In his first printed play, "La Pastoral", labeled "a rural comedy", he contrasts Arcadian shepherds who tell of their frustrated loves in affected tercets, with the peasants Ruzzante and Zilio, who deliver rustic verses in Venetian, generously spiced with vulgarities and obscenities (starting with Ruzante's very first word in the play). Much of the play's comical effect comes from the contrast between the two languages, which provides the occasion for many misunderstandings and wordplays. Featured is also a physician, who earns the gratitude of Ruzzante for prescribing a fatal medicine to his stingy father and thus uniting the lad with his long-awaited inheritance.