Word of the Day: Scaramouche

Monday, January 5th, 2009 | A&E, Word of the Day |

There’s a line in Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” that never made sense to me. Something about a moosh? One day I looked up the lyrics.

I see a little silhouetto of a man,
Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango
Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very fright’ning me
(Galileo) Galileo (Galileo) Galileo, Galileo Figaro
Magnifico

And with the word in hand we go to Wikipedia:

Scaramouche is a historical novel by Rafael Sabatini, originally published in 1921.

It was subsequently adapted into a play by Barbara Field and into feature films, first in 1923 starring Ramón Novarro, Scaramouche (1923), and a remake in 1952 with Stewart Granger. It is a romantic adventure and tells the story of a young lawyer during the French Revolution. In the course of his adventures he becomes an actor portraying “Scaramouche” (also called Scaramuccia, a roguish buffoon character in the commedia dell’arte). He also becomes a revolutionary, politician, and fencing-master, confounding his enemies with his powerful orations and swordsmanship. He is forced by circumstances to change sides several times. The book also depicts his transformation from cynic to idealist. The later film version includes one of the longest, and many believe, best swashbuckling sword-fighting scenes ever filmed.

The three-part novel opens with the memorable line, “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” This line was to become Sabatini’s epitaph, on his gravestone in Adelboden, Switzerland.