THE HISTORY OF THE HARLEQUINADE [Illustration] THE HISTORY OF THE HARLEQUINADE BY MAURICE SAND VOLUME ONE LONDON: MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI _First Published 1915_ CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 9 I. HARLEQUIN 57 II. POLICHINELLE 103 III. THE CAPTAIN 137 IV. COLUMBINE 159 V. PIERROT 183 VI. LELIO 235 VII. RUZZANTE 279 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS HARLEQUIN _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE HARLEQUIN 64 POLICHINELLE 112 THE CAPTAIN 144 COLUMBINE 176 PIERROT 192 LELIO 240 RUZZANTE 288 THE HISTORY OF THE HARLEQUINADE INTRODUCTION The first mime, or rather the first comic actor, was he who leapt upon a bench or table to delight the assembly by his singing, his dancing or his relation of an amusing story. Improvisation prompted all such early attempts. Some of these primitive comedians assemble in Icaria under the direction of Susarion, who gives a form and a sequence to their buffooneries, and they set out to trail their booths and chariots through the cities of Greece (800 B.C.). They represent a slave with shaven head, a drunkard rubicund of face, brutalised by libations, an obese glutton, who tumbles incessantly. Soon comic poets, such as Magnes, Achæus and Timocreon, conceive for them performances mingled with comic dances (termed _cordaces_) and pantomimes. Thespis, born in Icaria, sets up a theatre, assigns rôles to his mimes, dresses them grotesquely, parades them in chariots, their faces smeared with dregs or soot, and sets about presenting little dramas and comedies mingled with music. He detaches from the chorus an individual, assigns to him a rôle and thus creates the _corypheus_. Æschylus the Athenian (393 B.C.) adds a second one. Thenceforward no comic or tragic performances are given without music. In Athens and in Sparta charlatans set up their trestles in public places, and by means of their displays attract a crowd, to whom they then proceed to sell their unguents (400 B.C.). Here we behold among others a thieving rogue, or a foreign doctor who speaks a ridiculous dialect. Whilst Aristophanes is performing his comedies in the great theatre, the streets of Athens are encumbered by diviners, sorcerers, fortune-tellers, jugglers, equilibrists, rope dancers and prestidigitators, amongst whom are cited Theodorus and Euryclides.