[197] From an allusion in act ii. sc. 3, it is clear that the Clizia was composed after the Mandragola. If we assign the latter comedy to a date later than 1512, the year of Machiavelli's disgrace, which seems implied in its prologue, the Clizia must be reckoned among the ripest products of his leisure. The author hints that both of these comedies were suggested to him by facts that had come under his notice in Florentine society.
[198] The Clizia furnished Dolce with the motive of his Ragazzo ("Il Ragazzo, comedia di M. Lodovico Dolce. Per Curtio de Navò e fratelli al Leone, MDXLI."). An old man and his son love the same girl. A parasite promises to get the girl for the old man, but substitutes a page dressed up like a woman, while the son sleeps with the real girl. Readers of Ben Jonson will be reminded of Epicœne. But in Dolce's Ragazzo the situation is made to suggest impurity and lacks rare Ben's gigantic humor.
[199] See Sofronia's soliloquy, act. ii. sc. 4.
[200] Cleandro understands the faint shadow of scruple that suggested this scheme: "perchè tentare d'averla prima che maritata, gli debbe parere cosa impia e brutta" (act i. sc. 1). This sentence is extremely characteristic of Italian feeling.
[201] His observations on his father, are, however, marked by more than ordinary coarseness. "Come non ti vergogni tu ad avere ordinato, che si delicato viso sia da sì fetida bocca scombavato, sì delicate carni da sì tremanti mani, da sì grinze e puzzolenti membra tocche?" Then he mingles fears about Nicomaco's property with a lover's lamentations. "Tu non mi potevi far la maggiore ingiuria, avendomi con questo colpo tolto ad un tratto e l'amata e la roba; perchè Nicomaco, se questo amor dura, è per lasciare delle sue sustanze più a Pirro che a me" (act iv. sc. 1).
[202] Act iii. scs. 4, 5, 6.
[203] Act v. scs. 2 and 3.
[204] See [Age of the Despots, pp. 315-319]. Of the two strains of character so ill-blent in Machiavelli, the Mandragola represents the vulgar, and the Principe the noble. The one corresponds to his days at Casciano, the other to his studious evenings.
[205] "Se voi vedessi uscire i personaggi più di cinque volte in scena, non ve ne ridete, perchè le catene che tengono i molini sul fiume, non terrebbeno i pazzi d'oggidì" (Prologue to the Cortigiana).
[206] "Non vi maravigliate se lo stil comico non s'osserva con l'ordine che si richiede, perchè si vive d'un'altra maniera a Roma che non si vivea in Atene" (Ibid.).