Chapter XII: Act III: ISABELLA, HARLEQUIN, and then ORAZIO (2)

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.

“_To Messer Marco Alvarotto_

“Marco, my dear master, I rejoice with you in the pleasures
you experienced at the hunt, and believing that on your side
you would wish to participate in a joy which I have lately
experienced, I am about to relate it to you.

“You will know that, finding this world the most beautiful
country in the world, I took one day the firm resolve to
remain in it for ever, or at least to be one of the last
to quit it. Knowing full well, however, that it is no more
the privilege of honest men than of any others to enjoy an
existence which shall be more than an existence, I have
indulged myself at length upon this subject in my little
books[9]; these assure me that it is possible to live very long
and even eternally, but that first it would be necessary for
me to find a certain lady whom some call Modesty and others
Wisdom, who has it in her power to bestow as long a life as
one may ask of her; for some great personages long since dead
are still living in their works. To this I answered: ‘Oh, my
brothers, my little books, you are trifling with me; this
lady is like that herb which has the virtue of rendering
invisible whoever wears it, but which is nowhere to be found.’
Nevertheless I did not insist, knowing my books to be truthful
and akin to honest men, who would not tell a falsehood for
a thousand ducats. Thereupon I firmly resolved to seek this
lady, and even though she were more hideous than Envy so truly
to pay her my court as to persuade her promptly to come with
me. But after having ransacked all my world of writing matter,
after having sought and after having voyaged in my mind farther
than the ships of Spain, without even finding a track of her
footsteps, I fell one day into despair, like the gambler who
is unlucky at the first throw. I cursed all writings, and in a
passion I went to seek repose in the country.

“I was left alone by the hunt on one of our little hills called
Este, awaiting the return of my dogs from behind another hill
where they were chasing a hare. They were already so far that
I could no longer hear their voices. It seemed to me that all
things fell silent about me, and, whether as a result of this
silence, or whether from weariness of mind, sleep entered
gently and unperceived into my eyes, and he was no sooner
within than, as it were, he set a chain upon the door and drove
me out of myself. I desire to be, and I ought to be, grateful
to him all my life, however long it may be, for the sweet and
pleasant dream which caused me to see and hear things so
lovely that it will be lovely to repeat them and even more
lovely to believe them. Thus closed and double-locked as I have
said, I beheld first of all our good and brave old Polo as he
was in other days, so clearly that I did not have the courage
to ask him whether he was living or dead. He was dressed in a
festal robe, and seemed to be coming from the barber’s, with a
countenance which announced rather that he had dined well than
that he had fasted. I cannot think how he came by his knowledge
of my desire to live for ever (I believe the soul to be a thing
divine), but, after wishing me a good day and a happy year,
after having rubbed his nose on the right and left, after
having twice drawn breath, he began to speak: ‘Ruzzante, you
have wearied yourself more over your books than ever I wearied
my arms upon animals, and you will never be able to find the
woman you seek unless I assist you and point her out to you. It
is your mania for calling things by names which do not belong
to them that leads you into error. You think her name is as you
say. You seem to me much in the same case as that fellow who
read _Balotta_ upon a book on which was written _Checarello_.
But come with me and I will lead you to her court, where you
shall find many good companions to move you to laughter, even
as you move others to it with your comelies or comegies (_con
le to comielie, ò comiegie_), I know not what you call them.’”

It would take up too much space to translate here the entire discourse of the old peasant Polo to Ruzzante. He informs him, in short, that she whom he calls Wisdom is named Gaiety, and that he will be so happy upon beholding her, so joyous and so gay, that he will find by her that future existence which he seeks. “No longer will he suffer his dreadful pangs; no longer will he know pain; he will be able to breathe with all his lungs. An hour, a minute of this well-understood existence is better than a thousand years of a life which is unperceived.” The peasant describes in his rustic fashion the happiness of existence. For him, to sing, to dance, to drink as much as he thirsts, to have apples, well-cooked beetroots and good chestnuts, to saunter and do nothing but look on, is not that the way of happiness, of gaiety and of joy rather than for a man to dribble his brains into books? They go along talking thus in quest of Gaiety, and their way runs through a fresh and smiling countryside, to which Polo draws Ruzzante’s attention: “Have you ever seen a more lovely country, so surrounded with flowering hills and shaded woods, turning a quicker green from the last rains, these little streams bubbling over stones and losing themselves among herbs and flowers? Do you hear that little bird singing his song, _hairo, hairo, hairo_?” Across this earthly paradise, before the eyes of Ruzzante, is unfolded a whole world of allegorical figures, which come and go; these Polo explains to him after his own fashion:

“‘Look your fill; we are in the land of Gaiety. Consider
first this woman, here at my side. This is Prudence, Gaiety’s
principal cook. Then come Contentment and Pleasure, riding on
horseback, in a carriage or in a boat. Look at this one rolling
along the ground with his mouth so widely open that one may
deem him on the point of bursting; this is Laughter. Look at
that woman, beautifully attired and bejewelled; she is Fate.
At her side is her brother Dance, who has removed his shoes
that he may leap the better. Behold, he is dancing! These two
ladies who come hand in hand are Mirth and Joy. The latter
seems unable to contain herself, so constantly does she desire
to sing, to dance, to gambol or play the lute. Further off is
Kindness, embracing Friendship. Here are Peace and Charity.
Look quickly that you may behold the Passing Hour which never
more returns. There is one who goes before her whose name is
Cock. He is the first to hear her. He advances, greeting her
with song. Look at that one who is separated from the company,
dressed in black. She is Corruption; it is she who spoils
existence as the beasts destroy the plants. And there is
Sadness with folded hands, her head upon her knees: to behold
her glassy eye you might conceive her dead. Take no heed of
this little fellow with a bow and a quiver at his hip; he is
the worst of all; you could never believe how profoundly he is
malicious. There is no existence so beautiful but that he will
thrust himself in to ruin it with his wiles and his malice. His
name is Love, but he is not the good Love, the child of God
and of Liberty. I cannot think who were the parents of this
evil child, but I suspect that they were Malice and Misfortune.
Come on, run as if the plague pursued you. Do you not see?
Jealousy is beside him with her scarlet raiment full of holes,
to enable evil designs readily to enter in. Pain, drawing her
lamentations, runs before Arson, which rolls upon the ground
like a rabid dog. There is Caprice which never knows peace,
which is never well where it is, which ever desires to be where
it is not, which desires to be and not to be, and also desires
to be another and yet not to be that other. Do not look because
by dint of looking at all these we shall lose sight of Gaiety.
Why do you stare at Love? Let him be.’