fiore, Bettia, Nina, Ghetta and Dina; his
soubrettes are Besa, Gita, Betta and Maddalena; in the rôles of mother he
has Theodosia, Ruspina, Resca, Sofronia, Felicita, Celega and Prudentia
(_ruffiana_), and Doralice (a courtesan); his rustic types are Ruzzante,
Menego-Menato, Duozzo, Marchioro, Bilora, Bedon, Truffa, Vezzo, Loron,
Forbino, and Siton; his intriguing lackeys are Tonin the Bergamese, Nale,
Slavero, Garbuio, Daldura, Garbinello, Zane, Bertevello, Campeggio, Naso
and Corrado (the German). In addition to these his comedies include a
notary and Piolo, a singer.
END OF VOLUME ONE
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
FOOTNOTES
[1] About £160,000 of our present money.
[2] _I.e._ players in the Théâtres de la Foire—that is to say, players
who set up their theatres at public fairs.
[3] See the dialogue between Clindor and Matamore, etc., etc., in P.
Corneille’s _L’Illusion Comique_.
[4] Mondor’s diction in these performances in Paris was an extraordinary
mixture of French, Italian and Spanish, which it is only possible to
appreciate by a glimpse at the original:
“RODOMONT. Cavallières, mousquetadères, bombardas, canones,
morions, corseletes! Aqui, veillaco!... Son il Capitanio
Rodomonté, la bravura, la valore de todo el mondo; la mia spada
s’est rendue triomphante del toto universo.
“TABARIN. Il est vray, par ma foy; il n’y a personne qui joue
mieux de l’espée à deux jambes que luy.
“RODOMONT. Que fasto en sta casa, Tabarin? Que fasto veillaco?
Io te quero ablar.... Aqui, veillacon? Aqui, poerco? Io te
quero matar, eres moerto!”
[5] Courtesans did not allow their hair to grow, so that they might dress
in male attire when the fancy took them. But those who were faithful
to their lovers retained long hair as a sign of the propriety of their
conduct.
[6] “The white uniform of the gardes-françaises,” says M. Édouard
Fournier, “is somewhat reminiscent of the costume of the naïve comedian;
hence they are everywhere called Pierrots. The street urchin did not
stop at that: whenever he beheld a soldier in white uniform he imitated
the cry of the sparrow, which is also called a pierrot, and cried out
‘Piou-piou’; hence this sobriquet, which is still given to our infantry
soldiers.”
[7] “_Il TEATRO delle favole rappresentative, overo la ricreatione
comica, boscareccia e tragica; divisa in cinquanta giornate. Composte da
Flaminio Scala, detto Flavio, comico del sereniss. sig. duca di Mantoua.
In Venetia 1661._”
[8] Gennari, in his _Saggio storico sulle accademie_, page 21, calls him
“the new Roscius of his day, an admirable man, a prodigious actor and the
author of very clever comedies.”
[9] The manuscripts were not printed until several years after his death.
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