Part 10

“_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.

ARTOTROGUS. What should I say of Cappadocia had not the edge of your sword become blunt after you had sliced off the heads of five hundred men! But it was no more than a remainder of infantry! Is it necessary that I should repeat to you what is on the lips of all humanity? There is not, say all mortals, in the whole world but one Pyrgopolinices, who excels in valour, in beauty, in great actions and in heroism. All women love you; and not without reason, faith, since you are of a dazzling beauty; you should have seen the number of ladies who but yesterday plucked at my cloak to question me concerning you.

PYRGOPOLINICES. What was it that they said? Tell me all. It will give me pleasure.

ARTOTROGUS. One inquired: “Is not that perchance Achilles?” “No,” I answered; “it is his brother.” Another ejaculated: “How beautiful he is, how shapely and how gracious! Happy the women who enjoy the honour of his choice. Assuredly it were impossible to be too envious of their lot.”

PYRGOPOLINICES. Really now, did they say that?

ARTOTROGUS. Two amongst them implored me to see to it that you should pass their door to-day, as if the mere sight of you were as good as a whole procession, or an enchanted spectacle.

PYRGOPOLINICES. Confess now that an excess of beauty may often cause chagrin and embarrassment.... I think it is time that we repaired to the Forum to pay the soldiers whom yesterday I enrolled. For you are to know that King Seleucus has begged me instantly to raise an army for him, such high confidence does he place in my knowledge and judgment. I have therefore resolved to render to-day this good office to my friend the king.

ARTOTROGUS. Since that is so, let us go.

PYRGOPOLINICES. Follow me, lackeys; and above all let it be seen that you belong to me.... I may boast myself the favourite of Venus. Who knows but that the goddess herself may be enamoured of me?...

MILPHIDIPPA (_a waiting maid_). My Lord Beautiful, I greet you very humbly.

PYRGOPOLINICES. Who told you my surname? May the gods love you, my child, and may they give you what your heart desires!... I do not for a moment doubt but that the girl is in love with me herself.

MILPHIDIPPA. All my wish is to spend my life with you, sir.

PYRGOPOLINICES. You aspire too high! Your pretensions go too far.

MILPHIDIPPA. It is not for myself that I speak; it could not please the gods that I should be so daring. I speak for my mistress, who is dying of love for you.

PYRGOPOLINICES. There are many others besides her who desire the same happiness and may not attain to it. But who is your mistress? For I am pestered by such a number of women that I cannot remember them all.... Speak out, then. Tell me what you want, little love-messenger.

MILPHIDIPPA. Ah! my famous Achilles, lend an ear to my prayer; grant what I ask of you; generously save a loving and a beautiful woman. Draw upon your heroic heart for some sentiments of softness, of tenderness and of compassion. Do that, O great demolisher of cities, illustrious slayer of kings.

PYRGOPOLINICES. By Hercules, this becomes tiresome and importunate. (_To his lackey._) How often have I forbidden you to promise thus easily and commonly my services to ladies?

PALÆSTRIO (_lackey_). None but brave warriors are born of the woman whom he honours with his love; and his children live at least eight hundred years.

MILPHIDIPPA. Misfortune catch thee, fool and mocker!

PYRGOPOLINICES. He is not mocking you. My children live a thousand years by computations made from the first century to the last.

PALÆSTRIO. I was afraid to state their number lest this child should have thought that I was indulging in a gross and impudent falsehood.

PYRGOPOLINICES. Do you know, child, that I was born on the morrow of that memorable day on which the goddess Ops gave birth to Jupiter?

PALÆSTRIO. That is the fact, and if the lord my master had arrived but one day earlier, the empire of the heavens would have been his.

After all his boast and brag of his exploits he is seized by the scullions of Periplectomene, receives from them an ignominious correction, and departs beaten, yet satisfied.

PERIPLECOMENUS (_to his lackeys_). Bring him away; if he won’t follow you carry him. Bear him between heaven and earth, or else tear him into pieces, cut him into shreds.

PYRGOPOLINICES. Oh! my Lord Periplecomenus, I implore you in the name of Hercules!

PERIPLECOMENUS. There is no Hercules to help you; your prayer is useless. See, Cario, if your knife is sharp.

PYRGOPOLINICES. I am lost, I am dead!

CARIO (_a scullion_). Not yet, you say that too soon! (_To his master._) Shall I get to work, sir? Shall I commence the operation?

PERIPLECOMENUS. No, first I want him beaten back and front.

CARIO. I will set my hand to it with the best will. (_He strikes._)

PYRGOPOLINICES. Mercy! mercy, I implore you! you have beaten me enough.

CARIO (_to his master_). Shall I cut? Shall I carve? Shall I set my knife to the business?

PYRGOPOLINICES. My lord, before he does so, before he opens my belly, have compassion to hear me....

CARIO. It would be best to let him experience another shower of blows and then show him the door and give him his dismissal.

PYRGOPOLINICES. May the gods bless you, who plead so well in my favour! In truth this cudgelling has entirely softened me; I am metamorphosed into a lamb; let me go, I implore you.

PERIPLECOMENUS. Unbind him.

PYRGOPOLINICES. I am most deeply indebted! I thank you with all my heart.

(_The Braggart Captain. PLAUTUS._)

The modern Captain’s utterances are very similar:

“To-day some lackeys, finding me alone, belaboured me with cudgels—an affront which put me in such a passion that I devoured the walls of a bastion. At last, swollen with vexation, rancour, rage and fury, I broke Fortune on the wheel, scourged Hazard and burned Misfortune.”

You see him strutting in the sun along the flagstones of a palace, his nose in the air, his eye on the trail of roast meat, his hand on his terrible rapier, dangerous only to the eyes of those who follow him. To see him bestride the ground you would suppose that the whole earth belongs to him; that if he wished he could overthrow the buildings by a flick. But he is magnanimous. How many insults and canings has he not permitted to fall into oblivion?

It is night! Who goes there? A rival beyond doubt. The Captain will fell him with a glance. No! He despises him too much; he does not consider it worth while; the man is but a simple mortal after all! If it were Jupiter now! We should see fine things. Not one but two men are approaching, and their gait is peculiar. Let him withdraw; it is the more generous behaviour towards these poor fellows who might die of terror at the simple sight of him. “Thus I save their lives,” adds our hero, stretching out his long legs until they look like a pair of compasses and accelerating his walk until it almost becomes a flight.

But at the corner of the street a shower of cudgel blows falls suddenly upon the shoulders of this demi-god. He is knocked down; rogues and vagabonds hasten to strip him of his riches. The famous coat of mail, fashioned out of the gold rings which his many mistresses have compelled him to accept, might have tempted these poor rascals; but, alas! under his slashed doublet, which they disdain, not so much as a shirt do they find. “We are robbed!” says one of the miscreants to his companions, and they vanish, despising their victim.

Hearing no further sound the Captain opens first one eye and then the other, raises his head, recognises that the danger is past, readjusts his rapier and turns his steps to other hunting grounds.

“Ce capitan fait grand éclat: Et sa valeur est si parfaite, Qu’il est des derniers au combat, Et des premiers à la retraite.”

“The Captain,” says M. Frédéric Mercey, “antedates the Spanish dominion; we consider him the contemporary of all those formidable leaders of Italian bands who distinguished themselves at Anghiari and in those famous encounters in which a horse, by turning its head or its tail, might suffice to bring about the loss or gain of a battle. It is Macchiavelli who assures us of this.

“Under the new masters (_i.e._ the Spaniards) the Captain is transformed into _Matamoros_; he jabbers in Castilian, assumes the stateliness of Spain, and corrects as far as possible his poltroonery. Not a day passes now on which he does not slay a Moor, confound a necromancer or seduce a princess. His lackey’s garments are made from the material of the turbans of the infidels whom he has decapitated.

“To-day, after having undergone a further transformation, he still loves to entertain us with his prowess. One day, at the siege of Trébizonde, he penetrated alone into the tent of the Sultan, and, seizing him by the beard, he dragged him through the camp, whilst with his disengaged hand, he held off his assailants and compelled the entire infidel army to keep its distance. When he entered the city his cuirass bristled so with arrows that he might have been mistaken for a hedgehog. The hedgehog device on his coat of arms dates from that event....

“His gallantry equals his valour, and when beauty is the object of his onslaught he has such marvellous means of conquest that he never finds her unyielding. He overthrows towers, bursts through iron doors or, like a Greek god, descends upon her in the form of a golden rain. Many of his feats of gallantry have found imitators. Once, for instance, when he galloped along the banks of the Garigliano in the company of the princess Gilyme d’Apremont, she, being weary of his amorous insistence, said in jest: ‘The fire that consumes my knight is very ardent then?’

“‘Cruel, can you doubt it?’

“‘Not at all, but I know a means of relieving you. Fling yourself into the river.’

“‘Not all these waters could extinguish my flame.’

“‘That is but a gallant figure of speech; and I shall not believe it until I see you issuing from those waves still consumed by the same love.’

“‘Is that so, beautiful princess?’ he cries, whereupon the intrepid lover drives spurs into the flanks of his charger and leaps into the middle of the river.

“He ran great risk of drowning, and it was only by abandoning his horse that he was able to regain the shore with the water streaming from him, but still devoured by the same fire. The princess kept her word and rewarded so noble a devotion.

“Like the Captains his ancestors, Matamoros was magnificent in words, but his purse was always empty and under his beautiful richly damascened cuirass he wore but a frayed and tattered leather jerkin.”

[Illustration]

The tradition of the theatre informs us that this rôle of Matamoros made the fortune of _L’Illusion Comique_.[3] The Captain’s formidable boasts and his piteous discomfiture had a comic interest which can scarcely be fully appreciated by us. Boastfulness reigned then in court and town, and even in the Academy; it may almost be said that it had passed into French manners. In witness to this may be cited the illustrious Scudéry, who held his pen in one hand and his sword in the other whilst challenging Corneille to single combat, so as to prove to him that _Le Cid_ was a detestable tragedy; or again that admirable eccentric named Cyrano de Bergerac. Cyrano at least was of no false courage; but if his valour produced high deeds, in what an extraordinary mass of fanfaronading gasconnades were they not served up. Corneille, to give words to his character, needed no more than to translate into verse the prose of this great duellist.

“It would be necessary, I think, sir, that God should accomplish something as miraculous as the wish of Caligula if he would make an end of my quarrels. If the entire human race were assembled under a single head, or when but one should remain of all living men, there would still be one duel left for me. In truth it must be that your departure having made a desert of Paris the grass is spreading in every street, since wherever I go I find myself always on a lawn. Sometimes I conceive that I am become a hedgehog; since no one may approach me without being pricked. Had you not also noticed that there is at present more shadow on the horizon than at the time of your departure? It is because, since then, my hand has so peopled hell that it regurgitates upon the earth.”

In the encounter in hell between Gaultier Garguille and Tabarin, Gaultier Garguille says:

“If you were still in the other world you would split your sides with laughter to see the proud folk of to-day who, striding superbly hand on hip, like pots with handles, moustachiously disdain all whom they meet, whilst their fulminating swords are filling all graveyards; and, what is still worse, by their eyes, glowering fiercely under a trailing plume, they cause Jupiter to tremble until he is on the point of abandoning to them his lightning and his eagle, that he may have peace, and this notwithstanding that they inspire fear in none but snails and flies and frogs.”

No type was so successful in Europe in the sixteenth century, and more particularly at the beginning of the seventeenth, as that of the Captain, both in improvised and in written comedy. In Italy, Spain, France and England, the number of pieces in which the Captain, under very different names, played the principal rôle was very considerable. Scarron wrote round this character a sort of _tour de force_ in verse in one act and in one rhyme—_ment_—entitled _Les Boutades du Capitan Matamore_, 1646:

MATAMORE

J’ai de l’amour infiniment Pour un bel œil qui, puissamment, Me trouble impérieusement; Il demeure en ce logement, Marchons-y délicatement. Holà! sortez hâtivement, Sinon, parbleu! robustement J’écraserai le bâtiment.

ANGÉLIQUE

Hé! que frappe si rudement!

MATAMORE

C’est un faiseur d’égorgement.

The first Italian Captains date from the fifteenth century, and their costumes have varied according to their epochs. At first they wore buff jackets, a long sword, a steel helmet or morion, and they were always masked. These masks were flesh-coloured, with a prominent nose and terrific moustachios.

“The ancient Italian Captain,” says L. Riccoboni, “was succeeded by the Spanish Captain, who dressed himself in the fashion of his country. Little by little the Spanish Captain overthrew the ancient Italian Captain. At the time of the passage of Charles V. into Italy this character was introduced into the French theatre. Its novelty earned it the suffrages of the public; our Italian Captain was silenced and the Spanish Captain remained master of the battlefield. It was his character to be boastful; but he was destined in the end to receive a cudgelling from Harlequin.”

In Italy and in France the Captains bear such Hispaniolised names as: el Capitano Sangre y Fuego, el Capitano Cuerno de Cornazan, el Capitano Escobombardon della Papirotonda, el Capitano Rodomonte, el Capitano Parafante.

The Germans in the seventeenth century also had their Captain, _Horribilicribrifax_, who was but a copy of the Milanese Captain Spavento, the Castilian Matamoros, and the French Capitaine Fracasse.

In the sixteenth century the Capitan Spezza-Monti, known in France under the name of Tranche-Montagne, “closed his eyes when fighting his enemies, so as not to see their severed limbs as he sliced them off.”

Callot, in his _Petits Danseurs_, shows us some of these Italian Captains of the sixteenth century; among others is the Capitan Taglia-Cantoni, dressed in tight garments, wearing an enormously plumed hat, and shod in cannon boots, adorned with lace on the inside. His Captain Zerbino is distinguished by a triumphant panache and a mask adorned with spectacles. His Captain Cerimonia is represented with one leg advanced, and his hand on his rapier, so that, entirely thrusting up his cloak behind, the point of it menaces heaven. He is extremely ceremonious as is indicated by his name. Meeting Signora Lavinia (Diana Ponti), he seems to be bending a soft glance upon her through his mask, and he is in the act of doffing his slashed hat. The Captains Mala-Gamba and Bella-Vita, both knock-kneed, are saluting each other with precaution and defiance. They wear enormous ruffs and exaggerated garters on the outsides of their boots. Their sleeves and breeches are slashed after the fashion of the time of François I. The Captains Cardoni, Babeo Esgangarato, Cocodrillo and Grillo, wear the costume of dancers.

ii

In the Italian troupe of the _Gelosi_ which went to France in 1577, the rôles of Captain were played under the name of CAPITANO SPAVENTO della Valle Inferna (Captain Terror of the Vale of Hell), by Francesco Andreini, born at Pistoia, and already well known in Italy since 1558. He played all known musical instruments, and spoke six languages—Italian, French, Spanish, Slav, Greek and Turkish. He performed the parts of Doctors and Captains equally well, and he created the character of the Dottore Siciliano and that of a magician named Talcirone. On his return to Florence in 1578 he met in this same troupe Isabella, who was then sixteen years of age, and greatly admired for her beauty, her talents and her virtue. Francesco Andreini fell in love with her and married her. In the following year, 1579, Isabella, who was still in Florence, gave birth to a son, Gian Battista Andreini, known later on under the name of Lelio, and author of the _Teatro Celeste_ and _L’Adamo_. Andreini went again to France in 1600, with the second troupe of _Gelosi_, still under the direction of Flaminio Scala; but as the troupe was returning to Italy, Isabella died suddenly at Lyons (1604). Sorrow-stricken and inconsolable, Francesco Andreini quitted the theatre with his son; the latter, however, went back to it in the capacity of director in the following year. Andreini the elder never returned to the stage, nor concerned himself further with his art save as an author. He produced, in 1607, _Le Bravure del Capitano Spavento_, which was translated into French under the title of _Bravacheries du Capitaine l’Epouvante_. Francesco Andreini was a member of the Società degli Spensierati of Florence.

Whilst a comedian in the troupe of Flaminio Scala he was the author of the preface of Scala’s book, which contains some fifty scenarii. His son, Gian Battista Andreini, discharged the rôles of juvenile lovers under the name of Lelio, as we shall see.

Francesco Andreini died in 1624.

Fabrizio de Fornaris, a gentleman of Naples, born in 1560, was renowned for his comic spirit and his wit under the name of Capitan Cocodrillo. He went to France with the troupe of the _Confidenti_ in 1584 and 1585. He caused _La Fiammella_, a pastoral play by Bartolomeo Rossi, to be performed by his comrades, and he published it in 1584. In the following year he published a comedy of his own, entitled _Angelica_, which had been performed impromptu, scoring considerable success, particularly at the house of the Duke of Joyeuse, to whom it was dedicated. Fabrizio de Fornaris returned to Italy, and died there in 1637.

In 1618, the charlatan Mondor, born at Milan, who performed his farces on the trestles of the Place Dauphine with his associate Tabarin, played the rôles of Captain in certain Tabarinic farces, under the name of Rodomonte, an anagram upon his own name. As all the world knows, it was Ariosto who first gave to the world the terrible Saracen Captain Rodomonte.

RODOMONT. Cavaliers, musketeers, bombards, canons, morions, corslets! Hither, comrades! I am Captain Rodomont, the bravery, the valour of all the world; my sword has been triumphant throughout the whole universe.

TABARIN. It is true, by my faith; there is none who can ply a two-legged sword better than he.