Polti’s The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations
There is a wonderful passage on the procession of our species in “characteristic motley costumes—Hindu Kings in their chariots, Chinese gallants playing their mandores, nude heroes of Hellas, legendary knights, adventurers of sword and cape, golden tressed princesses, nymphs sparkling with gems, shy maids with drooping eyelashes, famed courtesans, chaste Athenian virgins, priestly confessors, chattering gossips, gurus expounding religious ideas, satyrs leaping upon goats’ feet, ugly slaves, peris, horned devils in disguise, lisping Tartaglias, garrulous Graciosos, Shakespearean clowns, Hugoesque buffoons, magistrates, immobile Buddhist ascetics, white-robed sacrificers, martyrs with shining aureoles, too-crafty Ulysses, frightful Rakchasas, messengers dispersing calamitous tidings to the winds of heaven, pure-hearted youths, blood-stained madmen— yes, here it assembles, our humanity...”
