There are very few of the writers who have devoted their attention to the subject treated in this imperfect volume, who have ever alluded to the fool who suddenly appeared at the court of Alboin, King of the Lombards, (A.D. 572,) and who created a large measure of astonishment there, by his rude exterior and his ready wit. All Verona was, in popular phrase, “full of him.” The chronicle of his “Astuzie” was long the delight of the whole of Italy. His name was Bertoldo. He was hideously ugly, and not very clean in his person; dwarfed, and deformed. His eyebrows resembled pigs’ bristles; but his eyes beneath them, gleamed like two torches; his hair was as red as carrots, and if you can fancy humanity caricatured to the very utmost extent, you will not, even then, be able to see with your mind’s eye the never-matched hideousness of this rustic, who set all the court in a roar by entering the great hall where Alboin was presiding, and, without even uncovering, seating himself by the side of the grim husband of Rosamunda.
The Lombard King smiled sourly at his impudence, and inquired what he was, when he was born, and in what country.
“I am a man,” said the monster; “was born the night my mother bore me; and” (this is something of Ancient Pistol’s phrase, which, indeed, often smacked of the fool’s humour or philosophy,) “the world is my native country.” King and court understood, now, with whom they had to do, and they tried his wit by plying him with questions,353 “What is the swiftest thing on earth?” asked one. “Thought,” was the reply of Bertoldo. To other questions he replied, that the best wine was the wine drunk in another man’s house; and that the worst fire at home was to be found in an angry wife and an impudent servant.
“Bertoldo,” said the King, “could you contrive to bring me water in a sieve without spilling any?”
“Certainly,” answered the fool; “in a hard frost, I could bring you any quantity.”
“Tor so clever a rejoinder, you shall have from me any boon you desire.”
“La, you there!” cried Bertoldo, “I shall have nothing of the sort. You cannot give me what you do not possess. I am in eager search of happiness, of which you have not a grain; and how could you give me any?”
Alboin alluded to his kingly power and glory, which the fool mocked mightily. He pointed to the glittering crowds of nobles who stood around his throne. “Oh yes,” was the comment of Bertoldo, “they stand round your throne; so do hungry ants round a crab-apple, and with the same purpose,—to devour it.” And therewith he so satirized the condition of a King, that Alboin threatened to have him whipped out of court. Some rather sorry jests followed; but as they were rewarded with unaccountable peals of laughter, the Lombard lords and ladies may be supposed to have been more merry, or much wiser, than we are. The riotous fun was checked for awhile, by the entrance of two women in search of the King and his royal justice. The subject in dispute was a crystal mirror, which was claimed by both, but which had been stolen by one from the other. Alboin, being a most religious as well as gracious King, was, of course, reminded of the Judgment of Solomon, and thought he could not do better than imitate it. He first ordered the mirror to be broken into powder, and divided equally between the rival claimants; and then he commanded354 it to be delivered whole to the woman who had expressed regret that so splendid a mirror should be destroyed. The entire court was in ecstasy at this rather second-hand wisdom of the King, who, with more conceit than might have been expected in such a stern personage, looked at Bertoldo and asked something tantamount to whether he was not a second Daniel come to judgment?
“Your excellent mightiness,” observed the fool, “can only be said to be an ass.” Nevertheless, the King seems to have had the best of it, for Bertoldo simply confined himself to abusing ladies generally, and the two who were lately plaintiff and defendant, in particular,—as impostors, whose wickedness was past imagining. Thereupon the gallant monarch burst forth into a passionate panegyric on the entire female sex, dealing in warm terms and honeyed phrases, like those in a grand scena, by some enamoured tenore robusto, and which, set to music by a fashionable maestro, and trilled by the darling of the season, would make the fortune of Mr. Chappell, were he only lucky enough to secure the copyright.
“If I don’t make you change your tune before tomorrow night’s sleep,” said Bertoldo, “gibbet me as high as Haman.”
“Be it so!” cried Alboin; “by the bones of the Wise Kings, I will keep thee to thy bargain, Sir Wisdom. Look to it.”
Bertoldo flung himself on some straw in the royal stable: he was resolved not to go to sleep till he had provided for his triumph; and in five minutes a chuckle of satisfaction was suddenly succeeded by the loudest snore that had ever startled the affrighted ears of the steeds of Alboin the King.
His plan was simple enough; he merely went, in the morning, to the lady who had been so self-denying in the affair of the mirror, and announced to her that the King had issued a decree by which every man was permitted to have seven wives. The announcement had the effect of infuriating355 the lady, and she lost no time in stirring up, not only the women of her own district, but half the city. These repaired, swift of foot and loud of tongue, to the palace, swept through its halls, and rushed into the sacred presence of Alboin himself, who stood before his throne with his hand on his sword, as if in presence of an insurrection. Bertoldo stood in one corner of the vast apartment, with a demure and satisfied look, feeling sure of the result.
If the words with which Alboin was pelted by the ladies on this occasion be correctly given by the old chronicle, it is clear that freedom of speech was very fearlessly exercised by the remonstrants,—or rather, by the revilers. It was in vain that the King held his hand aloft, and essayed to speak. He was overwhelmed by a hurricane of screams, squalls, screeches, and reproaches, for issuing the decree in question. One loose-tongued termagant exclaimed above her sisters, that there would have been some sense in him, if he had conferred on every woman the right of taking seven husbands; but to allow every man to have seven wives!!—” and the very idea of such an outrage so worked upon the amiable furies, that they interrupted the loud speaker by a howl so shrill, so intense, so exasperating, that Alboin, after stopping his ears with his gauntleted hands, gave a signal which his guards obeyed by charging the body of remonstrants, and driving them into the streets,—with much attendant ruffling of collars and disturbing of stomachers. When the hall was cleared, there remained Bertoldo, looking still demurely at the King, and with an inquiring aspect about his expression. Alboin seemed annoyed for a moment; but at length, smiling, he acknowledged that the fool was right, and that women were tigresses.
The revolt of the women, and the share that Bertoldo had had therein, coming to the knowledge of Alboin’s not very gentle Queen, she sent for the jester, who, throughout the interview, kept up with her Majesty, as was indeed his356 custom in most of the conversations in which he took part, a constant fire of proverbs. As he contrived to surpass the royal lady in this species of “capping,” she rather unfairly ordered him, under escort, to carry a letter to certain officials, which letter enjoined them to whip the bearer. At Bertoldo’s urgent request, the Queen condescended to add a postscript, whereby the scourgers were directed to spare the head, but by no means to be merciful in an opposite direction. When prisoner and escort reached the gaol, Bertoldo stepped forward, letter in hand, announced himself as head of the company, and bade the hangman’s lackeys to lay lustily on his tail, or followers. The poor wretches were lashed till they were raw; and at this practical joke the court laughed, and all that was asked of Bertoldo was, that he should maintain a tournament of words with Alboin’s own official court fool.
This fool’s name, or nickname, was Fagotto. He was short, fat, and bald; and he was the challenger of Bertoldo. When the King acceded to his request, and ordered the duel of the two fools to take place, he remarked to Fagotto, “Now, proceed; but take heed not to resemble Benevento, who went out to shear, and came home shorn.”
Fagotto replied with a pompous boast, and then turning on his rival, assailed him with a species of amenities like those that used to pass between carnival fools on the Paris Boulevards, and before which every decent person fled. From this contest Bertoldo issued triumphant; but the King again taxed his wit by ordering him to demonstrate in what way, as he had asserted, the daylight was whiter than milk, and stimulated him to success by promising him the bastinado if he failed.
Bertoldo is said to have proved his assertion by a simple process. Having access everywhere, he entered the King’s bedchamber at night, and closing all the blinds, placed a pail of milk in the middle of the room. Alboin rising in the357 dark, overthrew the pail, and then calling lustily for daylight, Bertoldo let the same in upon him, with the remark, that if the milk had been clearer than daylight, he would have seen the former without the aid of the latter. Whereupon Alboin rubbed his shins, shook his head, and supposed his philosophy was wrong.
Bertoldo subsequently had to prove that the royal political system was quite as rickety as the royal philosophy. It seems that the ladies of the capital had united in demanding “their rights.” They insisted on the equality of women and men; and demanded therefore that in all matters of government they should be employed in the same way as their lords had hitherto been, exclusively. Alboin had a soft heart, and was inclined to yield to the request; but Bertoldo offered to show the incapacity of the petitioners to fill the offices to which they aspired, by a trick of his own devising, and according to his own office. He enclosed a bird in a casket, and delivering the same to a deputation of ladies, in the name of the Queen, he informed them that their petition was granted, and that the first official duty confided to them was the guardianship of this casket. The ladies carried it off, full of delight and promises of fidelity. But they had no sooner reached the house of one of them, than, after a very little hesitation, in a fit of intense curiosity, they lifted the lid of the casket, and away flew the treasure.
Their remorse was great—not that they had betrayed their trust, but that not one had observed what sort of bird it was; and that consequently their fault was irreparable. In a body, and with the Queen at their head, they presented themselves before the King, imploring pardon. As before stated, Alboin had a gentle heart where ladies were in the case; and he granted an unreserved pardon,—much to the disgust of the ungallant Bertoldo, who declared that such a King was not worth rendering homage to, and that, for his part, he would never bow to him again. Alboin, remembering the threat,358 assembled his court early on the following morning, and ordering the upper part of the open doorway to be covered with boards, so that any one entering must necessarily bow to the King, seated opposite, sent for Bertoldo. When the fool arrived, he saw how it was intended to press a stooping homage out of him; but his ready wit amply served him, and swinging suddenly round, he entered the royal presence by “one turn astern!”
The other stories related of Bertoldo, almost do outrage to Romance, as they assuredly do to Reason. Of the more credible, and yet sufficiently silly, jokes, there is not one that is not told of other jesters, and much of both belongs probably to the History of Fiction.
Next to Bertoldo, and far better known to light historians generally, stands joyous and unlucky Gonella, the favourite yet ill-treated jester of Borso, Duke of Ferrara, to whose service he was transferred from that of Nicholas, Count of Este, the father of Borso, who died in 1441.
Borso was a coarse fellow, who savoured coarse jokes; and Gonella, despite his own more refined taste, was obliged to supply his patron with that he best liked. Hence the proverb, addressed to one who is too roughly playing the fool, “We are not now in the days of Duke Borso.”
Generally speaking, the Italian fools were more practical in their jokes than witty of speech; yet it is not thus we should expect to find them; but it pleased the patrons of fools as well as if it had been divinest wit, admirably spoken. For instance, Borso the Duke had a sick Duchess, and he ordered the then newly-married Gonella to send his wife, that she might amuse the illustrious lady. “She’s as deaf as a stone,” said Gonella,—which was a jester’s lie, told for a purpose,—“and you must roar like a tempest, to make her hear.” The Duke would have her nevertheless, and Gonella, hastening to obey, said to his wife, on despatching her to the palace, “Now, wench, there will be ducats for us if359 you mind my bidding. The Duke is as deaf as a lump of clay. If you would have him hear, you must shout with a voice that would arouse the Seven Sleepers. Away with you, and do not be afraid to pitch it high.” The consequences may be imagined. When the jester’s wife met the Duke at the bed-side of the sick Duchess, there ensued a dialogue that might have been heard by the guard at the outer gate. Each shouted till the head of the invalid throbbed again; and she begged her husband to speak lower. “It’s of no use,” said Borso, “the woman’s as deaf as a post.” “Not at all,” answered the wife of Gonella, “it is you who are deaf, if my husband has spoken truth.” Whereupon it was discovered that Gonella had played a trick of his profession; and as no better could be had for the moment, the jest was declared to be excellent. So easily pleased were the illustrious nobles of that day, who depended for a laugh upon practical jokes like the above—if, indeed, the joke be Gonella’s; for a similar story is told of other jesters and their patrons. Perhaps the same may be said of the following, which has certainly been appropriated by various authors.
“For the love of the saints, give a poor blind man alms!”
“Pray pity the poor blind; and Heaven preserve your precious eyesight!”
“Born blind, gracious signor; bestow your charity on one who never saw light!”
Thus prayed three blind beggars, as Gonella passed by them to Mass. “Poor fellows!” said the jester, “there is a florin, divide it amongst you.” He gave nothing at all; and as those who stood near smiled, he put his fin............