Pagliacci (ital.) = Bajazzo

hambone (AE, informer): an inferior actor or performer, especially one who uses a spurious black accent
(The New Oxford Dictionary)

embarrassed the worst hambone Pagliacci

Yes, something like that.

As you may know, it's probably a reference to the clown role in the opera 'Pagliacci.' Canio is the tenor character's name, or Pagliaccio in the singular when he's playing a clown within the opera, but people might just think of the name of the opera and conflate it with the character.

In the famous scene 'Vesti la giubba / Ridi, Pagliaccio,' the clown sings an aria about how tragic it is to be a clown, to have to pretend you're happy when your heart is breaking. The singer may put a sob into his voice to be more melodramatic; it's a sentimental little opera.

I don't suppose you can make 'zu dick auftragen' into an attributive adjective, but maybe something like 'Träne, die dem übertriebensten Pagliacci(-Tenor) peinlich gewesen wären'? 'Am dicksten übertriebenen'? You can probably improve on that, or maybe 'plump' is fine.

*f5*

I don't think 'hambone' here has anything to do with a southern or spurious black accent, only with hamming it up, being hammy, in the context of melodramatic theater.

@hm - us

terpikeraunos' Geschichte spielt in Guyana. Meines Wissens sprechen die Leute dort mit einem "schwarzen" Akzent.

I have no idea where the story takes place, since terpikeraunos did not give a word of context in this post. I don't have ESP.

If that's true, it's a possible secondary association, although it stills seems something of a stretch to assume that slang that came from blackface minstrelsy in the US had a close counterpart in Guyana.

But the main point is surely still that it's overly melodramatic, like the opera, which does not take place in Guyana but in Italy, and which was not typically performed by American minstrels, but by opera singers.

Danke! Bin inzwischen in NY zurück: Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities