The Tale of Tales

by Giambattista Basile

  “He was a little old midget; a bunch of dried twigs; his head was bigger than an Indian squash, his forehead all lumpy, his eyebrows joined; his eyes popped out of his head, his nose was dented by two horse’s nostrils that looked like two sewer mains, his mouth was as big as a grape press, with two tusks that hung all the way down to the little bones of his feet; his chest was hairy, his arms like spinning reels, his legs vaulted like a cellar, and his feet as flat as a duck’s. In short, he looked like a wicked spirit, an old demon, a filthy pauper, and the spitting image of an evil shade, and he would have made Roland7 tremble with fright, Skanderbeg8 quake with terror, and the most skilled wrestler grow pale.

  “But Antuono, who wouldn’t budge even at the crack of a slingshot, bowed his head and said to him, ‘Good day, sir, what’s up? How are you? You want anything? How far is it from here to the place where I have to go?’ The ogre, when he heard this speech straight out of the blue, began to laugh, and since he liked the beast’s temperament, he said to him, ‘Do you want to work for me?’ And Antuono replied, ‘How much do you want a month?’ And the ogre came back with, ‘Take care to serve me honorably; we’ll get along fine and you’ll see good times.’ The deal was thus closed and Antuono stayed on to serve the ogre, where food was thrown in his face, and as far as working went he lived like a sheep at pasture. And in four days he grew as fat as a Turk, as big-bellied as an ox, as bold as a rooster, as red as a lobster, as green as garlic, as round as a chestnut, and so massive and burly that he could barely see past his nose.

  “But before two years had gone by he became bored by all the plenty and felt a craving and a great longing to go take a peek at Pascarola,9 and with all that thinking about his little home, he was almost reduced to his original state. The ogre, who could see straight through to his innards and recognized by smell that his ass was itching like someone poorly attended to, called him over and said to him, ‘My dear Antuono, I know you’re burning with desire to see your flesh and blood. Since I love you like the pupils of my eyes I will thus be happy if you go for a little visit and have this pleasure. So take this ass, which will save you the fatigue of the journey, but mind you, never say, “Giddy up, shit gold” to it, or you’ll regret it, on the soul of my grandfather.’

  “Antuono took the donkey and, without even saying, ‘Good evening,’ climbed onto its back and set out at a trot. But before he had gone a hundred yards he got off the jackass and started saying, ‘Giddy up, shit gold,’ and he had barely opened his mouth when the animal began to shit pearls, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds, each as big as a walnut. With his mouth hanging wide, Antuono stared at those lovely bowel movements, at the superb diarrhea and rich dysentery of the little ass, and with great joy he filled up a saddlebag with the jewels. Then he got back on and set off at a good pace, until he arrived at an inn where, after dismounting, the first thing he said to the innkeeper was, ‘Tie this ass at the trough and feed it well, but see that you don’t say, “Giddy up, shit gold,” or you’ll regret it. And store these little things of mine in a safe place.’

  “When he heard that extravagant request and saw the jewels, which were worth hundreds,10 the innkeeper—an expert at his trade,11 a harbor fish,12 well experienced with acid and the crucible13—became curious to see what the words meant. So after he fed Antuono well and gave him as much to drink as he could, he had him stuffed between a straw mattress and a thick blanket, and no sooner did he see that his eyes had grown heavy and that he was snoring at top speed than he ran to the stable and said to the ass, ‘Giddy up, shit gold.’ With the medicine of those words the ass performed the usual operation, tapping its bowels of streams of golden shit and bejeweled excrement. When the innkeeper saw the precious defecation, he decided to substitute the ass and trick that moron Antuono, since he figured it would be a simple task to blind, swindle, bamboozle, trick, cheat, hoodwink, and embroil him, passing off baskets for lanterns in the eyes of a fat pig, bumpkin, macaroni head, booby, big sheep, and sucker like the one that had fallen into his hands.

  “And so, upon waking the next morning—when Aurora went to empty her old man’s urinal, full of fine red sand, at the window of the Orient—Antuono rubbed his eyes with his hand, stretched for half an hour, and after a dialogue between sixty yawns and as many farts, he called the innkeeper and said, ‘Come here, pal: frequent bills make for long friendships; let us stay friends and our wallets do battle; draw up my bill and be paid.’ And so, after so much had been calculated for bread, so much for wine, this sum for soup, that one for meat, five for the stabling, ten for the bed, and fifteen to your health,14 he shelled out the beans. Then he retrieved the false ass, together with a sack of pumice stones in place of the gemstones, and raced off in the direction of his village. And before he even set foot in the house he began to shout as if he had been stung by a nettle bush, ‘Hurry, Mommy, hurry; we’re rich! Get out the tablecloths, unfold the sheets, spread the blankets, for you’re about to see some treasures.’

  “With great joy, his mother opened a chest that held her marriageable daughters’ trousseaus, and she pulled out sheets so fine that if you blew on them they floated on air, freshly laundered tablecloths, and blankets of stunning beauty, arranging them in a nice display on the floor. Antuono placed the donkey on top of them and began to intone ‘giddy up, shit gold’; but with all the ‘giddy up, shit gold’s that you like, the donkey paid no more attention to those words than it would have to the sound of a lyre.15 Nonetheless, after repeating the words three or four times, which was the same as throwing them to the wind, he took hold of a nice club and began to pester the poor beast, planing it down, touching it up, and padding it so well with blows that the poor animal lost control down below and took a fine yellow crap on the white cloths. When she saw the animal’s bowels thus tapped, poor Masella, who had founded her hopes on enriching her poverty and now found herself with such a liberal foundation that her whole house reeked, grabbed a stick and, not giving him time to show her the pumice stones, patched Antuono up so well that he immediately beat it back to the ogre’s.

  “The ogre saw Antuono coming, more at a trot than a walk, and since he knew what had happened because he was enchanted, he gave him a juicy scolding for having let himself be fooled by an innkeeper, calling him a good-for-nothing, oh-dear-mother-drink-this-one-up, birdbrain, jackal, idiot, piece of junk, noodlehead, chestnut guzzler, simpleton, boor, and nitwit, who in exchange for an ass well lubricated with treasures had allowed himself to be given an animal lavish with makeshift mozzarellas. Antuono swallowed this pill and swore that never ever again would he allow himself to be conned and made fun of by a living man.

  “But before another year had gone by he got the same headache and was dying to go see his people. The ogre, who had an ugly face and a kind heart, gave him not only permission to go but a lovely tablecloth as well, saying, ‘Take this to your mother, but be careful not to act like a donkey as you did with the ass, and until you’re at home say neither “open” nor “close, tablecloth,” because if you get into any more trouble it’ll be at your own expense. Now go with my best wishes, and come back soon.’

  “So Antuono left, but not far from the grotto he put the tablecloth on the ground and quickly said ‘open’ and ‘close, tablecloth.’ And when it opened up, lo and behold! There was such beauty, such magnificence and elegance that it was an incredible thing. Seeing all that, Antuono immediately said, ‘Close, tablecloth,’ and after everything was closed up inside of it he hotfooted it in the direction of the same inn as the other time, where, upon entering, he said to the innkeeper, ‘Here, put away this tablecloth and see that you don’t say “open” and “close, tablecloth.”’ The innkeeper, a thrice-baked rogue, said, ‘Just leave it to this fellow,’ and after he stuffed Antuono and made sure he had grabbed the monkey by its tail,16 he sent him off to bed, got the tablecloth, and said, ‘Open, tablecloth.’ And when it opened, the tablecloth brought forth so many precious things that it w
as stupendous to behold. Then the innkeeper found another tablecloth similar to the other, and after Antuono awoke he palmed it off on him. Antuono hoofed it out of there and arrived at his mother’s house saying, ‘Now we’ll really give our poverty a kick in the face; now we’ll really find a remedy for our rags, tatters, and patches!’

  “That said, he spread the tablecloth on the ground and began to say, ‘Open, tablecloth.’ But he could have said it from today till tomorrow and he would have been wasting his time; it yielded neither a crumb nor a bit of straw. And so, seeing that his business was going against the nap, he said to his mother, ‘Bless the new year, the innkeeper has stuck it to me again! But watch out; there are two of us! Better if he had never been hatched! Better if he had fallen under the wheel of a cart! May I lose the best piece of furniture in my house if when I stop by that inn to get my refund for the jewels and the stolen donkey I don’t make dust of his dishes!’ Hearing this new asininity, Antuono’s mother began to spit fire and said to him, ‘Knock it off, accursed son! Go break your back! Get out of my sight; I’m losing my guts, I can’t stomach you anymore; my hernia is swelling and I get a goiter when you’re underfoot! So cut it short, and may this house be like fire to you, for I’m going to shake you out of my clothes and pretend I never shat you!’

  “Poor Antuono saw the lightning and didn’t want to wait for the thunder and, as if he had stolen a load of fresh laundry, he lowered his head and threw up his heels and raced off toward the ogre’s house. When the ogre saw him arrive at a listless pace and with a lackluster demeanor, he played him another piece17 on the cymbals, saying, ‘I don’t know what keeps me from tearing out one of your orbs, you fart throat, gas mouth, filthy gullet, hen’s ass, ta-ta-ta-ta, trumpeter of the Vicaria:18 you make a public proclamation about every private matter, you vomit whatever’s in your stomach, you can’t even hold down a chickpea! If you had kept your mouth shut at the inn, none of this would have happened to you, but since you used your tongue like the sail of a windmill, you’ve ground to dust the happiness that this hand gave you!’

  “Poor Antuono tucked his tail between his legs and sucked up the music. He stayed in the ogre’s service without event for another three years, thinking about his home as much as he thought about becoming a count. And still, after all that time the fever returned, and once more he got the whim to take a spin back home. So he asked leave of the ogre, who was happy to rid himself of such a bother by letting him go, and gave him a lovely carved club, saying, ‘Take this in remembrance of me, but be careful not to say “up, club” or “down, club,” because I want nothing more to do with you.’ Taking it, Antuono answered, ‘Go on, I’ve cut my wisdom teeth; I know how many pair three oxen make! I’m not a little boy anymore, and whoever wants to cheat Antuono can kiss his own elbow first!’ At this, the ogre answered, ‘“The praise of masters lies in their works; words are female and deeds are male.” Let’s wait and see. You heard me better than a deaf man: “A man forewarned is a man half-saved.”’

  “As the ogre went on talking Antuono slipped off toward his house; before he was half a mile away he said, ‘Up, club!’ This was no mere word, though, but the art of enchantment. As if it had a little imp19 in its core, the club began to polish poor Antuono’s shoulders so that the blows seemed to shower down from the open sky, each stroke waiting for the next. Finding himself pounded and dressed like a piece of Moroccan leather, the wretched fellow immediately said, ‘Down, club!’ and the club ceased writing counterpoint on the staves20 of his back. And so, after he learned the lesson at his own expense, he said, ‘May he who flees become lame; on my word, this time it won’t get away from me! He who will have a bad evening has not gone to bed yet!’ Thus saying he arrived at the usual inn, where he was received with the warmest welcome in the world, since it was clear what that pork rind would render. As soon as he arrived Antuono said to the innkeeper, ‘Here, store this club for me, but be sure not to say, “Up, club!” or you’ll be in danger! Listen to me carefully: don’t you complain about Antuono again, for I won’t put up with it and I’m making my bed beforehand.’

  “The innkeeper, full of joy over this third stroke of luck, made sure Antuono was filled to the gills and shown the bottom of the jug, and as soon as he had dumped him onto a little cot he raced off to get the club and, calling his wife to the festivities, he said, ‘Up, club!’ The club began to search out the hold of the innkeepers’ bodies,21 and with a boom! here and a crash! there, it sounded like the round trip of a thunderbolt. Realizing that they were scantily and poorly protected, they ran off with that business following them and woke Antuono up, begging him for mercy. When he saw that the matter was going down just as it was supposed to, and that the macaroni was falling into the cheese and the broccoli into the lard, he said, ‘There’s no cure: you’re going to die from the blows of this club unless you give me back my things.’

  “The innkeeper, who at this point was beaten to a pulp, shouted, ‘Take everything I have and get this backscratcher off me!’ And to reassure Antuono, he brought out everything that he had pinched from him. Once it was all in hand Antuono said, ‘Down, club!’ and the club went and hunkered down in a corner of the room. Then he gathered up the donkey and the other things and left for his mother’s house, where, after performing a royal trial on the donkey’s ass and a thorough test on the tablecloth, he put together a good store of money, married off his sisters, and made his mother rich, proving the truth of the saying, God helps madmen and children.”

  “Te’, stipame sta mazza, ma vi’ che no decisse ‘auzate mazza’! ca passe pericolo! ’ntienneme buono, no te lamentare chiù d’Antuono, ca io me ne protesto e faccio lo lietto ’nante.” [“Here, store this club for me, but be sure not to say, ‘Up, club!’ or you’ll be in danger! Listen to me carefully: don’t you complain about Antuono again, for I won’t put up with it and I’m making my bed beforehand.”]

  2

  THE MYRTLE*

  Second Entertainment of the First Day

  A peasant from Miano gives birth to a myrtle bush. A prince falls in love with the myrtle and it turns into a beautiful fairy; he goes away and leaves the fairy in the myrtle with a little bell attached. Some wicked and jealous women enter the prince’s bedroom, and when they touch the myrtle the fairy comes out and they kill her. The prince returns, discovers the carnage, and almost dies of sorrow, but when by a strange stroke of luck he gets the fairy back he has the courtesans put to death and takes the fairy for his wife.

  No one was seen to utter a peep as long as Zeza continued her story, but once she had put an end to her talking a huge racket was heard, and none of those present could keep their mouths shut as they chattered about the ass’s shit and the enchanted club, and someone said that if there were a wood of those clubs more than a few thieves would stop playing the cymbals1 and more than a few others would get some sense into their heads, and asses would not outnumber beasts of burden, as is the case today. But after some discussion on the subject the lord ordered Cecca to continue the thread of the tales, and she spoke thus: “If man thought of how much damage, ruin, and destruction occur on account of the condemned women of this world, he would be more careful to flee from the path of a dishonest woman than from the sight of a serpent, and he would not consume his honor for the dregs of a bordello, his life for a hospital of ills, and all of his revenues for a public woman who’s not worth three coppers,2 since the only thing she’ll let you swallow are aggregate pills3 of disgust and rage, as you will hear happened to a prince who put himself in the hands of that evil race.

  “In the village of Miano4 there lived a husband and a wife. Since they had not even the bud of a child, they desired with great longing to have an heir. And the wife, especially, was always saying, ‘Oh, God, if only I could bring something into this world, I wouldn’t care if it were a branch of myrtle!’ And she repeated this song so often and bothered the heavens so much with these words that her belly became big and her
womb round, and at the end of nine months, instead of delivering into the midwife’s arms a little doll of a baby boy or a little fart of a baby girl, she cast out of the Elysian Fields of her womb a lovely branch of myrtle.5 She planted it in a pot decorated with pretty grotesques, put it on a windowsill, and with great pleasure took care of it morning and evening, with more diligence than a farmer who tends to a broccoli patch from which he hopes to earn the rent on his garden.

  “But when the king’s son happened to pass by that house on his way to the hunt, he became infatuated beyond all measure with the lovely branch of myrtle, and he sent word to its owner that if she sold it to him, he would pay an eye for it. After a thousand no’s and arguments, the woman was finally made greedy by the offers, pulled in by the promises, bewildered by the threats, and won over by the pleas, and gave him the pot, begging him to hold it dear to his heart, since she loved it more than a daughter and valued it as much as if it had come from her own loins.

  “With the greatest joy in the world, the prince had the pot taken to his private bedroom and placed on a loggia, and he hoed and watered it with his own hands. Now it happened that one evening, when the prince had gone to bed and put out the candles, just as the world grew quiet and everyone was in their first sleep, he heard the sound of footsteps in the house, and then something groping its way toward his bed. He thought that it might be either a page who wanted to lift his wallet or else an imp6 come to pull his covers off. But since he was a courageous man whom even the dreadful fires of hell could not frighten, he played the dead cat and waited to see how the deal would turn out. And when he felt that certain business drawing close and touched it, he realized what a smooth job it was; and where he imagined he would be squeezing hedgehog needles he found a little something that was more mellow and soft than Tunisian wool, more yielding and pliable than the tail of a marten, more delicate and tender than the feathers of a goldfinch. And so he flung himself from one side of the bed to the other, and thinking that it might be a fairy (as in fact it was) he wrapped himself around it like an octopus, and as they played at ‘Mute Sparrow,’ they also tried out ‘Stone in Your Lap.’7