Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 15.djvu/345

PANTOMIME. mimos, imitator, Ironi /untivSai, mimeisthai, to imitate). The art of dramatic representation without words, through expression iiy attitudes and gestures. Among the Romans the term pantmiiimus was applied to the actor himself. Whether pantoniimic performances had a dis- tinct existence under the Republic it is hard to say, but Augustus showed great favor to this kind of entertainment, which seems to have arisen from the older custom of separating the actor and the reciter of dramatic dialogue ; the fact also that in the great open theatres the Roman public could see much more easily than it could hear, probablj- contributed to the popularity of mute acting. As the pnntominii wore masks, no facial mimicry was possible: everything depended on the movements of the body. There was, how- ever, commonly at the rear of the theatre, a choir, which sang the story by way of interlude or accompaniment ; and as the subjects presented in dumb show were chiefly mythological love stories, they were consequently well known to the spectators. The earlier panlomimi came singly upon the stage, acting successively all the characters involved in the story; later several appeared together. The most celebrated pan- toiiiimi of the Augustan Age were Bathyllus (a freedman of Mfecenas) in comedy, and Py- lades and Hylas in tragedy. The class soon spread over Italy and the provinces, and became so popular with the Roman aristocracy, who used to invite male and female performers to their houses to entertain their guests, that Tiberius thought it necessary to check the vanity of the pantomimi by issuing a decree forbidding the senators to go to their houses and knights to be seen walking with them on the streets. Under Caligula they were again in favor, and Nero even went the length of acting in a pantomime. From this period the pantomimi enjoyed unbroken popularity so long as paganism held sway in the Empire.

Pantomimic elements have always been found in the popular theatres, notably in the early Italian commcdia ilrW arte, in which were de- veloped the characters of Harlequin, I'anta- loon. Columbine, and the rest of their familiar troupe. In France in the seventeenth and eight- eenth centuries the word pantomime was ap- plied to a kind of mythological spectacle at the Opera, in which allegorical characters appeared in appropriate costumes. The great liallcts d'ac- tion of Noverre were really pantomimic in char- acter. In the first half of the nineteenth cen- tury, at the famous little Theatre des Funam- bules in Paris, pantomime enjoyed for some years a remarkable revival under the genius of Deburau and his associates.

In England the first pantomime is said to have been produced at Drury Lane in 1702. It was The Tuiern BUkers, by a dancing-master named John Weaver, another of whose panto- mimes. The Love» of Mars and Venus, had a re- markable success. But it is to the noted harle- quin .John Rich that the establishment of the familiar Christmas pantomime is generally cred- ited. In December, 172.3, he brought out at Lincoln's Inn Fields The 'Secromancer, or the Eistorii of Dr. Faust us, by way of rivalry to Harlequin Dr. Fau.<>-tu.<i, which had been produced at Drury Lane not long before. Pantomimes were not then, however, limited to the Christmas season, but were regarded, as they have some- times been since then, as a means for filling the theatre's treasury and supplementing the at- tractions of the legitimate drama. English pan- tomime was further develojjcd by the coming in 1758 of the Grimaldi family. Joseph Grimaldi (q.v.), who was born in 1779, was especially clever at inventing tricks and devising machin- ery. Mother (loose and others of his harlequin- ades were long popular. A special feature in the early part of the last century was the 'transformation scene,' in which was made the change of characters to the harlequinade proper, or latter part of the programme. The subjects of these pantomimes have been generally found in popular tales like those of Aladdin. Blue Beard, Cinderella, or Little Red Riding Hood. In the United States pantomime has for the most part been little more than an occasional importation, though such a show as Humpty Dumply, with George L. Fox as clown, about 1870, had an enormous and long-continued popu- larity.

Consult:. Broadbent, A History of Panto- mime (London, 1901): Friedlander. Sitten- geschiehte Roms (Leipzig, 1S90); Champfleury, Souvenirs des Funainbules (Paris, 18.59): Disraeli, '"The Pantomimical Characters," in Curiosities of Literature ( 12th ed., Lon- don, 1841). See Ballet; Harlequin; Mime, etc.

PANTOP'ODA (XeoLat. nom. pi., from Gk. jras, pas, all + irous, pons, foot). An aberrant' group of arthropods, which seem to stand nearer the Arachnida than any other class. They are spider-like in form, with very long slender limbs arising from a remarkably small body, whence they have been called 'no-body crabs.' Each of the four pairs of legs contains a long caecal pro- longation of the stomach. The body consists of a cephalothorax. consisting of an anterior pro- boscis, succeeded by three segments, and one thoracic segment, behind which are three free thoracic segments and a minute rudimentary abdomen. To the cephalothorax are attached

A TYPICAL PASTOPOD, OR ' NO-BODY CBAB." four pairs of appendages, one or both of the first two of which may end in a forceps. These are succeeded in the male alone, by a pair of vigorous legs, and the first pair of thoracic legs, while each of the three free thoracic seg- ments bear a pair of very long legs ; there are thus in all seven pairs of appendages. The ani- mal breathes through the walls of the body, and, as in all marine arthropods, there are no urinary tubes. In most of the forms there is a slight metamorphosis, the larva having three pairs of appendages. In one form the larvre are internal parasites in certain hydroids. These sea-spiders live at various depths from between tide-marks to deep water. The group was formerly named Pycnogonida. By some authors they are sup-