From the Greek comedies down to our own modern vaudevilles, from the old satyr besmeared with grape-juice down to Cassandre besmeared with snuff, at the hands of Aristophanes, Plautus, Terence, Macchiavelli, Beolco, Molière and Goldoni, the old man of the comedy, like the old man of the farce, has always been more or less niggardly, credulous, libertine, duped and mocked, afflicted with rheum and coughs, and, above all, unhappy.
Whether he is called Strepsiades, Philacleo or Blephirus, in the comedies of Aristophanes; Theuropides, Euclio, Demipho, Demænetus, Stalino or Nicobulus, in those of Plautus; Messer Andronico, Pasquale, Placido, Cornelio or Tomaso, in those of Beolco; Pantalone, Zanobio, Facanappa, Bernardone, the Doctor, the Baron, Cassandro or the Biscegliese, in the Commedia dell’ Arte; Collofonio, Pandolfo, Diomede, Demetrio, Coccolin, Gerontio or Bartolo, in the Italian commedia sostenuta; Gaultier Garguille, or Jacquemin Jadot, in the French farce; or yet Orgon, Gorgibus, Arpagon or Sganarelle, in the pieces of Molière—fundamentally he is always, under whatever of these names we find him, the Pappus or the Casnar of the Atellanæ.
“Pappus” (says M. Ferdinand Fouque), “whom the Greeks called Πάππος, is sometimes a miserly, libidinous, finicking and astute old man, sometimes a simple old fellow of good faith; and he is always a dupe, be it of a mistress, a rival, a son, a lackey or some other intriguer. He corresponds to the Doctor of the Bolognese and the Pantaloon of the Venetians. A cornaline shows us his bearded mask.... He is dressed in purple. The Osci had another old man called Casnar, who nowise differed from Pappus.”
In the Mostellaria of Plautus the son of Theuropides, an old Athenian merchant, falls madly in love with a musician during the absence of his father; he purchases her and takes her to his father’s house, where in the company of several friends he abandons himself to all manner of orgies. One day, when our gay revellers had drunk à la grecque—that is to say, until they could not stand—old Theuropides arrives. Tranio, a veritable Scapin, the young man’s devoted slave, invents a ruse to keep the old man from the house. He orders the principal door to be closed and bolted, and then concealing himself near at hand he firmly awaits Theuropides.
Theuropides. What is the meaning of this? My house shut up in broad daylight? (He knocks.) Hola! Someone! Open the door!
Tranio (approaching and pretending not to recognise him). Who is this man who comes so close to the house?
Theuropides. No one answers, but it seems to me, unless I have lost my senses, that here comes Tranio, my slave.
Tranio. Oh, my lord Theuropides, my good master, what happiness! Is it possible that it is you? Permit me to salute you and to wish you a good day. Has your health always been good in those far lands, my lord?
Theuropides. I have always been in the health in which you see me now.
Tranio. You could not be in better.
Theuropides. And you others? Have your brains become addled in my absence?
Tranio. But why, pray, should you ask that, my lord?
Theuropides. Why? Because you all leave the house at once and none remains to take care of it. I was on the point of kicking down the door.
Tranio. Oh, oh, sir! Did you really touch the door?
Theuropides. And why should I not touch it? Not only have I touched it, but, as I tell you, I have almost broken it down.
Tranio. You overwhelm me with dismay. Yet again I ask you, have you touched this house?
Theuropides. What now? Do you take me for a liar? Am I not telling you that I not only touched, but that I knocked as loudly as I could?
Tranio. Oh, gods!
Theuropides. What’s the matter?
Tranio. By Hercules, you are wrong.
Theuropides. What are you telling me?
Tranio. It is impossible to tell you all the ill that you have done. It is atrocious, irreparable. You have committed a frightful sacrilege.
Theuropides. How?
Tranio. Oh, sir, withdraw at once, I beg of you, and quit this fatal house. At least come over here. But, in reality, now, did you touch the door?
Theuropides. Of course. Of necessity I must have touched it, since I knocked. It is impossible to do the one without the other.
Tranio. Alack, you are lost, you and yours.
Theuropides. May the gods cause you to perish by your augury, for you are also mine. But whatever do you mean?
Tranio. Learn, sir, that some seven months ago we all abandoned that house, and that since then no one has set foot within it.
Theuropides. The reason, quickly!
Tranio. I implore you, sir, look well about you to see that no one is listening.
Theuropides. There is no one; you may speak with confidence.
Tranio. Take the trouble to look yet again.
Theuropides. I tell you there is no one. You may speak your secret without fear.
Tranio. A horrible crime must have been committed in that house.
Theuropides. If you wish me to understand you, speak more clearly.
Tranio. I mean that long ago, in your house, a crime of the blackest must have taken place. We discovered it but lately.
Theuropides. What crime do you mean? Who can have been the author? Speak, wretch! Do not leave me longer in suspense.
Tranio. The ancient proprietor of the house, he who sold it to you, had stabbed a guest with his own hand.
Theuropides. And killed him?
Tranio. Still worse. After robbing him, he buried him in the house itself. One evening when my lord your son had supped abroad, he went to bed upon returning home. We others did the same. Suddenly—I was sleeping profoundly at the time, and I had even forgotten to extinguish the lamp—suddenly, then, I heard my young master crying out. I ran to him and he assured me that the dead man had appeared to him whilst he was sleeping.
Theuropides. But that was a dream, since he slept.
Tranio. You are right. But listen. My young master related that the ghost had told him this——
Theuropides. Still whilst he was asleep?
Tranio. That is true. The ghost behaved ill. I am astonished to think that a soul which for sixty years had been separated from its body should not have thought of choosing a moment in which your son was awake to pay his visit. I regret to point it out, sir, but you have at times a certain absence of mind which does little honour to your judgment.
Theuropides. I am silent.
Tranio. Here then word for word is what the old spectre said: “I am a stranger from beyond the seas, the guest of Diapontius. This is my dwelling, and this house is in my power. Orcus would have none of me in Acheron. He dismissed me brutally because, although my body has been buried, it received no honours of sepulture. I was tricked by my host, who drew me hither and murdered me for my money. He barely covered me with earth, and I remained hidden in this house. None but myself knows who I am, and I demand of you that you quit this house at once.” These were his words, my lord. The house is accursed, given over to divine vengeance. I dare not speak to you of all the apparitions to be seen there every night. Sh! Sh! Listen, do you hear?
Theuropides (scared). What is it? Oh, my poor Tranio, I implore you, by Hercules, tell me what you heard.
Tranio. The door moved. Nevertheless I am certain that no one pushed it.
Theuropides. I am stricken with fear. There is not a drop of blood left in my body. Who knows but that the dead may come to drag me living into hell?
Tranio (aside, hearing movements in the house). I am lost. They will ruin my comedy of phantoms and spectres by their folly. (To Theuropides.) I am trembling with fear. Go, my lord, go from that door. Flee, in the name of Hercules, flee, I implore you.
Theuropides. Tranio!
Tranio (pretending to mistake his master for a phantom). Sir Spectre, do not call me! I have done nothing! I assure you that it was not I who knocked at the door.
Theuropides (trembling). What ails you? With whom are you talking?
Tranio. How, sir? Was it you who called me? In truth, I thought that it was the dead man who complained of the noise that you had made. But how do you happen to be still here? Begone, cover your head; go, and on no account look behind you.
Theuropides (fleeing). Great and mighty Hercules, protect me against these rascally phantoms! (Exit.)
Pantaloon and Cassandre are no less credulous and poltroon than their ancestor Theuropides the Athenian.
Angelo Beolco presents two old men in one of his comedies (written circa 1530). One of these is Messer Demetrio, a doctor, who swears by the learned doctors of antiquity, Asclepiades, Hippocrates, Æsculapius and Galen; the other is Ser Cornelio,[1] a Venetian advocate, enamoured, notwithstanding his years and his infirmities, constantly spitting Latin and expressing himself pretentiously when in the society of Messer Demetrio, but employing the common dialect with a certain Prudentia, whose offices he desires with Beatrice, the lady with whom he is in love.
Cornelio (alone). Never since I first drew breath and was cast naked upon this world have I been so truly destitute of ideas, so reduced (as if I had been shut up without eating or drinking, in the cave of some horrid monster, or as if I were taken in some colossal spider-web) as I am ever since I have been here, ita et taliter quotiens. I seem as one abandoned in an empty boat and left alone at the tiller on a storm-swept sea. But if Hope will only open me her window a little, I shall get myself out of this embarrassment, and I shall so contrive, by means of money, presents, and my natural gifts, that I shall win the favour of this beautiful woman, worthy of the chisel of Sansovino. I will go find Prudentia, the world-chart of gallantry.... But here she comes, most opportunely. Good day to you. Where are you going, my charming Prudentia?
Prudentia. You will do well not to trouble me if your head is full of fantastic notions; I have not the time to be bothered with them. You are but a thief grown fat on the miseries of this poor world, for you would give nothing to a beggar.
Cornelio. Prudentia, I do not wish to boast, but if you knew the alms I give, you would be astonished. Amongst other things I treat all the hospitals of this country to my old discarded clothes, and never a day of Lent passes but that I myself give the poor all my old liards.
Prudentia. In this fashion you won’t deprive yourself of much, and you behave in the same way in your love affairs. To procure assistance, you offer more than you have got, but, when the obstacle is overcome, you look the other way, you refuse to know those who have befriended you, and we find that we have served you for the love of Heaven.
Cornelio. Aid me, Prudentia; you know that I am tender in the stomach and soft in the lungs. Wait! I shall give you full proof of my friendship. If you will promise me your assistance I promise you on my side to give you a pair of red stockings which I have worn only four times, and a quartern of excellent beans; this on condition that you will speak to that young girl, beautiful as a parrot by Aldo,[2] white as linen, light as a rabbit; I think that her name is Beatrice, and her mother’s Sofronia; at least, so I have been told, for I do not know them otherwise, being a stranger.
Prudentia. I think I know them. I will do what I can to speak to them; and I will tell them so many little nothings about you that I am sure the lady will be yours at your pleasure. But how shall you contrive with all the infirmities that afflict you?
Cornelio. Get along. You are a giraffe! for ever mocking. Do you think I am so deteriorated that I don’t know how to set a horse to a gallop when I wish? Get along, you don’t know me.
Prudentia. No need to glorify yourself. I know your great and venerable stupidity. When you are with her, best not tell her your age. Do you understand?
Cornelio. But for my illnesses, I could tell you some pretty things, and, thin as I am, I could turn twenty somersaults upon one hand, and, fatigued as I am, you should see how swiftly I could race.
Prudentia. Very well, Messer Cornelio, since you are so hot upon this affair, trust me, I will so act that you shall be satisfied. Whilst waiting, I beg you to let me have four bolognini (four halfpence), which I shall be able to repay you only by saying a deal of good of you.
Cornelio. May you sole my shoes if I have more than four quattrini (a halfpenny). My wife refuses to let me carry money because, she says, I sow it in the earth. But I promise you that if you bring me a favourable answer I shall without haggling give you three bolognini in old coin; they have a hole through the middle, so as to string them round the neck of a cat. Now I must go; I have been with you too long. Enough! You understand me. (Exit.)
Prudentia (alone). Go! Go to the devil! you will have no trouble to get there. Now just consider me that old ill-accoutred beast. Admire with me, I implore you, the gallant adventure that has fallen into my hands. I am to serve him for money, this gouty, unclean, catarrhal old thing, who has taken it into his head to fall in love with such a beautiful and virtuous child!
Further on, Cornelio meets Truffa, and, following ever his amorous idea, he desires to seek the aid of sorcery, and makes offers to her so as to obtain the favours of the girl. “Look,” says he, “if I may have this dove by means of grimoires and incantations without employing that rascally Prudentia, who is for ever hanging about me, I promise to give you my hat; you know the one I mean; the one which you bought from me some time ago, and which I still am wearing to restore its shape.”
Pantaloon, who gives his name to the breeches made all in one piece, is one of the masks of the Commedia dell’ Arte.
“In Venice” (says M. Paul de Musset), “four improvising masks occurred in every piece: Tartaglia, a jabberer; Truffaldino, a Bergamese caricature; Brighella, representing public orators, and several popular types; and finally, the famous Pantaloon, personifying the Venetian bourgeois in all his absurdity, and bearing a name whose etymology is worthy of a commentary. The word is derived from pianta-leone (plant-the-lion). The old Venetian merchants, in their fury to acquire territory in the name of the Republic, planted the lion banner of St Mark wherever possible on the islands of the Mediterranean; and when they returned to boast of their conquests, the people mocked them by calling them pianta-leoni.”
According to other authors Pantaloon derives his name simply from San Pantaleone, the ancient patron of Venice.
Pantaloon is sometimes a father, sometimes a husband; sometimes a widower or an old bachelor, still ambitious to please, and consequently very ridiculous; sometimes he is rich, sometimes poor, sometimes miserly and sometimes prodigal. But he is always a man of ripe age. A native of Venice, he ordinarily represents the merchant, the tradesman, the father of two daughters who are extremely difficult to guard. These are Isabella and Rosaura, or Camilla and Smeraldina, and they are in league with their soubrettes, Fiametta, Zerbinetta, Olivetta or Catta, to deceive the impotent vigilance of their senile parent.
In this situation he is always very avaricious, and very mistrustful. One may apply to him what the slave Strobilus says of his master Euclio in the Aulularia of Plautus:
“Pumice is not as dry as this old man. He is so miserly that when he goes to bed he takes the trouble to tie up the mouth of the bellows, so that they may not lose their wind during the night. When he washes himself he weeps the water which he is compelled to use. Some time ago the barber cut his nails. He carefully gathered up the parings and took them with him lest he should be a loser.”
The by-names of starveling, skinflint, niggard, Pantaloon the needy, Pantaloon cagh’ in aqua, fit him perfectly. The Bolognese and the Venetians deride the avarice of Pantaloon and of Doctor Balanzoni.
“They represent him” (says M. Frédéric Mercey) “in the act of embarking upon a debauch, sitting at an empty table, eating hare soup, drinking claret diluted at the fountain in the corner, regaling themselves upon a duck-egg—of which they keep the yolk for themselves and give the white to their wives—and providing watered milk for their children; a meal which, as they assure us, occasions them no gastric overburdenings.”
But Pantaloon is not always quite so mean. Occasionally he confines himself to being ridiculous. Dressed in his red pantaloons and dressing-gown, wearing upon his head his woollen cap, and shod in his Turkish slippers, he fully represents the ancient Venetian merchant running about his business, buying and selling, with a deal of talk, oaths and gestures. He is for ever pledging his honour for the truth of what he says. His ancient probity is well known, and if he hears any dispute arising, he runs to witness it. Should the discussion degenerate into a quarrel, he thrusts himself in, anxious to intervene as a mediator. But Pantaloon was born under an evil star. He so contrives that it is seldom indeed that blows do not result from his pacific intervention, and he stands his chance of receiving most of them.
Whether in Venice or on the mainland he is always unlucky. Having one day hired a horse to go riding, he took with him his lackey Harlequin. The old screw coming abruptly to a halt, Harlequin delivers a shower of blows to urge it onwards. The poor beast, in return, kicks him in the stomach. Harlequin, in a fury, picks up a paving stone to heave it at the horse; but his aim is so bad that the stone heavily strikes Pantaloon, who had retained his saddle. Pantaloon turns and perceives Harlequin holding his stomach and roaring. “What an ill beast they have given us!” says he piteously to his lackey. “Can you believe that at the same time that it hit you in the stomach, it fetched me a kick in the middle of my back?”
Pantaloon is always exploited by someone, and Harlequin’s duty is, as we have seen in the instance cited, to cause him to swallow the most fantastic shams. Harlequin, perceiving him so naïve, disguises himself as a merchant and is taken with the conceit to present him such a memoir as the following:—
“Two dozen chairs of Holland linen; fourteen tables of marzipan; six faïence mattresses full of scrapings of hay-cocks; a semolina bed-cover; six truffled cushions; two pavilions of spider-web trimmed with tassels made from the moustaches of Swiss doorkeepers; a syringe of the tail of a pig, with a handle in pile velvet.”
Each of the articles is quoted at a fabulous price, but Pantaloon consigns the false merchant and his memoir to the devil.
His avarice sometimes gives Pantaloon a certain wit. One day he hears Harlequin speaking to himself, and saying in the course of casting up his accounts and writing down the figures: “You have no tail, but you shall have one!” and thus all the noughts become nines. Pantaloon takes the note, examines it in the presence of his lackey, and says, “You, you have a tail and you shall not have one,” and thus he converts all the nines into noughts, to the great mortification of Harlequin. After that, Harlequin presents him with a more exact memoir: thus:
| To one quarter of roast veal, and one plaster of unguent for the scurvy | 3 | livres | 10 | sols. |
| To one capon and one belt for Master Pantaloon | 12 | livres | ||
| To one pasty for Harlequin and two bundles of hay for the master | 1 | livre | 10 | sols. |
| To one pound of fresh butter and to sweeping the chimney | 12 | sols. | ||
| To tripe and a mouse-trap | 10 | sols. | ||
| To three sausages and the re-soling of a pair of old shoes | 15 | sols. | ||
| To shaving the master and to mending sundry commodities | 1 | livre | 10 | sols. |
| Total, | 20 | livres | 7 | sols. |
Pantaloon has nothing to say to the figures, but he affects to take offence at seeing the various articles so ridiculously associated and in his anger throws the paper in the face of Harlequin instead of paying him.
In Pantalone Spezier (Pantaloon the Apothecary), of Giovanni Bonicelli, Pantaloon argues with his friend the Doctor, a learned man of law, upon the excellence of their respective professions. The argument ends in mutual insult. Presently, however, they desire to become reconciled. The Doctor makes the first advances and sends his gossip a basket containing two partridges. His servant Harlequin is despatched with it. Pantaloon is flattered by this courtesy, and gives Harlequin a gratuity of a quarter-ducat. The latter overwhelms him with blessings, makes a false exit, returns and relates that in his zeal he came so quickly that he has torn his breeches. Pantaloon is in the mood to be munificent. He gives him another quarter-ducat, saying: “Observe, my lad, I do not lend it to you, I give it to you absolutely.” Harlequin blesses Pantaloon all over again, makes shift to go, and returns once more. He owes a little to the tailor who is to mend his breeches; this tailor, who is miserly and cruel, has threatened him that if he does not bring him a quarter-ducat he will on the very next occasion that he meets him deprive him of his pretty little hat (suo gentil capellino). Can Pantaloon possibly suffer that such an injury should be done to his old friend the Doctor through the person of his servant? Pantaloon yields once more. But Harlequin returns yet again, and now craves the wherewithal to satisfy a sempstress from whom his mother has bought a gown for which she cannot pay. The sempstress threatens to withhold the cloth, which would be an infamous thing. Pantaloon gives yet again, but with the declaration that this time it is no more than a loan. Harlequin accepts the condition and departs in earnest. Pantaloon opens the basket, and instead of partridges finds it to contain a ram’s head with horns. He calls Harlequin back. “I am afraid,” says he, “that some of the money I gave you was bad; return it to me, and I may give you a good ducat instead.” Harlequin, as credulous as he is astute, returns all the money, whereupon Pantaloon throws the ram’s head at him, telling him to be off with the head of his father, and threatening to beat him if he reappears.
“In his shop, the apothecary Pantaloon plays the most villainous tricks upon his customers, whilst his servants, Nane and Mantecha, whom he starves, devour his inoffensive drugs upon the ground that they have the merit of being filling. He argues with his workmen concerning a minute of time which he claims they owe him. When it is a question of paying them, he never has a halfpenny; he cannot even give them the wherewithal to dine. At last, when they come to threats, he authorises them to go and fetch on his behalf something from the inn in a little iron mortar as big as the hollow of his hand, recommending them to take great care not to break it. He drives out his little apprentice Mantecha at the hour of dinner. Tofolo, the father of Mantecha, comes to plead on behalf of his son. Pantaloon consents to take him back, but on condition that he shall go home to dinner.”
He does not forget the practical jokes of which he has been made the butt, for when his will is opened it is found to read: “I bequeath to my servant Harlequin twenty-five strokes of a whip well laid on.” Sometimes, however, Pantaloon is in high and brilliant circumstances. He is then so rich and so noble that he might well become a doge. He has magnificent villas and millions in his coffers, and he is then Don Pantaleone. He is dressed in velvets, silks and satins, his garments conforming always to the mode of Venice of the sixteenth century. He is the confidant of princes, the counsellor of doges, perhaps a member of the Ten. It is then that he flaunts his erudition, that he enlightens by his advice the most illustrious marquises of Italy. He is summoned to settle their differences, but, whether he is noble or simple, he so thoroughly shuffles the cards that swords are drawn in the end and, being reduced to employ force to settle quarrels, he plies his Damascene poniard to right and left.
Pantaloon is always very much in vogue in Venice, in the Bolognese and in Tuscany.
“A surprising thing” (says M. Frédéric Mercey) “is that our century, which, if it has not destroyed everything, has at least altered everything, has been unable to strip the mask from any of the Italian buffoons. They have braved the inconstancy of the public, the tyranny of fashion, the caprice of authors; they have witnessed the death of that Venetian aristocracy which despised them; they have survived the Republic and the Council of Ten; Pantaloon, Harlequin and Brighella, the three masks of Venice, have buried the three Inquisitors of State. Who is it, what is it, that has saved them from these revolutions and these catastrophes? Their popularity.”
Pantaloon has been served up in every sauce in Italy, particularly towards the end of the eighteenth century. He has been given every shade of character, and every social condition, like the Neapolitan Pulcinella. He has been played with and without his brown mask with its grey moustaches, although tradition exacts that he should always wear it.
Riccoboni writes as follows concerning the type of Pantaloon at the beginning of the eighteenth century:—
“As regards the character of Pantaloon, he was represented at first as a merchant, a simple fellow of good faith, but always in love, and for ever the dupe of a rival, a son, a lackey, or a serving woman; sometimes, and particularly within the last hundred years, he has been seen as a kindly father of a family, a man of honour, tenacious to his word and severe towards his children. Always has it been doomed that he should be the dupe of those who surround him, either with a view to extracting money from his pocket notwithstanding his parsimony, or to reduce him to surrender his daughter in marriage to a lover notwithstanding other engagements which he had made. In short, the character of Pantaloon has done the service intended by fable; whenever it has been necessary to make of him a virtuous man, he has been an example to age in the matter of discretion; when the intention of fable has carried the poet to invest him with weaknesses he has been the very type of a vicious old rake. For all this there exists the precedent set by Plautus, who presents in his comedies old men sometimes virtuous and sometimes vicious, according to the intentions of the story which is developed. In the last fifty years there has been a notion in Venice to correct certain customs of the country and apply them to the personage of Pantaloon. To carry out this idea he has been represented sometimes as a husband or an extremely jealous lover, sometimes as a debauchee, and sometimes as a ruffler.”
In 1716 the costume of Pantaloon had undergone some change. He no longer wore his long caleçon, but replaced them by breeches and stockings; he preserved the traditional colours, but often he played in his long gaberdine, which originally had been red, and later black. It was when the Republic of Venice lost the kingdom of Negropont that the whole city put on mourning. Pantaloon, like a good citizen, could not wish to run counter to the laws and customs of his country. He adopted the black gaberdine, and he has worn it ever since.
Nevertheless, in the nineteenth century, Pantaloon gave up his Venetian dress; he became modernised. He assumed a powdered wig and dressed himself like Cassandre—that is to say, in the fashion of the time of Louis XIV.
In 1578 Giulio Pasquati, born in Padua, was engaged by the Gelosi troupe, then in Florence, to play the parts of Pantaloon and Magnifico. In 1580 these rôles were being played in the Uniti troupe by an actor named Il Braga. In 1630, in the Fedeli troupe, we find them played by Luigi Benotti, a native of Vicenza; in 1645 by Cialace Arrighi in the troupe of Mazarin. In 1653, at the Petit Bourbon, a Modenese named Turi was playing them, and continued to play until his death in 1670.
In 1670, this troupe having no one to take Turi’s place, Louis XIV. desired that an actor should be requested from the Duke of Modena. This prince chose Antonio Riccoboni, father of Luigi Riccoboni, known as Lelio, who went to France in 1716. But Antonio refused, preferring to remain in the service of the Duke of Modena. It was then that these rôles underwent a change of name on the Italian stage in Paris, and the character was undertaken by Romagnesi (Cinthio). In the scenarii of Gherardi there was not a single Pantaloon. This type became Géronte, Oronte, Gaufichon, Trafiquet, Persillet, Sotinet, Brocantin, Tortillon, Goguet, Grognard, Jacquemart, Boquillard, Prudent. Here is a scene from Gherardi between Brocantin and his daughters.
Brocantin. What is that work you are doing?
Columbine. It is a valance, but I am afraid that I am making it too small, for if by good luck I should come to be married——
Brocantin (in a rage). If by good luck or ill luck you should come to be married! I know your ways. You are not always to be seen with a needle and a piece of embroidery in your hand, and you can sometimes wield the pen. But that is not what I want to talk about now. Leave your work and listen to me. (They sit down.) Marriage—— (To Columbine.) Oh, you are laughing already, are you? Faith, there is no need to shake your bridle.... Marriage, I say, being a custom as ancient as the world, for there were marriages before you, and there will still be marriages after you——
Columbine. I know, papa. I heard that ever so long ago.
Brocantin. I have resolved, so as to perpetuate the family of Brocantin—— You perceive what I am coming to? I have resolved, in short, to get married.
Isabella and Columbine (together). Oh, father!
Brocantin. Ah, my daughters, you are very astonished! Yet can it be denied that I am still a fine figure of a man? Consider my air, my shape, my lightness (he leaps and stumbles).
Isabella. You are going to be married, then, father?
Brocantin. Yes, if you think it good, my child.
Columbine. To a woman?
Brocantin. No. To an organ pipe. What a question!
Isabella. You are marrying a woman?
Brocantin. I think that each of you has her wits in a sling. Am I beyond the age? Do you not know that one is never older than one seems? And Monsieur Visautrou, my apothecary, was telling me only this morning, whilst giving me some medicine, that I look less than forty-five.
Columbine. Oh, my father, that was because he was not looking you in the face.
Brocantin. I am as I am, but I feel that I need a wife. I am bursting with health, and I have found a young woman such as I could desire, beautiful, young, respectable, rich—in short, a chance in a thousand.
Isabella. Another than I would tell you, my father, what you risk in marrying. But I, who know the respect which I owe you, will only tell you that since you are in such good health you are very wise to take a wife.
Brocantin. Ah, you take the thing in a proper spirit. Since you are so reasonable, learn that I am in treaty about a marriage for you.
Isabella and Columbine (together). Oh, my father!
Brocantin. Oh, my daughters!
In 1712 the Pantaloon of the forain troup of Ottavio was named Luigi Berlucci. His reputation was eclipsed by that of Giovanni Crevilli, who, after having long played in Italy, appeared in the French forain theatres and became known as the Venetian Pantaloon.
Alborghetti, born in Venice, who performed under the mask for a long time in Italy the parts of fathers, jealous husbands and tutors, always under the name of Pantaloon, went to France with the Regent’s company in 1716. He was a man of means, and he added to his talent for the theatre the most irreproachable morals, but his rather severe character caused him at times to treat an estimable wife too harshly. Alborghetti died on the 4th January 1731, at the age of fifty-five.
In 1732 Fabio Sticotti took up this line. He had been in the company since 1716, and he had followed his wife, Ursula Astori, the Cantatrice of the troupe.
“Sticotti, a gentleman of Friuli, in the territories of the Republic of Venice, was of a good appearance, and no less in request in society on account of his extreme joviality than well received in the theatre for his talent. He had two sons, Antonio and Micaëlo Sticotti, who played at the Comédie-Italienne, and a daughter, Agatha Sticotti, who appeared a few times in the theatre, but who became better known for her estimable qualities, and for the invincible attachment of a man of merit, who married her notwithstanding the persecution of an irritated family.”
Fabio Sticotti died at the age of sixty-five, in Paris, on the 17th December 1741.
Carlo Veronese, father of Coraline, and of Camilla, was also seen in the rôles of Pantaloon. He was himself a good actor, but his reputation was eclipsed by that of his daughters, for whom he wrote a great number of pieces. He filled the rôles of Pantaloon from 1744 until his death in 1759.
Colalto made his début in Paris in 1759, but he was not accepted by the public until the following year. Grimm speaks as follows of his talent:—
“On the 17th December 1744, the Italian comedians gave the first performance of I Tre Fratelli Gemelli Veneziani, an Italian piece in prose by the Sieur Colalto (Pantaloon). The idea is taken from the story of ‘The Three Hunchbacks.’ The resemblance which it offers to the Menechme of Goldoni detracts nothing from the merit of the author, who has surpassed his models. But the point upon which it would be difficult to over-praise him is the incredible perfection with which himself he plays the three rôles of the three brothers Zanetto. The changes in his appearance, his voice and his character, which he varies from scene to scene according to which of the three he represents, is a thing unbelievable that leaves nothing to be desired. This piece, which is not written, which is no more than a scenario, is perfectly played by almost all the actors, but especially by the Sieur Colalto, by Madame Bacelli, in the rôle of Eleonore, and by the Sieur Marignan, who plays the Commissary with a truth and comicality very much above that of Préville. They have, moreover, the advantage of varying their business and their dialogue at every performance, and the continued intoxication of the public for this piece of itself nourishes the wit of the actors.”
Colalto died in September of 1777. “His personal character was of a modesty and a simplicity little common in his class. He knew no other happiness than that of living peacefully in the bosom of his family, and doing good to the unfortunates whom chance brought to the notice of his generosity. He died of a very protracted and very painful disease. His children, who never quitted his bedside, beheld him expiring in their arms. He appreciated all their care, and his last words were the expression of his gratitude. His eyes had fallen upon a print of The Paralytic Served by his Children. The following lines are inscribed at the foot of the picture:
“‘If the truth of a picture is the truth of the object, how wise was the artist to place this scene in a village!’
“‘My children,’ said the moribund in a feeble voice, ‘the author of those lines did not know you.’”
In Italy towards 1750 Darbés became noteworthy as a good Pantaloon. Darbés was the director of an Italian company. He went one day to Goldoni to procure a play from his pen; he obtained, not without considerable trouble, the comedy Tonin, Belia Gracia. He played in it the part of Pantaloon, and as the character of this father was serious, Darbés thought well to perform without a mask. Goldoni’s piece fell flat. To what was this due? Was it the fault of the piece or of the actor? Goldoni wrote another play for Darbés, who then resumed the traditional mask. This piece succeeded beyond the hopes of the author and of the leader of the troupe. Thereafter Darbés never again put aside the mask and challenged, with Goldoni for his author, all the Pantaloons of Italy: Francesco Rubini at San Luca, Corrini at San Samuele of Venice, Ferramonti at Bologna, Pasini in Milan, Luigi Benotti in Florence, Golinetti and Garelli, Giuseppe Franceschini, and others.
Such as he still remained in the nineteenth century, although somewhat out of fashion in Italy, The Doctor was first presented on the stage in 1560 by Lucio Burchiella. Sometimes he is very learned, a man of law, a jurisconsult; more rarely he is a physician. Doctor Graziano or Baloardo Grazian, is a native of Bologna. He is a member of the Accademia della Crusca, a philosopher, an astronomer, a grammarian, a rhetorician, a cabalist and a diplomatist. He can talk upon any subject, pronounce upon any subject, but notwithstanding that his studies were abnormally prolonged he knows absolutely nothing, which, however, does not hinder him from citing inappropriately “the Latin tags which he garbles,” says M. F. Mercey, “often culled from fables which he denaturalises, changing Cyparissus into a fountain, and Biblis into a cypress, causing the three Graces to sever the thread of our destinies whilst the Fates preside over the toilet of Venus; and this with an unrivalled aplomb and all the intrepidity of foolishness.”
When he is a lawyer he is clear-sighted only in those affairs with which he is not entrusted, and his pleadings are so interesting that the court falls asleep and the public departs, thereby compelling him regretfully to cut short his address. Frequently he is the father of a family, and it is usual then for his daughter, Columbine or Isabella, to denounce the avarice which has earned him the nickname of Doctor Scrapedish. Often he uses all his endeavours to please the ladies, and sometimes even he is the sighing lover, notwithstanding his advanced years and great belly, both of which should give him ample matter for reflection. Ponderous and ridiculous in his manners as in his speech, he is played upon by his lackeys, saving on those rare occasions when they are more stupid than himself. If he inclines to pleasantries such pleasantries invariably have their roots in ill-will.
From 1560 to the middle of the seventeenth century the Doctor was always dressed from head to foot in black, arrayed in the robe usual to men of science, professors and lawyers of the sixteenth century; under this long robe he wore another shorter one reaching to the knees; his shoes were black. It was only with the coming of the Italian company to Paris in 1653 that Agostino Lolli assumed the short breeches, the wide soft ruff, cut his doublet after the fashion of that of the days of Louis XIV., and replaced the bonnet, which presented too much analogy with that of the lackeys, by a felt hat with an extravagant brim.
“The city of Bologna, which is the very home of sciences and letters, and where there is a famous university and a number of foreign colleges, has always supplied us with a great number of learned men, and particularly of doctors, who occupied the public chairs of that university. These doctors had a robe which they wore at lectures and in the town. The notion was very wisely conceived to transform the Bolognese Doctor into another old man who might play side by side with Pantaloon, and their two costumes became extremely comical when seen together. The Doctor is a never-ending babbler, a man who finds it impossible to open his mouth without spouting forth sententiousness and scraps of Latin. It is not impossible that this character may have been copied from nature. To this day we may see pedants and doctors doing the like. Many comedians have held different views on the subject of the Doctor’s character. Some have thought well to speak in a sensible manner and to make lengthy declamations manifesting the greatest possible erudition, adorning their sentences by Latin quotations taken from the gravest authors. Others have preferred to render the character more comical: instead of presenting a learned Doctor they have presented an ignorant one, who spoke the macaronic Latin of Merlin Coccaïe, or something like it. The first were perforce compelled to know something so as to avoid true solecisms in good faith. The others were under the same obligation of knowledge, but they needed genius in addition; for I am persuaded that more wit is required to misapply a sentence than to apply it in its true sense” (L. Riccoboni).
The black mask which covers no more than the forehead and the nose of the Doctor, together with the exaggerated colour of his cheeks, are directly derived from the Bolognese jurisconsult of the sixteenth century, who had a large port-wine mark over part of his face.
Doctor Balanzoni Lombarda (a surname applied to this personage because Bernardino Lombardi and Roderigo Lombardi played the part in Italy, the first during the sixteenth century and the second during the eighteenth) wears, like Basilio, a great hat turned up on both sides. Like the other Doctor already mentioned, he is from Bologna. There is a deal of analogy between the two, or perhaps they are the same personage in different social strata. This Doctor is particularly a man of medicine, which, however, does not hinder him from practising alchemy and the occult sciences. He is avaricious, egotistical and very weak in resisting his coarse and sensual appetites. When he goes to see a patient he chatters of anything but that patient’s illness. He is interested in a thousand nothings, he touches everything, breaks vessels, feels the pulse of his patient as a matter of conscience, whilst discussing the talents of Columbine or the figure of Violetta. The dying man ends by falling asleep, worn out by the amorous exploits which form the subject of the chatter of this ignorant Doctor, with his rubicund nose, his inflamed cheeks and his gleaming eye. The patient having fallen asleep, the Doctor makes love to the waiting-woman, or plays the gallant towards the daughter or even the mistress of the house. There is no evidence that he has ever cured anybody with the exception of Polichinelle, who cannot die, and who once pretended to be ill so as to draw the Doctor to his house and there administer a sharp correction on the subject of a little rivalry in an affair of love or gluttony, the details of which have never been ascertained.
This type of ridiculous man of medicine has in all ages been a butt for satire. Thus in Athens long before Aristophanes, the Doric comedians, as we have said in our introduction, attracted the crowd by the farces they performed on their trestles, and subsequently it was the character of the Doctor which afforded the greatest amusement by his gibberish, his muddles and his interminable periods, usually interrupted by the kicks of some other mime.
In Arlequin Empereur dans la Lune (1684) we are introduced into a garden where there is an enormous telescope employed by the Doctor to consult the stars. He leaves his instrument, and speaking the twofold language proper to him, he bids Pierrot be silent: “E possibile, Pierò, che tu non voglia chetarti? Tais-toi, je t’en prie!”