Each year those fellows feed us with the same Musty old comedies that stink of mould!

We will not be insulted, laughed at, sold!"

I swear by all the elements to you, Kind public, that to win your love once more, They'd let their teeth be drawn, and eyeb.a.l.l.s too!

They sent me to say this--nay, do not roar, Restrain your wrath, sweet gentle audience, do; Lend me your ears three minutes, I implore; When I have spoken what I'm sent to say, Deal with me as you list, I won't cry nay!

We've lost all sense and knowledge how to please The public on our scenes, in this mad age.

The plays that took last year now seem to freeze; And something quite brand-new is all the rage.

The wheel of taste and fashion, as one sees, Moves with a wind no prophet can presage; We only know that when the world's agog, Our throats are moist and stomachs filled with prog.

Taste rules this year that all the modern plays Should be crammed full with intrigue, strange events, Fresh characters, adventures that amaze, Wild, thrilling, unexpected incidents;-- Dumbfounded by these laws, we stand at gaze, Huddling together timorous in our tents; And yet because we must have bread to eat, We've come with our old wares your wrath to meet.

I know not, gentle listener, who it is Hath rendered us unfit to charm your ear: To us who once enjoyed your courtesies, So many and so sweet, it seems most queer.

Is Poetry perchance to blame for this?

Well, well; all things are doomed to disappear; Mortals must learn to bear and bide their fate; Yet, ah! your hatred is a scourge too great!

For our part, we'll leave nothing new untried; We'll don the poet's singing-robes and bays, If this may give us back your grace denied; Nay, we _are_ poets in these latter days!

Our breeches shall be sold and ink supplied, Our coats we'll change for paper to write plays; And if we've got no genius, well, what's that?

So long as you are pleased, all's right, that's flat.

Our purpose 'tis with new-pranked comedies, Fine things, ne'er seen before, to fill our stage.

Don't ask when, where, and how we met with these, Or who inscribed the pure Phbean page; After fine weather when the deluges Of rain descend, _Lo, new rain!_ cries the sage; Yet though he thinks it new rain, 'tis quite plain That rain is nought but water, water rain.

Not all things keep one course through endless time.

What's up to-day, to-morrow shall be down.

Your great-great-grandsire's garment Mode, the mime, Steals from his picture-frame to deck the town.

'Tis taste, opinion, gusto make sublime, Make beautiful, what tickles prince and clown; And we can swear upon the book our plays Have ne'er appeared in these or other days.

We've plots and arguments to turn old folk Back to their infancy and nurse's arms; Parents who kindly bear their children's yoke Will bring the babes to listen to our charms; High solemn geniuses we daren't invoke, Nor will their absence cause us great alarms; Why should we snuff at pence? Whether they scent Of ignorance or learning, we're content.

On strange and unexpected circ.u.mstance You shall sup full to-night; on wonders wild, Whereof you may have heard or read perchance, Yet never seen by woman, man, or child; Beasts, birds, and house-doors shall your ears entrance With verses by crowned poet's labour filed; And if Martellian verses they shall prove, These _must_ compel your plaudits and your love!

Your servants wait, impatient to begin; But first I'd like the story to rehea.r.s.e; Ah me! I quake and tremble in my skin-- You're sure to hiss me or do something worse!

_The Love of the Three Oranges!_--I'm in, And don't repent the plunge, although you curse.

Imagine then, my darlings, heart's desires, You're sitting with your granddams round your fires.

[The touch of satire in this prologue, directed against poets who were trying to trample down Sacchi's company of improvisatory players, is too obvious, and my intention of supporting the latter by introducing the series of my dramatised nursery-tales upon the theatre is too evident, to call for detailed commentary. In the choice of my first fable, which I took from the commonest among the stories told to children, and in the base alloy of the dialogues, the action, and the characters, which are obviously degraded of set purpose, I wanted to ridicule _Il Campiello_, _Le Ma.s.sere_, _Le Baruffe Chiozzotte_, and many other plebeian and very trivial pieces by Signor Goldoni.]

FIRST ACT.

Silvio, King of Diamonds,[77] the monarch of an imaginary realm, whose habit exactly imitated that of his majesty upon the playing cards, confided to Pantalone the deep distress caused to his royal mind by the misfortune of his sole son and heir, Tartaglia. The Crown-Prince had been subject, for the last ten years, to an incurable malady. The first physicians diagnosed the case as hopeless hypochondria, and gave their patient up. The King wept bitterly. Pantalone, sending doctors to the devil with his sarcasms, suggested that the admirable secrets of certain charlatans, at that time famous, might be tried. The King protested that all such means had been employed with no result. Pantalone, letting his fancy play upon the hidden causes of the malady, asked his liege in secret, so as not to be overheard by the royal bodyguard, whether his Majesty had perhaps contracted something in his younger days, which, being communicated to the const.i.tution of the Prince, might still be extirpated by the exhibition of mercury. The King, a.s.suming an air of stately seriousness, replied that he had been invariably faithful to his consort's bed. Pantalone then submitted that the Prince might be concealing, out of a befitting sense of shame, the consequence of boyish peccadilloes. His Majesty a.s.sured him seriously that his own paternal inspection of the patient excluded that hypothesis; the young man's illness was solely due to hypochondria of a grave and malignant nature; the physicians declared that, unless he could be made to laugh, he must sink slowly into his grave; a smile upon his face would be the favourable sign of convalescence. That was too good to be expected. To this he added that the prospect of his own decrepitude, the sight of his son and heir upon a death-bed, the inevitable succession to the crown of his niece Clarice, a young woman of strange temper, bizarre fancies, and cruel pa.s.sions, caused him the deepest affliction. Thereupon he began to bewail the future misery of his subjects, broke down into a flood of tears, and quite forgot the dignity of his high station. Pantalone consoled him, urged on his attention the propriety of restoring the court to merriment and gladness, if all depended on Prince Tartaglia's recovering the power of laughter. Let festivities, games, masquerades, and spectacles be set on foot. Let Truffaldino, well approved for making people laugh and chasing the blue-devils from their brains, be summoned to the Prince's service. The Prince had shown some inclination for Truffaldino's society. He might succeed in bringing smiles again upon the royal features. The remedy could but be tried, and possibly a cure might ensue. The King allowed himself to be convinced, and began to plan arrangements.

To these persons entered Leandro, Knave of Diamonds,[78] and first Minister of the realm. He too was dressed like his figure on a pack of cards. Pantalone, aside, expressed his suspicion of some treachery on the part of Leandro. The King commanded festivities, games, and Bacchic entertainments, adding that whoever made the Prince laugh should receive a n.o.ble prize. Leandro tried to dissuade his Majesty, and urged that such remedies were likely to prejudice the sick man's health. The King repeated his orders and retired. Pantalone rejoiced. Aside, to the audience, he explained that Leandro was certainly planning the Prince's death. Then he followed the King. Leandro remained stubborn, muttered that he detected some opposition to his wishes, but from what quarter he could not guess.

To him appeared the Princess Clarice, niece of the King. There was never seen upon the stage a princess of so wild, irascible, and determined a character as this Clarice. [I have to thank Signer Chiari for furnishing me with abundant models for such caricatures in his dramatic works.] She had settled with Leandro to marry him, and raise him to the throne, upon the death of her cousin. Accordingly she burst into reproaches against her lover for his coldness. Were they to wait until Tartaglia died of a disease so slow as hypochondria? Leandro excused himself with circ.u.mspection. Fata Morgana, he said, his powerful protectress, had given him certain charms in Martellian verses, which were to be administered to Tartaglia in wafers. These would certainly work his destruction by sure if tardy means. [This was introduced to criticise the plays of Chiari and Goldoni, whose Martellian verses bored every one to death by their monotony of rhyme.] Now Fata Morgana was hostile to the King of Diamonds, having lost much of her treasure on his card. She loved the Knave of Diamonds, because he had brought her luck in play.

She dwelt in a lake, not far from the city. Smeraldina, a Moorish woman, who performed the _servetta_ in this scenic parody, acted as intermediary between Leandro and Morgana. Clarice fumed with fury at hearing the slow means appointed for Tartaglia's death. Leandro confessed that he entertained some doubts about the efficacy of Martellian verses to secure a happy dispatch. He was uneasy, too, at the unexplained appearance of Truffaldino at court, a very facetious fellow; and if Tartaglia laughed, his cure was certain. Clarice's rage boiled over; she had seen Truffaldino, and the mere sight of him was certain to make anybody laugh. [In this dialogue my readers will detect a defence of the mirth-making comedy of the masks as against the melancholy drama in verse of the poets in vogue.] Meanwhile, Leandro had seat Brigh.e.l.la, his servant, to Smeraldina, to learn the explanation of Truffaldino's appearance, and to demand a.s.sistance from Morgana.

Brigh.e.l.la entered; and with much show of secrecy related that Truffaldino had been sent to court by a certain wizard Celio, Morgana's enemy, and the King of Diamonds' friend, for reasons exactly opposite to those which had incensed Morgana against him. Truffaldino, he continued, was an antidote to the morbific influences of Martellian verses; he had come to protect the King, the Prince, and all the people from the infection of those melancholic charms.

[It may be pointed out that the hostility between Fata Morgana and Celio the wizard symbolised the warfare carried on between Goldoni and Chiari.

Fata Morgana was a caricature of Chiari, and Celio of Goldoni.]

Brigh.e.l.la's news threw Clarice and Leandro into consternation. They laid their heads together how to kill Truffaldino by some secret device.

Clarice suggested a.r.s.enic or a blunderbuss. Leandro was for trying Martellian verses in wafers, or opium. Clarice objected that there was not much to choose between Martellian verses and opium, and that Truffaldino had the stomach to digest such trifles. Brigh.e.l.la added that Morgana, informed of the festivities designed for the Prince's recovery, meant to appear and neutralise the action of his salutiferous laughter by a curse which should quickly send him to the tomb. Clarice retired.

Leandro and Brigh.e.l.la went to superintend the preparation of the shows.

The next scene disclosed the chamber of the sick Prince. He was attired in the most laughable caricature of an invalid's costume. Reclining in an ample lounging-chair, Tartaglia leaned against a table, piled with medicine-bottles, ointments, spittoons, and other furniture appropriate to his melancholy condition. With a weak and quavering voice he lamented his misfortunes, the various treatments he had tried with no success, and the extraordinary symptoms of his incurable malady. The eminent actor, who sustained this scene alone, kept the audience in one roar of laughter by his exquisite burlesque and natural drollery. Then Truffaldino entered, and tried to make the patient laugh. The extempore performance of this duet by two of the best comic players of our day afforded excellent mirth. The Prince looked on approvingly while Truffaldino exhibited his pranks. But nothing could bring a smile upon his lips. He insisted upon returning to his illness, and asking Truffaldino's advice. Truffaldino entered into a labyrinth of physiological and medical arguments, highly humorous and spiced with satire. He smelt the Prince's breath, and swore that it stank of a surfeit of undigested Martellian verses. The Prince coughed, and asked to spit. Truffaldino brought him the vessel, examined the expectoration, and found in it a ma.s.s of rancid rotten rhymes. This scene lasted above a quarter of an hour, to the continual amus.e.m.e.nt of the audience.

Instruments of music were then heard, announcing the festivities in the great court of the palace. Truffaldino wanted to conduct the Prince to a balcony from which he could survey them. Tartaglia protested that this was impossible. Truffaldino, in a rage, threw all the medicines, cups, and ointments out of window, while the Prince squealed and wept like a baby. At last Truffaldino carried him off by main force, howling as though he was being ma.s.sacred, and bore him on his shoulders to enjoy the show.

The third scene was laid in the courtyard of the palace. Leandro entered, and declared that he had carried out the King's commands; the people, plunged in grief, but eager to refresh their spirits, were all masked; he had taken precautions to make many persons a.s.sume lugubrious disguises, in order to augment the Prince's melancholy; the hour had sounded for unbarring the court-gates to the populace.

Morgana then entered, in the travesty of a ridiculous old woman. Leandro expressed his astonishment that such an object should have obtained entrance before the gates were opened. Morgana discovered herself, and said she had come in that disguise to work the Prince's swift destruction. Leandro thanked her, and styled her the Queen of Hypochondria. Morgana drew to one side, and the gates were thrown wide.

On a terraced balcony, in front of the spectators, sat the King, and Prince Tartaglia, m.u.f.fled in furred pelisse, Clarice, Pantalone, the guards, and afterwards Leandro. The spectacles and games were precisely such as are related in the fairy story. The people flocked in. There was a tournament, directed by Truffaldino, who arranged burlesque encounters for the knights. At every turn, he addressed himself to the balcony, inquiring of his majesty if the Prince had laughed. The Prince only shed tears, complaining that the air hurt him, and the noise made his head ache. He entreated his royal sire to send him back to his warm bed.

There were two fountains, one of which ran with oil, the other with wine. Round these the rabble hustled, disputing with vulgar and plebeian violence. But nothing moved the Prince to laughter. Then Morgana hobbled out to fill her cruse with oil. Truffaldino a.s.sailed the hag with a variety of insults, and finally sent her sprawling with her legs in air.

[These trivialities, taken from the trivial story-book, amused the audience by their novelty quite as much as the _Ma.s.sere_, _Campielli_, _Baruffe Chiozzotte_, and all the other trivial pieces of Goldoni.] On seeing the old woman's fall, Tartaglia burst into a long sonorous peal of laughter. Truffaldino gained the prize. The people, relieved of their anxiety about the Prince's health, laughed uncontrollably. All the court was glad. Only Leandro and Clarice showed wry faces.

Morgana, raising herself from the ground in a spasm of fury, abused the Prince, and hurled the following awful malediction in the true style of Chiari at his devoted head:[79]

"Open thine ears, barbarian! let my voice a.s.sail thy heart!

Nor wall nor mountain stay the sound my words of doom impart.

As riving thunderbolts descend and split the solid rock, So may my curses split thy breast with their tremendous shock.

As boats against a running tide the tug triumphant tows, So let my malediction strong still lead thee by the nose.

Oh awful curse! oh direful doom! To hear it is to die, Like quadrupeds within the sea, or fish on flowers that lie!

I call on Pluto, gloomy G.o.d, to Pindar winged I pray, That thou with the Three Oranges may'st fall in love to-day.

Threats, tears, entreaties now are nought, leaves shaken by the breeze; Haste to the horrible acquist of the Three Oranges!"

Morgana disappeared. The Prince suddenly conceived a firm and resolute enthusiasm for the love of the Three Oranges. He was led away amid the confusion and consternation of the court.

What nonsense! What a mortification for the two poets! The first act of the fable ended at this point with a loud and universal clapping of hands.

ACT THE SECOND.

In one of the Prince's apartments, Pantalone, beside himself with despair, describes the terrible effect of the hag's malediction on Tartaglia. Nothing could be done to calm him down. He had asked his father for a pair of iron shoes, to walk the world over, and discover the fatal Oranges. The King had commanded Pantalone, under pain of the Prince's displeasure, to find him such a pair. The matter was one of the most pressing urgency. [This motive suited the theatre, and conveyed a sprightly satire on the dramatic motives then in vogue.]

Pantalone retired, and the Prince entered with Truffaldino. Tartaglia expressed impatience at this long delay in bringing him the iron shoes.

Truffaldino asked a number of absurd questions. Tartaglia declared his intention of going to find the Three Oranges, which, as he heard from his grandmother, were two thousand miles away, in the power of Creonta, a gigantic witch. Then he called for his armour, and bade Truffaldino array himself in mail, for he meant him to be his squire. A scene of excellent buffoonery followed between these highly comical personages, both of them fitting on corslets, helmets, and huge long swords, with burlesque military ardour.

Enter the King, Pantalone, and guards. One of the latter carries a pair of iron shoes upon a salver. This scene was executed by the four princ.i.p.al performers with a gravity which made it doubly ridiculous. In a tone of high tragedy and theatrical majesty the father dissuaded his son from this perilous adventure. He entreated, threatened, relapsed into pathos. The Prince, like a man possessed, insisted. His hypochondria was sure to return, unless he was allowed to set forth. At last he burst into coa.r.s.e threats against his father. The King stood rooted to the ground with amazement and grief. Then he reflected that this want of filial respect in Tartaglia arose from the bad example of the new comedies. [In one of Chiari's comedies a son had drawn his sword to kill his father. Instances of the same description abounded in the dramas of that day, which I wished to censure.] Nothing would silence the Prince, till Truffaldino shod him with the iron shoes. The scene ended with a quartet in dramatic verse, of blubberings, farewells, sighs and sobs. Tartaglia and Truffaldino took their leave. The King fell fainting on a sofa, and Pantalone called aloud for aromatic vinegar.

Clarice, Leandro, and Brigh.e.l.la came hurrying upon the stage, rebuking Pantalone for the clamour he was raising. Pantalone replied that, with a King in a fainting fit, a Prince gone off on the dangerous adventure of the Oranges, it was only natural to kick up a row. Brigh.e.l.la answered that such matters were mere twaddle, like the new comedies, which turned everything topsy-turvy without reason. The King meanwhile recovered his senses, and fell to raving in true tragic style. He bewept his son for dead; ordered the whole court to wear mourning; and shut himself up in a little cabinet, to end his days under the weight of this crushing affliction. Pantalone, vowing that he would share the King's lamentations, collect their mingled tears in one pocket-handkerchief, and bequeath to coming bards the argument for interminable episodes in Martellian verse, withdrew in the train of his liege.

Clarice, Leandro, Brigh.e.l.la gave way to their gladness, and extolled Morgana to the skies. Whimsical Clarice then insisted on coming to conditions before she raised Leandro to the throne. In time of war she was to command the armies. Even if she suffered a defeat, she was sure to subdue the victor by her charms; when he was drowned in love, and lulled by her blandishments, she meant to stick a knife into his paunch.

[This was a side hit at Chiari's _Attila_.] Clarice further reserved to herself the right of distributing court-offices. Brigh.e.l.la, as the reward of his services, begged to be appointed Master of the King's Revels. The three personages now disputed upon the choice of different theatrical diversions. Clarice voted for tragic dramas, with personages who should throw themselves out of windows and off towers, without breaking their necks, and such-like miraculous accidents (_id est_, the plays of Chiari). Leandro preferred comedies of character (_id est_, Goldoni's plays). Brigh.e.l.la recommended the _Commedia dell' Arte_, as very fit to yield the public innocent amus.e.m.e.nt. Clarice and Leandro flew into a rage. What did they want with stupid buffooneries, rancid relics of antiquity, unseemly in this enlightened age? Brigh.e.l.la then began a pathetic speech, commiserating Sacchi's company, without mentioning it by name, but making his meaning plain enough. He deplored the misfortunes of an honourable troupe, who had done good service in their day, but were now downtrodden, and forced to behold the affections of the public they adored, and whom they had for many years amused, withdrawn from them. He retired with the applause of that public, who thoroughly understood the real drift of his discourse.

The next scene opened in a wilderness. Celio the wizard was discovered drawing circles. As the protector of Prince Tartaglia, he summoned Farfarello, a devil, to his aid. Farfarello appeared, and with a formidable voice uttered these Martellian lines:

"Hullo! who calls? who drags me forth from earth's drear centre dark?

A wizard real art thou, or wizard of the stage, thou spark?

If only of the stage thou art, I need not tell thee then That devils, wizards, sprites, are out of fashion among men."

[Allusion was here made to the two poets, who wanted to abolish the masks, magicians, and fiends in writings for the stage.] Celio answered in prose that he was a real wizard. Farfarello continued:

"Well, be thou what thou wilt; yet if thou of the stage may be, At least thou might'st respond in verse Martellian to me."

Celio swore at the devil, and told him that he meant to go on talking prose. Then he inquired whether Truffaldino, whom he had sent to the court of the King of Diamonds, had done any good, and whether Tartaglia had been obliged to laugh, and had lost his hypochondria. The devil answered: