The Jealous Old Man, the best known of Scala’s scenarios, is frequently summarized and praised, no doubt because the double plotting proceeds apace, there are no scenes of disguise, which are often difficult for a reader to follow, and the ending even summarizes the central action in a sort of novella.1 The form seems more familiarly literary than that of most of Scala’s scenarios. Scala brilliantly solves the problem arising from the need to have the dramatic crisis (an illicit sexual intercourse between two young lovers) occur offstage, by providing an onstage festivity, consisting of storytelling, musical interludes, eating, dancing, singing, and walks in the country, that variously prefigures the intercourse, colours it as celebratory, provides cover for it, and leads us to imagine its salaciousness. The festivities also provide opportunity for the actors to show off their various storytelling, musical, and dancing skills. The day-long country assembly of family, friends, and acquaintances in turn necessitates Scala’s considerable ingenuity in motivating characters’ exits to allow for variety in the kinds of scenes, most especially to allow for the intimate scenes that are required to set up the central illicit offstage sexual encounter and the parallel subplot, which is also an offstage sexual encounter.
Day 6
The Jealous Old Man
COMEDY
Argument
In Venice there lived an old merchant named Pantalone de’ Bisognosi who had a very beautiful young wife named Isabella. Most passionately in love with her was a very handsome, young man [who was] rich and honourable in his ways, named Orazio Cortesi from Venice.
The old merchant was, most unfortunately for him, jealous of his wife; and to keep her away from the eyes of her admirers, and to reassure himself, he resolved to take her to a villa of his near Venice. The lady was followed by her lover, and, with her consent, they had amorous dealings – and the pleasure was all the more gratifying because it happened while her husband was guarding her. It happened then, that [while someone was] conversing one day with this same merchant, as if in jest, he was told of all that had come to pass with his wife. Having heard this tale, the old man recognized his own impotence and his folly (in living a life of jealousy because of it) and, in a very gracious manner, gave his wife in marriage to the young man.
A useful perspective on the whole of the scenario is provided by Isabella Andreini, wife of Scala’s friend Francesco Andreini. Isabella’s complaint, in the name of all women, denouncing marriages between old men and young girls, closely parallels the point of view provided by the scenario and supplies the rationale for the primary plot. It also suggests the way in which the role of Pantalone might have been performed. On this account, I quote it at length at the onset:
The deplorable state of gallantry today requires that some woman should sustain the cause of her sex; we have too long waited for an avenger … The profanation of our charms in continually uniting us to imbecile old men has been a great enemy of gallantry; for they are a class despised by the whole wide empire of lovers. This strange alliance between youth and old age which avarice has suggested to our fathers permits many abuses. It causes separations and is the opportunity of elegant and dissolute abbés who are always on the watch for such incompatible marriages.
Girls do not willingly accept the rewards of such marriages or when accepted, they hate the austerity demanded by spectacled husbands … Imagine an old graybeard marching under the banner of love! Picture a young girl living with a husband who questions her every hour, counts her every step, is always contradicting her and boasting of his early prowess! A crabbed surly old man who hates to see a new ribbon in her hair; who bribes servants to spy on his wife’s most innocent actions. And what shall I say of the legion of maladies characteristic of old age, those insupportable coughs, the common music of an old man. It is true that I find something heroic in the courageous fidelity of those who support such husbands; but for myself I hate an old man who dares to restrain my liberty.2
Scala astutely observes that the pleasure of the illicit sex is heightened by the deceit involved.
Characters in the Comedy |
Properties for the Comedy |
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PANTALONE old merchant ISABELLA his wife PEDROLINO their servant GRAZIANO a friend of the family CAPITANO SPAVENTO as a hunter COMPANIONS hunters ORAZIO and FLAVIO friends BURATTINO a gardener PASQUELLA his wife OLIVETTA his daughter CAVICCHIO a peasant from Norcia FLAMINIA a widow and sister of Isabella |
Hunters’ costumes, poles, horns, dogs, and similar things A basket Silver saucers Flaska of wine Drinking glasses Confections in silver plates [Costumes] to disguise the musical players as vagrants Lute or theorbo3 A plate with figs or other fruits |
< THREE VAGRANTS > < YOUNG GIRLS > < SERVANTS > |
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COUNTRYSIDE NEAR PADUA |
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In the list of properties Scala neglects to mention the long bench required in act 1, scene 3. The scenario would also seem to have required non-speaking extras, but Scala does not mention them, and their use would have been exceptional.4 A number of the roles could have been doubled by the usual ten or so cast members, and the actor who ordinarily played Arlecchino (who is not a character in this scenario) might have played one or more of the smaller parts. However, there are simply too many characters specified as being on stage at one time and not enough females to play the young village girls without there having been extras. The production requirements are great; there are costumes for the additional characters, many set pieces and props, dogs, and perhaps scenery to establish the countryside. The scenery would have been specially constructed if a perspectival set was employed, because this is the only one of Scala’s comic scenarios that is not set in the city. The large cast, sometimes seated on enough chairs for all or dancing in the remaining space, necessitates a large acting space. The dances, with scenes aside, would have required careful rehearsal.
Typically, plays and scenarios of the period provide almost no description of the set. We know nothing about where The Jealous Old Man was performed, or under what conditions. The scenario, set in the country, like others set in the city, apparently requires two houses, each with practicable entrances.
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First Act |
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1.ORAZIO |
tells his friend Flavio of having come to this villa because of his love for Isabella, Pantalone’s wife, [of] being loved by her in return, and that Pedrolino, her servant, is aware of their love, and that he has never enjoyed her; but that Isabella has promised to satisfy him, with the opportunity [arising from] being at the villa. Flavio says that he [Orazio] has a good go-between and should not worry; at that |
In the midst of conversation Flavio and Orazio enter from offstage, efficiently establishing the nature of the scenario’s central relationships and action. Isabella and Orazio will attempt to consummate their relationship. Flavio will serve as a supportive friend. Pedrolino, the go-between, will play his usual role as facilitator in the affairs of the young. As we know, men in this period did not marry until they were twenty-five or thirty, and there was a lack of licit outlets for their sexual drives. The animosity towards old men, presumably on second marriages and married to young women who were thus removed from the marriage market, was considerable. Edward Muir tells us that in fifteenth-century Tuscany, religious paintings of the marriage of old Joseph to the Virgin Mary reflected popular ideas of charivari. He instances Fra Angelico’s Marriage of the Virgin, in which young men with angry expressions stand behind Joseph, their fists raised against him. Some hold sticks, as if they were about to hit him.5 Comedy is an outlet for that anger.
Pedrolino’s straw hat and stick help to establish the countryside. Pedrolino, in his master’s employ, has evidently taken to rural life, at least this rural life that is far removed from the impoverished countryside from which his character came. Apparently Pedrolino had seen Pantalone and his companions en route; he likely enters from where Pantalone will subsequently enter. Pedrolino enables us to envision the expanse of countryside that becomes part of the offstage action. Flavio and Orazio have entered elsewhere. Pedrolino must establish his relationship with Pantalone and identify his house. He immediately begins to plan and proceeds apace throughout. The action moves quickly, seemingly in a period of little more than a long afternoon. In his usual way Pedrolino, like the playwright that he is in effect, withholds the details of his plan. He exits other than where Pantalone enters, avoiding him. There can be no suspicion of his conspiring with Orazio.
3. PANTALONE |
leading Isabella, his wife, by the hand; Flavio [leading] Flaminia, a widow. Orazio greets Pantalone and all his company, telling him that he is happy that he [Pantalone] has come to grace this villa with his presence; and, there being a long bench which has been set up, they all sit down to rest, asking Graziano to tell and recount some tale. Graziano first makes them plead with him; in the end, he recounts that tale by Boccaccio, entitled ***. All praise it, except for Pantalone, who says it was not too appropriate where women are present; at that |
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Orazio’s welcome to Pantalone, his friendship with Tofano, Pasquella’s acquaintance with him, shown later, and his readily available lute may indicate that Orazio is a nearby property owner. He greets Pantalone as a social equal.
The relationship of the characters must be made clear: the widow Flaminia is Isabella’s sister; Graziano is a family friend. That all six characters on stage sit on a single, long bench suggests comic jostling for seating, a lazzo that establishes the various relationships and foretells the action. Graziano, who later tries to bed Flaminia, may go to considerable lengths to position himself next to her; Pantalone may see to it that no one other than he can sit beside Isabella. To avert any suspicion on Pantalone’s part, Isabella likely observes proper modestia, but sly glances between her and Orazio may signal what is to come.
The atmosphere of the countryside is relaxed and idealized. The setting is both a place and an idea. It is part of the motivation for the action, and it serves to organize it, unify its tone, and invite its sensuality. The perspective is that of the city dwellers, who are the scenario’s main characters. It was not uncommon for well-to-do Venetian merchants to have country retreats that were made for carefree parties. They were largely shut off from the problems of field labour. “Anything that implied the use of hoe or ploughshare was considered ‘rustic and base.’”6 In Alberti’s I libri della famiglia, Giannozzo and Lionardo describe the long-held appeal of the villa and perhaps provide some indication of the set design: In the country, among all the subjects discussed,
there is none which can fail to delight you. All are pleasant to talk of and are heard by willing ears … You have a lovely view when you look at those leafy hills and verdant plains. Clear springs and streams go leaping through and losing themselves in the waving grass … Yes, by God, a true paradise. And, what is more, you can in the enjoyment of your estate escape the violence, the riots, the storm of the city, the marketplace, and the townhall … You can … avoid seeing all the stealing and crime, the vast numbers of depraved men who are always flitting past your eyes in the city. There they never cease to chirp in your ears, to scream and bellow in the trees hour after hour, like a dangerous and disgusting kind of beast.”7
This is a remarkably sunny scenario. There are no night scenes, no duels, and no despairing lovers. Ironically, however, the very danger and evil that Pantalone came to the villa to escape find him there.
The scenario reflects the upper-class passion for leisurely conversation (with love as its principle subject) and everyone’s love of storytelling, music, and dancing, all facilitated by the relaxed country atmosphere.8
Scala does not specify the story from Boccaccio, which he seems to think has a name. It is merely indicated by three asterisks in Marotti’s edition, but the fifth story of the seventh day in The Decameron is most apropos. In it a jealous husband posts himself at the door, but the wife admits her lover by way of the roof.9 The story is only the first of many parallels that foreshadow Pantalone’s own. Each, different in manner of presentation and in content, adds resonance and much eroticism and anticipation to the scenario’s straightforward story of unimpeded adultery. The pleasure that Graziano takes in telling it contrasts his character with that of the dour Pantalone, who is likely studying his wife for any threat of pleasure that she finds in it. Graziano may use the racy story as a means to seduce Flaminia, probably a very young widow whom he later seeks to bed. The brevity of the human lifespan and the age difference between Isabella and Pantalone mean that Flaminia is what Isabella would likely become in her marriage to an old man.
4.PEDROLINO |
all out of breath, tells Orazio and Flavio that some gentlemen from Bergamo have arrived who are asking about them. They leave right away to find them, and all the others remain; at that they hear singing from within. |
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Here is an instance of Scala’s use of the out-of-breath entrance. It is most often Pedrolino’s. His entrance adds a sense of urgency to the action, and his attempt to recover his breath in order to speak is surely comic. The audience is also in on the joke of the actor’s having come only a few feet from offstage and can admire the skill of his performance. However, Pedrolino’s rushed entrance, in this case to announce the gentlemen from Bergamo, and the subsequent exit of Orazio and Flavio are puzzling. The gentlemen do not otherwise figure in the scenario. With Orazio and Flavio offstage and out of earshot of the group and us, Pedrolino has an opportunity to tell them of his plan. But, at scene 9, Graziano mentions the gentlemen again and so would seem to confirm their existence. The departure of the young men keeps them from hearing Cavicchio’s song and story, and it gives focus to the relationships between Graziano and Flaminia and between Pantalone and Isabella.
Cavicchio seems to be heard from offstage, not inside a house.
In his cast of characters Scala specifically tells us that Cavicchio is from Norcia. This town in Umbria was known for pigs fattened by castration (and still, today, for its fine sausage). From the practice of pig castration, apparently, arose itinerant Norcini surgeons who were licensed to perform specific kinds of human surgeries, including removal of stones and cataracts, treatment of fistulas and hernias (in a procedure that sometimes included removal of a testicle), and castration.10 There may be a pun involved in the singing “alia Norcina,” perhaps imitating a castrato and suggesting a male who has been rendered impotent, and the song that Cavicchio sings apparently mocks Pantalone’s psychological state. His next song, one of many extant songs about the badly or unhappily married, and the story he tells pattern the situation at hand, which Cavicchio has evidently appraised. The beautiful devil in the fable is an analogue for Orazio.
The Norcini regularly rented places in which to stay while they worked in a particular area. They could perform surgeries there or in homes. That the party relocates to Cavicchio’s place suggests that the class boundaries are relaxed in the country. There is probably also a rather ghoulish joke involved in the group’s taking fun and pleasure in his place. Cavicchio’s only function in the scenario is to provide obviously very comic prefiguration and to get the remaining characters off stage while continuing to party.
Pantalone’s concern about the threat to his honour that might result from his wife’s behaviour would have been familiar. Dennis Romano quotes a merchant of Venice, Andre Bargarigo, who copied the following aphorism into his account book: “Chi a moger apensier” (He who has a wife has worries).11 Pantalone’s exaggerated instance of male fear12 is further exacerbated here by the fact that he is old and his wife is young. In an analogous situation in Molière’s The School for Wives, act 3, scene 2, an old man, who is like Pantalone and whose character was probably influenced by that of Pantalone, in one of his set speeches advises his young intended:
Take care not to imitate those miserable flirts whose pranks are talked of all over the city; and do not let the evil one tempt you, that is, do not listen to any young coxcomb. Remember … that, in making you part of myself, I give my honour into your hands, which honour is fragile, and easily damaged; that it will not do to trifle in such a matter, and that there are boiling cauldrons in hell, into which wives who live wickedly are thrown for evermore … If you take care not to flirt, your soul will ever be white and spotless as a lily; but if you stain your honour, it will become as black as coal. You will seem hideous to all, and one day you will become the devil’s own property, and boil in hell to all eternity.13
Pantalone’s comments lead us to anticipate his response to her impending unfaithfulness. That he is already suspicious makes clear the difficulty in her carrying it off.
Isabella may respond with a set speech of her own about all the restraints that are put upon her, similar to Isabella Andreini’s complaint that is provided following Scala’s Argument: “a young girl living with a husband who questions her every hour, counts her every step …” This would be Isabella’s only opportunity to demonstrate the discontent and self-assertiveness that leads to her adulterous relationship with Orazio. Otherwise, consistent with proper decorum, she speaks very little.
6.BURATTINO |
market gardener, with Olivetta, his daughter, reproaching her for neither knowing how to hoe nor how to plant, being now old enough for a husband, he gives her a few lessons on manoeuvring the hoe’s handle; at that |
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The Church was the authoritative source on sexual behaviour. The influential Bernardino of Siena (later Saint Bernardino of Siena) preached in 1427 that “girls about to marry ‘had to know how to do it’ and sinned if they neglected to learn.”14 The demonstration on how to hoe is clearly full of double entendres. Olivetta is introduced into the scenario primarily for this scene, which provides comic prefiguration, now for the fourth time in only six scenes; Isabella, as it turns out, is also a virgin who is about to learn hoeing and planting from practical experience. The sexuality of the young, unlike that of the old, is allied with nature and is a force for good.
The two preceding scenes have been devoted to comically foreshadowing the action to come. Now the action moves forward, but the figs, symbolizing a woman’s genitals (as in the obscene hand gesture mano fico), again foreshadow that action.
In the end, Pedrolino marries Olivetta. There is an opportunity here to establish a relationship between them. Onstage alone, Pedrolino may have time to speak about Olivetta or about how he has plans for Orazio and Isabella.
8. PASQUELLA |
comes out; Pedrolino, in Orazio’s name, makes her a great offer. Pasquella says Orazio is a most kind gentleman, and that for him she would do anything. Pedrolino tells her that Orazio is in love with Pantalone’s wife and that, to enjoy her, he must hide in her house, in one of her rooms; and that, when the time comes that Isabella will wish to urinate at her house, she is to take her to that room, and to let it be known that no one else be allowed to go inside the house except she alone. Pasquella agrees. Pedrolino gives her two scudi. Pasquella [goes] into the house. Pedrolino: that the matter is off to a good start; at that |
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The language here suggests a residence in addition to Pantalone’s. A typical villa often had secondary buildings for the family of the farmer and for the farm equipment, often directly on the road,15 which in this scenario serves for exits and entrances as do the city streets in other scenarios. Pasquella comes onstage from her house. She is introduced into the scenario because she is critical to the subplot that begins in the next scene. Pedrolino makes the arrangement for Orazio with her, not with Burattino with whom the young Olivetta is present. Pasquella establishes that Orazio is a worthy fellow. This determination of his worthiness is important in making the audience’s view of his planned assignation with a married woman a sympathetic one. His last name, Cortesi, which is provided in the Argument, means “courteous” and “courtly” and confirms Pasquella’s evaluation of him. There is no indication that Pasquella finds the proposed adultery objectionable. The audience is apprised of Pedrolino’s plan now, early in the first act.
Evidently, out in the country, a lady would still have urinated in a chamber pot.16
9.GRAZIANO |
[says] that those gentlemen have left. He implores Pedrolino [to help him] in his love for Flaminia.* Pedrolino promises to help him; at that |
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The announced departure of the gentlemen, as puzzling as their arrival, does provide an excuse for Graziano’s entrance and makes clear how it is that the youths can enter with the girls in the next scene.
No sooner has Pedrolino arranged for the first assignation than he is asked to help with another. The audience may already suspect that Pedrolino will play a trick on Graziano, typically an old man, because passionate old men, who in fact may have been no more than fifty, violate the decorum suited to their age. Graziano has already shown his pursuit of Flaminia to be tasteless. A speech here that badly imitates a pure Petrarchan love sonnet, like the one a young lover would characteristically have provided, would clinch that impression. Graziano cannot be a sympathetic figure. The audience must anticipate that a trick on each of the old men, one who married a young woman and one who presently pursues another, is about to be played in which each will get his comeuppance.
10.ORAZIO |
with Flaminia by the hand, and Flavio who is leading Isabella, and Pantalone following them. They find Graziano and Pedrolino. [They] ask if lunch is ready. They: [say] yes and that they will be very pleased; at that |
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Scala delays the anticipated sexual encounters.
The partnering is not what we might expect. Flavio escorted Flaminia upon her first entrance but now he escorts Isabella. We conclude that Flavio has no love interest in this scenario. He acts only as a faithful friend. The partnering may serve to allay Pantalone’s suspicions, but probably not sufficiently. On the need to be on the watch with women, Leon Battista Alberti wrote, “I therefore wisely bore in mind what every husband should hold fixed and emblazoned in his thoughts, namely, that by nature woman is a fickle and inconstant creature, and prone to all sorts of lust.”17 Pantalone’s fears, we anticipate, will be borne out. Scala’s comedies endorse a more generous view of humankind than does Pantalone and are critical of those who do not.
market gardener, with a very beautiful dish of figs or peaches; he presents it to Orazio on behalf of Tofano Braghettino, asking him to do him the favour of going to his house after lunch. Orazio accepts the present; he gives him a drink, telling him he will certainly go. Burattino away. Pantalone orders that water be brought for [washing] hands; at that |
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The presentation of the fruit and the invitation are staged for Pantalone’s benefit, and he must be given focus.
12. PEDROLINO |
with the silver washbasin. |
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No mention of Graziano’s and Pedrolino’s exit into the house at scene 10 is provided but can be deduced here.
13.GRAZIANO |
with the silver jug and a towel; and so they all wash themselves and then they cheerfully go inside to lunch, |
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Graziano’s useful labour gives his character some focus; the plot involving him does not proceed until late in the scenario. He characteristically loves food and festivities, and his service in providing food here is probably very pleasurable for him.
Scala needs a way to get the ongoing festivities offstage for an intermission, now that both plot lines have been introduced and the first plot has been set in motion. It was customary at the time to offer guests water in a basin for the ceremonial washing of hands.18 The silver jug and wash basin appear in several other Scala scenarios. If they were on hand, they may have provided the idea for the act’s closing. Andrea Perrucci comments that a magnificent theatrical display of silver and luxury items delighted the common people.19 Water, symbolic of female sexuality and fertility, enhances the construction of the scenario, whether or not Scala was conscious of the symbolism. The young people might provocatively flick it at one another, heightening our pleasure and the promise of the scenario at the end of act 1.
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Second Act |
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1. THREE VAGRANTS |
badly dressed, with their [musical] instruments for playing, who are going through the countryside playing and singing to make a living; they make their instruments heard; at that |
The countryside could not support its population, and vagrant beggars and itinerant performers, who may have been hardly more than beggars, would not have been an unusual sight in any place in which there was hope of obtaining day labour, money, or food. Professional actors were often good musicians, and the actors playing Cavicchio and Spavento could have served as two of the musicians; however, the wording of the prop list suggests that musicians were dressed as beggars rather than that the roles were doubled by actors who played instruments.
2.PASQUELLA OLIVETTA |
come out. The vagrants ask for something to eat, offering to play and sing. Pasquella sends for bread and wine; at that |
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It is evidently Olivetta whom Pasquella sends for the bread and wine, there being no one else on stage. Olivetta is then not present for the forthcoming discussion of plot arrangements.
3.PEDROLINO |
from the house, tells Pasquella that the time for that business with Orazio is approaching, with the players providing the opportunity; and they send Olivetta to invite some country girls to come to the dance. Olivetta away. Pedrolino orders the players to play, and that he will see to it that they are very well paid. Vagrants play; at that |
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Pedrolino is a master at taking advantage of the situation at hand. He sees the chance arrival of the beggar-musicians as fortuitous; music and dancing will shield the after-lunch adultery. He reminds the audience of the plot set up in act 1 and builds anticipation, promising its imminent enactment. The meal is evidently still in progress; the other characters do not appear, and at act 1, scene 11, Pedrolino had said he was going to arrange the assignation for after lunch, which now he may be in the midst of serving. When Olivetta promptly returns with the bread and wine, he sends her off on another errand. There appears to be a musical interlude with Pasquella onstage to allow for the suggestion of the passage of time.
4.OLTVETTA [YOUNG GIRLS] |
arrives, with the country girls and her friends. Pasquella goes inside for benches and chairs, then returns with her husband. |
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Again, little time elapses between when Olivetta is sent off on an errand and when she returns.
5.BURATTINO PASQUELLA |
with benches and chairs, arrange a place for everyone to sit, as the players play; at that |
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Ordinarily the scenarios are set in a city street, and therefore chairs and seated characters are uncommon. In this case, they suggest the leisure of the idealized countryside.
6.PANTALONE |
comes out of the house with the entire group; he sits down with all of the others, and here they all begin to dance, now the one and now the other, as is the custom with those women. Orazio, in the middle of the dance, excuses himself from the company, saying he is compelled to go to Tofano, and away. Burattino goes inside for his instrument to play; then they dismiss the players. Flavio pays them; they, away. Burattino [says] that he wishes to go for a stroll with them, leading them as he plays, and so in agreement, they all go away with him, except Pasquella, who remains to look after the house; at that |
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Flaminia is not mentioned in the list of those returning from Pantalone’s house to the garden. She should be. To give appropriate focus to Orazio’s departure, the scene must be carefully staged.
The dismissal of the musicians would allow them to double as hunters at scene 9, and it allows Burattino, as their replacement, to take the group on a walk. His functions in the scenario are multiple. Once again, in the midst of the ongoing festivities, Scala needs to get everyone offstage for the next scene. Conveniently, Burattino will not be in his house when the lusty assignation between Isabella and Orazio takes place. All go off, in a direction other than where Orazio last exited and from where he returns, perhaps singing or still dancing, or both.
7. ORAZIO |
arrives, greets Pasquella, who tells him all that Pedrolino has told her on his behalf; and she leads him into the house to put him in the room already prepared for him to enjoy Isabella, and they go inside. |
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For the audience’s full appreciation of what is about to happen out of sight, Pasquella explains Pedrolino’s scheme again and her preparation of the room. Orazio, like the audience, is all anticipation.
Again, the two plots of assignation follow one after another. The first secret encounter has only begun, when Pedrolino agrees to set up yet another. To allow for this scene that, like the previous one, requires a discreet negotiation, Scala now justifies the return of only some of the celebrants, who, in fact, have been offstage for only one scene. In the romanticized countryside Graziano has been drinking in Cavicchio’s place and perhaps others. The lust of an old man for a young woman, widowed or not, is not sanctioned, and Graziano’s inebriation would add to the characterization of him as an unsympathetic gull. He does not even express any intent to marry Flaminia.
There is opportunity for Pedrolino to expatiate on the pleasures of the promised day-long tryst.
9. CAPIT. SPAVENTO [HUNTERS] |
[dressed] as a hunter with dogs [and] horns, is coming to the countryside because of his love for Flaminia, Isabella’s sister. He asks Graziano about Pantalone, Flavio and Orazio. He [Graziano says] that they are out in the countryside, and goes to inform them; away. Pedrolino tells the Capitano that Graziano is his competitor for Flaminia’s love. The Capitano laughs at this; at that |
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No sooner does Pedrolino agree to arrange an assignation between Graziano and Flaminia than a wholly unexpected complication to that second plot is first suggested and then laughed off. Spavento’s very theatrical entrance into the scenario in the middle of act 2, complete with a kind of musical fanfare, comes as a surprise, except in so far as the audience may have learned to expect the late arrival in a drama of an important character. The hunters’ entrance is in marked contrast to the two scenes of arrangements that preceded it and, from the audience’s point of view, delays their outcome.
Hunting for deer was a favourite villa pastime and well suited to courtiers as a peacetime substitute for war. The dogs used in such hunts were greyhounds, trackers (segusi), and pointers.20
Like Orazio, Spavento has come to the country because of a love interest. The style of the hunt suggests that he is well to do. He is on good terms with Pantalone’s family and with Orazio and Flavio; he ends up marrying Flaminia. In other words, this captain is not a vagrant braggart warrior; he is apparently part of the hereditary elite, above the merchant class. Whatever he may say about his love for Flaminia, unlike what Graziano may say, is not comic. Countering any expectation that we might have about the character, Spavento must win our respect. Any earlier thought we might have had about the way in which the widow Flaminia might have to settle for Graziano is to be set aside.
10.FLAVIO [PANTALONE] [GRAZIANO] [ISABELLA] [FLAMINIA] [BURATTINO] |
arrives with the entire group; they greet the Capitano, saying how happy they are about his arrival. Flavio proposes right away that they sit and that [later] they again return to dancing, but first they [should] take some refreshments; they all sit down;at that |
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The group returns from its walk. Scala needs the group onstage for the crisis to follow. Presumably, the scene-stealing, too freely improvising dogs have been quickly removed from the stage. No further mention is made of them or the huntsmen, but Burattino’s narration at act 3, scene 11, suggests the possibility of the huntsmen having been added to the party of dancers. Friend Flavio calls for the distraction of dance. Graziano, who helps with the refreshments at scene 12, probably does not sit but rather enters Pantalone’s house.
11.PASQUELLA OLIVETTA |
seat themselves with the others; at that |
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Pasquella’s entrance is a separate scene; she is pointedly on hand for the moment when she must volunteer her house for Isabella’s needs. Again, the social classes are equalized. That mother and daughter do not help with the serving reinforces the idea that there are two houses onstage.
12. PEDROLINO GRAZIANO SERVANTS |
with plates filled with confections, flasks of wine, fruits, [and] with glasses and saucers. They offer the repast, in which each one partakes. Afterwards, they begin to dance, doing the dance of the sentinel, and while they dance, Isabella signals to her husband that she wishes to urinate. Right away, Pasquella, with Pantalone’s permission, leads her into the house. Right away, Pantalone, because of [his] jealousy, moves to guard the door, as again they dance. |
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It is later in the afternoon and time for refreshment. The repast and its service, now with servants, are as visually stunning and extravagant as was Spavento’s entrance. Spavento and Graziano each have time for business with Flaminia. Pedrolino can dance with Olivetta. Il piantone, the dance of the sentinel, was one of the most popular dances of the period, and Scala seems to have assumed that it was well known to his audience. The dance provides another of the many instances in which the central action is echoed – first in story, then in song and symbols, and now in dance, although nothing in the dance, beyond its name, seems to suggest anything about a watchman.21 Scala does not abide by Perrucci’s caution that banquets on stage, prohibited by the Ancients, were likely to be more sumptuous in the telling than when seen; rather he calls for a visible celebration of the Italian love of food.22 Pantalone’s excessive vigilance and control do not endear him to the party or to us; Isabella is ostensibly out of Pantalone’s sight only to urinate. We are however also aware that Pantalone’s watchfulness is misdirected; the beautiful devil is already within.23
13. FLAMINIA |
Flaminia would like to go inside Pasquella’s house; right away Pedrolino invites her to dance so that she will not disturb Orazio; and so each one would like to go inside Pasquella’s house to take care of some business, and Pantalone keeps telling them: “For goodness’ sake, do not go and disturb my wife, who is taking care of certain business.” In the end, she comes out. |
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If two houses are onstage, it is not clear what prevents Flaminia and the others from going into Pantalone’s house. Again, in Pedrolino’s dance with Flaminia, we note the idyllic equalization of classes. The audience is led to imagine, not only the sex act taking place offstage, but also everyone having to urinate while dancing, or perhaps by this point merely hopping from foot to foot with the urgency caused by their full bladders.
This is one of the few places in his scenarios in which Scala provides the exact words for the actor to speak. This turns out to be important; later Burattino essentially repeats what Pantalone says here.
Sweaty Isabella was obviously not a passive participant in the sex. Her shame and probably excessive demonstration of affection for the old man also make clear her complicity. The audience is expected to be fully amused by the adultery and the deception by which it took place.
In real life, adultery was regarded throughout Italy as a serious crime. Practically speaking, it was a crime of wives, and the courts regularly punished an adulteress more severely than they did her partner, the woman being the means by which the purity of the patriarchal line was maintained.24 However, the punishment was erratically and unevenly enforced. Much depended on the circumstance, social status, and class of the offender. Women were often publicly whipped and had their heads shaved or their clothes torn as a sign of shame.
In Scala’s comedy, adultery is a source of humour.25 The humour here follows from the irrationality of the marriage situation that had been allowed to develop. In Alessandro Piccolomini’s play La raffaella, 1539, a servant suggests that the very easy remedy for a woman forced to marry a man “of opposite nature and custom” is for her to give herself up “totally to the love of one who with skill makes up for the unhappiness that one suffers with a husband.” In the prologue to the same play, Piccolomini tells the women in the audience that if they are careful and prudent, they can enjoy their youth and their loves.26 A number of critics have argued that commedia dell’arte provided no opportunity for satire. We cannot know what actors said or how they adapted the scenarios to times and places. Nothing in the Scala scenarios, from our perspective, satirizes politics or religion. But we must keep in mind that marriage was “at the heart of social and political institutions.”27 The satirical treatment of the lust of old men and of their marriage to much younger women is unmistakable, whether or not Scala intended such satire. Comedy was a version of the “avenger” that Isabella Andreini sought.28
With yet another walk, Scala gets his party offstage. The characters’ need to urinate is abandoned with Scala’s desire to close the act on a high point. The audience is left to anticipate Pantalone’s discovery of the adultery and the repercussions of that.
Third Act |
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1.FLAVIO [PEDROLINO] |
[says] that an hour feels like a thousand [waiting] to see Orazio again to hear how the business went; at that |
The group of family and friends is still offstage. Flavio and Pedrolino, entering from where they exited, remind us of the way that things were left at the end of the last act. They make clear that they endorse and are complicit in the liaison.
2.ORAZIO |
[comes] from Pasquella’s house, tells them about the brief pleasure [he]had with Isabella. Pedrolino: that he wants to play a joke on Graziano, who is in love with Flaminia and how the Capitano loves Flaminia with his very life, and how, though pretending to go hunting, he has really come out for her; at that |
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The audience does not have long to wait for Orazio’s report on the escapade, yet another reiteration of the sexual event. Pedrolino tells the young men that he has arranged another trick – on the other foolish old man who is in love with a young woman. Again the two plots are taken up in sequence, clearly pairing them and lending the frisson of one to the other. With Pedrolino’s forthcoming second practical joke, Scala delays our pleasure in Pantalone’s discovery of his having been cuckolded. Pedrolino’s secrecy about the nature of the trick keeps him in control and us in suspense.
3.CAPITANO PANTALONE ISABELLA FLAMINIA |
arrive, see Orazio [and] tell him that they are happy about his speedy return; they all embrace one another. Isabella begs Orazio to get his chitarrone or theorbo and sing some musical things in the Roman style to entertain the company. Orazio, in a good mood, sends Pedrolino for the instrument. Turning to the Capitano, [he] asks him if he would like to take a wife. Looking at Flaminia, the Capitano says yes. Orazio [suggests] that he charge him with negotiating his marriage. Capitano agrees. And as Orazio is about to speak with Pantalone to negotiate the matter, [Burattino] arrives. |
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The villagers, hunters, and vagabonds have apparently gone.
Orazio has evidently played and sung for Pantalone’s family before. The Roman style of singing emerged in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century. Both Orazio and the actor who played him were evidently very au courant. They were also very skilled musicians because, according to musicologist John Walter Hill, the characteristics of the style were beyond the ability of the average vocalist; they included a kind of recitative, the improvisation of additional ornamental passaggi, and expressive modulation of the voice.29 The singer in this style customarily accompanied himself by playing chords on a theorbo, guitar, harpsichord or organ, depending on the circumstance. Performers of this new style were in demand but extremely difficult to find even well into the seventeenth century. The songs, largely in the pastoral tradition, are confined to various expressions of sorrow and pain caused by the loss of or failure to gain the intensely desired union between shepherd and shepherdess or nymph. Many of the songs contain references to interlocutors (usually unheard), almost always the beloved. Francesco Rasi, a tenor and a theorbo player – and student of one of the defining figures of the Roman style, Giulio Caccini, also known as Giulio Romano30 – left us with a song the likes of which Orazio might have sung. It goes, in part, as follows: “When I am far from you I see nothing … / The gentle breezes may blow, /and the brook may murmur among the trees –/When I am far from you I hear nothing./Alas, I think so little of myself for when I am far from you I am nothing.”31
Only that the words are sung and the likely pastoral references would have veiled Orazio’s expression of his love for Isabella. In the tradition the songs, as here, could become metonyms for narrative.32 Despite this, Pantalone, probably pleased at the idea of entertainment, is still none the wiser about the relationship between Isabella and Orazio.
The scene between the Capitano and Orazio is a private one off to one side. The Capitano’s intentions, unlike those of Graziano, are honourable. Orazio, perhaps emboldened by his success and in a marrying mood himself, now promises to arrange with Pantalone (whom he has just betrayed) Flaminia’s marriage to the Capitano.
4.BURATTINO |
who pulls Orazio aside to tell him to be so kind as to pay for his bedstead that he broke when he was in the room with Isabella. Orazio: that he will pay for it; and he sends him away; then he asks Pantalone [to give] Flaminia as wife to the Capitano. Pantalone: that he agrees, if she wants him. Flaminia agrees and touches his [the Capitano’s] hand; at that |
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Burattino’s request, at an awkward time for Orazio, allows the audience to again envision the vigorous adultery and suggests for a moment that the illicit act might be accidentally disclosed. It makes comic and suspenseful a scene that otherwise consists of arrangements. The near disclosure of what Orazio has so recently done also makes his interaction now with Pantalone seem quite bold.
As a widow, Flaminia would have retained her dowry and thus be able to remarry. She is related to Pantalone only by marriage. However, as part of an extended family and absent a more immediate patriarch, he has authority with respect to her marriage. By touching the Capitano’s hand in front of Pantalone, Flaminia officially consents to the marriage.
5.PEDROLINO |
[enters] with the chitarrone, presents it to Orazio, then everyone sits down; at that |
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Orazio’s lute is quickly retrieved. Time is foreshortened. At least some of the chairs from act 2 are still on the stage.
6.GRAZIANO |
arrives. Pedrolino immediately tells him to go into the house and, into Flaminia’s room, shut the windows, and throw himself onto her bed, and she will come to find him. Graziano goes inside. Orazio begins to sing and, singing, sings so sweetly that Pantalone falls deeply asleep; at that, [still] singing, Orazio leads Isabella away. Capitano, Flaminia, and Flavio follow them. Pedrolino remains; at that |
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The scene between Graziano and Pedrolino is aside. Pedrolino’s direction to close the windows, which would have been shuttered, assures that Flaminia’s room in Pantalone’s house will be so dark that Graziano cannot see.33 No elaborate rationale for Graziano’s departure into the house needs to be provided; Graziano has frequently gone into Pantalone’s house. The second house, like the first, is to be used for a nefarious purpose. The audience knows that Flaminia, off with the group, will not be subject to it. Graziano is tricked to wait in bed; Orazio tricked to wait in bed.
Scala has devised yet another means to get everyone offstage to further Pedrolino’s plotting, for which purposes the sleeping Pantalone, left on stage, might as well not be there. But onstage, he is as unaware of Isabella and Orazio together offstage as he was before. We see him tricked again.
Pasquella’s entrance, unless Pedrolino calls or knocks quietly, is motivated only by plot convenience. Finally we learn the whole of Pedrolino’s plan.34 Pedrolino has an opportunity to exult in his success at the way things are going. In contrast to the first adultery trick, this one does not require the distraction of musicians and dancers, and there is nothing onstage to imply anything celebratory about it. Now it is Pedrolino who stands guard, but to see that no one interrupts the trick.
8.PANTALONE |
wakes up, sees Pedrolino, asks where Isabella is. Pedrolino: that he too had slept and that he does not know. Pantalone is surprised; at that |
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In The Decameron, the fourth story of the eighth Day, the old Provost of Fiesole, who is pompous and tedious like Graziano, falls in love with a young and beautiful widow who does not reciprocate his love. His attentions, like Graziano’s, are persistent and obnoxious. The Provost is tricked into having sex with the widow’s maid instead. He is discovered and dishonoured, including by small boys who taunt him.35
Scala’s scenario, like The Decameron, uses the framing device of city people listening to and telling stories while on a stay in the country.36 In The Jealous Old Man two of the stories, very much like those in The Decameron, are enacted. A story actually from The Decameron is narrated. In Scala the two enacted stories are very closely related to one another; the story of Graziano is another of the many parallels to that of Pantalone.
9.BURATTINO |
[enters and] asks Pantalone if he has seen his wife, Pasquella, and Pantalone asks Burattino if he knows where his wife [Isabella] may be; at that |
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The scenario rushes towards three successive recognitions that lead to its conclusion: those of Graziano, Burattino, and Pantalone. Both kinds of practical jokes delineated by Castiglione are employed. Pantalone is clearly tricked in an adroit and amusing fashion. For Graziano a net is spread and a little bait is offered, and he causes his own downfall. The couplings, a right one between Isabella and Orazio and a wrong one between Graziano and Pasquella, are neatly contrasted.
10.ORAZIO [CAPITANO] [FLAVIO] [ISABELLA] |
[enters] singing, followed by the entire party; they see Pantalone and make fun of him because he had fallen asleep, saying to him: “Oh what a fine wife guardian, a guardian who while awake doesn’t have the heart to watch [over] her, oh [just] think then what he might do while sleeping!” Pantalone goes into a rage; at that |
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Scala gets the group on stage for the recognitions. It is critical to Pantalone’s humiliation that it have an audience. Honour was wholly a matter of public perception. The greater the public, the greater the dishonour.
Graziano cannot speak publicly of the way in which he has been deceived, for that would make known to Flaminia – and to all – his devious designs upon her. We do not take seriously Graziano’s threat to avenge himself; there is no indication that Pedrolino’s identity as the trickster is even revealed, and in any case Graziano would be no match for him.
Burattino, who has kept his confidence until now, as if in jest, displaces his anger for his own cuckolding by revealing to Pantalone his. The psychology is finely observed. Scala dramatically puts the recognition of the less important of the tricks first, but the two recognitions are linked, and the one follows from the other.
Not only what happens to Burattino, which the audience already knows, but his telling of the story of Pantalone, which the audience also already knows, serves in yet another way for the audience to experience the story again. The length and detail of the narration suggest that Pantalone listens to it as just another story, until near its conclusion. Pantalone’s angry recognition comes only after Burattino has repeated verbatim Pantalone’s advice to Isabella to satisfy her desires rather than suffer. Some version of the jealous old man’s story has been presented in song, two fictions, twice in fact, in symbol, in dance, and in its recounting. The use of the term assassinato (murder) perhaps recalls the violence of Cavicchio’s profession. The structure of the scenario is both syntactic (sequential) and paradigmatic (consisting of parallels). Ferruccio Marotti points to a comparison with Sergei Eisenstein’s use of rhythmic and tonal montage.37 The long narration here and, in other scenarios, the long travel narrations make clear the audience’s great enjoyment in storytelling as well as drama and in the intermixing of the two.
Pantalone is doubly dishonoured, first by the adultery and then by his impotence. His marriage to a young woman, and one for whom he cannot sexually provide, his overweening suspicion and control, and his gullibility make him the perfect victim of a trick.
Despite the great gender inequality, both partners had conjugal rights.38 Pantalone’s impotence, which was grounds for annulment, partly salvages the morality of the scenario, which otherwise celebrates adultery, at least in cases where foolish old men are married to young girls.39 In the telescoped ending, no mention is made of a dowry, which would have been crucial. For the sake of dramatic economy in the scenarios, the nuptials harken back to an earlier time, before the 1563 Council of Trent, when mutual consent, without the involvement of the Church, sufficed to constitute a valid marriage.40
Unlike Isabella who was an eager participant in the first trick, Pasquella is raped. Rape was not a matter of the woman’s autonomy, security, self-respect, or sanity; it was primarily a social, not a psychic fact.41 Pasquella is a woman at the lower end of the social scale; her rape is of little social concern.42 If at act 1, scene 8, Pasquella intimates that the anything she would do for Orazio includes having sex with him, Pedrolino’s misuse of her here may be more acceptable to our own tastes. But Scala remarks only that it is her husband who has been violated, dishonoured, by her having been raped. Even that observation is hushed up in the rush to the happy ending in three marriages. The dishonour of the lower-class Burattino does not matter much. What matters in the second beffa, or practical joke, is that the well-to-do Graziano has been made to look a fool. Neither of the old men has exhibited the decorum appropriate to true patriarchs, and for that they are appropriately humiliated; the audience is intended to take pleasure not only in that humiliation but also in the artistry with which the trickery is arranged and disclosed. Pedrolino’s tricks are not gratuitous but are punishments for perceived social sins, and, like the charivari itself, they and their representation serve to effect a kind of social control.
It is time for those of the next generation, fully come of age with their marriages, to take over from the old fools. Perhaps the final humiliation is the planned nuptials inside Pantalone’s house. However, the Argument suggests that even old Pantalone accepts the resolution as fitting; he had made himself needlessly unhappy living a life of jealousy; marriages of old men and girls are not suited to either the old men or the girls. Thomas Van Laan observes the extent to which, in Shakespeare’s drama, the climax is the conversion of the victim in which he is compelled to accept a new role, and much of the intrigue leading up to this climax is acted out often by the unwitting victim himself.43 The same can be said in this case. Charivari, which was typically carnivalesque, ended with “a payoff from the victims, a round of drinks and evening of revelry.”44 The group’s exit, into Pantalone’s house, is probably accompanied by much dancing and merriment.