Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Chlamydosaurus exultata


DOCTOR PLUSQUAMPP
By consulting Mercurialis, Bayerus, Caricterius, Galen, Paraquozilli, and the less penetrable marginalia of Vesalius, I have determined that a melancholia such as yours arises from an excess flow of black blood in one your principal veins. (Snatches up an enormous syringe.) As you are bum-heavy, I estimate the vein in question to be accessible right there, between the cheeks — or in your case, between the hemrods. I shall now demonstrate the presence of angry dark humours by evacuating some in fluid form. (Pokes HARLEQUIN’S buttocks.) But you must keep still — keep still! (HARLEQUIN wriggles, deflecting the prop.) By Hippocrates, a hangman noosing an eel must have it easier! (HARLEQUIN somersaults away from the table.) Return at once or you’ll never be cured.

HARLEQUIN
You’re attacking the wrong spot, for I promise you that dark substances pass out of there daily, without chirurgical aid. Ah! But there was something to your jabs. They ministered a fresh agony, very unlike my spleen. Therein lies the remedy. If only the pain were sharper, less medicinal, and delivered with more rage. Someone procure me a cutthroat! Where is that Brighella?

GIFILCCHIO
He’s off in the provinces, attending to wealthy suicides. They pay generously at the outset, and once the deed is finished, they never seem to complain that he takes away more than his fee. You can’t afford him, but I’ll ape him for nothing. (Swipes a knife from the DOCTOR’S table.) I’m no good at this, but that could make it hurt more. (Thrusts the knife at HARLEQUIN, who contorts wildly at each strike.)

HARLEQUIN
Eheu! That won’t do in the slightest — Enough, enough! (Bats GIFILCCHIO about the head until he retreats.) I won’t put up with your feeble tickles. My carcass deserves a special outrage. (Muses.) A sailor told me that in far-away Coelobon live some rather puny dragons — monkey-sized things that can stand up like men. They spend all their days leaping skyward — not only to snap at the flies, but often for no reason at all, as though they hope the giant frills on their throats will catch the breeze like sails and keep them aloft. This never comes to pass, but after they die, the Orientals skin their heads to make kites — and those always fly without a hitch. It makes me wonder if a good peeling wouldn’t elevate my spirit.

GIFILCCHIO
Shall we make a kite from you, then? And if we do, what of the meat left over?

HARLEQUIN
Now that’s a problem. If you bury it, then I’m as good as dead. An airborne fleece this gaudy might create a spectacle, but no one who sees my headstone would bother to pay me for the show. However, if it’s true that all of this melancholy resides not in my hide, but in the moist anatomist’s manikin that hides inside of it — why then, I say it’s best if, once I’m flayed, you just let that part of me be. Give it a stool to sit on and pour it a glass of vinegar now and then, and I reckon it will stay in a corner, sulking, and bother no one.

From: Rylanch Tealtherne, Esq. Harlequin Vexed (from the French Bergamask Burlesque known as Arlequin sans peau by M. Pierre-Baptiste de Meltouffle, derived from that Gentleman’s study of Italian buffoons, altered, alliterated and otherwise adapted for the English stage.) Quarto edition, London, 1673.