V.
A REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS
OF THE FABLE ENTITLED
THE LOVE OF THE THREE ORANGES.
A Dramatic Representation divided into Three Acts.[76]
[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." |
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:
[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 Phœbus' 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!
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.