Chapter IV: Introduction (4)

Polichinelle is right to say that his heart is as dry as his cudgel: he is an egotist in the fullest acceptance of the term. Under a good-humoured exterior he is a ferocious being: he works evil for the pleasure of it. Caring no more for the life of a man than for that of a flea, he delights in quarrels, making a point of seeking them, and takes great pleasure in bloodshed. Far from being a boaster he does not always speak of his evil actions, and whenever you hear his laughter crackling, you may be sure that he has killed his man. He fears neither God nor devil, for he has beheld too many civilisations and religions come and go under his hooked and warty nose.

After his cudgel—his staff of credit, as he calls it, because it is the money with which he pays his debts—his chief predilections are women and the bottle. It is very true, as he says himself, that for women money is necessary, and he has no money. Although he pretends that he has only to stoop to take what he needs from the coffers of his friends, his friends are not quite so simple; they hide themselves and their riches on his approach. Without money it is necessary to be persuasive towards the fair sex, and, notwithstanding his humps and his unattractive figure, he is so caustic, so cajoling, so enterprising and so insolent, that he is not without his successes.

“I have no illusions on the score of my physical appearance,” he declares, “and I shall not disclose to you my secret, because I do not know it; on the other hand, can you explain women to me? He who pleases them does so because he pleases them; there are no other reasons. Woman is a bizarre and mysterious being: she is the only good thing in this world, after wine and hard knocks.”

He loves all women alike because there is not one who may boast that she held him long.

ii

It would be somewhere about the year 540 of Rome, that the Romans introduced the style of improvised pieces known as Atellanæ, with Maccus, Bucco, Pappus, and Casnar as the principal types, speaking Oscan, Greek and Latin.

Their subjects were nearly always rustic, setting forth the manners of the peasants of the Campagna, and the oddities of the inhabitants of the little cities. It is _Pappus præteritus_, or, as it were, Pantaloon dismissed; Maccus the soldier; Maccus, the testamentary legatee, the doctor, the painter, the baker; Pappus agricola, etc. The Atellanæ possessed two distinct buffoons, two _sanniones_: Maccus, who was lively, witty, insolent and a little ferocious; and Bucco, who was a self-satisfied flatterer, boaster, thief and coward. In the modern PULCINELLA these two characters are combined; he is a mixture of bravery and cowardice, of stupid vanity and witty insolence.

It is pretended that these opposite traits of character were similarly attributed to Maccus, the Oscan peasant, who in his day was as well known and loved as is Pulcinella now.

“Maccus, the Oscan character,” says M. Ferdinand Fouque, “has a
character compounded of stupidity, impertinence, and disorder,
as his name indicates, because in Greek, μακκοἃδθαι signifies
to play the buffoon, to drivel, to be mad. Maccus of the
Atellanæ corresponds sometimes to Harlequin, but more often to
Polichinelle. The image in metal preserved in the museum of the
Marquis Capponi is a Maccus. He wears a sort of cloak, which
descends to his knees, and he is shod in sandals. His head is
shaved, his nose is large and hooked. Another Maccus is to be
seen upon a cornelian: he is dressed in purple, his feet are
naked, his head shaven, his pendulous nose covers his mouth and
chin, giving him a stupid expression; his face is phlegmatic,
and his arms, crossed upon his breast, are entwined into his
coat. He represents a philosophic Maccus akin to the Pulcinella
of the comedy entitled _Pulcinella the Pretended Doctor_
(_Pulcinella Finto Dottore_).

“Bucco is of Oscan origin. In name and countenance he
resembles the parasites of comedy. His character is compounded
of loftinesses and meannesses, of oddities and of follies.
He can be pleasant at need, impertinent according to the
circumstances; subtle, officious, insinuating, clownish,
garrulous, indolent, greedy and familiar: he has all the
vices which go with the manners of a corrupt nation; also
he possesses the secret of pleasing the great and rendering
himself necessary to them: he studies their tastes, adapts
himself to their fancies, ministers to their passions and
countenances their libertine undertakings. Bucco had monstrous
cheeks and an enormous mouth.”

Pulcinella, then, descends in a direct line from Maccus. But how has the name of Pulcinella come to substitute that of Maccus? The point has been practically cleared up by now. We know that Maccus had a crooked nose, long legs, a slightly arched back, a prominent stomach, and that, after the fashion of all the ancient mimes, he excited mirth quite as much by his gestures and his cries as by such witticisms as he uttered. The special attribute of Maccus was to imitate the cries of birds and the cackle of hens, by means of a sort of bird-call which became the _sgherlo_ or _pivetta_. This instrument cannot have been of his invention; no doubt he borrowed it from those schœnobates, or Greek marionette performers, who had invented their _sgherlo_ to imitate the voices of actors passing through the speaking trumpet of the mask and acquiring thus a metallic ring. Maccus came therefore to be nicknamed, in consequence of these avian cries of his, and perhaps also because of his beak-like nose and his eccentric gait, _Pullus gallinaceus_, and hence, by contraction, Pulcinella.

A little bronze figure suggesting Maccus, now in the Capponi Museum, was unearthed in Rome in 1727. Of this the Abbé of Saint-Non remarks in his _Voyage de Naples_, in 1782: “But what may perhaps seem remarkable is to find here a Polichinelle who, in the essential features, is absolutely similar to our own, with the humps behind and in front.” He supplies a drawing of this little image, of which he further says: “This bizarre figure is copied from an ancient bronze found in Rome in 1727. The original is preserved in the Capponi Museum, together with the history of this character, of whom it is impossible to deny that the titles and the genealogy are of the greatest antiquity:

“Vetus histrio personatus in Esquiliis repertus an. 1727 ad
magnitudinem æri archetypi expressus, cui oculi et in utroque
oris angulo Sannæ seu globuli argentæi sunt. Gibbus in pectore
et in dorso, inque pedibus socci. Hujus generis moriones et
ludiones, verbis gestique ad risum movendum compositi, locum
habuerunt in jocularibus fabulis Atellanis, ab Atella Oscorum
opido, inter Capuam et Neapolim, ubi primum agi cæperunt
denominatæ. Unde homines absurdo habitu oris et reliqui
corporis cachinnos a natura excitantes, etiamnum prodeunt; huic
nostro persimiles et vulgo Pullicinellæ dicuntur, a Pulliceno
fortasse: qua voce Lampridius in Severo Alexandro, Pullum
gallinaceum appellat. Pullicinellæ autem speciatim excellunt
adunco, prominentique naso, rostrum pullorum et pipionum
imitante.”

Louis Riccoboni gives at the end of his _Histoire du Théâtre Italien_ a reproduction of this same little image. It is to be observed that in each corner of the mouth there is a little ball which can only belong to a sort of _sgherlo_ or bird-call.

“In the course of writing my _History of the Italian
Theatre_,” he says, speaking of the _Mimus Centunculus_, “I
had entered into conjectures on the score of the character
of the Neapolitan Polichinelle, and I had supposed him a
_Mimus Albus_, giving him a derivation as ancient as that of
Harlequin; but as I failed to find proofs that should in any
way support my opinion I suppressed that chapter when the book
was on the point of going to press. If at that time I had been
acquainted with the monument of which I speak (the little
bronze image) I should have worked on Diomedes and Apuleius, to
arrive at the conclusions which have been reached by Italian
scholars. No further proof is needed to assure me that I was
not mistaken when I believed Polichinelle to be a direct
descendant of the _Mimus Albus_ of the Atellane comedies.”

In an article upon the Italian comedy written by George Sand in 1852, is the following statement:—

“The most ancient of all the types is the Neapolitan
Polichinelle. He descends in direct line from Maccus of the
Campagna, or, rather, he is the same character. The ancient
Maccus did not appear in regular comedy but in that very
ancient kind of satirical drama called Atellanæ, from the name
of the city of Atella, which had given it birth. A bronze
statue, discovered in Rome in 1727, can leave no doubt on
the score of the identity of Maccus and Polichinelle. The
Polichinelle of the Atellanæ is equipped like his descendants
with two enormous humps, a nose hooked like the beak of a bird
of prey, and heavy shoes, tied about the ankle, which are not
unlike our modern sabots. His air is mocking, sceptical and
evil; two little silver balls placed at the corners of his
lips increase the size of his mouth and lend his countenance
something false and base, an expression entirely foreign to
that of the modern Polichinelle. This difference between the
externals of the two personages seems to me to indicate a
profounder difference between the characters. The ancient type
must have been somewhat baser and more hateful than the modern
Polichinelle; provoking laughter chiefly by his deformities, I
imagine that I can see from afar a sort of Thersites, popular
in the struggle with the oppression of slavery and ugliness.
Polichinelle personifies the accomplished revolt; he is hideous
but he is terrible, severe and vengeful; neither god nor devil
can make him tremble when he wields his great cudgel. By means
of this weapon, which he freely lays about the shoulders of
his master and the heads of public officers, he exercises a
sort of summary and individual justice which avenges the weak
side and the iniquities of official justice. I am confirmed
in this opinion by the fact that in the Neapolitan farces
two Polichinelles are to be found: one is base and doltish,
the veritable son of Maccus: the other is daring, thieving,
quarrelsome, Bohemian and of a more modern creation.”

When the pagan theatres were destroyed, and the tragedies and the comedies suppressed with them, we know that the Atellanæ continued to be performed in the public places. Polichinelle took part in them as well as Harlequin who also was beloved by the Romans.

Throughout the entire Middle Ages, an epoch in which the theatres saw none but mystery plays, Polichinelle was never seen. He had disappeared. It is only in the sixteenth century, upon the renascence of the theatres, that a comedian named Silvio Fiorello wrested this character from oblivion and introduced Pulcinella into the Neapolitan shows. Fiorello was the leader of a troupe of comedians. He himself played under the name of Captain Matamoros, and entrusted the rôle of Pulliciniello (as it was then called) to Andrea Calcese, a sometime tailor, surnamed _Ciuccio_, who imitated to perfection the accent and the ways of the peasants of Acerra, near Naples.

The costume of Pulcinella has varied but little since the days of this Andrea Calcese. Pulliciniello—it is thus that he is still called in the beginning of the seventeenth century—wears a sort of ample white blouse, gripped about his waist by a leather belt which carries a wooden sabre and a purse. His trousers are wide and pleated; his shoes are of leather. He wears no collar and a rag of white material with green embroidery serves him as a _tabaro_; he wears a black half-mask with long moustachios; his head is covered by a white skull-cap and an enormous grey hat whose brim is looped up on either side into the shape of an enormous cap such as was still worn under Louis XI.

It was thus that he was presented by Argieri, born in Rome, and known in Paris as _Polichinel romain_. At the foot of a picture of him is to be read: “Burlesque mask, speaking the language of the Neapolitan peasants and dressed in white linen feigning stupidity.”

In the middle of the seventeenth century at the Comédie-Italienne in Paris Pulcinella suddenly effected a change in his costume. Barbançois, the _Pulcinella_ of Mazarin’s troupe, imitated Jupilles, the French _Polichinel_ of 1640. He assumed doublet and breeches of red and yellow, laced with green, but he continued to wear the hat and mantle of the Italian tradition.

In 1697 Michael Angelo da Fracassano exaggerated the two humps of the costume, assuming a grey felt hat adorned by two cock’s feathers, and thus rendering his appearance absolutely similar to that of the Polichinel of the fairs. It is in this guise that he has been represented by Watteau.

In the beginning of the eighteenth century we find Pulcinella succumbing in Italy to the French influence; under the name of _Pulcinello_, Coleson, who enjoyed a great vogue in the forain theatres of Florence, Venice, Milan and Paris, represents him with a stomach which entirely fills his ample coat buttoned from top to bottom. He wears the black half-mask with a protuberant nose, surmounted by a great wart, the collar and the high-crowned, wide-brimmed great hat; his trousers are wide and rather short. He is still dressed in white linen and wields a heavy cudgel. This character, called in Bologna Purricinella, seems to me to be Roman rather than Neapolitan, for the costume of the Neapolitan type has been but little modified since his creation. According to Riccoboni this fat and heavy personage was the second Neapolitan Pulcinella, the stupid type.

“The Neapolitan comedies” (he says), “instead of a Scapin and
a Harlequin, have two Polichinelles, one cunning and the other
stupid. It is the common opinion of the country that these two
opposite characters were drawn from the city of Beneventum, the
capital of the Samnites of the Latins. It is said that this
city, the half of which is on the top of a hill, the other half
at the foot, produces men of entirely different characters.”

Beneventum is built like Bergamo, where, as we have seen, the same tradition existed, the stupid Harlequin representing the inhabitants of the lower town, and the witty Brighella those of the higher.

Pulcinello, then, is to be accepted as the type of the stupid and the coarse, a direct descendant of Maccus; whilst the Neapolitan Pulcinella, witty and astute, may be considered the sensual descendant of Bucco. This latter type became European. In France he was known as Polichinelle; in England as Punch, an abbreviation of Punchinello, and Jack Pudding; in Germany as Hanswurst (Jack Sausage) and Pulzinella; in Holland as Toneelgek; in Spain as Don Christoval Pulichinela; even in the East, Karagheus is none other than Polichinelle.

Pulcinella is, turn by turn, and according to the piece, master, servant, magistrate, poet or dancer, but never an acrobat; in essentials the character is always the same. In what concerns him the piece adapts itself to his rôle. Sometimes, but rarely—and then only in the marionette theatres—one has seen him married to a Pulcinellina, and thus equipped with wife and children.

“Thirty years ago,” says a wit, in the middle of the nineteenth century, “there was not a single individual in Naples who had not in himself something of Pulcinella. A deal of that has been lost to-day, but sufficient still remain.”

In Naples, Pulcinella took up his domicile in the theatre of San Carlino.

“It is there,” says M. Fred. Mercey, “that night and day he is
the hero of marvellous and comical adventures. Indeed, although
the Polichinelle of San Carlino is not of wood, he never rests,
and whenever some new piece has been announced for morning and
evening performance, _most choice in all its scenes, full of
bizarre happenings, with Pulcinella_, Pulcinella must be under
arms and on view living or dead.”

Do you wish to form an idea of these pieces, _most choice in all their scenes, full of bizarre happenings_, pieces which owe their success entirely to Pulcinella? Let us analyse one or two, selecting preferably from those which best reveal the Neapolitan character.

_Pulcinella, Brigand-Chief_

The scene is laid in Calabria. Pulcinella, whose business
affairs have been going badly, devotes himself to a fresh line
of industry; he exploits the highways. Pulcinella has all the
attributes that go to make an excellent brigand-chief. He is
without scruples and without mercy, and he professes a most
sovereign contempt for human life. The new chief has designs
upon the wife of a miller of the neighbourhood of Nicastro,
who, in addition to her personal attractions, has, if public
rumour is to be believed, a great sack of ducats in her
cupboard. Pulcinella leaves his band in a neighbouring wood
and, accompanied by a single follower, he goes to visit the
miller’s wife. So as not to arouse her suspicions, he conceals
his follower behind a bush, and presents himself alone upon
her threshold. The day is Sunday, and the brigand has chosen
it because he knows that the miller will be at Mass in the
neighbouring township and that he will have left his wife alone
with her child at the mill. Pulcinella represents himself as
a miller’s boy out of work. He is well received. Suddenly,
seizing a moment in which the child has gone apart, he draws
a knife and threatens to cut the woman’s throat unless she
gives him at once all the money she possesses. “My money is up
there,” she says, “in my cupboard. Come with me and I will give
it to you.” Pulcinella follows her. Whilst he is rummaging in
the cupboard, the woman slips quickly out of the room, shuts
the door and turns the key. The windows are equipped with iron
bars; the door is a half-foot thick. Pulcinella is taken in
a gin like a starling. The miller’s wife loses no time; she
calls her child: “Run to Nicastro,” she bids him, “and fetch
your father and the carabineers; run quickly, tell him that
there is a brigand in the house.” The child sets out, but
Pulcinella’s companion, hearing the cries of his chief, bars
the lad’s passage and seizes him. The miller’s wife, however,
does not lose courage. She bolts the doors and barricades the
windows. Her situation is most critical. She hears Pulcinella
who, by means of a hammer, is beginning to demolish the ceiling
over her head, and she sees her child threatened with death by
the other brigand unless she opens. Eventually this brigand
pinions the child, casts him into a corner, and sets about
seeking some door or opening by which he may enter the house
to deliver his chief. Presently the idea occurs to him to slip
down the wheel of the mill and through the opening left by the
axle of the sails; but at the same moment the miller’s wife
conceives the notion of setting this wheel in movement. The
brigand is already half through the space between the wall and
the axle when the miller’s wife draws back the bolt which holds
the wheel; this begins to move, and before it has turned twice
the brigand is crushed as if by a pestle in a mortar. Meanwhile
Pulcinella has completed his hole in the ceiling and is about
to drop through into the chamber below when the miller arrives
with a detachment of carabineers. Pulcinella does not lose
courage. As these ascend the staircase leading to the chamber
in which he is locked, he jumps down through the hole in the
ceiling, escapes by another staircase, and climbs on to the
roof of the house.

The remainder of the piece is merely a sort of burlesque
divertissement, in which we see the miller’s wife, the
soldiers and the peasants pursuing Pulcinella, who displays
his address and performs all sorts of _tours de force_. We
see him, for instance, taking the place of the vane, and
turning this way and that in the wind; but in the instant in
which the carabineers are aiming at this extremely unmetallic
vane, he leaps to the roof, and from the roof to the gardens,
and thrusts himself into a corner, where he pretends to be a
pillar. A soldier climbs upon this pillar to look through a
window; the pillar comes to life and takes to its heels; then
Pulcinella slips under a winnowing basket, and attempts to
reach the wood, crawling like a tortoise. In the end he is
taken and conducted to Nicastro to be hanged. The history of
his hanging is well known. Pulcinella permits himself calmly
to be led to the scaffold, but when the rope is ready he plays
all sorts of tricks upon the hangman; he feigns stupidity and
pretends not to be able to find the noose. “You fool!” cries
the impatient hangman. “Look! It is thus that the noose is
adjusted.” And he slips his own head through it. Pulcinella
seizes this favourable moment, takes hold of the rope, and
strangles the hangman, crying to him: “How now? Am I still a
fool?”

In _Le Ruine di Pompeia_, Pulcinella, who is in love with the
daughter of one of the custodians of the place, has attached
himself to a group of foreign visitors, whom he amuses with
his sallies, and at whose expense he regales himself, stealing
the best bits of their dinner, and for ever juggling away the
coin which they place in the custodian’s hand. The visitors end
by seeing through his game, are displeased with it, and seek
to seize him by the collar. Pulcinella grows angry; he raises
his voice indignantly to protest that anyone should suspect
an honourable man such as he, a person of his importance. He
pretends to be, by turns, an English lord and a French officer.
Soon, however, being convicted of imposture, and closely
pressed, he plies his cudgel, takes to flight through the
ruins, and suddenly disappears at the very moment in which his
pursuers believe they have captured him. He is found at last in
one of the newly discovered caves, lying amid a litter of empty
amphoræ in company with the custodian’s daughter. Everything is
arranged, and the piece concludes with a marriage which appears
to be extremely necessary.

The characters taking part in these pieces of an entirely national type are, in addition to Pulcinella and Scaramouche, the peasant, the Roman woman and the soldier.

Polliciniella, as he is called in the Neapolitan dialect, wears a sort of short and very ample blouse, with or without girdle, the sleeves of which are gathered at the wrist as are the trousers at the ankle; his white shoes are strongly soled. He wears no collar; his black half-mask is beardless, and his hat is a rimless grey or white felt in the shape of a sugar-cone. On certain occasions when it is necessary for him to dress up a little, he changes his felt hat for another of white cambric like his coat, as high and as singular in shape, but adorned with rose-coloured ribbons. His black half-mask has a large aquiline nose, embellished by a wart, and its cheeks are profoundly wrinkled to announce that Polliciniella was not born yesterday.

The spirit of this Polliciniella differs greatly from that of the French Polichinelle and the English Punch. He is a buffoon, a mocker and a jester, but not wicked. He represents the type of the Neapolitan bourgeois in its natural grossness but instinct with that biting spirit of which the Abbé Galiani is a refined type. He is slow in his movements (all famous Pulcinelle are very sparing of gesture), his air is foolish, but his wit is ready money, particularly in the asides which he always addresses directly to the public.

Although to be seen in various theatres in Naples, Pulcinella’s special stage was that of the San Carlino, whither he would attract twice daily an audience drawn from all ranks of society. The San Carlino had a famous troupe, chiefly composed of masks of unalterable national types. Here, from the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards, several actors created great reputations, such as Celesi Balli and Tomaso Fabioni in 1800, Lucio Bebio in 1803, Camerano in 1805, etc. One famous Pulcinella was applauded there throughout five and twenty years. After having been one of the most brilliant cavalry captains of King Murat, after having accompanied him upon several great and victorious campaigns, after having been decorated by the Emperor Napoleon, when the Bourbons returned to Naples, he donned—either out of necessity or caprice—the coat of Pulcinella, and in this amassed a very handsome fortune. He was the idol not only of all Neapolitans but of all who understood the dialect. Restrained in his movements, cold, sluggish, full of awkwardness, speaking as little as possible, but seeing to it that the few words he uttered bore the imprint of the liveliest and most biting wit, he contrived, notwithstanding the mask which covered the half of his countenance, a miraculously expressive physiognomy. One of the buffooneries which he repeated frequently, especially during carnival (because in this season Polliciniella is forbidden to wear either mask or costume) was to eat mountains of macaroni, of which the character is traditionally very fond, out of an enormous _cantaro_. You might see him drawing forth these long macaroni and causing them to descend into his mouth from the full height of his arm, to the peals of laughter of his audience.

Speaking of Pulcinella, M. Charles Magnin says:

“The Pulcinella of Naples, a tall fellow, as straight as anyone
else, noisy, alert, sensual, with his great hooked nose and
black half-mask, his pyramidal grey bonnet, his white camisole,
his wide white pantaloons, gathered and girt about his waist by
a rope from which hangs a little bell, may well bring to mind
the _Mimus Albus_, and the still more remote Maccus; but, with
the exception of his beak-like nose and his bird-like name,
he has no connection with, nor does he resemble, our French
Polichinelle. For one trait of resemblance that is perceptible
ten contrasting ones may be pointed out.”

iii

“Polichinelle,” says M. Charles Magnin, “such as we have made
or adapted him, represents in the highest degree Gallic humour
and physiognomy. I might even say that under the compulsory
obligation of a loyal caricature, Polichinelle permits us
to perceive the popular type, I dare not say of Henry IV.,
but at least of the Gascon officer, imitating his gait in
the guard-rooms of the castle of Saint-Germain or of the old
Louvre. As for the hump, Guillaume Bouchet reminds us that
from time immemorial it has been the appendage of the jester
_ès farces_ of France. In the thirteenth century Adam de la
Halle was called _the hunchback of Arras_, not because he was a
hunchback, but on account of his mocking spirit:

“On m’appelle bochu, mais je ne le suis mie.”

As for the second hump, it brings to mind the bright and
bulging cuirass of the soldier, and the pigeon breasts so
much the fashion in that time which imitate the curve of the
cuirass. Even the hat of Polichinelle (I do not refer to his
modern _tricorne_, but to the felt with turned-up rim which
he wore in the seventeenth century) was the headdress of the
cavaliers of the time, the hat _à la Henri IV._ Lastly there is
even in certain characteristic features, even in the jovial,
daring, amorous humour of a good soldier, something that
reminds me of the qualities and short-comings of the Béarnais.
In short, notwithstanding his Neapolitan name, Polichinelle
seems to me to be a type entirely French, and one of the most
spontaneous and vivacious creations of Gallic fantasy.”

It was in 1630, they say, that Polichinelle passed from the trestles to the marionette theatre. But in any case it is quite certain that in 1649 Polichinelle had his theatre on the left bank of the Seine, at the house of one Brioché or Briocci.

“I am Polichinelle
Who stand as sentinel
Before the Gate of Nesle.”

“A tradition which still survives,” says M. Charles Magnin, the learned historiographer of Polichinelle, “and which the true children of Paris, of Chartres and of Orléans transmit from one to another, has preserved for us the air and the couplets of the famous song of Polichinelle:

“‘Je suis le fameux Mignolet,
Général des Espagnolets.
Quand je marche, la terre tremble:
C’est moi qui conduis le soleil,
Et je ne crois pas qu’en ce monde
On puisse trouver mon pareil.

“‘Les murailles de mon palais
Sont bâties des os des Anglais;
Toutes mes salles sont dallées
De têtes de sergents d’armées
Que dans les combats j’ai tués.

“‘Je veux, avant qu’il soit minuit,
A moi tout seul prendre Paris.
Par-dessus les tours Notre-Dame,
La Seine je ferai passer;
Des langues des filles, des femmes,
Saint-Omer je ferai paver....’

“This song places Polichinelle as belonging to the reign of Henry IV. and the epoch of our long quarrels with Spain.”

The real home of Polichinelle was in the fairs of Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent, at Bertrand and at Francisque, where for over a century he jested, making a mock of all people and all things; but many of his wickednesses were forgiven him on account of his shape and his wooden person.

In 1721, when the Théâtre-Français caused the theatres of the fairs to be closed, Polichinelle laughed and mocked more thoroughly than ever. In the following year Polichinelle covered again with his cudgel a vengeance which Lesage, Fuzelier and d’Orneval set themselves to extract from the united theatres of the Opéra, the Comédie-Française and Comédie-Italienne. They came to an understanding with Laplace, who managed a marionette theatre, and they gave him three unpublished comic operas which attracted all Paris, and emptied the royal theatres. Polichinelle sang and mocked still more loudly. Our three associates had hung out a sign upon which was a life-sized Polichinelle with this legend: “I am worth many another” (_J’en valons bien d’autres_).

The number of actors who have played Polichinelle is incredible. Among the pieces which had most success we may mention: _Polichinelle Grand Turc_; _Polichinelle Colin-Maillard_; _La Noce de Polichinelle et L’Accouchement de sa Femme_; _Les Amours de Polichinelle_; _Polichinelle Magicien_; _Polichinelle à la Guinguette de Vaugirard_; _Polichinelle Maçon_; _Polichinelle Don Quichette_; _Polichinelle Gros-Jean_, etc.

In 1793 the _Vieux Cordelier_ exclaims:

“This egotistical multitude is made blindly to follow the
impulse of the stronger.... Alongside of the blade of the
guillotine, under which crowned heads are falling and in the
same place and at the same time, Polichinelle also is being
guillotined, thus earning the attention of the avid mob.”

But, after the 10th of Thermidor, Polichinelle took his revenge upon the executioner and upon the devil himself. He began again to beat and hang the pair of them as before and from the same rope.

In 1819, Arnault, speaking of the rôle of Polichinelle played at the Opéra by Ely and at the Porte Saint-Martin by Mazurier, wrote:

“He is an important character; he is the man of the day.
During his quarter of an hour no one will dispute with him
his public favour unless it is himself; for Polichinelle is
double, as was Amphitryon in other days, and like that hero he
combats also against himself, to the great satisfaction of the
public. When one thinks of all the qualities that a perfect
Polichinelle must unite in himself, it is difficult too greatly
to congratulate the century which produced in duplicate such a
model. In the matter of deformity Polichinelle should be what
Apollo is in the matter of perfection. Humped, in front and
behind, perched upon legs like a heron’s, equipped with the
arms of an ape, he must move with that nerveless stiffness,
with that suppleness without springs which characterises the
steps of a body deprived of the principle of movement, whose
limbs, set in action by a cord, are attached to the trunk not
by articulations but by rags. The aim of the actor in this rôle
is to imitate the machine with the greatest fidelity which, in
another rôle, this machine would employ to imitate the man.
It is in this that the Polichinelle of the Porte Saint-Martin
(Mazurier) is marvellously successful. There is nothing human
about him; from the nature of his movements and his tumbles
one cannot believe him to be flesh and bones; he seems of
cotton-wool and cardboard. His countenance is truly wooden, and
such is the illusion that he creates that children take him
for a grown-up marionette, and perhaps they are right.”

Speaking of Ely, at the Opéra, he says:

“What is there more clever than his gestures and his
attitudes, whether when leaning against one of the wings he
seems suspended from it rather than supported by it, or when
collapsing upon himself he appears to have been abandoned
by the hand which sustained him, or the nail from which he
hung? It is truly sublime. Polichinelle has been accorded the
honours of lithography. One may inscribe according to one’s
predilection for one or the other of these virtuosi the name
either of Mazurier or of Ely.”

Towards the middle of the nineteenth century M. Champfleury presented several very original pantomimes at the theatre of the Funambules. He sought to restore to light the character of Polichinelle, and in his scenarii he gave him something more to do than perpetually to break himself. He sought to rejuvenate the personage; but the ancient tradition was already lost, and Vauthier, who was an admirably wooden Polichinelle, could render only that with which he was acquainted—namely, the traditions of Mazurier and Ely.

“O Polichinelle,” exclaims M. Charles Nodier, “original
and capricious fetish of children! grotesque Achilles of
the people! modest and powerful Roscius of the highways!
inappreciable philosopher of the unfortunate ages which did not
know Shakespeare!

“O Polichinelle, animated simulacrum of natural man given over
to his naïve and ingenuous instincts! eternal type of truth of
which the indolent centuries were slow to seize the deformed
but witty and agreeable outline! O Polichinelle, whose original
theme so often enchanted the leisures of Bayle and revived more
than once the indolence of La Fontaine!

“O Polichinelle, inexhaustible orator, imperturbable
philosopher, intrepid and vigorous logician, mighty practical
moralist, infallible theologist, able and unerring politician!

“O Polichinelle, thou whose wooden head contains essentially in
its compact and inorganic mass all the knowledge and all the
common sense of the moderns!”

“Should we not be well-advised to reawaken Polichinelle?” asks M. Ch. Magnin. “... Above all do not suggest that he is dead. Polichinelle never dies. Do you doubt it? You cannot know, then, what Polichinelle is. He is the good sense of the people, he is the alert sally, he is laughter irrepressible. Yes, Polichinelle shall laugh and sing and whistle as long as there are vices, follies and eccentricities in the world. You see then that Polichinelle is very far from being dead. Polichinelle is immortal.”

iv

It was in 1688, after the Stuarts, that Polichinelle passed into England. His English name of PUNCH is clearly derived from Punchinello, for in the early days of his installation in London he was called indifferently Punchinello and Punch. There, as in Paris, Punch became the king of the marionettes. This Neapolitan, after having been French, became, when he naturalised himself English, a difficult fellow to manage, of a mocking ferocity, which is still to-day the basis of his character.

M. Charles Magnin says that “Punch, according to the definition of Mr Payne, is the Don Juan of the populace.” The most ancient text in which this able critic finds mention of the adventures of Punch and Judy is a ballad thought to be no older than 1790.

v

The German Polichinelle, HANSWURST (Jack Sausage), is, in the matter of character and wit, a mixture of Pulcinella and Harlequin, though resembling neither in costume. In the tenth century Hanswurst’s exterior resembled that of the Neapolitan Pulcinella of the time, whilst, however, being very much fatter.

“He is,” says M. Magnin, “a sort of _Franca-Trippa_. In the
last two centuries the physical and moral type of Hanswurst
has changed but little. This buffoon, according to Lessing,
possesses two characteristic qualities. He is doltish and
voracious, but of a voracity which profits him, so that he is
in very different case from Harlequin, whose greediness profits
him nothing and who in spite of it remains always light,
svelte and nimble. In Holland, Hanswurst has for a long time
now been no better than a clown: he thumps the drum at the
door of the booth, and invites the crowd to enter. As actor
and as marionette he has been supplanted by Hans Pickelharing
(Jack Pickled Herring), and more recently by Jan-Klaassen.
This latter, who has become the hero of the Dutch marionette
theatre, has appropriated, not without success, the turbulent
and jovially rascally habits of the English Punch and the
Parisian Polichinelle. In Germany Hanswurst has had several
rivals. He has been compelled to give way more than once to
Harlequin, to Polichinelle and to Pickelharing.”

In the eighteenth century this character was played in the German improvising troupes by Prehauser, who made of him a sort of lackey having some points of resemblance with Brighella. But the improvisation theatre of Vienna having been forced to give way to the classical theatre, Hanswurst was supplanted by Casperle, the joyous Austrian peasant.

vi

In Rome the inhabitants of Trastevere possessed two types which are certainly of the family of Polichinelle—types which nevertheless have aged a little: they are Meo-Patacca and his faithful companion Marco-Pepe.

MEO-PATACCA is a native of Trastevere. He claims descent like Pulcinella from Maccus, in which very possibly he is justified. Like Maccus he is witty and insolent, and no better able to suffer contradiction, his most persuasive argument lying in his cudgel. He begins by striking, and having felled his man to earth he then proceeds to explanations with him. He has a bright and lively eye, a tanned skin, a profile exaggerating the ancient Roman type. He is the personification of the inhabitant of Trastevere, the descendant of Nero or of Maccus, whose blood has been slightly mingled in the course of time. He speaks the Roman dialect, and never utters a sentence without repeating its most energetic word, thus: “I want you to do so-and-so—I want it.”

“He swallows,” says M. Mercey in his _Théâtre en Italie_, “all
the final syllables of his infinitives. He says _sape_ for
_sapere_, and _fa_ for _fare_; or else he replaces the last
syllables of these words by the particle _ne_, which he uses
on all occasions; he thus says _fane_ for _fare_, _sapene_ for
_sapere_, _chine_ for _chi_, _quine_ for _qui_. It also pleases
him to transpose his _l_s and _r_s; thus when he speaks of his
glory he does not say _gloria_ but _grolia_, etc.”

Giuseppe Berneri has written an entire poem of twelve cantos, in the popular dialect of Rome, on the subject of Meo-Patacca, and this poem, printed in Rome in 1685, would perhaps have fallen into oblivion if Bartolomeo Pinelli, the Roman draughtsman, had not happened to illustrate it in 1823.

Berneri’s poem begins as follows:—“I sing the glory of the bravest young Roman plebeians, the most redoubtable of all the chiefs of their band” (“_Il capo-truppa della gente sgherra_”)—which is to say, the chief of the quarrelsome, brawling and more or less assassin troupe.

Meo-Patacca is irritated by the audacity of “these infamous sons of dogs of Turks” who dare to besiege the Christian city of Vienna. He conceives the project of going to its deliverance, and halting before the statue of Mark Antony, “whose hand is raised in sign of triumph,” he considers it and says: “Who knows but that one day you will see another statue standing here? Who knows but that a man whom I call _I_ will not show himself worthy of the honour?” His companions to the number of ten, who follow as sheep follow their leader, admire him and already bow down before him. He leads them thus through the ruins of ancient Rome, and fires their courage by war-like speech. To drive out the Turk all that he will need, he says, is a company of five hundred young Trasteverins, well armed with arquebuses, pikes, hangers and slings. He would continue to talk to them, but that the company, weary of saying nothing, interrupts his harangues with _Viva Meo-Patacca! Viva!_ rendered in tones that might disturb the ashes of the ancient Romans of the Campo Vaccino. Amid the acclamations of the mob, he is carried in triumph to his lodgings.

At the beginning of the second canto, all these heroes are ready to set out. It is the hour at which the grocers, the fruit-sellers and other victuallers, set up upon poles their linen sun-blinds before their shops so as to protect them from the heat which, to the profit of the iced-water sellers, becomes intolerable. It is noon, and Meo-Patacca is surrounded by a crowd of women who loudly give tongue to their despair. They are the more or less legitimate wives of the heroes who are about to follow Patacca. After several speeches he comes triumphant out of this contest, which he considers the most severe he was ever engaged in. Nothing now can arrest his valiant arm. They are about to set out when the news arrives of the deliverance of Vienna by Sobieski. Meo-Patacca is by no means sure that he has not had something to do with the rout of the Turks. He convokes his followers and they deliver themselves to great rejoicings. During this they learn that Bude has been taken by assault by the Christians and that the Jews have united with the Turks to repel the attack. “Vengeance! Vengeance upon the Jews!” This phrase, flung into the middle of the mob, is soon no less than a battle-cry and the entire army of Patacca hurls itself upon the _ghetto_, which it attacks and pillages to the greater honour and glory of God.

It is in the theatre of Palla-Corda, says M. Mercey, that Meo-Patacca, an epic rather than a dramatic hero, figures in a number of little dramas _à coups de bâton_.

“But he is no longer quite the malicious fellow of other days.
The bravo has changed his costume, his character and his
estate. Instead of the _fungo_, the waistcoat and the velvet
breeches, with their two lines of silver buttons, he is in foul
rags, and occupies, by his patched costume, a middle place
between Brighella and Polichinelle.”

During his sojourn in Rome in 1740, the Président de Brosses wrote:

“All the troupes of comedians which I have seen in this country
are at least as good as those of Paris. They include characters
which we have not; such as Brighella, the first _Zanni_, who
takes the place of Harlequin and wears his mask but with a
different costume; for second _Zanni_ they have a sort of
ragged Polichinelle, very different from our own, and rather
resembling the ancient Pierrot. You could not feel resentment
towards him if you saw him in the middle of a synagogue,
borrowing money from Jews, who, after having subjected him to a
damnable usury, demand of him in addition that he shall become
a Jew. It is then that he loses his temper, and with the great
cudgel, with which he is armed, belabours them again and again.
In a word, they make one laugh. They are excellent comedians
playing in wretched comedies.”

From the drawings of Pinelli, it is seen that the costumes of Meo-Patacca and Marco-Pepe are very similar. The hair is gathered into a sort of cloth bag; the neck is naked, although they wear upon their shoulders a sort of scarf which serves for ornament and which is tied in a large rosette upon the breast. A broad girdle once carried a dagger, but weapons having been forbidden, this is now replaced by a stout cudgel. The sleeved waistcoat is buttoned at the side. The breeches are open at the knee as in the time of Berneri; but the garters seem to us more modern as well as the shoes with their steel buckles, which Meo-Patacca can never have worn in the seventeenth century. He wears also the wide-brimmed _fungo_ and the mantle.

Pinelli certainly found his types among his friends and compatriots of Trastevere, and Meo-Patacca in the dress we have described has the air rather of a bravo than of a Pulcinella in rags, such as he was but a few years earlier.

vii

In the poem of Berneri, MARCO-PEPE is the only one who dares to stand before the face of Meo-Patacca. He plays the rôle of traitor. Meo-Patacca provokes him; they fight; but from the combat Marco-Pepe gets nothing but dishonour.

In the dramas of Palla Corda, Marco-Pepe is the friend and the sympathiser of Meo-Patacca. He seeks to imitate his hero, who walks behind him, for Marco-Pepe is a boaster, a brawling, boisterous fellow, whom one would suppose capable of swallowing everything; his air is very much more terrible than that of his companion; his voice is very much louder; but if Meo-Patacca becomes angry, or merely clenches his fist, Marco-Pepe disappears as if by enchantment. Meo-Patacca fears nothing; Marco-Pepe fears everything.

These types were still to be seen in Rome in the Emilian Theatre (Triato Mijani) in the middle of the nineteenth century. Tacconi, a hunchback, leader of the troupe, performed one day in the dialect of the hills, another in the dialect of Trastevere, the pieces of which he was always the author. The dramas or heroic pieces, such as _Hero e Leandro_, _Francesca da Rimini_, _Giulietta e Romeo_, were all arranged by him and adapted to the taste of the public.

In _Giulietta e Romeo_, for instance, we find Romeo, dressed after the fashion of Meo-Patacca, wearing a plumed hat, and trailing a great cavalry sabre, replying as follows to Juliette, who has reproached him in no very choice terms with the death of her cousin-german:

“Silence, child, I will make you understand. Know that
yesterday, as I was leaving you at the foot of the staircase, I
lighted a cigar. At the corner of the street I heard this foul
word: ‘You are smoking it, you ugly carrion!’ (_Te la fumi,
brutta carogna_). Having received this insult, I returned at
once, I drew my sabre, and ... but you know the rest, etc.”

viii

The Neapolitans have a very popular type which they name IL GUAPO and IL SITONNO (the lad). He represents the popular bully. He is dressed like a Neapolitan of the lower classes, still to be found in certain quarters of the town: a round, wide waistcoat, of cinnamon-coloured cotton velvet, a sort of cap over one ear, light coloured breeches with a red belt round the waist; he carries a long stick, and struts in an insolent and provocative fashion; he speaks of nothing but blows, be they of knife, stick, stone or carbine, and he uses an emphasis full of menacing reticences. Nevertheless, although he is not entirely a coward, his deeds correspond but little with his words and, more often than not, his threats and quarrels terminate, not in the shedding of blood, but in the shedding of wine in the nearest tavern.

In the Piovana of Angelo Beolco (Ruzzante), 1530, an amorous young peasant bears the name of Siton. That beyond doubt is the primitive type of _Sitonno_, who again is a type of peasant, but one who has become suburban and denaturalised.

“I can find no difference between a lover and a young calf, to
which the herdsman, to amuse himself, shall have bandaged the
eyes and thrust a thorn into its tail, so that it runs hither
and thither without knowing where it is or whither it is going.
I am the calf; love is the herdsman, the thorn is the sorrow
which I have in my heart, and the bandage over the eyes is my
bewilderment. I do not know whither I am going, for I am not
where I am. I am here and my heart and soul are with Nina.”

ix

In Bologna the marionette theatres have yet another type which personifies the _facchini_, the young men of the lower class of the town; this BIRRICHINO, according to the annotations of the poem of _Bertoldo Bertoldino e Cacasenno_, is derived from a certain idle and mendicant class, which lives by petty thefts and trickeries, exercising in Bologna a still uglier trade. The word is probably derived from _buricus_ of the Latins, or _borrico_ (donkey) of the Spaniards, because, like the gypsies, they follow the trade of horse-dealers, mule-shavers and kindred employments.

Birrichino is mocking, jocund and addicted to practical jokes; he never fails to thrust out his leg at the police officer when the latter enters the stage. He is an elusive, agile and lively being, gifted with a pair of legs which would win a coursing prize from a hare. He is never a thief. If he ever abstracts anything it is not that he may profit by it—it is a joke which he plays upon an enemy to discompose him, and compel him to hunt for the missing thing, for Birrichino always ends by restoring it. He is dressed after the fashion of the people of Bologna. It is questionable whether he may be included among the varieties of Polichinelle.

III

THE CAPTAIN

“_Diga usted!_ Do you know me? No? You do not know me? Head and Belly! Blood and fire! I am who I am! Italy trembles at the name of Captain Spavento! Spain reverences me under the name of Matamoros, and I terrify France, when I will, under the name of Fracasse—for I can assure you I am a most redoubtable man. All love me and all fear me, in peace as in war. I think no more of chewing up a prince than an onion.”

This Captain, with his tiger-cat moustachios, his colossal ruff and his plumed hat, audacious without courage and ostentatious without generosity was born, according to some, on the banks of the Guadalquivir, according to others, on the banks of the Garonne. But he is older than he seems. What should he have done on the banks of either of these rivers in times when they were still inhabited by savage tribes? It was in Athens and in Rome under the Cæsars that he first saw the light. Ever since those days it has been his claim to put whole armies to rout by a stroke of his sword; with a glance he will demolish walls, with a breath overthrow the Alps or the Pyrenees.

He drove the goddesses mad with love of him, and betrayed Mars himself. He has changed his shape in the course of centuries, but not his nature. He is always the same boaster, so mendacious that he imposes even upon himself.

PYRGOPOLINICES. Let it be seen to that my shield is brighter
than is ordinarily the sun in fine weather, so that when I use
it in battle, by opposing it to the enemies I shall dazzle and
blind them. I burn with desire to comfort this poor sword; she
complains that she is downcast at having so long been idle, she
who is consumed with impatience to hack the enemy into pieces.
But where then is Artotrogus?

ARTOTROGUS (_a parasite_). Here he is: he has the honour to
attach himself to a man who is as mighty as he is happy, a man
of royal beauty and heroic valour. Not even the god Mars would
dare to draw a parallel between himself and you, or to compare
with yours his war-like qualities.

PYRGOPOLINICES. Do you refer to that fellow whom I disdained
to overthrow on the field of Gorgonidonia, where Bumbomachides
Clytomestoridysarchides, the grandson of Neptune, was the chief
commander of the forces?

ARTOTROGUS. I remember the occasion perfectly. You refer to
that general whose troops, so remarkable for their gilded
armour, you scattered by a single breath from your lips;
you scattered them, I say, as the wind scatters leaves and
thistle-down.

PYRGOPOLINICES. By the temple of Pollux! that was a trifle....

ARTOTROGUS. By Pollux! I remember how by a single blow of the
fist you broke in two the arm of an elephant in India.

PYRGOPOLINICES. How? The arm?

ARTOTROGUS. No, no: I mean the thigh.

PYRGOPOLINICES. And yet I struck it but lightly. Do you
remember nothing else?

ARTOTROGUS. If I remember! There were a hundred and fifty men
in Cilicia; a hundred Cryphiolathronians; thirty Sards and
sixty Macedonians, of all of whom you disencumbered the earth
in a single day.

PYRGOPOLINICES. What is the sum total of all those men?

ARTOTROGUS. Seven thousand at least.

PYRGOPOLINICES. Exactly! I see that you are quick and accurate
at figures. As long as you compute me such a number of men
killed by my hand you shall never lack for food, and you shall
always share my table.