I had, in imitation of an old German puppet play, invented a wild extravaganza, which was to bear the title of Hanswurst's Hochzeit (Jack Pudding's Wedding).[1] The scheme was as follows:—Hanswurst, a rich young farmer and an orphan, has just come of age, and wishes to marry a rich maiden, named Ursel Blandine. His guardian, Kilian Brustflech (Leather apron), and her mother Ursel, are highly pleased with the purpose. Their long-cherished plans, their dearest wishes, are at last fulfilled and gratified. There is not the slightest obstacle, and properly the whole interest turns only upon this, that the young people's ardour for their union is delayed by the necessary arrangements and formalities of the occasion. As prologue, enters the inviter to the wedding festivities, who proclaims the banns after the traditional fashion, and ends with the rhymes:
The wedding feast is at the house
Of mine host of the Golden Louse.
To obviate the charge of violating the unity of place, the aforesaid tavern, with its glittering insignia, was placed in the background of the theatre; but so that all its four sides could be presented to view, by being turned upon a peg; and as it was moved round, the front scenes of the stage had to undergo corresponding changes.
In the first act the front of the house facing the street was turned to the audience, with its golden sign magnified as it were by the solar microscope; in the second act, the side towards the garden. The third was towards a little wood; the fourth towards a neighboring lake; which gave rise to a prediction that in aftertimes the decorator would have little difficulty in carrying a wave over the whole stage up to the prompter's box.
But all this does not as yet reveal the peculiar interest of the piece. The principal joke which was carried out, even to an absurd length, arose from the fact that the whole dramatis personæ consisted of mere traditional German nicknames, which at once brought out the characters of the individuals, and determined their relations to one another.
As we would fain hope that the present book will be read aloud in good society, and even in decent family circles, we cannot venture, after the custom of every play-bill, to name our persons here in order, nor to cite the passages in which they most clearly and prominently showed themselves in their true colours; although, in the simplest way possible, lively, roguish, broad allusions, and witty jokes, could not but arise. We add one leaf as a specimen, leaving our editors the liberty of deciding upon its admissibility.
Cousin Schuft (scamp), through his relationship to the family, was entitled to an invitation to the feast; no one had anything to say against it; for though he was a thoroughly good-for-nothing fellow, yet there he was, and since he was there, they could not with propriety leave him out; on such a feast-day, too, they were not to remember that they had occasionally been dissatisfied with him.
With Master Schurke (knave), it was a still more serious case; he had, indeed, been useful to the family, when it was to his own profit; on the other hand, again, he had injured it, perhaps, in this case, also with an eye to his own interests; perhaps, too, because he found an opportunity. Those who were any ways prudent voted for his admission; the few who would have excluded him, were out-voted.
But there was a third person, about whom it was still more difficult to decide; an orderly man in society, no less than others, obliging, agreeable, useful in many ways; he had the single failing, that he could not bear his name to be mentioned, and as soon as he heard it, was instantaneously transported into a heroic fury, like that which the Northmen call Berserker-rage, attempted to kill all right and left, and in his frenzy hurt others and received hurt himself; indeed the second act of the piece was brought, through him, to a very perplexed termination.
Here was an opportunity which 1 could not allow to pass, for chastising the piratical publisher Macklot. He is introduced going about hawking his Macklot wares, and when he hears of the preparation for the wedding, he cannot resist the impulse to go spunging for a dinner, and to stuff his ravening maw at other people's expense. He announces himself; Kilian Brustflech inquires into his claims, but is obliged to refuse him, since it was an understanding that all the guests should be well known public characters, to which recommendation the applicant can make no claim. Macklot does his best to show that he is as renowned as any of them. But when Kilian Brustflech, as a strict master of ceremonies, shows himself immoveable, the nameless person, who has recovered from his Berserker-rage at the end of the second act, espouses the cause of his near relative, the book-pirate, so urgently, that the latter is finally admitted among the guests.