italian and elizabethian comedy

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ITALIAN AND ELIZABETHAN COMEDYDr. Cunliffe n a recent article' has called attentionto someconnections,provedand hypothetical, etween talian andEnglishdrama in the sixteenthcentury; in general he agrees with Dr.Ward' that the English stage received a direct mpulse,not onlyfromSeneca, Plautus and Terence, but from talian tragedyand

comedy. In thispaper I wishto give a fewfactsthatgo toprovethis connectionas more fundamentaland far-reaching han hasheretofore een supposed.It may,I believe, be shownthat manyan English play whichhas been traced to a novella source,goes back moredirectly o anItalian play founded on the novella. The greatmass of Italiandramas in the sixteenth enturywasromantic,o romantic,ndeed,as to justifyCamerini in calling Boccaccio the fountain-head fItalian comedy. The Commedia dell' arte especially used muchmaterial from he novelle and fromfolk legends,developing thissubject-matter hroughthe popular masks of Pantalone, SignorCapitano, pedant, younglovers,comic servants,witch,and magi-cian.' Men of letters like Ariosto kept more closely to classicformthandid the humblerplaywrights,who,like Andrea Calmo,wereoftentravelingactors. Yet these lesser men learned valu-able lessons fromthe classicists, and by the end of the centurymany of them,using much novella material,wroteup from ce-nari regular intriguecomedies of the Latin type.'The hypothesis hat theseproductionswereknown n England,is borne out by threekinds of evidence. In the firstplace wehave documentary roof hattraveling talian playersvisited Lon-don; secondly,manyEnglish comedies contain nternalevidenceof Italian origin,or at least ofstrong talian influence;and,most1 The Influence ofItalian on Early English Drama, ModernPhilology, April,1907.2History of English Dramatic Literature (London, 1899),Vol. I, p. 168.3Camerini,Nuovi profili etterati Milano, 1886),Vol. III, chap. i, especially pp. 1-3.4Rossi, Introduction to Letteredi Andrea Calmo (Torino, 1880),p. lix.5A. Bartoli, Scenari inediti della commedia dell' arte (Firenze, 1880), pp. Iviii if. Acollection of such plays was published at Florence in 1750, l teatrocomico.555] 1 [MODERN PHILOLOGY, April,1908

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2 WINIFRED SMITHsatisfactory f all, certainEnglish playshavebeen traceddirectlyto Italian originals. In this investigation have confinedmyselfalmostexclusivelyto comedy,but I am sure that similarconnec-tionscould be establishedfortragedy nd thepastoral. Mr. Gregin his treatise,Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama (London,1906), has made important iscoveries n thisfield.Unless something s knownof Italian actors in the sixteenthcentury, he nfluence ftheirplayswillneverbe dulyappreciated.These troupesfrom he timetheybegan toformweregreattravel-ers. After1570 company aftercompanyof comicivisitedParis,and to judge fromour English recordswere favorites n Londonalso.' In July,1574, Italian playersfollowedthe progressandmade pastimeat Reading; amongtheircharacterswereShepherds,Nymphs, aturn [Satyrs?], Devils, andWild Man. 2 Still earlier,in 1572, the earl of Lincoln gave an entertainment o the queen,in whichtherewas an Italian play and divarsvautarsand leapersof divars sorts,vearie excellent. 3 In January,1579, a masqueof amazons and knights was presented before Elizabeth; thespeeches werewrittenn English and translated nto Italian, evi-dentlyforpresentationby Italian actors.' More important hanany ofthese,because moredefinite,s a record n theActs of thePrivy Council for January, 1577-78: a license was grantedtoDrousiano, an Italian commediante and his troupe,to play inLondon till the beginning of Lent.5 Dr. Furness, remarking nthis visit,says it discloses an intimaterelationship t thatearlydate betweenthe English and Italian stage, of which too littleaccountis made by those who wish to explain Shakspere's knowl-edge of Italian mannersand names. 6It is possible in the light of modern French scholarship toconfirm ollier's cautiousguess, thatthis company might repre-sent extemporal omedies. Drusiano was a brotherofTristano

IMoland, Molibreet la comedie italienne (Paris, 1867), haps. i-iv; Baschet, Les comn-diens italiensA a cour de France (Paris, 1882).2Fleay, Chronicle History of the London Stage (London, 1890), p. 22, cited fromtheaccounts ofThe Master oftheRevels.3Nichols,ProgressesofQueenElizabeth (London, 1823),Vol. I, p. 41.4Fleay, op. cit., p. 26.

bCf. Collier, Annals oftheStage (London, 1826),Vol. III, p. 398,note.6Much Ado about Nothing,Furness Variorumed., Introd.556



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ITALIAN AND ELIZABETHAN COMEDY 3Martinelli,the famousArlecchino of the Gelosi, the best-knowntroupe of comici in Paris.' Beforecomingto London at theheadof a companyof his own,Drusiano had played with the Gelosi,like his brother, n the role ofArlecchino. Later, in 1580,he andhis wife,Madonna Angelica, wereheading the duke ofMantua'scomedians.2 Through French and Mantuan records,therefore,tis easy to build up a knowledgeof Drusiano's probable repertoryin England. He doubtlessgave theresome of the Commediedell'arte which the Gelosi had acted the previous year in Paris; and,forvariety,he probably acted pastorals and classical plays withelaborate intermedii, s well as commedie rudite written y mem-bers of the academies to whichso manyactorsbelonged.' TheInganni comedy, comparedby Manningham to TwelfthNight,5was written y AlessandroPiccolomini,a memberof the SienneseacademyofGl' Intronati; as Piccolomini's plays wereamong themostpopular in the repertory f the Gelosi and the Fedeli, thereis no reason whythisparticularone may not have been given inLondon by a companyof Italian actors.6Very fewnamesofthesevisitingplayershave survivedor haveyetcome to light. But Drusiano's company an hardlyhave beenthe last. Coryatmustbe alluding to one in commenting n a playhe attended n Venice: I saw womenacte, a thing I never sawbefore, though I have heard it hath beene sometimesused inLondon. ' If used in London it must have been by visitingItalians, as these were the only European troupes of the day inwhich womenwere allowed to act.These records and references, hough not so positive as wecould wish,still give us a series ofstrongprobabilities. Althoughwe know so few names of actors,and no titlesofplays except the

1Rasi, I comici italiani (Firenze, 1897),under Martinelli.2Ancona, Teatro Montovano nel secolo XVI, Giornale storico,Vol. VI.3Moland, Moliere et la comddie talienne, chaps. iv,v,gives a fullsummaryof the reper-toryof the Gelosi.4Francesco Andreini, the Capitano of the Gelosi, was a memberof the FlorentineSpensierati; his wife,the famous Isabella, of the Pavian Intenti. Cf. Moland, op. cit., p. 51.5Manningham's Diary, February 2, 1601-2. (Publications of the Camden Society,Vol. XCIX.)6 iccoboni, Histoirede l'ancien thedtretalien (London, 1726), ists Piccolomini's plays.Cf. also Camerini,Nuovi profili,Vol. III, pp. 61ff.7Coryat's Crudities (London, 1776, rom d. of 1611),Vol. II, pp. 16,17.557



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4 WINIFRED SMITHone mentionedbyManningham,we are perfectlyustifiednsayingthat talian actors werewellknown n London and thattheyplayedtherethe kind ofrepertorywhichthey nvariablygave elsewhere.Had theirvisits been fewerthan theywere,English actorswouldstill have become acquainted with Italian dramatic materialandmethods throughcontact on the continent. On September 18,1604, an English troupe played a tragedy before the dauphin,while the Gelosi and the Fedeli were n Paris.' Thomas Heywoodtells us2 thatsuchroyalfavor o British actorswasnotuncommon,for he says: The French king allows certaincompanies n Parisand Orleans, besides other cities; so doth the king of Spain inCivill, Madrill, and other provinces. In all these places theEnglish and Italians wouldcome intorivalry, nd it is certain thatthe Englishmenwould learn much fromtheir morepolished andskilfulfellow-artists. Tarlton's piperly extemporalizing s notthe onlyrelic of an Italian influence n English stagecraft. Theuse ofprosefor omedywasprobablydue notonlyto theSupposesbut to cumulative Italian example. Scherillo thinks he discernsin some of Shakspere's high-flown peeches, tracesof the concettiso common n theCommediedell' arte, and quite unknown n themoreeverydaystyleof thenovelle.3 This is, however, mpossibleto prove, and it is dangerous to trace to foreign models suchnaturaldramaticornaments s set rhetorical peeches. It is moreprobable,but as yetonly a guess, thata connectionmaybe foundbetween the rhymed ouplets closingso manyEnglish scenes andacts, and the chiusette f the Italian plays;' the English coupletsare often n the half-burlesquestyle of the chiusette,and theyoccur most frequently n intrigue comedies like Field's, whichclosely resemble talian plays.It is a question whether heEnglish ever learned to improvisein the Italian manner,froma scenario. The stage plats dis-coveredby Malone among Alleyn's property re in form imilarto the scenari used for commedieimprovise, though they give

1Rigal, Le th~dtre rancais avant la pdriode classique (Paris, 1901),p. 50,note.2ApologyforActors,p. 58 (Shakspere Society,1841).I Scherillo, La commedia dell' arte, in La vita ital. nel '600 1887),pp. 338, 39.4Examples ofchiusette re given byBartoli, Scenari inediti,p. lxxix, and Neri, in Gior-nale storico (1883),p. 78. 558



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ITALIAN AND ELIZABETHAN COMEDY 5muchmoremeagerdirections.' One of these plats, the DeadMan's Fortune, is evidentlyfroman Italianate play. It is anintrigueComedy,containinga Pantaloon and his zany,Peascod,and otherpersonageswithromantic talian names. But the out-line of the action is so slight that the play cannot be traced de-finitely o its source.The peculiar practice of improvisingdialogue froma givenplot seems to have impressedthe Elizabethan pamphleteers nddramatistsmore stronglythan any other feature of the Italiandrama. Whetstonerefers o it in his remark hat the Comediansof Ravenna were not tied to any writtendiscourse, but hadcertain grounds or principles of their own fromwhich theyimproviseddialogue.2 Similar references bound in the Englishplays of the period. The most oftenquoted of these is Kyd'sreminiscence n the Spanish Tragedy (Act IV, scene 1):The Italiantragedians ere osharp fwitThat none hour'smeditation

Theywouldperformnythingnaction.and in continuation(Act IV, scene 4):HerecomesLorenzo,ookupontheplotAndtellme,brother, hatpartplayshe?Again, there s a typical Italian suggestionwhen Bellimperia isurged to take a part: What's a play without a woman n it?Another descriptionof the Commedia dell' arte is found inMiddleton and Rowley's Spanish Gypsy (Act III, scene 1), whenRoderigo asserts: The scenical choolHathbeenmy utorong nItaly.And in Act IV, scene 4, Fernando precisely explains themethodof this scenical school:

There s a wayWhich he taliansandtheFrenchmense,That s,on a word iven, r ome light lot,The actorswillextemporeashionutScenesneat andwitty.1 ollier, Annals oftheStage, Vol. III, pp. 398f., and Halliwell-Phillips, Theatre Platsof Three Old EnglishDramas (London, 1860).2HeptameronofCivil Discourses (1582).559



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6 WINIFRED SMITHRoles are thenapportioned as in the above-quotedlines fromthe Spanish Tragedy, Fernando directingthe assignmentas heglances overthe plot:Let thisfather e a Don of a brave pirit;Play himup high,not ike a pantaloon.A comedy s begun so exactly in the Italian stylethat t soundslike a translation.Whether Cleopatra's forecastof how the quick comediansextemporallywillstageus,' refers o the Italian practice s doubt-ful. But there s onemore unmistakable llusiontoit in Brome'sCityWit (1632):In that ies thenobility f thedevice; it shouldbe done after hefashion fItaly,by ourselves, nlytheplotpremeditatedowhatouraimmust end;marry,he peechesmustbe extempore.A much-disputed hrase in Hamlet can refer nlytothissameItalian custom. Polonius commends hetraveling ctors n terms

verysuitable to thewanderingcomici; theywere the best menin the worldfortragedy, omedy,history, astoral, etc.; for hemSeneca is not too heavy nor Plautus too light; theywere theonlymenfor the law ofwrit nd theliberty. 2 Such a conglom-erate repertory ertainly elongedto theEnglish companiesoftheday, but it was even morecharacteristic f the Italians, whogaveactual Seneca and Plautus, and both written nd improvised lays.For surely Collier's common-sense nterpretation f the law ofwrit and the liberty, as written nd improvisedplays, is moreprobable thanthe explanationsof more recentcritics,who wouldhave the phrase refer to regular and romanticplays. Themoderndistinctionwouldprobablynothave occurred oShakspere,whereas the differencen the two methodsof acting fell withinhis own experience.'In viewof all the allusions to a typicallyItalian custom t isquite certain that Elizabethan actors and playwrightswere

1Antonyand Cleopatra, ActV, scene 2.2 amlet, Act I, scene 2. Cf. Furness Variorum ed. for several interpretationsof thisphrase.8 f. C. H. Herford'sed. ofHamlet, Act II, scene 2,fornote on this passage.4He inveighsagainst improvisation, Hamlet, Act III, scene 2.560



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ITALIAN AND ELIZABETHAN COMEDY 7familiarwith the Commedia dell' arte. Subtler traces of thissame familiarity re not hard to find n the subject-matter,hedramaticmotifs, he charactertypes and theirnames, of Eliza-bethan and Jacobean comedy. At some futuretime I hope todevelop this internal evidencemoreconvincingly hanI can do atpresent. Meanwhile I will only pointouta fewparallelsbetweenEnglish and Italian charactertypes.Sidney's summary f the buttsproperto the comicdramatist'is a fairlyaccurate list of the set types of Italian drama- thepedant, the braggart,the hedge priest,the fool, and the boy,as Shaksperecallshis ownversion fthem nLove's Labour's Lost(Act V, scene 2, 1. 545). Thomas Heywood gives a similar listof all thedoctors, awnyes,pantaloones,harlakenes, n whichtheFrench,but especially the Italians, have been excellent; he con-siders thatcomedyshould have in derision foolish nnamoratesand Pantaloones that have unthrifty ons. 2 The self-wiseseemingschoolmaster, whosemouth s fullofplatitudinousnon-sense--stupidity pompouslydisguisedinmongrelLatin and bom-bastic conceits-this pedant Dottore is a purely Italian type.He makeshis first ppearance in English comedy as Rombus inSidney's Lady of May, a significantfact in view of Sidney'sknown talianate taste. ProfessorFletcherhas pointedout to mesome strikingresemblances between Rombus and the VenetiandoctorsofAndrea Calmo's plays.' Not less important s Shak-spere's Holofernes,whose name, mannerof speech, and generalimbecilityplace him far nearer to the Italian stage typethantoa possible village personageof Shakspere's acquaintance. Holo-fernes cites the beginning of a Latin eclogue by Mantuan, andadds an Italian couplet npraiseofVenice,whichreminds cherilloof similarspeeches byDottoreGraziano,thepedantoftheGelosi.'A kind of scene fairlycommon in the Commedia dell' arte, isimitated in the Taming of the Shrew (Act III, scene 1); here

1DefenseofPoesie, ed. A. S. Cook (Boston, 1898),p. 51.2Apologyfor Actors,pp. 43,54.3Montaigne says: Je me suis souvent despit6en monenfance de veoirlez com6diensitaliens avoir tous jours un pedant pourbadin.4Lettere di A. Calmo, Introd. byV. Rossi.6 ove's Labour's Lost,Act IV, scene 2. Cf. Scherillo,La vita ital. nel 600,p. 336.561



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8 WINIFRED SMITHLucentio, disguised as a pedant,makes love to Bianca underpre-tense ofreading her a Latin lesson.'The Spanish captain,insufferably oastful,and no less easilyduped thanthe pedantdoctor,figuredvery constantly n Italiancomedy. He appears in Kyd's Soliman and Perseda under thename ofBasilisco, whomMr. Boas calls a notablevariation intheMiles Gloriosus type,for with theCoxcombry f thebraggarthe unitesmuchof the inflatedverbiage of the pedant. 2 Now itis just such a combinationthat made Francesco Andreini'sCapi-tano Spavento a famous model for his Italian successors in therole. Basilisco, moreover,was the name of the braggartin Gl'amorosi inganni,a play published in Paris in 1609 from an oldscenario.3 Perhaps this play may have been given in Londonby a travelingcompany, nd Kyd mayhave seen and imitated tsSignor Capitano. However this may be, it seems certain thatBasilisco owed more thanhis name to the Italian stage tradition;he represents he newervariationof the classic boasting soldier,and is the forerunnerf Shakspere's Armado and Parolles. Thelast-namedhero is a particularly ood exampleofthe Italian type,not onlyin his language, but in his relationswith he otherchar-acters of the play. The scene in which Parolles falls into thehands of jestingsoldiersand is frightened y theirgibberish ntobetraying rmysecrets,mustcome,Scherillo thinks, addiritturadesuntada uno scenario. ' If not froma scenario, it is at leastverysimilarto the lazzi scenes so common in Italian drama, inwhichthe Captain is the butt ofthedisguised zanni.5For the comic servant,the zanni, was always intriguingtohumiliatehis master's enemies and rivals. He did thisby elabo-raterusesand disguisessimilar othose ofBrain-Worm nJonson'sEvery Man inHis Humour. The Elizabethan dramatists se thetermzany oftenenoughto show thattheywereperfectly amiliarwiththe character,morefamiliar ndeed,thanare moderncritics.

1IScherillo, op cit.,p. 337.2WorksofT. Kyd,ed. F. K. Boas, Introd. to Soliman and Perseda.3Rasi, I comnicitaliani, I, p. 75. Gl' anorosi inganni is a rare play, inaccessible in thiscountry.4Scherillo,op. cit., p. 335. Cf.All's Well That Ends Well,Act IV, scene 1.5Zanni is the bergomaskabbreviationforGiovanni, and is a commonpeasant name.562



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ITALIAN AND ELIZABETHAN COMEDY 9There have been many misinterpretationsf such passages asMalvolio's: I take these wise men that crow so at these set kindoffools,no betterthan thefool's zanies. In a note on ZaniesDr. Furness sums up the explanationsof previouscritics;' amongall these the onlyone thatis correct s that of a contemporaryndan Italian, John Florio. In his Worlde of Wordes (1598) hedefines: Zane: Name of John. Also a sillie John, a gull ornoddie. Used also for simplevice, clowne,foole,orsimplefellowin a playe or comedie. Halliwell on the basis of this,but notuninfluenced ythe modern dea of a clown, ays: the termzany'was generallyapplied in England to an inferiorfool or buffoon,attending on and imitating another. It is simpler to takezanies, in Malvolio's phrase,to mean what it does in Italiancomedy-foolish servants. The zanni was an attendant of aprincipalcharacter n a play; when there were rival loverseachhad his zanni, theknavishservantfollowing he lover beloved,and the foolishservantbelongingto the unsuccessfulsuitor.2

In the early stagesofdevelopment f the Commediadell' arte,the zanni followed travelingmountebank,nd amused the audi-ence by singing and dancing n the intervalsbetween his master'sadvertisements f falsewares.3 Ben Jonsonknew thiscustom, tfirsthand or by hearsay,for he describes a scene of this earlykind of Commedia dell' arte. In Volpone (Act II, scene 1) thevillain-heromasquerades as Scoto, a Mantuan mountebank,be-neath Celia's window; Nano, as Zan Fritada, sings between hismaster'sragionamenti,until Celia's husband rushes out cryingthat he will be called the Pantalone dei Bisognosi. SignorFlaminio, he says, will you down,sir,down Is mywifeyourFranciscina, sir? And in true Commedia dell' arte mannerhebeats away thedisguised intruders. The wholescene is verysig-nificant, or t is an exact imitationof a commonCommediadell'arte device. Flaminio and Franciscina were the stocknames oflovers,or of lover and servetta in the plays of the Gelosi.' The

1TwelfthNight,Furness Variorumed., Act I, scene 5.2Rasi, I comici italiani, Vol. I, p. 461.3Riccoboni, op. cit.,chap. iii, gives much information bout the zanni whose functionwas con goffissimaingua .... fare1' arte del farridere.4Moland, op. cit., pp. 57,68. 563



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10 WINIFRED SMITHPantalone dei Bisognosi made his first ppearance as the Mag-nifico n a scenario of 1568; but the term later became conven-tional for the duped husband or deceived father.' The lazzowhichcloses the scene is the commonest f all Italian devices forrousing laughter. A bastone da bastonare was an invariableproperty or an Italian comedy.2 Anothersign that Jonson wasfamiliarwith the Italians is given by Sir Politick's praise of theMountebanks as the only languaged men in the world. Thisis not surprisingwhen we read that A. Beolco, I1 Ruzzante, aVenetian playwright-actor, rote several plays, each containingfromfive o seven differentlanguages and dialects.3Returningfromthis digressionto the zanni, we can see howhis earlyassociation witha mountebankgave rise to the dea thathe was only an inferior buffoon. Halliwell, among others,remarksthat the fool or attendantof a mountebank s called azany, and he quotes fromJonson, He's like a zanytoa tumbler,thattries tricksafterhim to make menlaugh; ' and fromCyn-thia's Revels (Act II, scene 1), The other gallant is his zanyand doth most of these tricks afterhim. Here Jonsonis evi-dently thinkingof the earlier kind of zanni, who had not yetdeveloped into the comic servantof stage plays. It seemsthatthis development fthe zanni role should be somewhatregardedin definitions f his function, nd that such definitions houldinclude his later dignity as intriguerand plot-mover, s well ashis first state of attendantbuffoon o a mountebank.5

It is interesting o speculate as to the identityof the FrenchHarlakene, mentionedby Marston in The Malcontent (1604).This is too late a date to refer to Drusiano, who probablyplayedhis usual role of Arlecchino n England 1577-78. Day had evi-dentlyseen some zanni in the part,for a page in the Ile of Gulls(Act II, scene 3) says: I, like Harlakene in an Italian comedy,1Ancona,Giornale storico,Vol. VI, pp. 23,24.2Moland, op. cit.,p. 64.3Rasi, op. cit., p. 350ff. Each character type spoke a different ialect; the captain, amongrelSpanish; thepedant, poor Latin; the lovers,Tuscan; theMagnifico,Venetian,etc.4 veryMan in His Humour, ActIV, scene 1.5Lazzi were tricks, comic business used to fill the gaps in the action ofthe play.Cf.Moland, op. cit.,pp. 27, 28; Riccoboni, op. cit., p. 65.564



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ITALIAN AND ELIZABETHAN COMEDY 11stand makingfaces at both their follies. Arlecchinowas alwaysan athleteand tumbler, nd drewon these resourcesforhis lazziscenes.' Bottom'sdance,theBergomask,'musthavebeena pecul-iarityofthe zanni's role,forArlecchinowas traditionally peas-ant ofBergamo. But besides dances and athleticfeats,he wasexpectedto furnishmerrimentyhis affectedtupidity nd byhisimpudence. A typical lazzi scene is that in whichGrumiopre-tends not to understandPetruchio'scommand oknock: Whomshall I knock, ir Is thereanymanhas rebusedyour worship?His real impudenceveiled underapparentsincerity,his master'sthreats and the blows which close the scene, togetherwiththeconventionalcouplet of greeting, in Italian, betweenPetruchioand Hortensio,all these features uggest mitation f a Commediadell' arte. A somewhat imilarscene is quoted by Croce fromscenario;' here Volpino (the master) thundersat a doorbehindwhich he knowsPulcinella tobe; the servantfromwithin nswers:Not at home, and there follows a dialogue similar n styletothatbetweenGrumio ndPetruchio, nd,like that,endedbyblows.If the pedant, the captain, and the comic servantcontributedtheirpeculiaritiesto the English stage types,the Pantaloon wasquite as important. Grumio, n the Taming of theShrew, is adirecttranscript f the Italian pantaloondoctor of the Suppositi,and maybe allowed to stand for an exampleof the type. He isold, stupid, avaricious, amorous,and jealous, and, togetherwiththe captain and pedant, is always the dupe of the young loversand theirallies, Zanni andServetta. The type s a distinctvaria-tionof the classic senex and is fairlyconstant n Italian comedy,bothwritten nd improvised.Pantalone is theVenetianMagnifico.Accordingly,when Iago calls Brabantio the old Magnifico, weexpecthimto be as jealous as the old Pantaloon in the Tamingof the Shrew. Later, in the seventeenthcentury, he term s usedto mean fool and Pantaloons are often introducedinto ante-masques as clowns,for nstance in Jonson's Vision of Delight.5

1See n. 5 on p. 564.2MidsummerNight's Dream, Act V, scene 1. Cf. Schmidt, Shakspere Lexicon, underBergomask.3Taming oftheShrew,Act I, scene 2. 4 roce, Pulcinella (Rome, 1899), p. 39.5Nichols, ProgressesofJames I, Vol. II, p. 65; Vol. III, p. 457.565



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12 WINIFRED SMITHAll these indicationsof an Italian influence n the charactersand materialofElizabethan comedywouldbe comparatively alue-less ifno Elizabethan playhad been traced to an Italian original.Seven English comedies,however,have been provedto be moreorless faithfuldaptations rtranslations f talian dramas. Ariosto'sSuppositi is not only the original of Gascoigne's Supposes, butalso enters argelyintoShakspere's TamingoftheShrew. In thesame year that the Supposes appeared (1566), another Italianplay, Grazzini's La spiritata, was adapted in an English version,

the anonymousBugbears.' In 1584 Munday, our bestplotter,translated out of the Italian Fidele and Fortunio, the Deceiptsin Love of Two Italian Gentlemen, play which is the probablesource of Shakspere's TwoGentlemen f Verona. Shaksperealsoadapted, withgreat change of tone,Piccolomini's Gl' ingannati,in Twetfth ight.2 Piccolomini was the author also ofAlessan-dro, quite faithfully ranslatedby Chapman in his May Day.Tomkis took Albumazar (1614) fromZ. B. della Porta's L'astrologo.' Besides these complete plays taken from he Italian,Konig thinkshe has foundtracesofGrazzini's La Strega inHam-let and of Verlato's Rodopeia in theMerchant of Venice. Buthis quotations of parallel passages are far fromconvincing; likeparallels betweenShakspereand Sophocles, theyshould be attrib-uted to coincidenceor to commonproverbial ayings.5The vexed question of an Italian influenceon Lyly has neverbeen satisfactorilyettled. Undoubtedly Sch-ecking s right inseeing a Commedia dell' arte motif n Endimion, Act I, scene 2,and in theother cenes inwhichThopas is baitedbythepages andtheirsweethearts.' But Bond's objectionis justified; Schuickingdoes not provehis points.'

1ArchivfUrdas Studium derneuerenSprachen,Vols. XCVIII (1897),XCIX, C.2TwelfthNight, Furness Variorum ed., appendix; Gl' ingannati was translated intoFrench by F. Juste in 1543, s Les abuses, and mayhave come to Shakspere's knowledge inthis way. However, Italian comici frequentlyplayed the original.3Stiefel, G. Chapman u. das italienische Drama, Shakspere Jahrbuch,Vol. XXXV(1899).4KOnig, tber die EntlehnungenShaksperes, insbesonders ails Rabelais u. einigen ita-lienischen Dramatikern, ShakspereJahrbuch,Vol. IX (1874),pp. 207-9.5ShakspereJahrbuch,Vol. IX, pp. 227 f.6Schilcking,Studien tberdie stofflicheneziehungendereng.KomOdie ur italienischenbis Lilly (Halle, 1901),pp. 102f.7WorksofJ. Lyly,ed. byR. W. Bond, Vol. III, note on the Italian influence n Lyly.566



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ITALIAN AND ELIZABETHAN COMEDY 13Until we readmore talian sixteenth-centuryomediesand until

more s definitely nownofthe relationsbetween heactorsof thetwo countries,we cannotappreciatethe full ndebtedness fEliza-bethan to Italian playwrights. It ought not to be impossible totrace,from official ocuments,othernames beside Drusiano's totheir proper places in the records of traveling comici, and tobuild up a knowledgeof repertoriesgiven in England by thesemen and women. The fact that many Italian plays must havebeen given in London, does away with any improbability n theconnectionofthe twostages between ertaindates. Internal evi-dence, then, n the Elizabethan plays themselvesmaybe given tsfull value, and may lead, as it has already done in Chapman'sMay Day, to tracingmany a comedy to its propersource in theItalian drama,ratherthan in thenovelle. Soon I hope topresentmoredetailed evidence towardproofof thishypothesis.WINIFREDMITH

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

567

italian and elizabethian comedy

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