He stands for a moment in a stupor, drops his knife and speaks the words: "The comedy is ended." "Ridi Pagliaccio!" shrieks the orchestra as the curtain falls.
"Plaudite, amici," said Beethoven on his death bed, "la commedia finita est!" And there is a tradition that these, too, were the last words of the arch-jester Rabelais.

"When 'Pagliacci' was first sung here (in Boston), by the Tavary company," says Mr.Philip Hale, "Tonio pointed to the dead bodies and uttered the sentence in a mocking way.

And there is a report that such was Leoncavallo's original intention.

As the Tonio began the piece in explanation so he should end it.

But the tenor (de Lucia) insisted that he should speak the line.