[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: