Volume I Part 5 (1/2)
Each year those fellows feed us with the same Musty old comedies that stink of hed at, sold!”
I swear by all the elements to you, Kind public, that to win your love once more, They'd let their teeth be drawn, and eyeballs too!
They sent entle audience, do; Lend me your ears three minutes, I implore; When I have spoken what I'm sent to say, Deal with me as you list, I won't cry nay!
We've lost all sense and knowledge how to please The public on our scenes, in this e
The plays that took last year now seee
The wheel of taste and fashi+on, as one sees, Moves with a wind no prophet can presage; We only know that when the world's agog, Our throats are
Taste rules this year that all the e events, Fresh characters, adventures that a, unexpected incidents;-- Duether timorous in our tents; And yet because we must have bread to eat, We've coentle listener, who it is Hath rendered us unfit to charm your ear: To us who once enjoyed your courtesies, So many and so sweet, it seems most queer
Is Poetry perchance to blas are doomed to disappear; Mortals must learn to bear and bide their fate; Yet, ah! your hatred is a scourge too great!
For our part, we'll leave nothing new untried; We'll don the poet's singing-robes and bays, If this race denied; Nay, we _are_ poets in these latter days!
Our breeches shall be sold and ink supplied, Our coats we'll change for paper to write plays; And if we've got no genius, well, what's that?
So long as you are pleased, all's right, that's flat
Our purpose 'tis with new-pranked coe
Don't ask when, where, and hoe e; After fine weather when the deluges Of rain descend, _Lo, new rain!_ cries the sage; Yet though he thinks it new rain, 'tis quite plain That rain is nought but water, water rain
Not all things keep one course through endless time
What's up to-day, to-arment Mode, the mime, Steals from his picture-frausto make sublime, Make beautiful, what tickles prince and clown; And we can swear upon the book our plays Have ne'er appeared in these or other days
We've plots and arguments to turn old folk Back to their infancy and nurse's ar the babes to listen to our chareniuses we daren't invoke, Nor will their absence cause us great alarnorance or learning, we're content
On strange and unexpected circuht; on wonders wild, Whereof you may have heard or read perchance, Yet never seen by woman, man, or child; Beasts, birds, and house-doors shall your ears entrance With verses by crowned poet's labour filed; And if Martellian verses they shall prove, These _must_ compel your plaudits and your love!
Your servants wait, iin; But first I'd like the story to rehearse; Ah me! I quake and tre worse!
_The Love of the Three Oranges!_--I'h you curse
I with your granddaue, directed against poets ere trying to trample down Sacchi's company of improvisatory players, is too obvious, andthe series of my dramatised nursery-tales upon the theatre is too evident, to call for detailed commentary In the choice ofthe stories told to children, and in the base alloy of the dialogues, the action, and the characters, which are obviously degraded of set purpose, I wanted to ridicule _Il Campiello_, _Le Massere_, _Le Baruffe Chiozzotte_, and nor Goldoni]
FIRST ACT
Silvio, King of Diainary realm, whose habit exactly i cards, confided to Pantalone the deep distress caused to his royal lia The Crown-Prince had been subject, for the last ten years, to an incurable nosed the case as hopeless hypochondria, and gave their patient up The King wept bitterly Pantalone, sending doctors to the devil with his sarcasested that the admirable secrets of certain charlatans, at that ti protested that all suchhis fancy play upon the hidden causes of the e in secret, so as not to be overheard by the royal bodyguard, whether his Majesty had perhaps contracted so coht still be extirpated by the exhibition ofan air of stately seriousness, replied that he had been invariably faithful to his consort's bed Pantalone then sub sense of shame, the consequence of boyish peccadilloes His Majesty assured him seriously that his own paternal inspection of the patient excluded that hypothesis; the young rave and nant nature; the physicians declared that, unless he could be rave; a sn of convalescence That was too good to be expected To this he added that the prospect of his own decrepitude, the sight of his son and heir upon a death-bed, the inevitable succession to the crown of his niece Clarice, a young woe temper, bizarre fancies, and cruel passions, caused hian to bewail the future misery of his subjects, broke down into a flood of tears, and quite forgot the dignity of his high station Pantalone consoled hi the court to lia's recovering the power of laughter Let festivities, games, masquerades, and spectacles be set on foot Let Truffaldino, well approved forthe blue-devils from their brains, be summoned to the Prince's service The Prince had shown soht succeed in bringing sain upon the royal features The reht ensue The King allowed hiements
To these persons entered Leandro, Knave of Diamonds,[78] and first Minister of the realure on a pack of cards Pantalone, aside, expressed his suspicion of so co that whoever h should receive a noble prize Leandro tried to dissuade his Majesty, and urged that such remedies were likely to prejudice the sickrepeated his orders and retired Pantalone rejoiced Aside, to the audience, he explained that Leandro was certainly planning the Prince's death Then he followed the King Leandro remained stubborn, muttered that he detected some opposition to his wishes, but frouess
To hi There was never seen upon the stage a princess of so wild, irascible, and deterner Chiari for furnishi+ng me with abundant models for such caricatures in his dramatic works] She had settled with Leandro to marry him, and raise hily she burst into reproaches against her lover for his coldness Were they to wait until Tartaglia died of a disease so slow as hypochondria? Leandro excused hiana, he said, his powerful protectress, had given him certain charms in Martellian verses, which were to be adlia in wafers These would certainly work his destruction by sure if tardy means [This was introduced to criticise the plays of Chiari and Goldoni, whose Martellian verses bored every one to death by theirof Dia lost much of her treasure on his card She loved the Knave of Diaht her luck in play
She dwelt in a lake, not far from the city Smeraldina, a Moorish woman, who performed the _servetta_ in this scenic parody, acted as interana Clarice fulia's death Leandro confessed that he entertained some doubts about the efficacy of Martellian verses to secure a happy dispatch He was uneasy, too, at the unexplained appearance of Truffaldino at court, a very facetious fellow; and if Tartaglia laughed, his cure was certain Clarice's rage boiled over; she had seen Truffaldino, and the h [In this dialoguecoainst the ue] Meanwhile, Leandro had seat Brighella, his servant, to Smeraldina, to learn the explanation of Truffaldino's appearance, and to dehella entered; and with much show of secrecy related that Truffaldino had been sent to court by a certain wizard Celio, Morgana's ene of Diamonds' friend, for reasons exactly opposite to those which had incensed Morgana against him Truffaldino, he continued, was an antidote to the morbific influences of Martellian verses; he had co, the Prince, and all the people from the infection of those melancholic charms
[It ana and Celio the wizard symbolised the warfare carried on between Goldoni and Chiari
Fata Morgana was a caricature of Chiari, and Celio of Goldoni]
Brighella's news threw Clarice and Leandro into consternation They laid their heads together how to kill Truffaldino by soested arsenic or a blunderbuss Leandro was for trying Martellian verses in wafers, or opium Clarice objected that there was not much to choose between Martellian verses and opiuest such trifles Brighella added that Morgana, inforned for the Prince's recovery, meant to appear and neutralise the action of his salutiferous laughter by a curse which should quickly send hihella went to superintend the preparation of the shows