Harlequin was versatile and many-sided, and he still keeps up his slap-dash character. It is true that harlequin does not now speak, any more than does the columbine, and we may trace the evolution of the Italian Mimi, or buffoons, into the Pantomimi, who were tragic actors. They, by means of certain well-understood signs and gestures, were able to play tragedies in the open air under conditions which would have prevented their voices from being heard. In some theatres also the actors were not allowed by the authorities to speak. Originally the harlequin was a mime. He had a shaven head, a sooty face—for the mimi blackened their faces like our modern niggers—he had flat, unshod feet and a patched coat of many colours which he derived from the ancient peasants of Italy.
Some have seen in the wand of the harlequin a descendant of the rod of Mercury, and have sought for a prototype of the modern pantomime in pagan mysteries. In England, however, we have turned the harlequin into a magician, and his wand is perhaps the gilt wooden sword which belonged to the clown or fool all the world over. Now also we have the character in what Mr. Calthrop terms his tight-fitting lizard-skin of flashing golden colours, for the patches on his rags have now given place to a symmetrical pattern (see Figure [158]).
There have been many celebrated harlequins who have devoted their lives to the development of this character, and there is an interesting case which Disraeli[45] gives in his “Curiosities of Literature,” in which, as part of a quit-rent or feudal tenure—whenever the Abbot of Figéac entered this town—the Lord of Montbron, dressed in a harlequin’s coat, with one of his legs bare, has to lead the prelate’s horse by its bridle to the abbey.
Fig. 158.—The dress of a modern harlequin.
In the clown and the pantaloon we still have the dress of Elizabethan times (see Figures [157] and [159]). The paint on the former, as we have seen, will carry us back to times of remote antiquity. His hat is of a shape well known in early English history, and he himself is English all through. The pantaloon, again, is Italian. Both he and his Venetian breeches get their names from St. Pantaleone, one of the patron saints of Venice. Pantaleone was by no means an uncommon patronymic in that place. In order to reconcile the statements that the dress of the pantaloon is Elizabethan and his nether garments are Venetian, which might appear to be mutually contradictory, it must be pointed out that the Venetian breeches had been introduced in the days of earlier Tudors, and were still in vogue when Elizabeth was on the throne. The pantaloon’s red and green colours and his red heels are also, as we have indicated, Elizabethan.
Fig. 159.—A pantaloon, showing an Elizabethan costume of which Venetian breeches form part.