Chrononhotonthologos - Parody

Parody

The play is a parody of opera and of theatrical spectacle at the same time that it is itself a spectacular. The Antipodeans, who have their heads where their midsections should be, who walk upon their hands, etc., advance in columns (literally standing upon each other) rather than ranks, and the performance has a great dumbshow with them. The captured Antipodean king in his cell (the only Antipodean who would need to be in the stage foreground) was most likely a special effect himself, as he has no lines. The dances that are indicated throughout, several of which without apparent motivation, are similarly present simply for the effect on the senses.

In general, the play burlesques the absurdity of operatic plots, as well as the most inexplicable habits of contemporary tragedy. Carey consistently undercuts the lofty expectations of the kingdom-in-crisis plot by having the feared enemy be the Antipodean (or Acrostic) and by having the characters travesty the repetitive verse of tragedy. When King Chrononhotonthologos visits General Bombardinian in his tent after single handedly destroying the Antipodean army with a glare, the general orders,

"Traverse from Pole to Pole; sail round the World,

Bring every Eatable that can be eat:

The King shall eat, tho' all Mankind be starv'd." (I v, 11–14)

and then backtracks to announce that they only have pork. The King takes deadly offense at being offered pork, and so he slaps the general, and the general's heroic pride forces him to stab the king in return. When the general regrets his regicide, he calls out, in a parody of Richard III,

"Go, call a Coach, and let a Coach be call'd,

And let the Man that calls it be the Caller;

And, in his calling, let him nothing call,

But Coach! Coach! Coach! O for a Coach ye Gods!"

When the doctor confirms the king's death, Bombardinian tells him to go to the next world and fetch the king's soul back (and stabs him), only to say to the air, in mock tragic grief, "Call'st thou Chrononhotonthologos?/ I come! your Faithful Bombardinian comes" and kill himself. If this arbitrary bloodbath (motivated by the king's hyperbolic vanity and the general's hyperbolic pride) is not enough of a deflation, when the Queen comes in to bewail her virginity, her lady simply says, "I'll fit you with a Husband in a Trice;/ Here's Rigdum Funnidos, a proper Man,/ If anyone can please a Queen, he can" (I. v 61–4). When Rigdum Funnidos's friend declares that he must be king or die, the queen replies, "Well, Gentlemen, to make the Matter easy,/ I'll have you both, and that, I hope will please ye." Deciding at last that marriage is complicated (after her lady offers a formulaic complaint about marriage), the Queen concludes the play with,

"Gentlemen! I'm not for Marriage,

But, according to your Carriage,

As you both behave to Night,

You shall be paid to Morrow."

The parody of bad tragedy and inflated spectacular also occurs in the names involved. These tongue twisters are nonsense, but they are also parodies of the ignorantly contrived exotic names used by contemporary opera and tragedy. Where William Shakespeare and Thomas Otway had chosen foreign locations for their plays to mask the fact that they were commenting upon England, by the 1730s a strange-sounding foreign location was a generic expectation of tragedy. More important than the linguistic parody, however, is the parody in the characterization. King Chrononhotonthologos begins the play offended by sleeplessness, declaring,

"These Royal Eyes thou (Somnus) never more shall close.

Henceforth let no Man sleep, on Pain of Death:

Instead of Sleep, let pompous Pageantry,

And solemn Show, with sonorous Solemnity,

Keep all Mankind eternally awake.

Bid Harlequino decorate the Stage

With all Magnificence of Decoration...." (I. i. 63–7).

The king's overblown greatness is such that those royal eyes are enough to destroy the entire enemy army. The queen orders about the sky and stars. The general demands that the entire earth be conquered so that the king might have a meal. This repeated hyperbole is pushed to the point of absurdity to create a burlesque of opera's impossible characters. On the one hand, these parodies are superficially delightful and satirically a relief from the bombast of hack-written and alloyed tragedy, but, on the other hand, they are part of a darker political satire taking place in the play.