Pantomime as Pantalone; and "zanni" (servants) such as Arlecchino, Colombina, Scaramouche and Pierrot. Italian masque performances in the 17th century sometimes included the Harlequin character. In the 17th century, adaptations of the commedia characters became familiar in English entertainments. From these, the standard English harlequinade developed, depicting the eloping lovers Harlequin and Columbine, pursued by the girl's father Pantaloon and his comic servants Clown and Pierrot. In English versions, by the 18th century, Harlequin became the central figure and romantic lead. The basic plot of the harlequinade remained essentially the same for more than 150 years, except that a bumbling policeman
Pierrot lunaire (book) thereby setting their souls, "full of silence and harmony", thrumming (32: "Lunar Violin"). He lives there as an aloof "isolato," encountering in a "sparkling polar icicle" a "Pierrot in disguise" (9: "Polar Pierrot") and seeking, "all along the Lethe", not Columbine the fickle woman but her ethereal floral namesakes—"pale flowers of moonbeams/Like roses of light" (10: "To Columbine"). The moon is, aptly, a "pale washerwoman" (5: "Moon over the Wash-House") whose ablutions minister chiefly to the mind. For Pierrot has lost the happy enchantments of the past: the moribund pantomimic world seems "absurd and sweet, like a lie" (37: "Pantomime"),