[78] In Italian, Cavaliere di Coppe.
[79] I have adopted the old English fourteen-syllable line for the translation of Gozzi's Martellian verses. It seemed to me that the lumbering effect of this metre lent itself to the spirit of his parody. What Martellian verses were has been explained at p. 97.
[80] I cannot pretend to give a literal translation of these gross parodies of Goldoni's forensic verbiage. The most I can do is to stuff the verse with more or less of legal phraseology.
[81] See above, [p. 112], for the names of the five actors who sustained these parts in Sacchi's company.
[82] I wrote this in the spring of 1888, before I was aware that Wagner had set the Donna Serpente to music. His early piece, The Fairies, was composed in 1833, and first performed this year in June at Munich.
[83] Act ii. sc. 5. In Masi's edition, vol. ii. p. 458. Readers who care for further diatribes à la Gozzi on these topics, may be referred to the Astrazione which serves as introduction to his translation of Boileau, Op., vol. vii. p. 53.
| "Many are now alive, |
| Who haply are more statues than I am. |
| Thou shalt experience what power hath a statue, |
| And how a live man may become an image." |
[85] Tarocchi is the name for the cards, seventy-eight in number, used in a now well-nigh forgotten game. Fifty-six cards of the whole series consist of the four Italian suits: Coppe, Spade, Bastoni, and Danari. The remaining twenty-two are properly called Tarocchi, and in the game of Taroc take precedence of any cards of the four ordinary suits.