Diversions in Sicily

by Henry Festing Jones

conclusion that the puppets could not be much smaller than life, if at all.

The operators must have been standing on a platform behind the back scene; the figures were able to pass one another, but never came forward more than a step or two, the footlights being in the way, and no doubt the operators could not reach further forward than they did. Each figure was worked by two iron rods, one to his head and one to his right hand, and several strings to which after a few minutes I paid no attention; perhaps their very obviousness saved them from notice. Any attempt to conceal them would have been a mistake, for what is the use of announcing a performance by marionettes and then pretending there is no mechanism? Besides, if one cannot accept a few conventions one had better stay away from the theatre altogether.

At the conclusion of the interview the knights followed one another off; and the buoyancy of their walk must be seen to be believed. The students have seen it and believe it so thoroughly that, when they meet one another in the Quattro Canti, they not unfrequently adopt it to the amusement of the bystanders. But the students make

the mistake of slightly overdoing it. The marionettes often take a step or two quite naturally, and this, while adding to the absurdity (which cannot be the intention of the operator), also shows what is possible and makes one think that with a little extra trouble they might be made to walk always as smoothly as they move their heads and arms. It might, however, be necessary for them to have more strings, and this would make them more difficult to manipulate. In Sicily the marionettes who tell the story of the Paladins do not lay themselves out to be of a mechanism so ingenious that they shall appear to be alive; such illusion as they do produce, like the incompetent illustration to Shakespeare which Lamb preferred, is insufficient to cripple the imagination of the audience who are the more intimately touched by the romance of the story and by the voice of the speaker.

The back cloth was raised and we had before us a tranquil sea with two little islands sleeping under a sunset sky. Michele entered; he was a very splendid fellow in golden armour with draperies of purple and scarlet and white, and in his helmet a plume that nearly trailed on the ground. No

playbill was provided, but none was wanted for Michele, he could not have been taken for anything but an operatic tenor of noble birth about to proceed against the Saracens. He first meditated and then soliloquized as he paced the sandy shore. The Princess of Bizerta in a flowing robe, covered with spangles, though not actually in sight, was not far off, imparting her griefs to the unsympathetic ocean. Spying the paladin, she strolled in his direction and spoke to him, but it was not an assignation; Michele, indeed, was obviously distressed at having his soliloquy interrupted; nevertheless, being a knight and a gentleman, he could but reply politely, and so they got into conversation. She told him who she was, which would not have been necessary if they had ever met before, then she told him of her unhappy plight, namely, that she was in the custody of an Arabian giant, and then she implored his assistance.

Michele was as unsympathetic as the ocean, his mind being full of Saracens; but before he had time to invent a plausible lie, the giant entered very suddenly. Physically he was not a particularly gigantic giant, being but three or four inches taller than Michele.

If he had been much more, his head, which like that of all stage giants was undeveloped at the back, would have been hidden by the clouds that hung from the sky. His inches, however, were enough, for, in romance, height is given to a giant to symbolize power, and provided he is perceptibly taller than the hero, the audience accept him as a giant and a bully and one, moreover, who is, as a rule, nearing the end of his wicked career. Accordingly, when, in a voice of thunder, he demanded of Michele an immediate explanation—wanted to know how he dared address the princess—we all felt that he was putting himself in the wrong and that a catastrophe was imminent. Giants, that is, unscrupulous people in power, are too fond of assuming this attitude of unprovoked hostility and overbearing insolence, but they assume it once too often. Had he remembered Adam and Eve and the apple it might have occurred to him to inquire whether in the present case also the lady had not begun it. Giants, however, are for the most part unintelligent, not to say downright stupid people, and seldom have the sense to know how to use their power wisely—think of the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk, think of Polyphemus

and Ulysses, think of the Inquisition and Galileo.

And then this giant made the mistake of losing his temper, and the further mistake of showing that he had lost it, and when giants do this, it means that they know they are in the wrong and don’t care. He insulted Michele most grossly, and the knight very properly drew his sword and went for him, and a terrible battle ensued throughout which realism was thrown to the waves. The combatants rose off the ground so high that Michele’s head and the giant’s head and shoulders were frequently lost in the clouds; and they clanked down again upon the sandy shore two or three feet in front of where they had stood—or behind, just as it happened; and their swords banged against their breast-plates and shields, proving that they were real metal and not merely tinsel; and they twirled round and round like beef on a roasting-jack, until at last Michele dealt the inevitable blow and the giant fell dead on the sand with a thud that jolted the coast, shook the islands, rippled across the sunset sky and restored animation to the lifeless form of the princess.