Chapter XXXVI: Book I: , the cases are mentioned where a woman fought with a lion; (2)

+658. Fictitious literature.+ Fictitious literature, after printing became common, was greatly increased, especially in Italy and Spain. Through the dialogued story it led up to the drama. At the end of the fifteenth century F. de Rojas wrote a dialogued story, _Calisto e Meliboea_, about two distressed lovers. The heroine is Celestina, a bawd who helped them out of their troubles. The book is generally named after her, and she became a fixed character in drama and fiction. The noble bawd, however, is an artificial creation of literature and never could be a biolog. It is not true enough. The Spaniards also developed a new form of the mystery play,--the _autos sacramentales_. These plays represented some Scriptural incident, but the rôles were taken by allegorical figures. They were regularly represented on the festival of Corpus Christi, in the afternoon, on the public square. They satisfied the taste of the people for religiosity, if not religion. Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote a story, _Mandragore_, which in its day enjoyed great popularity. A man in Paris heard of the beauty of a lady at Florence. He went to the latter place to see her and fell in love with her. Her husband was an imbecile who greatly desired a child. He persuaded his wife to receive the stranger. She and the lover contracted an enduring relation. Cardinal Bibbiena wrote a comedy at the beginning of the sixteenth century, _Calandra_, which was esteemed as a great work. The intrigue consists of _quiproquos_ produced by twins, a male and a female, who exchange dress. Many classical stories are introduced. Lope de Vega (1562-1635) wrote autos and comedies. He wrote eighteen hundred comedies, four hundred autos, and a great number of other pieces,--in all, it is said, twenty-one million verses.[2114] Calderon (1600-1681) continued on the same lines. The servant-buffoon was the time form of the buffoon. All these productions furnished models and material for the poets and dramatists of other countries. The comedies are always long and wordy and generally tedious. They run in fixed molds, and have unyielding conventions to obey. Rarely have they ethological value.

+659. Romances of roguery.+ The "romances of roguery" were closely akin to the popular drama as exponents of popular tastes and standards. It is very possible that the romances were derived from the tastes.[2115] The clever hero has been a very popular type in all ages and countries. He easily degenerates into the clever rogue. The rogue is an anti-hero to offset the epic hero. There was in France, in the thirteenth century, "a bold rogue, Eustache le Moine, who became the central hero of a _roman_, which set forth his life and deeds as thief and pirate."[2116] In Germany Till Eulenspiegel was a rascal who lived in the first part of the fourteenth century and around whose name anecdotes clustered until he became an anti-hero. There were in Germany popular tales which were picaresque novels in embryo. Those about Eulenspiegel were first reduced to a coherent narrative in 1519. Hemmerlein was an ugly and sarcastic buffoon of the fourteenth century. Hanswurst was a fat glutton of the fifteenth century who aimed to be clever but made blunders. Pickelhering, in Holland, was of the same type.[2117] In England, in the sixteenth century, Punch began to degenerate. He took away the rôle of "Old Vice," and became more and more depraved,--a popular Don Juan, a type of physical and moral deformity.[2118] The play was popular. The marionettes, being only dolls and sexless, escaped the onslaught of the Puritans.[2119]

+660. Picaresque novels.+ The picaresque novels do not deal with love, but with intrigues for material gain in the widest sense. _Lazarillo de Tormes_ is counted as the first of these. It is attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and is thought to have been produced about 1500. The best known of the class is _Gil Blas_. The hero lives by his wits, has many vicissitudes, and plays and suffers many cruel practical jokes. The Spanish stories of Quevedo and Perez are coarse but never obscene. The view of women, however, is low. They are fickle, shallow, vain, and cunning. The church is "gingerly handled," but the clergy are derided for immorality, hypocrisy, and trickiness.

+661. Books of beggars.+ A variety of the picaresque species was the "books of beggars." An English specimen of this variety is Audley's _Fraternity of Vagabonds_ (1561). Mediæval social ways produced armies of vagabonds, beggars, and outcasts, who practiced vice and evil ways and cultivated criminal cleverness. The picaresque stories illustrate their ways.

+662. At the beginning of the sixteenth century.+ Isabella d'Este describes a play at Ferrara, in 1503, in which the Annunciation was represented, angels descending from heaven by concealed machinery, etc. There was also a _moresca_, a ballet or pantomime dance, with clowns and beasts, and blows and other clown tricks. Another very noteworthy incident is the enactment, at Urbino in 1504, of a "comedy," in which the recent history of that city was represented, including the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia, the conquest of Urbino by Cesar Borgia, the death of Alexander VI, and the return of the Duke of Urbino. This application of the dramatic method to their own recent history, which had been indeed dramatic, shows the high development of graphic and artistic power, which is also shown by the other arts of the time. Ladies did not then abdicate their prerogative to judge and condemn the propriety of artistic products offered to them. Isabella declared the _Cassaria_ "lascivious and immoral beyond words," and forbade her ladies to attend the performance of it at the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia to her (Isabella's) brother.[2120] In France, in the sixteenth century, imitations of classical dramas held the stage. The Protestants sought to use the drama for effect on the populace.[2121] St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584), as Archbishop of Milan, carried on a war against exhibitions of all kinds. He maintained that they were indecent.[2122]

+663. The theater at Venice.+ The first tragedy produced in Italy was written by Albertino Mussato, a Paduan, early in the fourteenth century in imitation of Latin dramas. The subject was the conflicts of Padua with Ezzelino da Romano. Albertino's work was not imitated, for the mysteries held the stage until the end of the fifteenth century. They were represented on stages erected in public places of the cities. At Venice were invented _momaria_, in which there was no theatrical illusion, but _brio_, joviality, and irony. They began at weddings, where after the wedding feast some one, impersonating an heroic personage, narrated the great deeds of the ancestors of the spouses, with numberless exaggerations and jest, from which the name _momaria_, or _bombaria_, was derived. The companies of the _calza_ figured in all gay assemblies at Venice from 1400 to the end of the sixteenth century. They renewed the Latin comedies and "carried festivity and good taste even into the churches." Theatrical exhibitions became the favorite amusement of the Venetians, and were presented not only in private houses but also in monasteries, although secular persons were not present.[2123]

+664. Dancing. Public sports.+ From the early Middle Ages the ecclesiastical authorities disapproved of dancing, but the people were very fond of it and never gave it up. The poems and romances are full of it.[2124] Some usages of dancing in Germany were very gross. The man swung his partner off the floor as far as he could. If any woman refused to dance with any man, it occurred sometimes that he slapped her face, but it was disputed whether this was not beyond the limit.[2125] The usages at the carnival were very gross and obscene.[2126] All popular sports were coarse and cruel. It seemed to be considered good fun to torment the weak and to watch their helpless struggles. Birds were shot, and beasts baited, in a way to give pain and prolong it. At Nuremberg the "cat knight" fought with a cat hung about his own neck, which he must bite to death in order to be knighted by the _bürgermeister_. Blind people were shut in an inclosed space in the market place with a pig as a prize, which they were to beat with sticks. The fun was greatest when they struck each other. This amusement is reported from many places in central Europe.[2127] "Nothing amused our ancestors more than these blind encounters. Even kings took part at these burlesque representations." At Paris they were presented every year at mid-lent.[2128]

+665. Women in the theater and on the stage.+ No young women were allowed to be present at the _commedia del arte_ in the first times of the principate at Florence. Masi[2129] says that this was true in general of all Italy. Later they were addressed in the prologue, which became customary, and so they must have been present. Popular opinion still held that they ought to stay at home, as of old. They were never on the stage. De Julleville says[2130] that women in France in the Middle Ages were present at the freest farces. In the middle of the sixteenth century, in Italy, wandering players began to employ women for female parts. The Italian comedians, when they went to Paris, continued this custom there.[2131] Philip II of Spain forbade women on the stage.[2132] French actresses appeared at London in 1629; they were allowed in 1659.[2133] Innocent XI, in 1676, forbade the employment of women on the stage.[2134]

+666. The "commedia del arte."+ In Italy the _commedia del arte_ was the continuation or revival of the _mimus_. The speeches were impromptu; the characters and rôles were stereotyped. The action and speeches must have grown by the contributions of talented men who played the parts from generation to generation. The characters have become traditional and universal.[2135] Such were Maccus (later Polichinella) of Naples, Manducus or the French Croquemitaine, Bucco, a half-stupid, half-sarcastic buffoon, Pappus (the later Venetian Pantalon) the fussy old man, and Casnar, the French Cassandre. Scaramucca or Fracassa was added to satirize the Spanish soldier. He was recognized as the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus.[2136] The Spanish trooper was a boastful coward. He called himself the son of the earthquake and lightning, cousin of death, or friend of Beelzebub.[2137] At the marriage of Alphonso d'Este comedies of Plautus were acted for effect and conventional pretense, but they were considered tiresome, and interludes of pantomime, ballet, clown tricks, peasant farce, mythology, and fireworks were introduced to furnish entertainment.[2138]

+667. Jest books. Italian comedy at Paris.+ In the sixteenth century the theater became entirely secular, and amusement and religion were separated as a consequence of the general movement of the Renaissance. In the Middle Ages serious men collected jests and published jest books, which were collections of the jokes made by the _mimus_, just as modern jests have been made by negro minstrels, circus clowns, and variety actors.[2139] At the end of the sixteenth century the Italians, "suffocated by Spanish etiquette, and poisoned by Jesuitical hypocrisy, sought to expand healthy lungs in free spaces of open air, indulging in dialectical niceties, and immortalizing street jokes by the genius of masked comedy."[2140] The _commedia del arte_ took this course. It was open to every chance of political and social influence. It became the recognized Italian comedy and was transported to the north as such. In each province of Italy the fixed characters were independently developed, so that variations were produced. The type of play reached a climax in the middle of the seventeenth century. Then it declined for lack of competent actors. It was the realism of everyday life. It tended always back again to the mountebanks, jugglers, rope dancers, etc.[2141] The _lazzi_ were "business" which gave the actors time to improvise. In the sixteenth century Italian comedians began to play at Paris in Italian. The Italian actresses undressed on the stage much and often, so that "Italian comedy" came to mean vulgar and licentious comedy. The Parlement of Paris held that the plays were immoral. Many of them are said to have been obscene.[2142] Madame de Maintenon having heard that they were immoral, they were forbidden in 1697.[2143] The Italian comedy struggled on, however. For a long time no women visited it, but in the eighteenth century a comedy called _Arlequin, Empereur dans la Lune_ became celebrated. It was a satire on the France of the time. Women ignored the grossness for the sake of the satire.[2144] The plays of the Italians were all either farces for pure fun or satires on the mores of the time. "Many were satires on women." In one of these last, the saying was ascribed to Aristotle, upon seeing a tree from the limbs of which four women were hanging, "How happy men would be, if all trees bore that fruit." Women were currently represented as empty-headed, vain, fond of pleasure, frivolous, and fickle. Lawyers were also a favorite object of satire.[2145] In the Italian theater écriteaux were hung up, on which the speeches were written and the audience joined in singing the couplets.[2146]

+668. "Commedia del arte" in Italy.+ In Italy the _commedia del arte_ went through many vicissitudes. At Venice, late in the eighteenth century, Gozzi undertook to revive it by composing what he called "fables." They were fairy extravaganzas, based on Mother Goose stories or fairy tales. They were in part improvised, but in part written, either in prose or verse, in order to make sure of the essential points of the action. The older custom had been to prepare only a _scenario_, in which the story was told in brief outline, with the allotment of parts in the production.[2147] Pantaleone, in the _commedia del arte_, is sad,--an imbecile, dissolute old man. Gozzi gave him _brio_ and _bonarietà_, with cordiality and humor. Goldoni, who got into a war with Gozzi, made Pantaleone a philistine, who used good sense against the follies of fashion. No women were present at these comedies at Venice at this time.[2148]

Scherillo[2149] quotes Perucci, that at the end of the seventeenth century the folk theater was obscene in word and act beyond the ancient comedies. If that is true, it is only a detail of the degeneracy of Italy from the middle of the sixteenth century.

+669. Summary and review.+ It is evident that amusement and relaxation are needs of men. The fondness for exhibitions and theatrical representations can be traced through history. The suggestion is direct and forcible. It can be made to play upon harmful tastes as well as upon good ones. There is nothing to guide it or decide its form and direction except the mores,--the consenting opinion of the masses as to what is beneficial or harmful. The leading classes try to mold this opinion. The history shows that the mores can make anything right, and protect any violation of the sex taboo or of ordinary propriety. There is no subject in regard to which the mores need more careful criticism than in regard to amusements. The standard and the usage degenerate together unless there is control by an active and well-trained taste and sense. The popular taste and sense are products of inherited mores. It is this reflex action of habitual acts and experiences which makes the subject difficult. All the primary facts and the secondary or remoter reflections are intertwined as in an organic growth, and all go together. The facts exert constant education, and every positive effort to interfere with the course of things by primitive education must be content to exert slight effects for a long time. Wealth and luxury exert their evil effects through amusement. Poverty cuts down these products of wealth and brings societies back to simplicity and virtue. Men renounce when they cannot get. The periods of economic and social decay have cut off the development of forms of amusement, arrested vice, and forced new beginnings.

+670. Amusements need the control of educated judgment and will.+ The history shows that amusements are a pitfall in which good mores may be lost and evil ones produced. They require conventional control and good judgment to guide them. This requirement cannot be set aside. Amusements always present a necessity for moral education and moral will. This fact has impressed itself on men in all ages, and all religions have produced Puritan and ascetic sects who sought welfare, not in satisfying but in counteracting the desire for amusement and pleasure. Their efforts have proved that there is no solution in that direction. There must be an educated judgment at work all the time, and it must form correct judgments to be made real by a cultivated will, or the whole societal interest may be lost without the evil tendency being perceived.

+671. Amusements do not satisfy the current notions of progress.+ It is clear from the history that amusements have gone through waves upward and downward, but that the amplitude of the waves is very small. It is true that the shows of the late Roman empire were very base, and that the great drama has gone very high by comparison, but the oscillation between the two entirely destroys anything like a steady advance in dramatic composition or dramatic art. This is a very instructive fact. It entirely negatives the current notion of progress as a sort of function of time which is to be expected to realize itself in a steady improvement and advance to better and better. The useful arts do show an advance. The fine arts do not. They return to the starting point, or near it, again and again. The dramatic art is partly literary and partly practical handicraft. Theater buildings improve; the machinery, lights, scenery, and manipulation improve. The literary products are like other artistic products: they have periods of glory and periods of decay. It is the literary products which are nearest to the mores. They lack all progress, or advance only temporarily from worse to better literary forms.

[1987] Wellhausen, _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_, III, 85.

[1988] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, I, 580.

[1989] Tiele-Gehrich, _Relig. im Altert._, I, 160.

[1990] Barton, _Semitic Origins_, 85.

[1991] _Archiv für Anthrop._, XXIX, 129.

[1992] _Ibid._, 138, 150.

[1993] _Origines du Théâtre Moderne_, 60.

[1994] _Il._, XVI, 750; XVIII, 604.

[1995] _Il._, XVIII, 601.

[1996] Magnin, _Origines du Théâtre Moderne_, 178.

[1997] Ramsay, _Relig. of Greece and Asia Minor_, Hastings's
Dict., Addit. vol., 120.

[1998] Beloch, _Griech. Gesch._, I, 579, 592.

[1999] Ramsay in Hastings's Dict., Addit. vol., 129-130.

[2000] _Ibid._, 125.

[2001] Boissier, _Religion Romaine_, I, 132.

[2002] Rohde, _Psyche_, II, 70.

[2003] _Ibid._, 34.

[2004] _Ibid._, 3.

[2005] Wobbermin, _Beeinflussung des Urchristenthums durch das
Mysterienwesen_, 21

[2006] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 426. See sec. 565.

[2007] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 357-359.

[2008] Wissowa, _Relig. of the Romans_, 163.

[2009] Magnin, _Origines du Théâtre Moderne_, 324, 463.

[2010] Magnin, _Origines_, 304.

[2011] _Ibid._, 304-317.

[2012] Val. Max., II, x, 8.

[2013] II, IV, 7.

[2014] Dill, _Nero to M. Aurel._, 236.

[2015] Cf. Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, I, 285; Dill, _Nero to M.
Aurel._, 235.

[2016] _Tusc. Disp._, II, 17.

[2017] Martial, II, Introd.

[2018] Scherr, _Kult. Gesch._, 181.

[2019] Dill, _Nero to M. Aurel._, 235.

[2020] _Ibid._, 238.

[2021] _Ibid._, 240.

[2022] Gibbon, Chap. XL, i.

[2023] Schmidt, _La Société Civile dans le Monde Romain et sa
Transformation par le Christianisme_, 469.

[2024] _Ep._, II, 46; Migne, _Patrol. Latina_, XVIII, 190.

[2025] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 32.

[2026] Magnin, _Origines, du Théâtre Moderne_, 30.

[2027] _Ibid._, 51.

[2028] Magnin, _Origines_, 33, 38-40.

[2029] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 527.

[2030] Magnin, _Origines_, 161.

[2031] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 12.

[2032] _Ibid._, 27-29.

[2033] Tacitus, _Annales_, IV, 14.

[2034] Preuss (_Archiv für Anthrop._, XXIX, 182) suggests that
Falstaff's fatness may be a survival of one of the physical
features of the stereotyped buffoon.

[2035] _Archiv für Anthrop._, XXIX, 133.

[2036] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 679, 682.

[2037] _Ibid._, 360.

[2038] Magnin, _Marionettes_, 188.

[2039] Lucian, _Demonax_, 33.

[2040] D'Ancona, _Origine del Teatro in Italia_, I, 15.

[2041] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 58, 436, 470, 505.

[2042] Magnin, _Origines du Théâtre Moderne_, 321.

[2043] Magnin, _Origines_, 47.

[2044] D'Ancona, I, 45.

[2045] Schmidt, _La Société Civile dans le Monde Romain_, 98.

[2046] _Théâtre Serieux du M. A._, 13 note.

[2047] D'Ancona, I, 372.

[2048] Klein, _Gesch. des Dramas_, III, 599, 638.

[2049] D'Ancona, I, 372.

[2050] Reich, 80, 93, 95, 107, 117.

[2051] Schmidt, _La Société Civile dans le Monde Romain_, 113.

[2052] _Ibid._, 101.

[2053] _De Gubernat. Dei._, VII.

[2054] _Eur. Morals_, I, 264.

[2055] Grupp, _Kulturgesch. der röm. Kaiserzeit_, I, 200.

[2056] Magnin, _Origines_, 435.

[2057] Schmidt, 251-253.

[2058] _Ibid._, 469.

[2059] _Ibid._, 451, 466, 477.

[2060] _De Gubernat. Dei_, VI, 10, 15, 38, 44-55.

[2061] McCabe, _St. Aug._, 238.

[2062] _De Civit. Dei_, II, 27.

[2063] Harnack, _Dogmengesch._, I, 116.

[2064] _De Gubernat. Dei_, VI, 42.

[2065] Gregorovius, _Lucret. Borgia_, 220.

[2066] Dubois, _Moeurs de l'Inde_, II, 331.

[2067] JAI, XII, 222.

[2068] Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific Coast_, II, 305.

[2069] Salvianus, _De Gubernat. Dei_, VI, 69, 71, 77.

[2070] Ammianus Marcel., XXIII, v, 3.

[2071] Grimm, _Deutsche Mythol._, 166, 440.

[2072] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 785-810.

[2073] _Ibid._, 622.

[2074] _Ibid._, 48, 133.

[2075] _Ibid._, 191.

[2076] _Mod. Egypt_, II, 125.

[2077] _Der Mimus_, 656.

[2078] Klein, _Gesch. des Dramas_, III, 84.

[2079] Wilkins, _Modern Hinduism_, 225.

[2080] _Globus_, LXXXVII, 60.

[2081] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 669, 673, 676.

[2082] Magnin, _Marionettes_, 121-122.

[2083] _Ibid._, 343.

[2084] Alec-Tweedie, _Sunny Sicily_, 173, and Chap. XI.

[2085] Hefele, _Conciliengesch._, III, 304.

[2086] Scherr, _D. F. W._, I, 245.

[2087] Lenient, _La Satire en France au M. A._, 422; Du Cange, s.
v. "Festum Asinorum."

[2088] Magnin, _Marionettes_, 58.

[2089] D'Ancona, _Origini del teatro in Italia_, I, 12.

[2090] _Ibid._, I, 49.

[2091] Magnin, _Origines du Théâtre Moderne_, XXV.

[2092] _Gesch. des Dramas_, III, 646.

[2093] Magnin, _Théâtre de Hrotsvitha_.

[2094] Lintilhac, _Théâtre Sérieux du M. A._, 18.

[2095] Lenient, _La Satire_, 23.

[2096] Lintilhac, _Théâtre Sérieux du M. A._, 34.

[2097] Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 401.

[2098] D'Ancona, I, 62, 78, 86.

[2099] _La Comédie en France au M. A._, 19.

[2100] Magnin, _Marionettes_, 121.

[2101] D'Ancona, I, 88.

[2102] _Ibid._, 89.

[2103] _Ibid._, 98-107.

[2104] D'Ancona, _Origini del Teatro in Italia_, I, 344.

[2105] _Ibid._, I, 47.

[2106] Lenient, _La Satire en France au M. A._, 324-340.

[2107] Scherr, _D. F. W._, II, 124.

[2108] D'Ancona, I, 282.

[2109] Summa, II, 2, qu. 168, art. 3.

[2110] von Schack, _Gesch. der Dramat. Lit._, I, 35.

[2111] Session XXI, sec. 11.

[2112] Lenient, _La Satire en France au M. A._, 29.

[2113] Lintilhac, _Théâtre Serieux du Moyen Age_, 106, 123, 133,
167.

[2114] Zarate, _Liter. Españ._, II, 308, 423, 451.

[2115] Chandler, _Romances of Roguery_, 191.

[2116] _Ibid._, 9.

[2117] Magnin, _Marionettes_, 298.

[2118] _Ibid._, 255-265.

[2119] _Ibid._, 233.

[2120] Gregorovius, _Isabella d'Este_, 212, 251, 255, 264;
Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 316.

[2121] De Julleville, _La Comédie en France au M. A._, 183, 331.

[2122] Scherillo, _La Commedia del Arte_, Chap. VI.

[2123] Molmenti, _Venezia nella Vita Privata_, 297-299.

[2124] Lacroix, _Manners, Customs, and Dress of M. A._, 241.

[2125] Angerstein, _Volkstänze_, 30.

[2126] Schultz, _D. L._, 414.

[2127] Barthold, _Hansa_, III, 177.

[2128] Lacroix, _Manners, Customs, and Dress of M. A._, 220;
Schultz, _D. L._, 409; Scherr, _Kult. Gesch._, 623.

[2129] _Teatro Ital. nel Sec. XVIII_, 232.

[2130] _Comédie en France au M. A._, 23.

[2131] Scherillo, _La Commedia del Arte_, 72.

[2132] Chandler, _Romances of Roguery_, 159.

[2133] Magnin, _Marionettes_, 233.

[2134] D'Ancona, _Origine del Teatro in Italia_, I, 341.

[2135] Burckhardt, _Die Renaissance_, 318. In Gozzi's _Memoirs_
(ed. Symonds) may be seen good colored plates representing these
fixed characters of the _commedia del arte_.

[2136] Scherillo, _La Commedia del Arte_, 90, 114.

[2137] _Ibid._, 95.

[2138] Burckhardt, 316.

[2139] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 473.

[2140] Symonds, _Catholic Reaction_, I, 55.

[2141] Masi, _Teatro Ital. nel Sec._, XVIII, 229.

[2142] Bernardin, _Comédie Ital. en France_, 9, 12, 13.

[2143] _Ibid._, 52.

[2144] Bernardin, _Com. Ital. en France_, 27.

[2145] _Ibid._, 42.

[2146] _Ibid._, 90.

[2147] Gozzi's _Memoirs_ (_Symond's trans._).

[2148] Masi, _Teatro Ital._, 89, 232, 264.

[2149] _La Commedia del Arte_, 50.