There is no such thing as useless labour. However arid or trivial a subject may seem, from the moment that you embark upon a study of it, your researches will always lead you to some serious discovery that will compensate you for your trouble.
Our thanks are due to thee, brave and good Ruzzante, thou mighty dead whom we have found lying in the dust of oblivion; thou whose work, rare in Italy and unknown elsewhere, has permitted us at last to look upon the Commedia dell’ Arte as a Muse of the same blood and the same nobility as those of Shakespeare and Molière.
Of the life of Shakespeare very little is known; nothing is known of that of Angelo Beolco, surnamed Ruzzante, born at Padua in 1552. Was he an actor by profession, or was he no more than an amateur in the pursuit of his avocation? The only information of any consequence in existence is that afforded by a page of Bernardino Scardeon in his work, De antiquitate urbis Patavii, 1560:
“Angelo Beolco, known under the name of Ruzzante, was in Padua what Plautus was in Rome as an author and Roscius as an actor. He has even surpassed them, for there is no comedy of antiquity, prætextæ, togatæ, mixtæ, or atellanæ, that can sustain comparison with the comedies of Ruzzante, which were played throughout Italy, afforded so much pleasure and attracted such crowds of men and women. As for himself, he was so superior to other actors that whenever he was on the stage the public neither saw nor heard anyone but him.”
It might be added by us that Ruzzante surpassed Plautus in the composition of comedies, and as for his having been superior to Roscius as an actor,[8] we are compelled to admit it, judging from the incomparable naturalness of his compositions and his language.
Ruzzante’s was a brilliant epoch. It was in the hour of the awakening of comedy in Italy that he too awakened in all the strength and freedom of his eminently original genius. Very inferior to him on the score of individuality and novelty are his illustrious predecessors: Ariosto, who at the age of twenty (in 1494) had already produced at the court of the Duke of Ferrara his comedy entitled I Suppositi; Niccolo Macchiavelli, author of La Mandragora (1504) and La Clizia (1508), which latter Leo X. commanded to be performed before him in Rome by the sempiterni or the intronati, the academic actors of Florence and Siena; and Bernardo Dovizi, Cardinal of Bibbiena, author of La Calandra, written in 1490. These did not create a new style; they revived a dead one. They walked in the ways of the masters of antiquity, and whilst they may have overtaken them they did not surpass them. Ruzzante, far more daring and creative, completed and embellished all the subjects to which he set his hand. He created a comedy of realities in the midst of the pastoral idylls of the Venetians by which he was surrounded.
Ruzzante would certainly have been the Molière of Italy if, instead of spending his days in improvisation, he had employed them in writing; for it is only in the last years of his life, which was all too brief (he died at the age of forty), that he co-ordinated and wrote the greater part of his subjects as well as his charming discourses to the Cardinals Cornaro and Pisani, etc.
It was his custom to reside during the summer at Codevigo, the Venetian villa of Aloysio Cornelio, a munificent and liberal gentleman who was his Mæcenas, and who cherished Ruzzante and his troupe. In return this troupe gave many performances at Cornelio’s house.
According to Scardeon, the city of Padua was about to honour Ruzzante when he died, on the 17th March 1542. His friends and numerous admirers raised him, in 1560, a tomb in the church of San-Daniele in Padua, near the Prato della Valle, with the following epitaph in remembrance of him and “in earnest of affection, esteem and admiration”:—
V. S.
Angelo Beolco
Ruzanti Patavino, nulli in scribendis, agendisque comœdiis ingenio, facundia, aut arte secundo, jocis et sermonibus agrest. applausu omnium facetiss., qui non sine amicorum mœrore e vita discessit anno Domini MDLII die xvii martii, ætatis vero xl. Jo. Baptista Rota Patavin. tantæ præstantiæ admirator pignus hoc sempiternum in testimonium famæ ac nominis P. C. anno a mundo redempto MDLX.
Ultimately, however, this inscription having been found too profane—we do not know by whom—it was removed.
Bernardino Scardeon tells us that Ruzzante was of a joyous and amiable character, invariably pleasant and affable. His face, to judge from the portrait of him which survives, denotes a fine wit, gifts of observation and satire, and a firm and melancholy character.
Almost all the characters of his comedies bore surnames which afterwards became generic names, and so remained in the theatre.
“In the performance of his comedies, his stage companions were young people of the nobility of Padua, such as Marco Aurelio Alvarotto, called Menato; Girolamo Zanetti, called Vezzo; Castegnola, called Bilora; and some others who were able to imitate the language of the peasantry.”
It is even possible that Aloysio Cornelio himself, Ruzzante’s splendid protector, took part in their performances, and may have been, by antithesis, the character of the miserly Pantaloon, who, under the name of Cornelio, fills so large a number of rôles in Ruzzante’s pieces.
Benedetto Varchi, the famous author of The History of Florence, speaking of the various kinds of comedy, writes on the subject of the ancient plays:
“If one may judge from experience and give faith to conjectures, I think that our zanni are more comical than were their mimes, and that the comedies of Ruzzante of Padua, treating of rustic subjects, surpass those which the ancients called atellanæ.”
“Our best writers” (says Riccoboni) “have been loud in praise of Ruzzante. His comedies, superior to the Latin atellanæ in comicality, admit all the dialects of the corrupted languages of Lombardy. It was he who settled for the theatre the character and the language of Scapin, Harlequin, Pantaloon and the Doctor.”
In truth Ruzzante was the first to open the doors of comedy to popular dialects. All his characters speak different languages, from Paduan, Bergamese, Bolognese, Venetian and Tuscan to Latin, Italianised Spanish and modern Greek. But it is the dialects of Padua, Venice and Bergamo that are chiefly employed by him.
His early efforts were in the academic manner, and he sought to rival by the purity of his style Bembo, Speroni and the other authors of his epoch. Notwithstanding that he had quite as much talent as his colleagues he was dissatisfied with his success. Perceiving too that he remained far below the level at which he aimed, he devoted himself to the study of rustic dialects, and of the customs, manners and characters of the peasantry. So admirably had he acquired their language and their ways, so exactly did he seize all their naïveté, originality and humour, that he deceived the very rustics, who, when they saw him disguised, assumed him to be one of themselves. Beolco manifested a quite peculiar predilection for them, and criticised for their profit the manners of the great, the learned and the luxurious.
“Would you not be a hundred times more worthy” (he asks in one of his prologues), “if you were to content yourselves as we do in our country homes with eating good bread and good solid cheese, and drinking an honest red wine, rather than consume sauces and all sorts of dishes which swell your stomachs? You would be fresh and rosy as apples instead of withered as you are. I dare swear that if one of your gentlemen came to grips with one of our women he would be worsted? Why? Because our women are not nourished upon sweetmeats but upon natural food, and because, living as they do in the open air, their limbs are stronger and their thews more vigorous.”
Ruzzante never misses an occasion to exalt the uses of rustic language. In a letter written in Paduan, addressed to the Most Reverend Cardinal Cornaro Vecchio, he says:
“I do not see why, since I take my peasant characters and present them on the stage, I should expect them to use Tuscan (in lenguazo fiorentinesco) rather than Egyptian. At present the world is all awry, and everyone seeks to lift his head higher than is possible to him. No longer is anything done according to nature; every man permits himself to be dazzled by the pretensions of his neighbour instead of remaining in a state of simplicity. It is also sought to change our language rather than to allow us to speak in the language which is proper to us. Instead of keeping to his own straight road, everyone runs to that which dazzles him, and that, as I say, is bad. Shall I do the same, I who am a Paduan of Italy (che a son Pavàn, della Italia)? Shall I go and convert myself into a Tuscan or a Frenchman? No, by the blood of the scorpion! No, I shall not. It is my desire to remain and to walk in the way of truth and of naturalness.
“Let no one amongst you be surprised to hear me speak a language that is not Florentine; I will not exchange my language for any other. I think that I may just as sincerely desire your health, fortune and happiness in my coarse Paduan as another might do in a finer and lighter tongue.”
Beolco played a number of parts in his own pieces, and came forward always to announce the argument. Arrayed usually in an allegorical or fantastic costume, he would deliver his little address to the public:
“Let us amuse ourselves a little. Is there anyone amongst you who knows who I am? You have the air of wishing to reply that I am Mercury, or a reciter of arguments of comedies. No, you will never guess it! I won’t leave you in doubt any longer. I am an elfin spirit. Do you know why I show myself, why I permit you to see me? Do you know whence I come? From the other world; and I will tell you why. One of those who is there, called Actius by some and Plautus by others, has sent me to tell you that since a comedy is to be played this evening you are not to blame me if it is not in Latin and in verse and in beautiful language, because if to-day he were among the living he would not write comedies in any other style than that of this which you are about to witness. He begs you not to judge by this one those which he left written; for he swears to you by Hercules and Apollo that they were recited in other days, in terms very different from those which you see printed now, for the good reason that many things which look well upon paper look ill upon the stage.”
It seems to us that the whole raison d’être of comedy improvised in free dialect is to be found in these few words.
Everywhere, whether from personal instinct, whether from contagion from the pastoral mode, Ruzzante presents apologias of the rustic life. Nevertheless it must not be assumed that he was a writer of bergeries like Florian; he is a realist in his pictures of the miseries and passions of the precarious and savage life of the peasants of his day. The brutal passion which induces him, in La Fiorina, to carry off by force a young girl, gagging her by the aid of a friend, is probably an instance copied from nature in those days of war and rape and violence. But if he dares to present such dramas upon the stage with an almost ferocious recklessness, he also makes heard the voice of indignation or of pity.
“By the blood of the ill of the cripple!” (exclaims old Teodosia—we cannot undertake to explain this bizarre malediction), “we see strange things to-day. Ill living is the fashion, and I think that before long we shall know no safety in our huts. Consider what a surprise awaits this poor father and this unfortunate mother! I am overwhelmed by the desire to weep.”
In a letter which he addressed under his stage name to Cardinal Francesco Cornaro, he thanks Rome for having sent to the city of Padua this noble prelate who revives his failing hopes. These letters, written in the old Paduan dialect, are his masterpieces. They are the inditings of a naïve peasant who has the right to say anything. Therefore they are gay, because to ensure their being read it was necessary that they should excite laughter. But this laughter is fraught with tears. They are not the letters of a historian paying his court, they are those of a brave and generous man who loves his country and speaks the truth. Here are a few brief fragments—very brief lest we should be charged with too great a digression from our subject:
“Rome, our grandmother, who gave you your hat, O good cardinal, did not give it you to shield you from the sun, and to save your complexion, but so that it may shelter us all; and under your purple cloak it is your duty to gather us all to your heart as a hen gathers her chickens. Restore to us our trust and our peace. Consider what this country has become. No longer are young men and maidens to be heard singing on the highways and in the fields. The very birds sing no longer, and I believe—may the plague choke me!—that the voice of the nightingale is no longer as beautiful as of yore. No longer do we see games and merry-makings. Such is the misery that has fallen upon our land that one may truly say: blessed are the dead who are beyond the touch of war, of ruin and of pestilence! We are worse off than in the days of the great slayings, days in which men saw incredible happenings, days in which fathers butchered their sons. To-day the times are so ill that husband and wife will go each a separate way to seek a livelihood. And love too has departed hence. Seek to find me a lover! There is no longer anyone who will take a wife. Wives must be nourished and how may that be done when there is nothing in the house? So that, instead of sighs of love one hears naught but groans of hunger. Charity goes knocking from door to door, and none will give her shelter under his roof. We no longer dare so much as to weep when following the bier of a beloved dead, lest we should drench too many handkerchiefs.” (Then, adopting a tone of pleasantry, he proceeds:) “Be our friend, for I am well disposed to be yours. You may invite me as often as you will to dine with you; I can refuse you nothing, not even good advice.”
It is necessary to remember that Ruzzante lived in the early days of the sixteenth century, amid the wars of Francis I. and Charles V., who were disputing for the possession of Italy, when the terrible invasion of the German army was descending upon Rome, leaving behind it a country devastated and in ashes. The holy city was taken by assault, sacked and given over to two months of pillaging by the Lutherans. Florence was ravaged by the plague; and Ruzzante’s own country, Padua, was desolated by famine. And so, in his comedies, he pours furious curses upon Spaniards and Germans.
“May the plague consume them all,” he cries, “wars and soldiers, soldiers and wars! But we must laugh nevertheless, my friends, we must render ourselves numb to our sufferings!”
It is also noteworthy that in the midst of the liveliest buffooneries Ruzzante will often confront us suddenly with a terrible situation, a flash of real passion, a profound reflection or a cry from the heart. The serious side of his spirit reveals itself in the most concise, but also the most energetic manner, and in the truest and most touching terms; unfortunately these are often untranslatable because the dialects are inseparable from the characters. He was a thousand times right in his contention that had he given these another language they would have been no more than conventional types.
Chiefly to concern us here, however, is the buffoon side of Ruzzante, for it is through this that he belongs to the Commedia dell’ Arte. His gaiety is very often bitter, tragic and hideous, some of his pieces bear no title; they are printed simply under the designation of dialogues.
Bilora. Who could have foretold that love would so rudely have thrust me out of my own house, to throw me amid people whom I do not know? It is said that love will not or cannot do anything. But I see instead that it does what it likes. As for me, it is love which has compelled me to come to seek my hidden wife. Had it been otherwise I should not have tramped all yesterday, all last night and all this morning through woods and fields. I am so tired that I can scarcely stand. A lover is drawn by his love more irresistibly than by three pairs of oxen. There are those who say that love lodges with young people and drives them mad. For my part I see that it can also haunt old men, for had it not pierced the heart of that old gossip—may a scorpion eat him!—he would not have brought my wife into this town. Could not that old usurer have taken pleasure in his ducats without seeking it in my wife? By the blood of the scorpion! it was an ill turn to have served me! But I shall so contrive that in some way I shall wrest her from him. Ah, but who knows whether I shall so much as get a glimpse of her? I should have done well to have gone to his house.... I am dying of hunger and I have neither bread nor money with which to buy it. If I but knew at least where she is living, that is to say where he has lodged her, I should so move her that at least she would give me bread.
(He is about to withdraw when he meets an old acquaintance. This is Pittaro, an old peasant whom he qualifies as barba, as who would say bearded.)
Pittaro. Eh, cagasangue! Is it Bilora? What are you seeking here?
Bilora. I am come about the affair of Messer Andro—help me to pronounce his name—Androtene or Ardochene, that old foreign gentleman who carried off my wife.
Pittaro. You were wrong to come. What do you expect of your wife, who seems to have forgotten you? It will hardly suffice just to go and ask for her to ensure her returning with you. She is leading a pleasant life with him, without care or trouble; she eats and drinks as much as she pleases and she is well served, for there is a lackey to wait upon them both.
He relates that old Andronico is madly in love with Bilora’s wife and that she appears to manifest some attachment for him. He advises Bilora to depart, assuring him that there is nothing to be done, but Bilora does not heed the advice.
“Would it not be better that she should return home with me? If I were to meet the old man I might strike him. I want so much to see my Dina! Is she alone at the house?”
Pittaro repeats that no course is open to him but to depart. That he must not be seen thereabouts. But Bilora consigns him to the devil; he is so tormented with love, fear and rage, that he cannot resist his desire to behold his wife. He knocks at the door of the house; Dina appears at the window.
Dina. Who knocks? Who is there? Is it you, poor man? Depart in peace.
Bilora. Yes, I am very poor, but that is no reason why I should depart. I am your friend; approach, Dina. It is I.
Dina. And who are you? What friend? The master is not at home. Begone!
Bilora. Ah, Dina, come here a moment, it is I. Is it possible that you don’t recognise me?
Dina. I tell you to be gone, and that I don’t know you, that the master is absent. He went out upon business and I have no wish to gossip.
Bilora. Oh, my dear Dina! Do come here! I wish to speak to you sincerely. It is I, Dina. Do you not see that I am Bilora, your husband?
Dina. Alack! Is it indeed you? What do you seek here? Speak!
Bilora. What are you saying? Come down here that I may see you.
Dina. I am coming.
Bilora. Yes, come with me, and I shall hold you good and true as you were before.
Dina (below). Good evening! I am here since you insist. How are you? Are you well?
Bilora. I—I am well. And you? How well you look!
Dina. Heaven be thanked! Nevertheless, to tell you the truth I feel none too well. This old man wearies me.
Bilora. Youth and age never can agree. You and I would be better suited to each other.
Dina. And then, he is always ailing. He coughs at night and keeps me from sleeping. At every hour he comes to seek and weary me, to take me in his arms and kiss me.
Bilora. Well then, tell me, would you not sooner return home, or do you wish to remain here with this old man? Speak!
Dina. I should be glad enough to come, but he does not wish it. Neither does he wish that you should come here. If you but knew the care he takes of me, how he caresses me! By the fever! he loves me dearly and I am very well with him.
Bilora. But what does it matter what he wishes if you wish it? Oh, I understand. You don’t wish it either, and you are telling me lies, eh?
Dina. How shall I answer you? I should like to come, and yet I should not like to come (vorràe e si no vorràe).
Bilora. Heaven is not propitious to me to-night. Will it be long before the old man returns?
Dina. He should return almost at once, but I should not like him to find me with anyone. Come, my dear. You will return in secret and we will come to an understanding.
Bilora. Yes, we will come to an understanding by means of kicks! Take care, by the blood! If I begin I shall be worse than a soldier!
After further threats from Bilora, Dina tells him that she will advise him when the old man returns home, so that Bilora may demand of him her return, whether he wishes it or not. Dina will do what her husband wishes. After that Bilora asks her for a piece of bread, saying that he is dying of hunger because he has not eaten since he left home. But Dina, saying that she can abstract nothing from the house, gives him money to go to an inn, where he may eat and drink at his ease. She re-enters the house, and Bilora goes off, after some reflections upon hunger and love, and after cursing the old man and considering the coins which Dina has given him, whose effigies supply him with witticisms that it would be difficult to translate.
Messer Andronico then enters, discoursing alone upon women, and upon love at a ripe age. He knocks at the door, saying: “Open, my pretty, my beauty.” The door opens, and he is about to embrace her when he discovers that it is his lackey, Tonin, who has received his honeyed praises, and whom he now denounces for a brute and a donkey. Thereupon both go within.
Bilora and Pittaro re-enter. Pittaro asks him whether he has fared well, if the wine was good, and so forth. Bilora, after replying that he is “full,” begs him to be the mediator between himself and Messer Andronico, whom he continues to call Ardoche: “You will tell him that Dina has a husband, and that he must let her go, whether he desires it or not, because she desires it. And that I will kill him if he refuses—that I am a soldier, and a bravo, which will intimidate him. If he surrenders her all will be well; if not, let him look to himself.”
Bilora goes off, and Pittaro, after having knocked at the door, and undergone the usual interrogations from Dina, is permitted to speak to Messer Andronico.
Pittaro. Good evening, Messer and Excellency.
Andronico. What brings thee, Pittaro?
Pittaro. I want ten words with you in confidence. Come this way, sir.
Andronico. What is there, then, so interesting?
Pittaro. You shall learn. You know without my telling you that you carried off Dina, the wife of that poor lad Bilora. He has lost his head over the affair. I beseech you, Excellency, in your own interest, to let her depart with her husband. For reflect, my very dear sir, that it was highly imprudent in you to have carried off the wife of another. And further let me tell you as a friend that she is far from old, whilst you are too advanced in years to have so young a woman. Forgive me, Messer, the frankness of my speech.
Andronico. Do you want the truth? I shall do nothing of what you ask because I cannot give her up. Do you understand? I am resolved to spend my life with her. What the devil! Do you think I should let that girl return to the country to suffer with that great coward Bilora, who gives her more cudgellings than bread? No, no! I want her for myself. I will not throw nutmeg to swine. Do you suppose that I should have carried her off as I did to let her go again so easily? I, who have worn a cuirass and carried a shield all summer, like a Rodomont? I, who have gone armed day and night, who have suffered so much fatigue to save her trouble? Bid Bilora seek elsewhere what he requires.
Pittaro. But what is he to do? Do you want him to go mad?
Andronico. And what of me? Do you want me to die of despair? Let him go mad, how can I help it? You are tiresome. You begin to anger me. Go to the devil! And not another word on this subject!
Pittaro. Do not become heated, sir. Let us be wise. Let us call Dina, let us question her, and let us see what she will say. If she wants to go, let her go; if she does not, keep her and do as you please. What do you say?
Andronico. No doubt you are right. But do not suppose that she will be of the same way of thinking. She has just told me that she will never leave me for any other man in the world. I cannot believe that she could so quickly change her mind. Still I will do as you ask, and thus you shall learn the truth. (He calls.) Dina, my pretty! listen! come here!
Dina. Did you call me, my master?
Andronico. Listen, my pretty: this good man is seeking you on behalf of your husband, and we have agreed that if you want to leave me I shall let you go, that if you want to remain you shall remain. You know that you are happy with me, and that I shall never let you want for anything. Do as you will and as you please, I say no more.
Dina. To go with my husband? I don’t want to! To be beaten? My faith, no! I would to heaven that I had never known him, that greatest of all the cowards that eat bread! I say it once for all, I don’t wish to return to him.
Andronico. Well, well, well! Are you satisfied? When I told you this you would not believe me.
Pittaro. But listen, girl! She herself told Bilora, not half-an-hour ago, that she wanted to return to him, but that you did not wish it.
Dina. I? I never said anything of the sort. To whom did I say it? As the good wife says, I leave that lie to him who invented it.
Andronico. Go in, my dear, and do not trouble yourself further. (To Pittaro.) What do you say now? What further can you ask?
Pittaro. I, sir? Nothing further. I want what she wants. But let me tell you that Bilora is a man to be feared; he bears you no good will, and you would do well to return his wife to him.
Andronico. What do you mean by that? Explain at once. Do you threaten me? Do not anger me. I am quite cool, and I tell you frankly that you are a fool. Begone at once. Once for all I will not surrender Dina. Do you understand? I am going home. See to it that I do not find you here when next I go forth. Let that suffice.
Pittaro promises to depart and never to be seen again. After Andronico has gone in, Bilora enters. Probably he has heard everything for he reproaches his gossip with not having succeeded. Thereupon Pittaro, becoming impatient, and angered already by Andronico, tells him that he is tiresome; but he tells him this in the energetic words which in those days were still permitted in the theatre. Whereupon he seeks to lead Bilora away with him, but since Bilora refuses, he bids him go to the devil, and departs.
Bilora (alone). No, I shall not go. My affairs are all upside down; it is enough to make a schoolboy die of laughter, and I don’t know what to do. This old man has ruined my life. It would be better that he were dead and buried. Let him but come forth and I shall tell him what I think of him, and so manhandle him as to knock the life out of him. Yes, but he will scream in fear if I do that! Better perhaps to do as the Spanish soldiers do; that will not leave him time to say eight words. Let me draw my knife from its scabbard. Let us see if the blade is bright. By the scorpion, it is none too bright, so perhaps he won’t fear it. Accursed old man, may you but come quickly, I shall flay you alive. I shall take his clothes and I shall sell them, together with my cloak, to buy a horse so as to travel far. I shall turn soldier and live in camps, for henceforth I shall hold my house in horror. Whoever likes can have it. Ah! would he but come forth. Chut! Here he is! May the plague burst the old fool. The moment is choice, provided that no one comes. Here he is! Ah! now he shall not escape me.
Andronico (in the doorway speaking to the servant). What animal is that, wandering round the house at this time? Some drunkard? Do not come, Zane, remain indoors. I am going to take the air to calm myself; keep Dina company and then come and seek me in the fourth hour of night with a lantern.
Zane. I shall come as soon as possible. Do not be uneasy.
Andronico. Zane, shut the door. I shall go this way.
Bilora. May death eat thee, thou worn-out old man! Take that! and that! (He strikes him.)
Andronico. Oh, my sweet son! Oh, my lad! Mercy, mercy! To me! to me! help! fire! fire! fire! I am being murdered! Treason! Fire! fire! To me! I die! I am dead! (He falls.)
Bilora. Fire! Ay—into the fire of hell shalt thou go. Return me my wife now. Did I not tell you to let her be? But he is dead, he does not move a limb. Ah! you have laughed your fill, eh? Didn’t I warn you, eh?
This ends the piece. This dialogue, whose energy and colour is lost in translation, is, as will be seen, a tragedy, but a real tragedy; just so might it have been in reality upon some Venetian traghetto, one of those flights of steps so often drenched with blood, to be washed a moment later by the waters of the canal as they bore away the body. The original is most arresting. It contains no fiction, no ideal. Each character thinks and speaks as in actual life. But how extraordinary the humour and how rude the fibre of a public that could laugh at these scenes of despair and murder that were seasoned by the most frightful jests!
Bilora’s monologue is remarkable for its truth to life in an epoch in which dramatic convention was surcharged with emphasis: we behold an assassin who premeditates and does not premeditate; one who desired and did not desire. He wanted to beat and to insult his man; if the man died, so much the worse. The peasant is neither brave nor evil; he is not proud and he has not the honour of the gentleman; he loves his criminal wife, he regrets her, he desires her, he will have her, he will beat her and he will love her again. That is the child of nature. One can understand how much an actor of intelligence might extract from such a situation, fraught with laughter, tears and terror.
The dialogue we have just indicated seems a sort of revenge taken by the fancy of Ruzzante upon that which follows, in which he plays the part of a poltroon, or rather of the soldier captain.
MONOLOGUE OF RUZZANTE RETURNING FROM THE WARS
Behold me at last arrived in Venice. I was as impatient to get here as the lean mare is impatient to see the grass sprouting in springtime. At last I am going to see my Gnua (Genoveffa)! To hell with camps and wars and soldiers! I shall no longer be disturbed by rolling of drums and braying of trumpets which set me trembling. I shall no longer hear the cry “To arms!” I shall no longer be afraid! When the cry “To arms” rang out, it was as if I had a press upon my stomach. And then the musket-shots! I tremble no longer; I am brave now; I shall be able to sleep and dream as much as I like. I shall eat when I like, what I like, and too much if I like. I shall digest. I shall go as I please. Saint Mark! Saint Mark! I am at last in safety. I travelled swiftly; I have done more than sixty miles a day. I came hither in three days from Cremona! It is not as far as people say. They will tell you that from Cremona to Brescia it is forty miles; it is but a stride. From Brescia to Peschiera they say it is thirty. From Peschiera here, what can the distance be? I came in a day although it is true that I walked all night. Faith! my legs are aching, although I am not tired. The fact is that fear drove me and hope sustained me, and my shoes bore the burden. I want to look at them. May the scorpion eat me! Now here is one with no sole left. That must have been in the war. If I had had the enemy behind me I could not have walked faster. I look like a thief in these clothes, which I stole from a peasant. But the clothes do not matter. I am in safety.... Then I took a boat at Fusine. If I had been killed in the war and I were no more than a ghost I should not be here now. Ah, but no! ghosts don’t eat. I am myself. I am alive. I must go and look for Gnua and my gossip Menato, who has also come to live in Venice. But here he comes. Heh! gossip, it is I, Ruzzante!
Menato. Is it you, gossip? I should never have known you. You are so changed! But be welcome. Do you come from the wars? Have you been sick or in prison? But what an evil countenance, gossip! You have the air of a brigand. Forgive me, but I have seen more than a hundred men who were hanged, and never one with so evil a countenance as yours.
Ruzzante. That is the effect of misery and war, of bad drinking, bad eating, hunger and thirst. Had you but been where I have been!
Menato. You talk like a book, my friend. Have you then learnt to speak Florentine?
Ruzzante. He who travels the world must make haste to learn. I speak French too, but were I to address you in that language of a certainty you would not understand me. I learnt all through fear in a day, and I glory in it.
Hereupon follow several untranslatable pleasantries upon alleged Florentine and French words, with explanations in the Paduan dialect and interpretations by Ruzzante. Menato then turns to the subject of the rags worn by Ruzzante. Ruzzante tells him that he conquered them, sword in hand, from a peasant whom he had wounded. “A plague on these good-for-nothing peasants,” he says.
Menato. But, gossip, now that you are a soldier, you no longer believe yourself a rustic, eh? Are you become such a roarer that you would eat iron?
Ruzzante. Had you been where I have been, you would also have learned to eat not only iron, but weapons and baggage as well, for having no money by which to live I sold all that I possessed at an inn.
Menato. Is that all that you have brought from your assaults upon the enemy?
Ruzzante. I never sought to do the enemy any ill. Why should I have done so? The enemy never did me any harm. I made war upon cows and mares, and sometimes I took prisoners.
Menato. You look so much like a bad soldier that no one who sees you will believe that you have ever been to war. I had looked to see you return crippled in a leg or an arm, or with your face scarred or an eye missing.
Ruzzante. Valour does not lie in wounds and cripplings. Do you imagine that four men could make me afraid? Had you but been where I have been you would take another tone. You would have done things which you have never done. It is not necessary to limp or to be short of an arm to go through one of those battles in which one can do nothing against so many. In those affairs no one knows anybody, gossip. You hear everyone crying: “Kill! kill!”—Harquebus shots here, and partisan strokes there. You see your comrade drop dead, and then it is your turn; and if you attempt to run away the enemy charges you, and a shot out of somewhere breaks your spine. I tell you that courage is necessary to attempt to escape or to go into hiding. And do you suppose that anyone wastes his time trying to hide? Now look at me who am speaking to you. I pretended to be dead and all the cavalry rode over me. If the mountain of Vesuvius had been rolled over my body it could not have been worse. I am telling you the truth. It is necessary to have courage to come back alive. Once as I was running away a cavalier and his horse that were also running away, trod on my heel and stripped my shoe of its sole as you can see.
Menato inquires whether all his campaigns have brought him any money. To this Ruzzante replies with his sacramental phrase: “If you had been where I have been you would not have brought back more than I have.”
But the aim of his journey is his well-beloved Gnua, who, according to Menato, has forgotten him, and is at this moment established in Venice with the familiar of a cardinal. To this Ruzzante announces that it is a little thing for him to kill a man, and that he will kill this one even if he should be four men.
Ruzzante. But here is Gnua, gossip. Here she comes, faith! Now we shall see whether she will caress me. Hola! tell me, then, pretty one, don’t you see me? It is I.
Gnua. Ruzzante! Is it thou? Alive? But in what rags, and what a piteous countenance! You have profited nothing then?
Ruzzante. I have profited enough for you since I bring you my carcass safe and sound as you can see.
Gnua. As for your carcass I can do very well without it. I had imagined you would have brought me some fine robe. I must go. I am expected. Let me go.
Ruzzante. To the devil with the love I bore you! No sooner have you seen me than you want to go again. I, who have returned from the wars on purpose to see you.
Gnua. You have seen me enough. To tell you the truth I don’t want you to be a cause of trouble, for there is someone who is entertaining me very comfortably, and who knows nothing of our past adventure.
Ruzzante informs her that he is as capable of entertaining her as this other one; but Gnua has no wish to die of hunger with him. “After four months of business in the wars,” she says, “you might at least have brought some money back. But I don’t believe you were ever at the war. You have the face of a liar, and you probably spent your time in some apothecary’s shop. I should prefer you if you had returned short of an arm or a leg, and perhaps blind or with your nose slit, anxious to earn money for me as you promised. He swore to me,” she says to Menato, “to die or to return rich, and you see in what condition he returns; that is proof enough of how little he thought about me.”
Ruzzante. I tell you that I was unfortunate.
Gnua. That is very possible, but I who have not been, and who do not want to be, unfortunate, am not going to be wretched with you. Go! Look after your own affairs, and I’ll look after mine. I am going back to my man.
Ruzzante. To the devil with your man! I know no man of yours other than myself.
Gnua. Let me go, wretch, rascal, liar, good-for-nothing!
Ruzzante. Come with me, I tell you. Do not make me angry. I have changed, and you shall no longer lead me by the nose as you used to do.
Menato. Listen, my good girl, come with me! He is capable of killing you.
Gnua. He? Don’t mind him. He is equal to killing nothing but a flea, the boaster!
The Bravo (it is thus that Gnua’s lover is named) enters, falls upon Ruzzante and beats him until he falls. The Bravo carries off Gnua. When he has gone Ruzzante raises his head and addresses Menato:
Ruzzante. Have they gone, gossip? Make quite sure!
Menato. Be at ease, gossip; they have gone, there is none here.
Ruzzante. But the others, have they gone too?
Menato. What others? I saw only one.
Ruzzante. You are blind! There were more than a hundred of them.
Menato. Oh no, by the scorpion!
Ruzzante. Oh yes, by the scorpion! Do you pretend to know better than I? They were a hundred against one. If I hadn’t pretended to be dead so quickly they would have made me so in reality!
Menato. You told me that you were so brave that in battle you knew neither friends nor relatives.
Ruzzante. Certainly! But what do you expect of one man against all the world. You should have come to my aid. Do you think that I am a Roland?
Menato. I assure you, gossip, that there was only one man, but I imagined that you allowed yourself to be ill-treated so as to rise up and fall upon him when he should have thought you dead. I expected you to prevent him from carrying off Gnua. Do you understand, gossip?
Ruzzante. I don’t, gossip; I didn’t even think of it. I flung myself down, I pretended to be dead as I used to do in battle so as to save my life. It is the safest way when so many enemies fall upon you.
Menato. Gossip, on my faith, I tell you that that man was alone. Why didn’t you defend yourself with your lance?
Ruzzante. One against a hundred? There is nothing to do but run on those occasions.
Menato. Gossip, there was only one, I tell you!
Ruzzante. Very well then, if there was only one it is some treason or some enchantment of Gnua. What do you think? Do you think she is a sorceress? In the old days she led me to suppose that she was the most beautiful girl in the world; yet that is not true. There are many more beautiful than she. Now she contrives that one single man shall seem a hundred to me; therefore—may the scorpion eat her!—I will get her burnt for a witch. You are very sure that there was only one? You see what a valiant man I must be to have been able to bear so many blows!
Menato. By the scorpion, there were blows enough to kill a donkey! I could not see the sky, they rained so fast. Are you not hurt? I don’t understand how you happen to be still alive!
Ruzzante. Habit, gossip. I am accustomed to it. I feel nothing. I have but one regret, and that is not to have known that there was only one. I should have performed the most beautiful drowning that was ever seen. I should have taken him and her and flung them together into the canal. Ah, scorpion! That would have been droll, and we should have laughed a little! I don’t say that I should have beaten him! The love of Gnua is not worth so much trouble. But I should have flung him into the water. Do you understand, gossip? And of a certainty there would have been matter for laughter. Oh! oh! oh! oh!
We will conclude our quotations with an admirable letter of Ruzzante’s to his friend and comrade in the theatre, Marco Alvarotto (Menego-Menato). Being in possession of no details touching the life of a man so supremely remarkable and interesting, and bearing in mind that if our aim here is to present the history of the types of the Commedia, it is also our aim, as far as possible, to present the history of forgotten talent and vanished glories, we think that we should reveal the aspirations and, as it were, the very soul of Ruzzante summed up in this letter. We behold in him a man young and handsome, melancholy like all great buffoons, suffering, probably, from weariness of spirit rather than from a dissolute life, for the chastity of his compositions is remarkable in an epoch in which libertinism presides in every dramatic and literary effort. Consider the subject of La Mandragora and that of La Calandra, and that this is the age of Aretino and so many other illustrious debauchees. From time to time Ruzzante manifests the cynicism and rude expression of his age, but this cynicism on the lips of peasants shocks far less than when it is found on those of fine gentlemen. The basis of his subjects is a moral lesson, sometimes tragic, sometimes moving. The eternal becco comedia in Ruzzante’s work is as often terrible as ridiculous, and when the author presents to us a pure girl like Nina, in La Piovana, she is truly adorable. Further he conceals under the flowers of allegory a fine and delicate spiritualism as we may see.