_GOZZI'S DRAMATIC FABLES, OR FIABE TEATRALI; TOGETHER WITH A BRIEF
HISTORY OF HIS QUARREL WITH GOLDONI AND CHIARI._
1. Venice in the last century--The Liberals and
Conservatives--Invasion of French theories in politics, philosophy,
and social manners--Prevalence of French taste in
literature--Conservative resistance to this revolutionary state of
things.--2. Carlo Goldoni and Carlo Gozzi--Popularity of French
sentimental dramas--The Academy of the Granelleschi founded in 1747
by literary Conservatives, to restore a taste for pure Italian
style, and to promote the study of the Tuscan classics--Carlo Gozzi
belongs to this Academy, and becomes one of its chief
supporters--Goldoni, and the qualities of his genius--His
perception that nature has to be closely followed in the drama.--3.
A sketch of Goldoni's career, and of the steps whereby he became a
professional playwright--Settles at Venice in 1747 as poet to
Medebac's company--Goldoni's Venetian comedies, comedies in the
French manner, melodramas--Goldoni's rivalry with the Abbé
Chiari--Chiari's bombastic pseudo-Pindaric style--Martellian
verses.--4. Indignation of the Granelleschi with both Goldoni and
Chiari--Carlo Gozzi confounds them in one common hatred as
corruptors of the language--His particular dislike for Goldoni, who
had declared war against the _Commedia dell' Arte_, of which Gozzi
professed himself the champion--Publication of Gozzi's satirical
poem _La Tartana degli Influssi_ in 1756--Return of Sacchi's
company of impromptu comedians to Venice in that year--Vigorous
warfare carried on by the Granelleschi against both Goldoni and
Chiari during the next four years--Gozzi first shows his dramatic
faculty in a severe Aristophanic satire upon Goldoni, entitled _Il
Teatro Comico_--Chiari makes up his differences with Goldoni, and
both playwrights now join forces against their conservative
antagonists--Chiari defies the Granelleschi to produce a
comedy--Goldoni appeals from their criticisms to the public, who
idolise him--Gozzi determines to write a satirical play upon a
nursery-tale, which shall prove no less popular than Goldoni's
comedies--The _Amore delle Tre Melarancie_ appears in January
1761--The true character of Carlo Gozzi's dramatic fables--It is a
mistake to suppose that he was actuated by spontaneous Romantic
genius--His affinity with the elder Tuscan burlesque poets--His
wish to rehabilitate the Comedy of Masks--His conservative and
didactic spirit.--5. A translation of Gozzi's own account of _The
Love of the Three Oranges_, important in the history of the
_Commedia dell' Arte_, and illustrative of the way in which Gozzi
handled his fabulous material.--6. Success of _L'Amore delle Tre
Melarancie_--Production and dates of the remaining nine dramatic
_Fiabe_.--7. Gozzi's method of writing, and employment of the Four
Masks and the Servetta--Interweaving of the comic element with the
fairy-tale--Gozzi does not rise to the height of imaginative
poetry.--8. His satire, humour, feeling for poetic situations--His
conservative philosophy of life.--9. Sources of the _Fiabe_--The
artistic superiority of _L'Amore delle Tre Melarancie_.--10.
Analysis of _L'Augellino Belverde_.--11. Gozzi's temporary
success--Goldoni retires to Paris, and Chiari to Brescia--Posterity
has reversed the verdict of contemporary Venice--Fate of the
_Fiabe_--Vicissitudes of Gozzi's fame in Italy, Germany,
France--Paul de Musset's condensed abstract of the Memoirs, and
their distorted picture of Carlo Gozzi.
I.
About the middle of the eighteenth century, Venetian society was divided
into two main parties, representing what we should now call Liberal and
Conservative principles in politics and thought. The Liberals were
imbued with French philosophical ideas, French fashions, and French
phrases. The boldest of them, men like Angelo Querini, Carlo Contarini,
Giorgio Pisani, openly aimed at remodelling the constitution. They aired
new-fangled theories of government, based upon the Social Contract and
the Rights of Man, within ear-shot of the terrible Inquisition of State.
Some of them went in consequence to end their days in the dungeons of
Cattaro or Verona. These patricians created a body of restless
opposition in the Grand Council, agitated the bourgeoisie and
proletariate with the expectation of impending changes, and succeeded in
effecting some salutary but superficial reforms. Outside the sphere of
politics, that spirit of innovation which in France was silently but
surely working toward the Revolution, made itself felt among the
educated classes. The University of Padua, while preserving external
forms of mediævalism in its discipline and teaching, fermented with the
physical hypotheses of modern science. The deism of the Encyclopædists
and Voltaire came into vogue. Sentimentalism, thinly cloaking a desire
for liberty and license, ruled in morals. Rousseau's speculations and
the humanitarian utopias of the _philosophes_ disturbed the old
foundations on which social institutions rested. The word _prejudice_
was upon the lips of everybody, to indicate the restraining influences
of public order in the state and of ethics in the family. These new
ideas permeated society and saturated literature. In the drawing-rooms
of great ladies, the clubs and coffee-houses of the gentry, the
theatres, concert-rooms, and little houses, where men and women
congregated, French books were discussed, French fashions were
affected, the French language was engrafted on the old Venetian dialect.
Frivolous butterflies of pleasure in that great mart of the world's
amusement assumed fine airs of philosophy and science. Wide-sweeping and
far-reaching theories, which called in question the whole groundwork of
man's previous beliefs, were freely ventilated by chatterers, who caught
their jargon from flippant manuals of science and popular essays, poured
forth by thousands from the press of Paris. Unhealthy novels spread
subversive moral doctrines flavoured with a spice of philanthropic
sentiment. It was considered _rococo_ to admire the old Italian
classics. Staunch Liberals paraded their independence of precedent and
prejudice by adopting a masquerade style which set the traditions of the
language at defiance.
All this indicated a deep and irresistible fermentation in society. The
great catastrophe of the eighteenth century was preparing. The stage of
Europe was being made ready for that transformation-scene which opened a
new era. But few could foresee the inevitable future; few could
distinguish what was wholesome progress from the delirious or
somnambulistic ravings of the moment. Therefore the Conservatives clung
fast to their prejudices and precedents; to established forms of
government, the national religion, the traditional customs of civil and
domestic life. To superficial observers it appeared that these men held
the strongest cards. Yet even rigid Conservatives were bound to admit
that there was something ominously rotten in the state of Venice. Her
commerce dwindled year by year. Her provinces were ill-administered, and
yielded less and less to the exchequer. Social demarcations disappeared
in the luxury and corruption which invaded all classes. Pauperism
assumed appalling dimensions. In the decay of industries and
manufactures thousands of workpeople were thrown famished upon public
charity. The ranks of the Barnabotti, or impoverished nobles, who
claimed state support, swelled, grew clamorous in the Grand Council,
gave signs of insubordination, and contaminated the fountain-head of
government by their venality. Meanwhile, the old machinery of the
constitution had fallen into the hands of a close oligarchy or
commission of a few powerful patricians. These corruptors of the State
pulled wires, bought votes, and manipulated the College and the Senate
to secure their own ends in the Consiglio Grande. The more far-sighted
among the Conservatives felt the necessity of temporising. Influenced by
the all-pervasive spirit of the age, but not prepared to join the
Liberal forces, they compromised, tampered with institutions, and tried
by stopping leaks to keep the deep sea out. This was the attitude of men
like Marco Foscarini, Alvise Emo, and Paolo Renier.
Apart from politics, the Conservatives stood on firmer ground. There is
no doubt that the so-called philosophy of the eighteenth century, both
in its principles and in its consequences, offered points of patent
weakness to hostile criticism. It was subversive without being
reconstructive. Its foundations were sentimental and fanciful rather
than logical and reasoned. Hazy in the minds of its projectors, it was
almost universally misunderstood by the multitude which it illuded.
Immorality was encouraged; not that any speculative system is inherently
immoral, but that the confused postulates regarding personal liberty,
the right of private judgment in matters of conduct, the light of
Nature, and the tyranny of custom and prejudice, from which this
philosophy started, enabled foolish or ill-minded people to hide their
vices and caprices beneath the specious mask of systematic thinking.
Again, the literature which sprang into existence under the predominance
of such theories, was in some respects pernicious, and in many points of
view ridiculous. The Conservatives had a definite course before them
when they determined to vindicate the purity of Italian diction, to
maintain the traditions of a glorious past in art, and to expose the
foibles of the Liberal school of thinkers and of writers.
II.
This brings me to the proper subject of the present chapter, which is
the conflict of Liberalism with Conservatism in the theatre at Venice.
The two protagonists are Carlo Goldoni and Carlo Gozzi, both Venetians,
and both of nearly the same age. Goldoni was born in 1707, Gozzi in
1720. Gozzi entered the lists against Goldoni in 1756, when the latter
had been working for the Venetian stage since 1748, and when he had
already turned the heads of the public by his brilliant dramatic
novelties.
The old _Commedia dell' Arte_, as we have seen, had sunk into
decrepitude. It was not merely that the type itself was exhausted,
though subsequent circumstances proved this to be the case. What was
more important is, that the popular taste veered round against it. Under
the prevailing dominance of French fashions, a style of drama, hitherto
unknown to the Italians, came into vogue. The so-called _Comédie
Larmoyante_, or pathetic comedy (of which Nivelle de la Chaussée, a
now-forgotten archimage of middle-class sentimentalities and
sensibilities, is the reputed inventor), caught the ear of Europe. The
Père la Chaussée, to adopt an epigram of Piron's, preached every evening
from his pulpit in a score of theatres through Europe. The titles of his
most famous plays, _Mélanide_, _La Gouvernante_, _Préjugé à la Mode_,
_L'École des Mères_, remind us of the revolution in the drama which
converted the public stage from a place of amusement into a platform for
the dissemination of political or social sentiments. Saurin's
_Beverley_, Mercier's _Déserteur_ and _L'Indigent_, De Falbaire's
_Honnête Criminel_, Voltaire's _Écossaise_, Diderot's _Père de Famille_,
carried on La Chaussée's tradition. Regarding their popularity at
Venice, enough is related in the verbose and bilious diatribes prefixed
by Gozzi to his dramatic works. Among plays of this description, an
adaptation of our _George Barnwell_--much in the style of Thackeray's
parody upon Lord Lytton's novels--attracted great attention by the
pathos with which a nephew murdering his uncle from the highest motives
was exalted to the rank of hero. The Conservatives not unjustly
protested against the contamination of public morals by the false
sentiment of these tearful dramas. The perversion of taste by low
domestic arguments and clumsy realism, which had nothing real but its
vulgarity, seemed to them no less a sin.
They were particularly sensitive, moreover, upon the point of language,
diction, style. Translations and adaptations of French plays confirmed
the growing carelessness of authors. Gallicisms were so fashionable that
a stage-hack allowed himself all license in that direction. The jargon
of science introduced unheard-of phrases, which would have made the
fathers of the Della-Cruscan Academy shudder in their tombs. Moreover,
the prevalent affectation of independence and the fashionable revolt
against prejudice led ignorant scribblers to plume themselves upon their
solecisms and plebeian lapses into dialect.
With the main object, therefore, of maintaining a standard of propriety
in style, and with the secondary object of opposing theatrical
innovations, the Venetian Conservatives (in literature) founded their
Academy de'Granelleschi. It came into existence about 1747; and I need
not enlarge upon its constitution, except to say that it was an academy
of the good old Tory type, like the _Gelati_, _Sonnacchiosi_,
_Storditi_, and so many scores of literary clubs with absurd names and
trivial customs, whose members wasted their time over pedantic studies,
and occasionally issued a piece of solid work among their otherwise
ephemeral transactions. A sufficient account of this Academy is given in
Gozzi's Memoirs. Its importance at the present moment is that out of
this little camp Carlo Gozzi marched like David to attack the Goliath of
Philistinism, Carlo Goldoni.
It is difficult to speak adequately and fairly of Goldoni. In making
this man, Nature cast her glove down in the face of criticism, and
defied analysis. He possessed indubitable genius; what is more, his
genius obeyed generous enthusiasms, unselfish aims, pure-hearted
sentiments. He perceived instinctively and correctly that a new age was
dawning for the literature of Europe. He devoted his life to creating a
comic drama adequate to the intellectual dignity of his nation. Goldoni
was a good man, a modest man, a man complete in all the social virtues.
But he was not a great man. And his genius, that innovatory force of
his, that infinite adaptability, that inexhaustible scenic faculty which
he possessed, that intuition into the necessity of change, was, after
all, a genius of thin and threadbare quality. Can we point to a single
masterpiece produced by Goldoni? After allowing the sediment to settle
down of his prolific works and various experiments, can we select any
one play which bears the stamp of the supreme master? I think not. I
shrink from placing Goldoni, as a peer, in the company of Shakespeare,
Molière, Calderon, and Schiller. But, while saying this, it is
impossible to deny his actual achievement. It is impossible not to
recognise the honest motives which prompted him to copy Nature's book.
That was his great discovery; and that keeps the memory of Goldoni ever
green among us. He saw that Nature had to be loved and studied and
followed by the artist. He discerned this luminous point in a period
befogged by prejudice, tradition, pedantry, conventionality,
subservience to antiquated humours and insurgent eccentricities. It was
not Goldoni's fault that birth and fortune denied him those higher
capacities and favourable openings which might have made his art-work
monumental. His genial, shifty, pliable, and yet persistent personality
was forced to humour obstacles and to fawn on circumstance. As an
inevitable consequence, his productions are mediocre and unsatisfactory.
Mediocrity of talent and of character is stamped upon his plays, and
self-revealed in his good-humoured Memoirs. But what confounds
criticism is that this mediocrity in the man and his equipment was
combined with undeniable originality. His genius, though not of the
purest water, was genuine. He had a correct perception of the
requirements of his age, a clear intuition into the practical
possibilities of the dramatic art he handled, and a vivid consciousness
of the ground-principle that no artist can afford to lose sight of
reality in practice. What would Goldoni not have been, we say, after
summing up the survey of his qualities, had he been gifted with a finer
fibre, a wider range of knowledge, a deeper philosophy, a more robust
temper, a poetic talent equal to the task of externalising his just
perceptions in forms of meditated art? As it is, he presents the curious
spectacle of a man born to inaugurate a new epoch, but without the
faculty to impose his own ideal successfully upon his contemporaries.
The general public acclaimed him, and understood his aims. But the
aristocrats of literature were able to inflict telling blows in their
fight against him. We, who stand aloof, when all the dust of that
conflict has subsided, see that Goldoni really won the day. It is only
to be regretted that a champion of such small dimensions, soft heart,
and feeble sinews, was commissioned to effect the revolution.
III.
Goldoni's instinct led him by an irresistible bias to the stage. He
vainly attempted to form himself for the more lucrative profession of
the law. During his youth he studied at a college in Pavia, but was
expelled for giving free vent to his literary propensities in satire. He
practised as an advocate at the Venetian bar, practised at Pisa in the
same capacity, acted as Genoese Consul at Venice. Still though he
courted Themis, his real predilections drew him toward Thalia. The first
piece which revealed his leading talent was a comedy in outline; _Il
Gondoliere Veneziano_, represented at Milan in 1733. In the next year he
produced a painfully bad tragedy at Verona entitled _Belisario_. Several
pieces of a mixed character, between comedy and tragedy, followed. Yet
he had not taken to the theatre as a profession; and it was not until
the year 1746, when he joined the comic company of Medebac, at Leghorn,
in the capacity of their paid playwright, that he entered definitely
upon the career of author for the stage.
During the years when Goldoni was thus wavering between law and
literature, he attempted many kinds of dramatic composition--operettas
for music, tragedies, tragi-comedies, farces, _scenari_ for improvised
comedies, and comedies of which the dialogue was partly written. His
facile talent adapted itself to every style in turn. All this while he
recognised that his strength lay neither in the direction of poetry nor
in that of serious drama. Nature had bestowed on him a genius for
comedy; and he felt born to educate Italian taste in that species. We
have already seen how deeply he deplored the degeneration of the
_Commedia dell' Arte_; and yet some of his pieces had been performed by
the best improvisatory actors then alive, Sacchi the famous Truffaldino,
and Darbes the no less celebrated Pantalone.
While scribbling Harlequinades, Goldoni never lost sight of the reform
he had long meditated; and this was to substitute written comedies of
character, in the style of Molière and the ancients, for the old
comedies _all' improvviso_. But he saw the necessity of proceeding
cautiously. On the one hand, he had to consider the adherents of the
elder style. On the other hand, he was forced to humour the comedians,
who were jealous of changes which increased their dependence upon
professional playwrights.[61] Accordingly, he advanced with
circumspection. In the _Momolo Cortesan_, which he composed for the
Pantalone of Sacchi's company (a certain Golinetti), only the leading
part was written. The rest was left to improvisation. Nevertheless,
this piece was constructed on different principles from those which
governed the _Commedia dell' Arte_. It aimed at being a comedy of
character; and thus Goldoni hoped by gradual steps to wean his actors
from their bad old ways. Copying his mistress Nature, he saw that
nothing could be done _per saltum_. It was necessary to prepare
transitions, and to pass through the development of imperfect species to
the exhibition of the type he had in view. This seems to have been the
principle on which he acted. But Goldoni was so pliable and easy-going,
so apt to take the cue from casual suggestions offered to his versatile
ability, that he frequently lost sight of this leading principle. His
Muse wore Harlequin's robe of many colours, and assumed the mask while
waiting to effect the meditated revolution. This indecision at the
commencement of his career exposed him to Gozzi's piratical attacks, and
exercised, I think, a prejudicial influence over his subsequent career
as playwright. But it was not in the character of the man to act
otherwise. He could not divest himself of ready sympathy, fluency, and
genial adaptability to the circumstances in which he was placed from
time to time. Some natures are destined to achieve their ends by
condescension. Goldoni's was essentially a nature of this kind. And the
fact remains that, amid all his excursions into regions alien from his
purpose, he kept one aim in view and finally achieved it. What survives
of solid in his work, is the select series of plays produced upon the
lines of the reform he calculated.
It was at Pisa in 1746 that the _Capocomico_ Medebac induced Goldoni to
join his troupe. The proposal was that a theatre at Venice should be
hired for five or six years, and that Goldoni should dedicate his whole
talents to the composition of plays. Sufficiently good pecuniary offers
were made; for it seems that each comedy was paid at the rate of thirty
sequins, or about £12 sterling. Goldoni accepted. Then travelling with
his new partners by the road through Modena, he reached Venice in July
1747. His first venture, with a play called _Tognetto_ or _Tonino bela
grazia_, was a failure. A couple of pathetic pieces which followed, won
more favour with the public. Darbes, whom Goldoni learned to appreciate
and use with excellent effect, seconded his efforts admirably; and in
1748 circumstances seemed propitious for attempting the long-cherished
scheme of a revolution in the theatre. Accordingly he wrote the _Vedova
Scaltra_, which is distinctly a comedy of character. It was performed
during the carnival season of 1749, and was received with intelligent
sympathy by the Venetians. This induced Goldoni to pursue the course he
had begun. _La Putta Onorata_ obtained a similar success, and met with
emphatic approval from the gondolier class, whose sentiments and manners
had been studied in its composition. Goldoni's novelties had by this
time roused the jealousy of rivals and the opposition of Conservatives.
A parody of the _Vedova Scaltra_ appeared at the theatre of S. Samuele.
This was clever enough, and scurrilous enough, to attract attention.
Goldoni received a check in mid-career, which became serious when the
Carnival of 1749 closed with the total failure of a new piece from his
pen, _L'Erede Fortunata_. Upon this occasion, stung to the quick, and
piqued in his self-esteem, with the sense of his own inexhaustible and
facile forces rendering the hazard light, Goldoni publicly declared his
intention of producing sixteen new comedies within the next twelve
calendar months.
He kept his promise, but at a considerable cost both to his position as
playwright and his health. With the general public, the man's
indomitable pluck, his good-humour, and the variety of subjects treated
in his famous sixteen plays, created an indescribable enthusiasm. The
end of the Carnival, 1750, brought well-earned laurels to Goldoni,
together with the good-will of the fickle multitude. But unforgiving
enemies, the supporters of the old drama, the literary purists, and the
Conservatives who could not stomach sentimental comedies, were watching
him with Argus eyes. In the heat of volcanic combustion, he had thrown
up cinders and rubbish along with several felicitous and brilliant works
of art. The worst of his performances were remembered and scored up
against him by critics like Carlo Gozzi. The best were confounded
in one plausible condemnation.
[Illustration: TARTAGLIA (1620)
_Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell' Arte, or Impromptu Comedy_]
From this point forward for the next six years Goldoni met with no
formidable opposition, except from a rival playwright. The man in
question was the Abbé Chiari, a relic of the seventeenth century,
pompous and bombastic in style, a blatant member of the Arcadian
Academy, a bastard brother of Pindar in the matter of mixed metaphors
and wild Icarian flights, a prolific scribbler of melodramatic pieces in
rhymed Martellian verses,[62] and, after all his qualifications are
summed up, a mere pretentious windbag. Chiari caught the public ear.
Venice divided itself into factions for Chiari and Goldoni. On a smaller
scale, the Bononcini and Handel conflicts of London, the Gluck and
Piccini riots of Paris, were repeated. The most damaging feature of this
contest for Goldoni, was that Chiari, less gifted with originality,
aped each of his new inventions. Against Goldoni's _Pamela Nubile_
Chiari brought out a _Pamela Maritata_, against his _Avventuriere
Onorato_ an _Avventuriere alla Moda_, against his _Padre per Amore_ an
_Inganno Amoroso_, against his _Molière_ a _Molière marito geloso_,
against his _Terenzio_ a _Plauto_, against his _Sposa Persiana_ a
_Schiava Chinese_, against his _Filosofo Inglese_ a _Filosofo
Veneziano_, against his _Scozzese_ a _Bella Pellegrina_. In spite of
their mutual hostility, this game of battledore and shuttlecock between
Chiari and Goldoni enabled the literary Conservatives to regard both
playwrights as flying under one flag. But before the Granelleschi opened
fire in earnest, Venetian society continued for five years to be pretty
equally divided in its sympathies. The best judges sided with Goldoni,
while Chiari's glaring faults, which passed for brilliant qualities with
the vulgar, won him numerous admirers. Carlo Gozzi has described this
state of contention:[63]
"I partigiani ogni giorno crescevano,
Chi vuole _Originale_ et chi _Saccheggio_;
Tutto il paese a romore mettevano,
Sicchè la cosa non è da motteggio.
Nelle case i fratelli contendevano,
Le mogli co' mariti facean peggio,
In ogni loco acerba è la tenzone,
Tutto è scompiglio, tutto è dissensione."
IV.
The Granelleschi, in their zeal for sound literature, were justly
enraged against the ranting, arrogant, bombastic Chiari. Although the
more discreet Academicians, men like Gasparo Gozzi, recognised Goldoni's
merits, they resented his slovenly and slipshod style. Carlo Gozzi, less
tolerant and far more satirical than his elder brother, confounded both
poets in a common loathing. This was obviously unfair to Goldoni, who,
whatever his faults of diction may have been, ranked immeasurably higher
than the Abbé. But Goldoni was guilty of an unpardonable sin in Gozzi's
eyes. He had declared war against the _Commedia dell' Arte_, for which
Gozzi entertained the partiality of one who was himself an excellent
impromptu actor. The other reasons of this bitter hatred are
sufficiently explained in those chapters of the Memoirs which describe
the beginning of his career as playwright.
At last Gozzi thought the time had come for striking a decisive
blow.[64] The Granelleschi professed sincere admiration for an obscure
burlesque Florentine poet of the fifteenth century called Burchiello.
Taking some of this man's enigmatical sentences for prophecies, Gozzi
compiled a sort of comic almanac, in which the various woes impending
over Venice in the year 1756 were described. It was entitled _La Tartana
degl' Influssi per l'anno bisestile_ 1756,[65] and was modelled upon an
almanac for country-folk, published at Treviso under the name of a
certain Schieson.[66] For each quarter of the year a _capitolo_ in
_terza rima_ was written, and a prophecy in octave stanzas was dedicated
to each month. Although the _Tartana_ contained satires upon society in
general, a considerable part was directed specially against Chiari and
Goldoni. The introductory address to the readers strikes the keynote.
The month of February deals with comedies, the month of November with
Martellian verses, and the month of December invokes the speedy return
of Sacchi and his company of masks from Portugal. Finally, in the sonnet
addressed to the bookseller at the end of the book, the two poets are
mentioned by name. Gozzi declared himself an implacable enemy of the
plays in vogue, an opponent of rhymed verses imitating the French
Alexandrine measure, and a zealous adherent of the old _Commedia dell'
Arte_. The prophecy with regard to Sacchi's company was speedily
fulfilled; for the earthquake of Lisbon happening in 1755, they were
obliged to quit the scene of that lugubrious disaster. Soon after their
return to Venice, Gozzi appears to have courted their friendship. This
we gather from the _Canto Ditirambico de'Partigiani del Sacchi
Truffaldino_ which he published in 1761.[67]
Irritated by the _Tartana degli Influssi_, Goldoni, who usually kept
silence under literary attacks, took up the pen and wrote as
follows:[68]--
"Ho veduta stampata una Tartana
Piena di versi rancidi sciapiti,
Versi da spaventare una befana,
Versi dal saggio imitator conditi
Con sale acuto della maladicenza,
Piena di falsi sentimenti arditi;
Ma conceder si può questa licenza
A chi in collera va colla fortuna,
Che per lui non ha molta compiacenza.
Chi dice mal senza ragione alcuna,
Chi non prova gli assunti e gli argomenti,
Fa come il can che abbaia alla luna."
I have transcribed these verses for several reasons; first, that my
readers may judge for themselves of Goldoni's poetical style; secondly,
because the last six lines profoundly irritated Gozzi; and thirdly,
because they engaged him in the production of his first semi-dramatic
pasquinade upon their author.
We need not describe the battle of sonnets, squibs, and pamphlets which
raged after the appearance of Gozzi's _Tartana_. The Granelleschi were
now committed to crush their antagonists; and they spared no pains to do
so. Men of birth and parts condescended to the filthiest ribaldry and
the most savage personalities. On the whole, it must be allowed that the
Granelleschi displayed superior wit and style. Gozzi, in particular,
showed real powers for burlesque satire in his _Marfisa Bizzarra_; and
some of his occasional pieces are composed with a terseness and
directness worthy of the classical age of Florentine literature. Goldoni
replied from time to time, but feebly. In a poem entitled _La Tavola
Rotonda_, he described his formidable antagonist as:[69]
"Un Lombardo che affetta esser cruscante
Col riso in bocca e col veleno in petto."
This seems to me a fair, if somewhat pungent, description of Carlo
Gozzi, who, in spite of his theoretical purism, rarely succeeded in
writing with correctness or distinction, and who veiled a really caustic
temper under the mask of Democritean philosophy. Touching upon the
charges brought against himself of being neither a scholar nor a poet,
Goldoni admits their truth with frankness:[70]
"Pur troppo io so che buon scrittor non sono
E che ai fonti miglior non ho bevuto;
Qual mi detta il mio stil scrivo e ragiono,
E talor per fortuna ho anch' io piaciuto;
Ma guai a me se il fiorentin frullone
A sceverare i scritti miei si pone."
Strong in the unwavering appreciation of the public, and confident in
his own powers, Goldoni could afford to make this concession to his
antagonist. But it argued a generous and modest mind, different in
quality from Gozzi's.
Meanwhile Gozzi took up the glove of defiance thrown down by Goldoni in
his _Tavola Rotonda_. A sonnet referring to that poem contains these
lines:[71]
"Ma acciò s'abbia a decidere
S'io dissi il ver, sto facendo un comento,
Che proverà l'assunto e l'argomento."
This _Comento_ led Gozzi eventually to the production of his _Fiabe_.
But a step or two remained to be taken before Gozzi resolved to meet
Goldoni on his own ground, the theatre.
He began by circulating a satirical piece entitled _Il Teatro Comico
all' Osteria del Pellegrino tra le mani degli Accademici Granelleschi_,
or "The Comic Theatre at the Inn of the Pilgrim, rough-handled by the
Granelleschi." Gozzi's Memoirs contain a sufficient description of this
satire, which still exists in MS. at the Marcian Library. They also
explain why he withdrew it from publication at the request of his friend
Farsetti and Goldoni's patron Count Widman. Therefore it is not
necessary to discuss it here in detail: yet the meaning of the title may
be pointed out. Goldoni had already produced a comedy, called _Il Teatro
Comico_, setting forth his views regarding the reform of the drama.[72]
Gozzi, alluding to this play, undertakes to expose the faults of
Goldoni's own theatrical writings. The satire is conceived in the broad
spirit of Aristophanic or Rabelaisian humour, and is really a
masterpiece in its kind. We feel for the first time that Gozzi has found
his proper sphere by the breadth of handling, the free play of humour,
and the precision of touch, which reveal an inborn dramatic faculty. The
unmasking of the vociferous four-faced monster which caricatured
Goldoni, is eminently fit for scenical effect. While reading, we seem to
be present at a new act in Jonson's _Poetaster_. The four mouths of the
four-faced mask represent the four kinds of dramas written by
Goldoni--his early harlequinades and _scenari_, his domestic comedy of
the pathetic species, his heroic and Oriental melodramas, and his
transcripts from Venetian life. A fifth mouth, the mouth in the belly,
_la veridica bocca dell' epa_, as Gozzi terms it, utters Goldoni's
personal aims and views, as Gozzi chose brutally to interpret them. This
truthful witness confesses that all the four mouths of the masked head
were subservient to its carnal needs. _Quis expedivit psittaco suum_
[Greek: chaire]?... _Magister artis ingenîque largitor, Venter negatas
artifex sequi voces._ "Who taught the parrot his word of welcome? That
master of art and liberal dispenser of genius, the belly." That motto
from the prologue to Persius' book of satires might be inscribed on the
title-page of Gozzi's pasquinade. The blow inflicted, in a literal and
metaphorical sense, below the belt, was unworthy of a gentleman. It
betrayed Gozzi's critical insensibility to Goldoni's actual merits. It
exhibited his aristocratic contempt for professional literature,
combined with his comedian's readiness to take advantage of a powerful
opponent. But it also revealed a literary athlete capable of striking
home, and whose method of attack was certain to be formidable.
Goldoni bowed beneath the storm, and used his influence to withhold the
sanguinary satire from further publicity. At this point Gozzi showed the
courtesy which might have been expected from a man of his quality. He
dropped the point of his weapon at his antagonist's request, and
prepared himself to meet the playwright on his own ground. In fairness
to Gozzi, it is necessary to observe that this resolution indicated no
small amount of chivalry and courage. Goldoni was the idol of the
public. He kept continually pointing to the concourse which crowded the
Venetian theatres when a new piece from his pen was advertised. Gozzi
was unpractised in play-writing, a man in his fortieth year, and the
dramatic card on which he staked his luck might well be considered
hazardous. What that card was we shall presently discover.
Chiari, involved in the same warfare with the Granelleschi, had hitherto
preserved a discreet silence. Now he defied them to produce a play.
Gasparo Gozzi answered with a sonnet, which betrays his personal leaning
toward Goldoni. Then Chiari resolved to make common cause with his old
rival on the stage. This shows how the dropping fire of the Academicians
had told upon their opponents. The Abbé addressed Goldoni as _degnissimo
comico vate, poeta amico_, most worthy master of comedy, my good poet
friend. Goldoni reciprocated the compliment with _vate sublime, vate
immortale_, sublime, immortal bard. Not without a touch of concealed
irony, he compared himself to Chiari in this lyric flight:[73]
"Si, tu sei l'aquila,
Io la formica;
Tu voli all' apice
Senza fatica,
Mia Musa ai cardini
Salir non sa."
We trace in these verses Goldoni's perfect clarity of vision regarding
his own powers, and his good-humoured indulgence of other people's
foibles. He recognised the practical advantage of an alliance with
Chiari. At the same time he disclaimed all honours for himself, and
gently ridiculed his new ally's pretensions.
Chiari had defied the Granelleschi to produce a comedy. Goldoni had
taken up his stand upon the popularity of his own plays. Carlo Gozzi
conceived the bold idea of writing a fantastic drama upon the old lines
of the _Commedia dell' Arte_, which should fill the theatre of his
adoption and restore Sacchi's company to favour. If he succeeded, both
Chiari and Goldoni would be hit with the same stone. This was the real
origin of the celebrated _Fiabe Teatrali_. But before engaging in the
attempt, Gozzi looked about for a suitable subject. Nothing, he
calculated, would floor his antagonists more thoroughly than the
exhibition of a dramatised nursery tale by impromptu actors. Therefore,
in the spirit of a burlesque duellist, in the true spirit of Don
Quixote, he composed his _Amore delle Tre Melarancie_.
These facts about the genesis of Gozzi's _Fiabe_ need to be insisted on,
since French and German critics have distorted the truth. They regard
Gozzi as a romantic playwright, gifted with innate genius for a peculiar
species of dramatic art. According to this theory, the _Fiabe_ were
produced in order to manifest an ideal existing in their author's brain.
Minute attention to Gozzi's Memoirs, his explanatory Essays (Opere,
vols. i. and iv.), and the preface appended to each _Fiaba_, shows, on
the contrary, that he began to write the _Fiabe_ with the simple object
of answering a certain challenge in the most humorous way he could
devise. He continued them with a didactic purpose. His keen sagacity and
profound knowledge of the Venetian public led him possibly to anticipate
success. Yet he knew that the attempt was perilous; and he made it,
without obeying preconceived principles, without yielding to any
imperative instinct, but solely with the view of giving Chiari and
Goldoni a sound thrashing.
If it is worth while studying Gozzi and the _Fiabe_ at all, this point
has so much importance that I may be permitted to resume the history of
his literary conflict with the two poets. Gozzi opened fire with the
_Tartana_ in 1756. Goldoni retorted that he had only made himself
ridiculous; unless he proved both his assumption and his argument, he
was nothing better than a dog barking at the moon. Gozzi then declared
that he was already engaged in the production of a commentary. This
circulated in MS. under the form of a satire called the _Teatro Comico_.
Meanwhile Goldoni parried all attacks by pointing to his popularity, and
Chiari openly defied the Granelleschi to write a comedy, instead of
condemning the plays in vogue. Finally Gozzi, who had become intimately
acquainted with the actors in Sacchi's company, resolved to write a
_scenario_, which should rehabilitate the _Commedia dell' Arte_, parody
both Chiari and Goldoni, attract the public in crowds, and prove that a
mere fairy tale, treated with romantic gusto, was capable of arousing no
less interest than the works of professional playwrights following
new-fangled models. The _Amore delle Tre Melarancie_, produced at the
end of January in 1761, rather more than four years after the appearance
of the _Tartana_, was the result.
It is mistaken to suppose that Gozzi was animated by the enthusiasm of a
literary innovator. The _Fiabe_, in spite of their fantastic form, were
the work of an aristocratical Conservative, bent on striking a shrewd
blow for the _Commedia dell' Arte_, which he considered to be the
special glory of the Italian race. In this respect, we might call Gozzi
the Venetian Aristophanes.[74] The _Fiabe_ were his "Clouds," and
"Birds," and "Wasps." Goldoni and Chiari were his Euripides and Agathon;
perverters of the good old comedy by vulgar realism, false pathos, and
meretricious rhetoric. Rousseau, Voltaire, Helvetius, the French
_philosophes_, were his Socrates and Sophists. His art was the
expression, not of creative instinct evoking a new type of drama merely
for its beauty and romance, but of a militant, sarcastic mind, imbued
with the ironical literature of the sixteenth century. Gozzi had little
in common with Shakespeare. Truffaldino is no twin-brother of King
Lear's fool, nor is Brighella cousin to the grave-digger in _Hamlet_.
These personages belong to the family of masks, whose pedigree dates
from immemorial antiquity in Italy. The element of fable, as Gozzi
repeatedly informs us, was first adopted by him out of sheer bravado to
maintain a certain thesis, viz., that whole nations could be made to
laugh and cry over puerilities, when handled with the judgment of a
master. Gozzi's true ancestors in art were the Florentine burlesque
poets, notably Luigi Pulci. The blending of magic, phantasy, broad
comedy and serious tragic interest in the _Fiabe_ allies them to the
_Morgante Maggiore_ far more closely than to Marlowe's _Doctor
Faustus_. In them, therefore, we observe the curious literary phenomenon
of what at first sight appears to be spontaneous romantic art, but what
is really the result of satirical and didactic intention. The preface to
_L'Augellino Belverde_, in which Gozzi takes leave of the _Fiabe_,
clearly explains the case.[75] "I addressed myself to the task of
arousing great popular enthusiasm by a _tour de force_ of fancy; and at
the same time I wished to cut short the series of my dramatic pieces,
from which I derived no profit, and the burden of producing which was
beginning to weigh heavily upon me. Besides, it seemed to me that I had
fully achieved the end I had proposed to myself from the outset, in the
indulgence of the purest capricious and poetical punctilio." _Punctilio_
was the parent of the _Fiabe_.
At this point I shall introduce a translation of _L'Amore delle Tre
Melarancie_. There are several reasons for doing so. First, although it
only exists For us in the _compte rendu_ of the author, and is therefore
a description rather than a literal _scenario_, a very good idea can be
gained from it of the directions given by a poet to extempore actors.
Secondly, it shows the four Venetian masks, Pantalone, Tartaglia,
Truffaldino, and Brighella, in action, together with the _servetta_
Smeraldina. Thirdly, it is interesting for the light thrown upon Gozzi's
controversy with the two poets in the critical observations he has
interspersed. These I shall enclose in brackets, so that the _scenario_
of the play may be distinguished from extraneous matter.
V.
A REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS
OF THE FABLE ENTITLED
THE LOVE OF THE THREE ORANGES.
_A Dramatic Representation divided into Three Acts._[76]
PROLOGUE.
(_A boy comes forward and makes this announcement._)
Your faithful servants, the old company
Of players, feel sore shent and full of shame;
Behind the scenes they stand with downcast eye
And hang-dog faces, dreading words of blame;
They blush to hear the folk say: "We are dry!
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 eyeballs 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 Phoebean 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 circumstance
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 rehearse;
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 Massère_, _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 constitution of the Prince, might still be
extirpated by the exhibition of mercury. The King, assuming 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 assured 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 passions, 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 noble 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
circumspection. 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 Brighella, his servant, to Smeraldina, to learn the explanation of
Truffaldino's appearance, and to demand assistance from Morgana.
Brighella 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.]
Brighella's news threw Clarice and Leandro into consternation. They laid
their heads together how to kill Truffaldino by some secret device.
Clarice suggested arsenic 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. Brighella 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 Brighella 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 mass of rancid rotten rhymes. This scene lasted above
a quarter of an hour, to the continual amusement 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 massacred, 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 assume 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, muffled 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 assailed 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 _Massère_, _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 assail 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 god, 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
principal 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 coarse 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 Brighella 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. Brighella 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, Brighella 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. Brighella, 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). Brighella recommended the _Commedia dell' Arte_, as
very fit to yield the public innocent amusement. Clarice and Leandro
flew into a rage. What did they want with stupid buffooneries, rancid
relics of antiquity, unseemly in this enlightened age? Brighella 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:
"He laughed; recovered health; but then, Morgana, thy great foe,
With malediction spoiled thy pains, and wrought a double woe.
With fury winged and breathless he, both burning cheeks on fire,
Is after the Three Oranges, inflamed with fierce desire.
With Truffaldin the Prince is sped; Morgana sends a sprite
To wait upon the pair and blow them forward in their flight.
A thousand miles the men have gone, and soon they will descend,
Here by Creonta's fort, half-dead, at their long journey's end."
[Illustration: BRIGHELLA (1570)
_Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, or Impromptu Comedy_]
The devil disappeared. Celio monologised against his mortal foe Morgana,
explaining the great perils of Tartaglia and Truffaldino when they
should arrive at the castle of Creonta on the quest of the fatal
Oranges. Then he retired to make the necessary preparations for saving
two persons of high merit and great social utility.
[Celio, who stood for Goldoni in this piece of nonsense, ought not to
have protected Tartaglia and Truffaldino. I admit the error, which
deserves to be condemned, if a mere dramatic sketch of such a trivial
kind comes within the scope of criticism. At that time Chiari and
Goldoni were enemies and rivals. I wanted Morgana and Celio to
caricature their opposite dramatic styles; and I did not care to protect
myself against censure by multiplying personages more than needful.]
Tartaglia and Truffaldino entered armed, and proceeding at a tremendous
pace. They had a devil with a pair of bellows following behind, and
blowing their backsides to make them skim along the ground. The devil
ceased to blow and disappeared. They sprawled on the grass at the sudden
cessation of the favouring gale.
[I am under infinite obligations to Signor Chiari for this burlesque
conception, which produced a very excellent effect upon the stage. In
his dramas, drawn from the Æneid, Chiari made the Trojans perform long
journeys within the space of a single action, and without the assistance
of my devil and his bellows. This writer, though he pedantically
insulted everybody else who broke the rules, allowed himself singular
privileges. In his tragedy of _Ezelino_, after the tyrant's downfall, a
captain is sent to beleaguer Treviso, and reduce Ezelino's garrison.
This takes place in one scene. In the next scene the same captain
returns victorious, having ridden more than thirty miles, captured the
town, and butchered the tyrant's troops. He delivers a rhetorical
oration, ascribing this miracle to the matchless spirit of his horse!
Tartaglia and Truffaldino had to perform a journey of two thousand
miles, and my device of the devil with the bellows explained their
exploit better than Chiari's charger.]
The two comedians rose from the ground, half-stunned and astonished at
the mighty wind which wafted them. Their geographical description of the
countries, mountains, rivers, and oceans they had passed, was crammed
with burlesque absurdities. Tartaglia concluded that the Three Oranges
must be nigh at hand. Truffaldino, feeling tired and hungry, asked the
Prince whether he had brought a good stock of cash or bills. Tartaglia
spurned such low considerations and idle questions. Spying a castle on a
hill, and judging it to be Creonta's, he set manfully forward, while
Truffaldino trudged behind in the hope of finding food.
Meanwhile Celio entered, and sought in vain to dissuade the Prince from
his perilous adventure. He described insuperable obstacles fraught with
danger on the way. They were exactly the same as are told to children in
the story-book; but Celio enlarged upon them with wide rolling eyes,
and magnified the molehills into mountains. There was an iron gate
rusted with time, a famished dog, a well-rope rotten with damp, a
baker's wife, who, having no broom, was forced to sweep the oven out
with her own dugs. The Prince, unterrified by these appalling objects,
determined to assail the castle. Celio, seeing his mind made up, gave
him a magic ointment to smear the bolt of the gate, a loaf to throw the
dog, and a bundle of brooms to give the baker's wife. The rope he bade
them hang out in the sun to dry. Then he added that, if by lucky chance
they should acquire the Oranges, they were to leave the castle at once,
and be mindful to open none of the Oranges except in the immediate
neighbourhood of some fountain. Finally, he promised, if they escaped
the perils of their theft, to send the same devil with the bellows, to
blow them home again. Then he recommended them to Heaven and left them.
Tartaglia and Truffaldino, carrying the articles provided by Celio, went
forward on their journey.
Here a tent was lowered, which represented the pavilion of the King of
Diamonds.--What an irregularity!--Nay, what misapplied criticism!--Two
short scenes followed, one between Smeraldina and Brighella, rejoicing
over the loss of Tartaglia; the other with Morgana, who bade Brighella
inform Clarice and Leandro that Celio was assisting the Prince. This she
had learned from the devil Draghinazzo. Then she bade Smeraldina follow
her to the lake, where Tartaglia and Truffaldino would certainly arrive
if they escaped Creonta's clutches. Some new snare might then be devised
to entrap them. The parley broke up in confusion.
The next scene disclosed a courtyard in Creonta's castle. [I was able to
observe, upon the opening of this scene, with the grossly absurd objects
it contained, what an immense power the marvellous exerts over the human
mind. A gate constructed with an iron grating, a famished dog which
howled and roamed around, a well with a coil of rope beside it, a
baker's wife who swept her oven with two enormously long breasts, kept
the whole theatre in silent wonder and attention quite as effectually as
the most thrilling scenes in the works of our two poets.] Outside the
grating appeared Tartaglia and Truffaldino, engaged in smearing the
bolt; and lo! the portal swung upon its hinges. Great miracle! They
passed in. The dog barked and leapt upon them. They threw him the bread
and he was still. Great portent! Truffaldino, trembling with fright,
then hung the cord up to dry, and gave the baker's wife her brooms,
while the Prince entered the castle and came out again, capering for joy
and holding the three enormous Oranges he had seized.
The moving accidents of this scene did not end so suddenly. The sky
darkened, the earth quaked, and loud claps of thunder were heard.
Tartaglia handed the Oranges to Truffaldino, who kept trembling like an
aspen leaf. Then there issued from the castle an awful voice, which was
Creonta's own. She spoke as the story-book dictates:
"O baker's wife, O baker's wife, abide not my just ire!
Take those two fellows by the feet, and cast them in the fire."
The baker's wife, following the fable with equal fidelity, replied thus:
"Not I! How many months have passed, how many months and years,
While with my milk-white breasts I sweep, and waste my life in tears!
Thou, cruel dame, a single broom ne'er gav'st me at my need;
These brought a bundle; let them go in peace; I will not heed."
Creonta cried:
"O rope, O rope! hang up the knaves!"
And the rope, still observing the text, answered:
"Hard heart! hast thou forgot
Those many years, those many months, thou left'st me here to rot?
By thee was I abandoned long in damp to waste away;
These stretched me to the sun; let them go forth in peace, I say."
Creonta howled aloud:
"Dog, faithful watch-dog! rend and tear those wretches limb from limb."
The dog retorted:
"Nay, why, Creonta, should I rend poor fellows at thy whim?
So many years, so many months, I've served thee without food;
These filled my belly full; thy cries shall not control my mood."
Creonta, again:
"Portal of iron, close! Grind yon base knaves and thieves to dust!"
And the gate:
"Cruel Creonta! vainly now your threats on me are thrust!
So many years, so many months, in rust and woe to pine,
You left me here; they oiled my bolts; no ingrate's heart is mine."
It was very funny to see Tartaglia's and Truffaldino's mock astonishment
at the fine flow of the poet's eloquence. They stood dumbfounded to hear
bakers' wives, and ropes, and dogs, and gates talking in Martellian
verse. Then they thanked those courteous objects for the kindness shown
them.
The audience were hugely delighted with these puerilities, and I confess
that I joined heartily in their laughter, half-ashamed the while at
being forced to relish a pack of infantile absurdities, which took me
back to the days of my babyhood.
The giantess Creonta now appeared upon the stage. She was of towering
stature, and attired in a vast sweeping _andrienne_. Tartaglia and
Truffaldino fled before her horrible aspect. Then she gave vent to her
despair in Martellian verses, not forgetting to invoke Pindar, whom
Signor Chiari treated complacently as his own twin-brother:
"Woe to you, faithless servants! Woe, false rope and dog and gate!
Base baker's wife, I curse thee too! Ye traitors found too late!
Alas! Sweet Oranges! Ah me! Who stole you unaware?
Dear Oranges, my hope, my soul, my love, my life, my care!
Woe's me! I burst with bitter rage; there's boiling in my breast
Chaos, the Elements, the Sun, the Rainbow, and the rest!
I scarce can stand against it all: O Jove, the Thunderer, send
Thy lightnings on my pate, and me down to the slippers rend!
Help to me! Ho! Who helps me? Fiends! Who lifts me from this world?--
A friendly thunderbolt descends! I burn, I'm soothed, I'm hurled."
[These last verses were no bad parody of both Chiari's sentiments and
style of writing.] A thunderbolt fell and reduced the giantess to ashes.
Here ended the second act, which had been followed with more marked
applause than the first. My bold experiment began to seem less culpable
than it had done at the commencement.
ACT THE THIRD.
The first scene opened near Fata Morgana's lake. There was a great tree
visible and underneath it a large stone seat. Several rocks and boulders
were strewn about the meadow. Smeraldina, who talked the jargon of an
Italianised Turk, was standing at the brink of the lake impatiently
awaiting the fairy's orders, and calling out. Morgana rose from the
surface, and began to relate a journey she had made to hell, where she
learned that Tartaglia and Truffaldino, victorious in their achievement
of the Three Oranges, were coming by the help of Celio and the devil
with the bellows. Smeraldina soundly abused the fairy for her want of
skill in magic. Morgana bade her spare her breath. Owing to precautions
she had taken, Truffaldino would reach the spot where they were
standing, separately from the Prince. Thirst and hunger, sent by
wizard's arts, should annoy him; and since the Oranges were in his
custody, great catastrophes would take place. Then she consigned two
bedevilled pins to Smeraldina, adding that she would see a fair girl
sitting on the stone beneath the tree. She was to contrive to fix one of
these needles in the girl's hair, whereupon the latter would become a
dove, and Smeraldina was to take her place upon the stone. Tartaglia
should marry her and make her Queen. During the night, while sleeping
with her husband, she was to fix the other needle in his hair, whereupon
he would become a beast, and the throne would be left vacant for Clarice
and Leandro. The Moorish woman raised some difficulties, which Morgana
easily disposed of. Then, observing Truffaldino approaching with the
infernal blast behind him, they withdrew to mature their plans.
Truffaldino entered, carrying the Three Oranges in a wallet. The devil
with the bellows disappeared, and Truffaldino related how the Prince had
tripped up a little while back, and that he must wait for him. He seated
himself. Intolerable thirst and hunger tormented him. At last he
resolved to eat one of the Oranges. But conscience stung him; he
declaimed in tragic style; then, driven mad by thirst, made up his mind
to risk the sacrifice. After all, he reflected, the damage could be made
good with two farthings. So he proceeded to cut open an Orange. Oh,
what a surprise! There issued from its rind a girl clothed in white,
who, following the text of the story-book, spoke immediately:
"Give me to drink! I'm fainting! Ah! I'm dying! Quick, my dear!
Of thirst I'm dying! Oh, poor me! Quick, cruel man! Death's here!"
She fell upon the earth oppressed with mortal languor. Truffaldino, who
had forgotten Celio's directions about opening the Oranges within reach
of water, being besides a fool by nature, and not noticing the lake in
his distraction, thought he could not do better than to slice another of
the Oranges and quench the dying girl's thirst with the juice of that.
Accordingly, he went, like a donkey, and sliced another Orange, out of
which there appeared a second lovely female, exclaiming:
"Woe's me! Of thirst I'm dying! Ho! Give me to drink! I rave!
Cruel! I die of thirst! Ah God! 'Twill kill me! Lord! oh save!"
She sank down exhausted like the other. Truffaldino flung himself about
in fits of desperation. He roared, screamed, leapt like a maniac, while
one of the girls spoke as follows, in an expiring voice:
"Hard destiny! Of thirst to die! I'm dying! I am dead!"
Then she breathed her last, and the other continued:
"I'm dying! Barbarous stars! Ah me! Who'll soothe my burning head?"
Then she too breathed her last. Truffaldino wept abundantly, and
murmured over them words of impassioned tenderness. He decided to cut
the third Orange in the hope of saving both girls alive. While he was
upon the point of doing this, Tartaglia entered in a rage and stopped
him. Truffaldino took to his heels and left the Orange lying on the
grass.
The stupor of this grotesque Prince, the inimitable reflections he
poured forth over the rinds of the two Oranges and the dead bodies of
the girls, soar beyond the powers of language. The masked actors of our
_Commedia dell' Arte_, in situations like this, invent scenes so droll
and yet of such exquisite grace, with gestures, movements, and _lazzi_
so delightful, that no pen can reproduce their effect, and no poet could
surpass them.
After a long and ridiculous soliloquy, Tartaglia caught sight of two
country bumpkins passing by, ordered the corpses to be decently buried,
and bade the fellows carry them away. Then the Prince turned to gaze
upon the third Orange. To his utter amazement it had swelled to a
portentous size, and was as large now as the biggest pumpkin. Seeing the
lake at hand, and bearing Celio's injunctions in mind, he thought the
place convenient for cutting the fruit open. This he did with his long
sword; and there stepped forth a tall and lovely damsel, attired in
robes of white, who fulfilled the conditions of her part in the
story-book by speaking as follows:
"Who drew me from my living core? Ah God! Of thirst I die!
Give me to drink at once, or else vain tears you'll shed for aye!"
The Prince understood upon the spot the meaning of Celio's precepts. But
he was embarrassed to find any vessel capable of holding water. The case
did not admit of ceremony. So he unbuckled one of his iron shoes, ran to
the lake, filled it with water, and making a thousand excuses for the
improvised cup, presented it to the fair damsel, who slaked her thirst,
and stood up in full vigour, thanking him for his timely assistance.
She said that she was the daughter of Concul, king of the Antipodes;
Creonta, by enchantment, had enclosed her, together with her two
sisters, in the rinds of three Oranges, for reasons which were as
probable as the circumstance itself. A scene of comical love-making
followed, at the close of which Tartaglia promised to make her his wife.
The capital was close at hand. The Princess had no decent clothes to
wear. The Prince bade her take a seat upon the stone beneath the tree,
while he went off to fetch costly raiment and summon the whole Court to
attend her. That settled, they parted with sighs.
Smeraldina, astounded by what she had been witness to, now entered. She
saw the form of the fair maid reflected in the lake. Of course she
proceeded to do everything dictated for the Moorish woman in the
story-tale. She dropped her Italianate Turkish. Morgana had put a Tuscan
devil into her tongue. Thus armed, she defied all the poets to speak
with more complete correctness. Advancing to the young Princess, whose
name was Ninetta, she began to coax and flatter, offered to arrange her
hair, came to close quarters and betrayed her. One of the magic pins was
promptly stuck in the girl's head. Ninetta took the form of a dove and
flew away. Smeraldina seated herself upon the stone and waited for the
Court.
These miraculous occurrences, together with the childish simplicity of
the successive scenes, and the burlesque humour of the action, kept the
audience, instructed as they had been by their grandmothers and nurses
in the days of babyhood, upon the tenter-hooks of curiosity. They
followed the plot with serious attention, and took the profoundest
interest in watching each step in the development upon the stage of such
a trifle.
Then, to the music of a march, the King of Diamonds entered, with the
Prince, Leandro, Clarice, Pantalone, Brighella, and the Court. On
beholding Smeraldina in the place of the bride whom he had come to fetch
away, Tartaglia flew into the wildest astonishment and fury. Smeraldina,
so altered by Morgana's artifice that no one recognised her, swore she
was the Princess Ninetta. Tartaglia continued to make a burlesque
exhibition of his misery. Leandro, Clarice, and Brighella, suspecting
the real source of the mystery, rejoiced among themselves. The King of
Diamonds gravely and majestically enjoined upon his son the duty of
keeping his princely word and marrying the Moor. The Prince submitted
with a wry face and new demonstrations of comical grief. Then the band
struck up, and the procession filed away to celebrate the marriage in
the palace.
Truffaldino meanwhile remained behind in the royal kitchen, to the
charge of which Tartaglia had appointed him, after condoning his
mistakes about the Oranges. He was preparing the nuptial banquet, when a
new scene opened, which is perhaps the boldest in this jocose parody.
[The rival partisans of Chiari and Goldoni, who were present in the
theatre, and saw that a strong stroke of satire was about to fall, did
their best to excite the indignation of the audience, and to stir up a
commotion. They did not succeed, however. I have already said that Celio
represented Goldoni, and Morgana Chiari. The former of these gentlemen
had served his apprenticeship at the Venetian bar, and his style smacked
of forensic idioms. Chiari plumed himself upon his sublime pindaric
flights of poetry; but I may submit, with all respect, that there never
was a tumid and irrational author of the seventeenth century who
surpassed him in extravagant conceits and bombast.
Well, Celio and Morgana, animated by mutual hostility, met together in
this scene, which I will transcribe literally, just as the dialogue was
spoken. I must first remind my readers that parodies miss their mark
unless they are surcharged; and, keeping this in view, I beg them to
look with indulgence upon a caprice, which was begotten by jesting
humour, without any animosity against two worthy individuals.]
CELIO (_entering with vehemence, to Morgana_). "Wicked enchantress!
I have discovered all your base deceits. But Pluto will assist me.
Infamous beldame, accursed witch!"
MORGANA. "What do you mean, you charlatan of a wizard? Do not
provoke me. I will give you a rebuff in Martellian verses, which
shall make you die foaming."
C. "To me, rash witch? You shall get tit for tat from me. I defy
you in Martellian verse. Here's at you![80]
"It shall be always held a vain injurious assault,
Fraudulent, without proper grounds, in justice real at fault;
To wit these, and whatever else, malignant, fury-fraught
Spells by Morgana cast, with all etceteras basely wrought:
And as these premises declare, what bane may hence ensue
Is cancelled, quashed, estopped, made void, condemned by order due."
M. "Oh, the bad verses! Come on, you twopenny-halfpenny magician!
"First shall the glorious rays of gold which beam from Phoebus' breast
Be turned to lumps of vulgar lead, and East become the West;
First shall the darkling moon on high, her silver beams so bright
Change with the glimmering stars, and lose the empire of the night;
The murmuring streams that purling roll along their crystal bed,
With Pegasus aloft shall fly, and on the clouds be spread;
But thou, base slave of Pluto's power, shall never have the force
To scorn the sails and rudder of my pinnace in her course."
C. "O fustian fairy, blown out like a bladder!
"On the main paragraph I'll win the verdict in this suit,
Which by the first preamble shall be made to bear its fruit:
Princess Ninetta, changed by you into a dove, shall be
Reconstituted in her rights and due estate by me:
And through the second paragraph, which follows from the first,
Clarice and Leandro shall sink into want accursed;
While Smeraldina, who can claim no hearing from the court,
By mere endorsement shall be burned, to give the people sport."
M. "Oh, the stupid, stupid versifier! Listen to me, now. See if I
don't terrify you.
"On flying plumes soars Icarus, and climbs the heaven with pride,
Treads on the clouds, then stoops, rash youth, and skims along the tide.
O'er Pelion piled, see Ossa frown, Olympus on her back;
This wrought the Titans, impious brood, to work high heaven wrack.
But Icarus erelong must sink, and drown in salt sea-spume;
Jove's bolt will hurl the Titans bold in ashes to their tomb.
Clarice shall ascend the throne, false Mage, in thy despite;
Tartaglia, like Actæon, mock the antlered deer in flight."
C. (_aside_). "She is trying to beat me down with poetical bombast.
If she thinks to shut me up in that way she is quite mistaken.
"I will not leave one plea unturned without demurrers sound,
And 'gainst your swelling lies will file a protest firm and round."
M. "The realm of Diamonds avoid! Let lawful monarchs reign!"
(_Taking her departure._)
C. (_crying after her_). "And I'll claim costs, stay execution,
file my bills again."
(_Here Celio went in._)
The last scene was laid in the royal kitchen. Never did mortal eyes
behold a more miserable king's kitchen than this. The remainder of the
performance followed the old story-book precisely; nevertheless, the
spectators watched it with sustained attention. The parody turned upon
some trivialities of detail and some basenesses of character in dramas
written by the two poets. Excessive poverty, dramatic impropriety, and
meanness gave the satire point.
Truffaldino appeared spitting a joint. He related how, there being no
turnjack in the kitchen, he was obliged to watch the revolutions of the
spit himself. While thus engaged, a dove alighted on the window-sill,
and a conversation took place between him and the bird. The dove had
said: "Good morning, cook of the kitchen." He had replied: "Good
morning, white dove." She continued: "I pray to Heaven that you may fall
asleep, that the roast may burn, so that the Moor, that ugly mug, may
not be able to eat." A mighty slumber overcame him; he fell asleep, and
the roast was burned to cinders. This accident happened twice. In a
precious hurry he set the third joint before the fire. Then the dove
reappeared, and the conversation was repeated. Again the mighty slumber
overcame his senses. Truffaldino, honest fellow, did all he could to
keep awake. His _lazzi_ were in the highest degree facetious. But he
could not resist the spell, began to nod, and the flames reduced the
third roast to ashes.
You must ask the audience why and wherefore this scene afforded
exquisite amusement.
Pantalone entered scolding, woke up Truffaldino; said that the King was
in a fury; soup, boiled meat, and liver had been eaten, but the roast
had not appeared at table. [All honour to a poet's daring! This outdid
the lowness of Goldoni's squabbles about a brace of pumpkins in his
_Chiozzotte_.] Truffaldino told the strange occurrence with the dove.
Pantalone dismissed it as an idle story. But the dove at this point
reappeared and repeated her ominous speech. Truffaldino was on the point
of going off into a doze when Pantalone roused him, and they both gave
chase to the dove, which flew fluttering about the kitchen.
The attempts to catch the dove, made by these facetious personages,
amused the audience above measure. At last they caught it, placed it on
a table, and began to stroke its feathers. Then they detected the
enchanted pin stuck into a knot upon its head. Truffaldino drew the pin
forth, and behold the bird was transformed into the Princess Ninetta!
A scene of stupors and astonishments. His Majesty the King of Diamonds
arrived; pompously, with sceptre in hand, he rebuked Truffaldino for the
non-appearance of the roast-meat at his royal table, whereby he had been
put to shame before illustrious guests. The Prince followed, and
recognised his lost Ninetta. Joy bereft him of his wits. Ninetta related
what had befallen her; the King remained lost in amazement. Then the
Moor and the rest of the Court came crowding into the kitchen, to find
their monarch. He, with an air of haughty dignity, bade the princely
couple retire into the scullery. He chose the hearth for his throne, and
took his seat there with majestic sternness. The courtiers assembled
round him; and as it happens in the story-book, the King now performed
his part of ultimate adjudicator. What, he inquired, would be proper
punishments for the several parties incriminated in these occurrences?
Various opinions were offered. Then the King in his fury condemned
Smeraldina to the flames. Celio appeared. He unmasked the hidden
culpability of Clarice, Leandro, and Brighella. They were sentenced to
cruel banishment. The two Princes were finally summoned from the
scullery, and universal gladness crowned the termination of this high
act of justice.
Celio warned Truffaldino that it was his most solemn duty to keep
Martellian verses, those inventions of the devil, out of all dishes
served up at the royal table. His function was to make his sovereigns
laugh.
The play wound up with that marriage festival which all children know by
heart--the banquet of preserved radishes, skinned mice, stewed cats, and
so forth. And inasmuch as the journalists were wont in those days to
blow their trumpets of applause over every new work which appeared from
Signor Goldoni's pen, we concluded with an epilogue, in which the
spectators were besought to use all their influence with these
journalists, in order that a crumb of eulogy might be bestowed upon our
rigmarole of mystical absurdities.
It was not my fault that a courteous public called for the repetition of
this fantastic parody on many successive evenings. The theatre was
crowded, and Sacchi's company began to breathe again after their long
discouragement.
VI.
Such is Gozzi's own account of his first acted fable.
The public had been invited to sit as umpires in the controversy between
him and their two favourite playwrights. They had been requested to
suspend their judgment before finally pronouncing sentence against the
_Commedia dell' Arte_. The result of the experiment was a decided
triumph for the author of the _Three Oranges_, for Sacchi's company, and
for the Granelleschi. But, what was more important, Gozzi, at the
commencement of his forty-first year, now discovered himself to be
possessed of dramatic ability in no common degree, and of a peculiar
kind. The success of the _Three Oranges_ suggested the notion that use
might be made of fairy tales, not only for maintaining the impromptu
style of Italian Comedy, and amusing the public with piquant novelties,
but also for conveying moral lessons under the form of allegory, and
mingling tragic pathos with the humours of the masks. Accordingly Gozzi
composed a succession of similar pieces, gradually suppressing the
burlesque elements, enlarging the sphere of didactic satire, pathos, and
dramatic action, relying less upon the mechanical attractions of
transformation scenes and _lazzi_, writing the principal parts in full,
and versifying a considerable portion of the dialogue.
_Il Corvo_ was produced at Milan in the summer of 1761, and at Venice in
October 1761. _Il Rè Cervo_ appeared in January 1762; _Turandot_ perhaps
in the same month; _La Donna Serpente_ in October 1762; _Zobeide_ in
November 1763; _I Pitocchi Fortunati_ in November 1764; _Il Mostro
Turchino_ in December of the same year; _L'Augellino Belverde_ in
January 1765; _Zeim, Rè de'Geni_ in November 1765. These, with _L'Amore
delle Tre Melarancie_, form the ten _Fiabe._ After the production of
_Zeim_, Gozzi judged that the vein had been worked out, and turned his
attention to adaptations of Spanish dramas for the stage.
The occasional origin of the _Fiabe_, on which I have already insisted,
accounts for their want of plastic unity, their jumble of oddly
contrasted ingredients. They were not the spontaneous outgrowth of
artistic genius seeking to fuse the real and the fantastic in an ideal
world of the imagination; but monsters begotten by an accident, which
the creative originality of a highly-gifted intellect turned to
excellent account. Gozzi's predilection for burlesque, his satirical
propensity and fondness for moralising on the foibles of his age, found
easy vent in the peculiar form he had discovered by a lucky chance. But
these motives were not subordinated to the higher coherence of
imaginative poetry. His fancy, command of dramatic situations,
intuition into character, rhetorical eloquence, and inexhaustible
inventiveness expatiated in the region of caprice and wonder. Yet we do
not feel that he has succeeded in harmonising these divers elements with
the spiritual instinct of an Aristophanes or a Shakespeare. Probably he
did not seek to do so. The numerous reflections on the _Fiabe_, which
are scattered up and down his works, prove that art for art's sake was
far from being the leading consideration in their production. They
remained with him pastimes, which had partly a practical, partly a
didactic purpose--convenient vehicles for indulging his literary bias
and airing his ethical opinions--serviceable ammunition in the battle
against men whom he regarded as impostors and pretenders--excellent
means of putting money into the purses of his protegés, the actors, and
of keeping himself in favour with his friends, the actresses. To the
last they retained something of the _punctilio_, which, as he says,
inspired him at the outset.
VII.
In all his _Fiabe Gozzi_ employed the four Masks and the Servetta,
Smeraldina.[81] He not unfrequently wrote the whole part of a mask, so
that nothing remained for impromptu acting but "gag" and _lazzi_.
Truffaldino's rôle, however, was invariably left to improvisation;
perhaps in compliment to Sacchi's talents and his prominent position.
The other masks were dealt with as Gozzi thought best. When the dialogue
acquired dramatic or satirical importance, he wrote it out for them. On
ordinary occasions he intrusted the whole or a considerable portion of
each scene to their extempore ability, only indicating the movement of
the plot in a _scenario_. The parts of the masks were treated in dialect
and prose. The serious actors, who had to sustain the scheme of the
fable, as lovers, magicians, queens, fairies, good and evil spirits,
spoke in Tuscan blank verse, occasionally heightened by the use of
Martellian rhymed couplets at thrilling moments of the action. Thus it
will be seen that the text of Gozzi's plays offers every condition of
dramatic utterance, from mere stage-directions, through carefully
dictated prose, up to rhetorical soliloquies and dialogues in verse of
several descriptions. His dexterity as a playwright is shown in the tact
with which he employed these various resources.
The handling of the five fixed characters is masterly throughout.
Whether Gozzi writes their lines or only indicates a theme for their
impromptu declamation, he shows himself in perfect sympathy with an
intelligent and practised group of actors. The humour of the man comes
out to best advantage in this department. His language is most
idiomatic and spontaneous here. Here too we find his raciest characters.
Powerfully conceived and boldly projected, each comic personage breathes
and moves with vivid realism. Study of the Masks, as Gozzi treated them,
makes us feel what a wonderful thing of plastic beauty the _Commedia
dell' Arte_ must have been. Here, in a work of carefully considered
literary art, we have its long tradition and its manifold capacities
preserved for us. Reading a _Fiaba_ is like opening a bottle of rare old
wine. The bouquet of the fragrant vintage exhales into the chamber, and
we taste the bloom of bygone summers. But the very conditions under
which Gozzi exhibited this side of his dramatic mastery render
translation impossible. In a translation the colours of the dialects are
lost. The gradations of style, passing from a laconically worded
_scenario_ through half-dialogue into elaborated scenes, are bound to
disappear. Tuned to a foreign language, our inward eye and ear fail to
reconstruct the _lazzi_, which rendered this part of the drama humorous.
That is why Schiller's _Turandot_ is inferior to Gozzi's; and yet, when
Schiller selected this piece for the German stage, he showed a right
artistic instinct. It is the one in which the fable predominates, and
can best be separated from the humours of the Masks.
I dare not enlarge here upon the variety of shades and complexions given
to the five fixed types of character, according as the plot demanded
more or less of serious action from the several personages. This inquiry
would be interesting, since it reveals their singular elasticity beneath
a master's touch. It must, however, be left to amateurs of curiosities
in art. The development of the subject in detail implies previous
acquaintance with the ten _Fiabe_, and would involve a lengthy
dissertation. Some general points may, nevertheless, be indicated.
Pantalone retains marked psychological outlines under all his
transformations. He is the good-humoured, honourable, simple-hearted
Venetian of the middle class, advanced in years, Polonius-like, with
stores of worldly wisdom, strong natural affections, and healthy moral
impulses. Gozzi has drawn the character in a favourable light, purging
away those baser associations which gathered round it during two
centuries of the _Commedia dell' Arte_. His Pantalone recalls the
Cortesani, described in a chapter of the Memoirs; but a touch of
senility has been added, which lends comic weakness to the type.
Tartaglia stammers, and preserves something of the knave in his
composition, burnished with Neapolitan abandonment to appetite and
brazen disregard for moral rectitude. This general conception of the
character explains the transformation of Tartaglia, in the _Three
Oranges_, into the Tartaglia of the _Augellino Belverde_.
Brighella is an intriguing, self-interested individuality, trying to
turn the world round his fingers, and not succeeding, or succeeding only
by some lucky accident. He frequently assumes the form of a simpleton
befooled by his short-sighted cunning.
Truffaldino blossoms before us as an ubiquitous and chameleon-like
creature of caprice and humour; the liberal, carnal, careless
boon-companion; the genial rogue and witty fool; bred in the kitchen;
uttering words of wisdom from his belly rather than his brains; pliable,
fit for all occasions; a prodigious coward; trusty in his own degree;
taking the mould of fate and circumstance, adapting himself to external
conditions; understanding nothing of the higher sentiments and awful
destinies which rule the drama; but turning up at its conclusion with a
rogue's own luck in the place he started from, and on which his heart is
set, the larder. He runs like an inexpressibly comic thread of staring
scarlet through the warp and woof of Gozzi's many-coloured loom. The
most serious use made of him is when, in the _Augellino Belverde_, for
purposes of pungent parody, Gozzi invests him with the vizard of a
Machiavellian egotist. At the close of that supremely caustic scene,
Truffaldino drops his disguise, and willingly assumes the rôle of a
domestic buffoon. Our author's trenchant irony, that "smile on the lips
with venom in the heart," of which Goldoni wrote so lucidly, that touch
of bitterness which renders him akin to Swift, was displayed by a stroke
of genius here. Truffaldino, the whelp whose antics dispelled
melancholy, becomes for once in Gozzi's hands a stick wherewith to beat
the dog of modern science.
Smeraldina, under her numerous manifestations, maintains the lineaments
of vulgar womanhood. Sometimes a good mother or nurse, sometimes a
shifty waiting-woman, sometimes a blustering amazon, sometimes a bad
wife or would-be virgin, she never soars into the regions of ideality,
and mates eventually with Truffaldino, if she escapes from being burned
for blundering atrocities upon the road to commonplace felicity.
With these fixed characters, which form the most delightful ingredients
of the _Fiabe_, Gozzi interweaves a fairy-tale, abounding in magic,
flights of capricious fancy, marvels, transformations, perilous
adventures. There is always a conflict of beneficent and malignant
supernatural powers, ending in the triumph of good over evil, the reward
of innocence, and the punishment of crime. There is a fate to which the
heroes and heroines are subject, and which can only be overcome by
protracted trials, by patience through dark years, by sustained
endurance, terrible struggles, and faith in supernatural protectors.
Thus the texture of the _Fiabe_ is similar to that of our pantomimes,
except that in the former the fairy-tale and the harlequinade are
interwoven instead of being disconnected.
The fairy-tale is always treated in a serious spirit. The didactic
allegory, on which the author set such store, and which he regarded as
the main purpose of his art, finds expression here. The fairy-tale is
romantic, pathetic, heroic, sometimes acutely tragic. Gozzi interests
himself in the creatures of fantastic fiction, and forces them to utter
tones which vibrate in our entrails. Some scenes, written under the high
pressure of dramatic oestrum, stir tears by their poignancy, by the
accents of grief and anguish on the lips of _fantoccini._ It is a
singular species of art, soaring by spasms and short gasps to dramatic
sublimity, casting flashes of electric light on human nature in the garb
of puppets, then passing away by abrupt transitions into mechanical
improbabilities and burlesque absurdities--an art for marionettes rather
than living actors, yet withal so vivid that able representation on the
stage might translate it to our senses as an allegory of the masquerade
world in which man lives:--
"We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."
The Masks take part in the action, generally as subordinate personages,
sometimes as persons of the first rank, never as mere accessories to
move laughter, nor as a stationary chorus. In this way the comic element
is ingeniously connected with the tragic and didactic. This sounds like
a contradiction of what I have said above, about the want of plastic
unity in Gozzi's work. Yet the two apparently contradictory statements
are true together. Gozzi interweaves the wires of humour and romance
with remarkable skill. But he does not fuse them into one poetic
substance. He fails to create an ideal world in which both tragedy and
comedy are necessary to the spiritual order, as are the systole and
diastole of the heart to an organised being. Though interlaced, they
stand apart, each upon its own clearly defined basis. You pass from the
one sphere to the other, and have sudden shocks communicated to your
sensibility. There is a lack of atmosphere in the wonderfully brilliant
and exciting picture, an absence of spontaneous transition from this
mood to that, a suggestion that the playwright's sympathies have been
touched to diverse issues by divers portions of his task. Very probably,
the atmosphere, which I have indicated as wanting in the _Fiabe_, may
have been communicated by the interaction of the members of Sacchi's
troupe upon the stage at Venice. But this is only tantamount to
admitting that Gozzi understood the theatre. It does not prove that he
was a dramatic poet in the highest sense of that term. Had he been this,
we should have submitted to his magic wand while reading him. That is
precisely what we wish to do, and cannot always actually do. His _Fiabe_
remain stupendous sketches in a style of audacious and suggestive
originality. They are not the inevitable products of creative genius,
fusing and informing--the children of imagination, "dead things with
inbreathed sense able to pierce."
Had Gozzi been a great spontaneous poet, or a consummate artist, this
invention of the dramatised _Fiaba_ might have become one of the rarest
triumphs of artistic fancy. It is difficult to state precisely what his
work misses for the achievement of complete success. Perhaps we shall
arrive at a conclusion best by inquiry into points of style and details
of execution.
VIII.
By singular irony of accident, the author of the _Fiabe_, though he
dealt so much in the fantastic, the marvellous, and the pathetic, was
far more a humorist and satirist than a poet in the truer sense. Of
sublime imagery, lyrical sweetness or intensity, verbal melody and
felicity of phrase, there is next to nothing in his plays. The style,
except in the parts written for the Masks, is coarse and slovenly, the
versification hasty, the language diffuse, commonplace, and often
incorrect. Yet we everywhere discern a lively sense of poetical
situations and the power of rendering them dramatically. The resources
of Gozzi's inventive faculty seem inexhaustible; and our imagination is
excited by the energy with which he forces the creations of his
capricious fancy on our intelligence. The passionate volcanic talent of
the man almost compensates for his lack of the finer qualities of
genius.
What he wants is not the power of poetical conception, but the power of
poetical projection; and the defects of his work seem due to the partly
contemptuous, partly didactic, mood in which he undertook them. It would
be difficult to surpass the pathos of Jennaro's devotion to his brother
in _Il Corvo_, or the dramatic intensity of Armilla's self-sacrifice at
the conclusion of that play. _Turandot_ is conceived throughout
poetically. The melancholy high-strung passion of Prince Calaf passes
through it like a thread of silver. In the _Rè Cervo_, Angela has equal
beauty. Her love of the man in the king, and her discernment of her real
husband under his transformation into the person of a decrepit beggar,
are humanly and allegorically touching. Cherestani, the Persian fairy,
who loves a mortal in spite of the doom attending her devotion, is
admirably presented at the opening of _La Donna Serpente_. The
subterranean labyrinth of lost women, degraded to monstrous shapes by
their tyrannical seducer, in _Zobeide_, merits comparison with one of
the _bolge_ in Dante's Hell. Its horror is almost appalling. The love of
Barbarina for her brother in _L'Augellino Belverde_, which melts the
stony hardness of the girl's heart, and changes her from a vain
worldling to a woman capable of facing any danger, is no less romantic
than Jennaro's love in _Il Corvo_. The picture of Pantalone and his
daughter Sarchè, in _Zeim Rè de' Genj_, passing their quiet life aloof
from cities on the borders of an enchanted forest, touches our
imagination with something of the charm we find in _Cymbeline_. _Il
Mostro Turchino_ is romantically passionate and highly-wrought. It seems
to call for music, such music as Mozart invented for the _Zauberflöte_.
Or, since Gozzi had little in common with the gracious spirit of Mozart,
we might wish that this wild fable had fallen into the hands of Verdi.
The composer of _Aïda_ would have given it the wings of immortality.
Gulindi, by the way, in this last fable, is a terrible portrait of the
Messalina-Potiphar's-wife.
In selecting these passages for emphatic praise, I wish to call
attention to the power and beauty of Gozzi's conception. Not as finished
literature, but as the raw material of dramatic presentation, are they
admirable. They need the life of action, the adjuncts of scenery, the
illusion of the stage. And for this reason it seems to me that, by means
of prudent adaptation, the _Fiabe_ might furnish excellent _libretti_ to
composers of opera. This is a hint to musicians of the school of
Wagner--to that rare dramatic genius, Boito! Could the Masks be revived,
and their burlesque parts be spoken on the stage, while orchestra and
song were reserved for the serious elements of the fable, I feel
convinced that a new and fascinating work of art might still be evolved
from such pieces as _La Donna Serpente_ and _Il Mostro Turchino_.[82]
[Illustration: IL DOTTORE (1653)
_Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, or Impromptu Comedy_]
But this is a digression, which has for its object to indicate the
region in which Gozzi's chief merit as a playwright seems to me to lie.
The satire, which forms so prominent a feature in the _Fiabe_, impairs
their artistic harmony. So far as this is literary (in the _Tre
Melarancie_, _Il Corvo_, and elsewhere), it has lost its interest at the
present day. So far as it is philosophical and didactic (as in
_L'Augellino Belverde_ and _Zeim_), it tends to break the unity of
effect by the author's over-earnestness. So far as it is purely ethical,
as in _Zobeide_, Gozzi loads his palette with colours too sinister and
sombre. Perhaps, the political touches of satire in _I Pitocchi
Fortunati_ are the lightest and most genially used. Gozzi, as we have
seen already, was a confirmed conservative. An optimist as regarded the
institutions, religion, and social manners of the past, he was a bitter
pessimist in all that concerned the changes going on around him. The new
literature, the new philosophy, the new luxury, the new libertinism,
which seemed to be flooding Italy from France, were the objects of his
hatred and abhorrence. Calmon, in the _Augellino Belverde_, expresses
Gozzi's personal convictions and beliefs in their fullest extent.
But the following speech may be extracted from _Zeim Ré de Genj_ as
a fair summary of his social stoicism.[83] A Princess of Balsora, who
has been brought up by one of the capricious tricks of fortune as a
slave is speaking:
"Who am I? That I know not. An old man,
With snows upon his beard, in snow-white robes
Attired, of serious and austere aspect,
Reared me beneath a humble cottage roof.
He told me that one day upon the bank
Of foaming Tigris, wrapped in swaddling-clothes,
He found me; peradventure by my kin
Abandoned, the cast fruit of shame and scorn.
This good man taught me I was born to serve,
To suffer, to endure; and that I ought
To bow beneath the will of supreme Heaven.
'Providence, holy, in her ways unknown,'
He said, 'rules all things: in the scale ordained
Of human beings great folk have their seat;
And so, by steps descending through all ranks,
Down to the lowest folk, men live and work
Subordinate. Ah! do not be seduced,
(He often warned me) by sophistic sages,
Who bent on malice paint of liberty
False lures for mortals, your own place to quit,
The order due designed by Heaven for man!
These sophists breed confusion, anarchy,
Duty neglected at the cost of peace;
They stir up murders, thefts, impieties,
And glut with blood the shambles of the state.
Daughter, respect the great, love them, endure
What in they lot seems bitter, woo content,
And stifle that snake envy in thy breast!
In the just eyes of Heaven a great man's acts,
Rightly performed, have no superior merit
To those of servants rightly done; the road
Toward immortality lies open unto kings
And children of the people; 'tis all one.
Only the soul that suffers and is strong,
Finds happiness.' So spake the firm old man;
And firmly, in his strength of soul unshaken,
He sold me slave; so I account me blessed,
As you shall trust me for a faithful slave."
IX.
Gozzi drew the subjects of his _Fiabe_ from divers sources. The chief of
these was a book of Neapolitan fairy-tales called _Il Pentamerone del
Cavalier Giovan Battista Basile, ovvero lo Cunto de li Cunti_. This
collection enjoyed great vogue in Italy during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, and is still worthy of attentive study by lovers
of comparative folklore. Some of the motives of the _Fiabe_ have been
traced to the _Posilipeata di Massillo Repone_, the _Biblioteca dei
Genj_, the _Gabinetto delle Fate_, the _Arabian Nights_, and those
Persian and Chinese stories which were fashionable a hundred and fifty
years ago. It was Gozzi's habit to interweave several tales in one
action; and this renders researches into the texture of his dramatic
fables difficult. But the inquiry is not one of great importance, and
may well be dismissed until the star of Gozzi shall reascend the
heavens, if time's whirligig should ever bring about this revenge.
_L'Amore delle Tre Melarancie_ is both the simplest in construction and
also the most artistically perfect of the ten _Fiabe._ In it alone the
fairy-tale and the Masks are brought into complete harmony. No serious
note breaks the burlesque style of the piece, while a sustained parody
of Chiari's and Goldoni's mannerisms lends it the interest of satire. As
he advanced, Gozzi gradually changed the form of his original invention.
That fusion of fairy-tale and impromptu comedy in subordination to
literary satire, which distinguishes the _Tre Melarancie_, was never
repeated in his subsequent performances. The fable, with its romance,
pathos, passion, adventure, magic marvels, and fantastic
transformations, began to detach itself against the comedy. Both formed
essential factors in Gozzi's later work; but the links between them
became more and more mechanical. Satire, in like manner, did not
disappear; but this was either used occasionally and by accident, or
else it absorbed the whole allegory. The three ingredients, which had
been so genially combined in the first piece, were now disengaged and
treated separately. The sunny light of sportive humour, which bathed
that wonder-world of fabulous absurdity, darkened as the clouds of
didactic purpose gathered. The fairy-tale acquired an inappropriate
gravity. Becoming aware of his dramatic talent, Gozzi assumed the tone
of tragedy. He treated the loves and hatreds, the trials and triumphs,
the vices and virtues, the heroism and the baseness, of his puppets
seriously. Nevertheless, he preserved the preposterous accidents of the
fable. On those enchantments, whimsical oracles of fate, metamorphoses,
talking statues, monsters, good and wicked genii, he was of course
unable to bestow the same reality as on his human characters. Yet,
having carried the latter out of the sphere of burlesque, he had to
maintain a tone of realism with the former. But he could not wield the
Prospero's wand of imaginative insight which brings the supernatural and
the incredible within the range of actualities. Thus the marvellous
elements of the fable remained stiff and artificial beside the natural
pathos and passion of humanity.
Having recapitulated the chief features of the _Fiabe_ in their later
form, I will now analyse _L'Augellino Belverde._
X.
Many years have elapsed since Tartaglia married Ninetta. His father is
dead, and he has fallen under the malignant influence of the
Queen-Mother, Tartagliona. She persuades him that Ninetta has given
birth to a pair of puppies, male and female, whereas the twins are
really a fine boy and girl, called Renzo and Barbarina. Ninetta is
condemned to be buried alive; and Pantalone, Tartaglia's minister,
receives commission to drown the supposed puppies. Instead of executing
these orders, Pantalone sews the children up in oil-cloth, and sets them
floating down a river. They are found and rescued by Smeraldina, a woman
of good heart, who is married to the dissolute and worthless
Truffaldino, a pork-butcher. When the play opens, eighteen years are
supposed to have elapsed since the burial of Ninetta. All this while she
has been kept alive by the Beautiful Green Bird, who is the King of
Terradombra, condemned to take this form by magic arts. The Green Bird
also has become the lover of Barbarina. Meanwhile Tartagliona is being
courted by Brighella, who now appears in the character of a burlesque
poet and seer. His pindaric prophecies and exaggerated flights of
passion, alternating with the lowest language of the proletariate,
afford excellent opportunities for caricature.
Renzo and Barbarina, growing up in the house of the pork-butcher, have
improved their minds by assiduous reading of French philosophical
treatises sold for waste paper. This education has persuaded them that
all human actions and affections proceed from self-love, and that it is
the duty of rational beings to preserve a cold impartiality, indifferent
to emotions, regardless of comfort and vain pleasures, governed only by
the dictates of the reason. Accident reveals to them that Smeraldina is
not their mother, and that they are nameless foundlings. They determine
to go forth alone, and seek their fortunes in the world. The scene in
which they take leave of their kindly warm-hearted foster-mother is
excellent. Gozzi has painted a pair of consummate prigs, whose natural
instincts have been perverted by a false theory of life, and who have
learned to call that reason which is really inhumanity. They tell
Smeraldina that her unselfish charity to the foundling infants was a
form of self-love, and that her continued attention to them for the last
eighteen years had no higher motive.