The Tale of Tales

by Giambattista Basile

  “Upon hearing this, that Jew Nuccia invited the captain to have a drink, and when she had poured him full right up to his ears she took the letter out of his pocket and had it read to her, nearly dying of envy and letting out a sigh at every syllable. And then she had the same student who had read her the letter, a client of hers, write in a forged hand that the queen had given birth to a wolf dog and that they were awaiting orders about what to do. After it was written and sealed she put it in the pocket of the sailor, who, when he awoke and saw that the weather had cleared, luffed up with a southwesterly at his stern. He got to the king and gave him the letter, and the king answered that they should keep the queen in good spirits and that she should not have a dram of displeasure, since these things happened by license of the heavens and a respectable man must not try to rearrange the stars.

  “After he was sent off, the captain arrived two evenings later at the place where Nuccia lived. She made a big fuss over him and crammed him full of food; he ended up with his legs in the air again so that finally, stuffed and in a daze, he went to sleep, and Nuccia put her hand in his thigh piece and found the answer. She had it read to her and immediately had another false letter written to the council of Green Earth, which ordered that they burn mother and son without a moment’s delay.

  “As soon as the captain had sobered up he left, and upon arriving at Green Earth he presented the letter. When it was opened there was much whispering among those old sages and, after spending a good deal of time discussing the matter, they concluded that the king had either gone crazy or was under a spell, since he had a wife who was a pearl and an heir who was a jewel, and he wanted to grind them into powder for Death’s teeth. For this reason they were of the opinion that they should take the middle road and send the young woman and her son off to wander through the world, so that no one would ever be able to hear anything new or old about them. And so they gave them a handful of little coins to help them get by and removed a treasure from the royal house, a shining lantern from the city, and two bastions of hope from the husband.

  “Poor Penta, finding herself evicted though she was neither an immoral woman nor the relative of a bandit nor a bothersome student,21 took her little cucumber in her arms and, bathing him with milk and tears, set out in the direction of Torbid Lake, where the ruler was a sorcerer. When he saw this lovely cripple who crippled hearts and waged a fiercer war with the stumps of her arms than Briareus22 with his hundred arms, he wanted to hear the whole story of the misfortunes that had befallen her: from when her brother was denied a meal of meat and wanted to make a meal of fish out of her, up to the day that she had set foot in his kingdom.

  “Upon hearing this bitter tale the sorcerer shed tears without reserve, and the compassion that entered through the holes of his ears was exhaled in sighs through the crack of his mouth. Finally, comforting her with kind words, he said, ‘Cheer up, my girl, for no matter how badly the house of a soul has rotted, it can remain standing with the support of hope. So don’t let your spirits leak away, for the heavens sometimes drag human misfortunes to the verge of ruin in order to render the ultimate success more marvelous. Have no fear; you have found mother and father and I will help you with my own blood.’ Poor Penta thanked him and said, ‘I don’t care a fig if the heavens shower me with misfortunes and send me hailstones of ruin, now that I am under the canopy of your grace, you who have power and valor; and the lovely sight of you alone is enough to satisfy me.’ And after a thousand words of courtesy on the one hand and thanks on the other, the sorcerer gave her a beautiful apartment in his palace and had her taken care of like a daughter. The next morning he issued a proclamation: anyone who came to his court and told of a misfortune would be given a golden crown and scepter worth more than a kingdom.

  “This news spread all through Europe, and more people came to that court to earn those riches than caterpillars. And one told how he had served in court his entire life, and after losing lye and soap, youth and health, was paid with a little piece of cheese; one said that he had been unjustly treated by a superior and couldn’t take offense but had to swallow the pill without evacuating his anger; one lamented that he had put all his belongings in a ship, and a little wind blowing the wrong way had robbed him of every last thing; another complained that he had spent all his years wielding a pen without it bringing him a profit of even one quill, and despaired more than anything that his efforts with the pen had brought him so little fortune, while the material used to make inkwells23 encountered such good luck in this world.

  “In the meantime the king of Green Earth returned, and upon discovering that fine syrup of things at home he behaved like an unchained lion, and he would have had the councilors’ skin removed if they hadn’t shown him his letter. And when he saw the falsified writing he summoned the courier, and after getting him to tell what he had done during the trip he realized that Masiello’s wife had done him this harm, and he immediately rigged a galley and set sail himself for that shore. When he found the woman he used nice manners to get her to spit out her deceit, and after hearing that the cause of it had been jealousy he gave orders that she be covered in wax. And when she was thoroughly waxed and tallowed he placed her on a huge pile of dry wood and set her on fire, and as soon as he saw that the fire, with its bright red tongue of flames, had devoured the wretched woman, he hoisted his sails.

  “On the high sea he ran into a ship carrying the king of Dry Rock, who, after a thousand formalities, told the king of Green Earth that he was sailing in the direction of Torbid Lake for the proclamation issued by the king of that kingdom and that he was going to try his luck, since his misfortunes were second not even to those of the most afflicted man in the world. ‘If that’s the issue,’ answered the king of Green Earth, ‘I can outrun you with my feet tied together and beat the most unfortunate person who ever was by fifteen and bust. While others measure their pain in teaspoons, I measure mine in bushels. And so I want to come with you, and we’ll behave like gentlemen: whoever wins shares the winnings like a good sport, right down to the fennel.’ ‘Most willingly,’ said the king of Dry Rock, and they gave each other their word and went of one accord to Torbid Lake, where they landed and presented themselves to the sorcerer. He received them with the grand ceremony fit for crowned heads, had them seated under his royal canopy, and told them that they were welcome a thousand times over. And when the sorcerer heard that they had come for the contest of the miserable men, he wanted to know what load of pain rendered them subject to the sirocco winds of sighs.

  “The king of Dry Rock began to tell of the love that he had directed toward his own blood, of the way his sister had acted like an honorable woman, of the dog’s heart he had revealed when he locked her up in the tarred chest and threw her to sea; of how on the one hand the conscience of his own errors pierced him and on the other the pain of losing his sister stung him; of how he was tormented here by the shame and there by the damage done, so that if all the suffering of the most terribly anguished souls of hell were distilled it wouldn’t amount to the quintessence of affliction that his heart felt.

  “When this king had finished speaking, the other one began. ‘Alas, your sufferings are sugar cookies, sweetmeats, and bits of honey24 compared to the pain that I feel. After I found Penta with the Chopped-Off Hands, looking like a Venetian wax torch,25 in a chest destined to become the casket of my own funeral rite, and took her for my wife and was given a lovely baby boy by her, the one and the other came close to being set on fire due to the wickedness of an old hag! And what’s even worse—O nail in my heart! O sorrow that gives me no peace!—they banished both of them and sent them from my kingdom, and I, unburdened of every pleasure, do not know why the ass of my life does not fall to the ground under the load of so much suffering!’

  “When the sorcerer had heard the one and the other he knew by scent that one of them was the brother and the other the husband of Penta, and he called for Nofriello, the son, and said to him, ‘G
o and kiss the feet of your lord daddy!’ The little boy obeyed the sorcerer, and his father, seeing the good manners and grace of the little bruiser, threw a lovely golden chain around his neck. After this the sorcerer continued, ‘Kiss your uncle’s hand, my lovely boy,’ and the darling babe immediately obeyed. His uncle was amazed at the high spirits of this frisky little fellow and gave him a nice jewel, asking the sorcerer if the boy was his son, to which the sorcerer replied that he should ask the boy’s mother.

  “Having heard the whole conversation from behind the door, Penta now came out. And, like a little dog that has been lost for many days and then finds her master and barks, licks, wags her tail, and gives him a thousand other signs of her happiness, so she ran first to her brother and then to her husband, first pulled by the affection for the one and then by the blood ties to the other, and she embraced first this one and then that one with such jubilation that it’s impossible to imagine: let’s just say that they put on a three-part concert of truncated words and interrupted sighs.

  “But when there came a pause in this music they went back to caressing the boy, and first his father, then his uncle took turns squeezing and kissing him until they were nearly in ecstasy. And after things had been said and done on this side and that, the sorcerer brought things to an end with these words: ‘The heavens know how delighted this heart is to see lady Penta comforted. She deserves to be raised high for her good qualities, and it was for her that I labored so hard to bring her husband and her brother to this kingdom, so that I could give myself to the one and the other like a slave in chains. But since man is bound by his words and oxen by their horns, and the promise of a respectable man is a contract, and since, in my judgment, the king of Green Earth truly came close to bursting with sorrow, I want to keep my word. And so I will give him not only the crown and scepter mentioned in the proclamation, but also my kingdom, and because I have neither children nor preoccupations of that sort, with your permission I would like to take this lovely couple of husband and wife for my adoptive children, and they will be as dear to me as the pupils of my eyes. And so that there remains nothing left to desire for Penta’s happiness, let her put the stumps under her apron, and she’ll pull out hands that are more beautiful than they were before.’

  “This was done, with the results the sorcerer had predicted, and the happiness that followed cannot be described: let’s just say that everyone was gurgling with joy, and in particular Penta’s husband, who considered this good fortune far greater than the other kingdom given to him by the sorcerer. And after they spent a handful of days in great festivities, the king of Dry Rock returned to his kingdom, and the king of Green Earth, having sent the permit for the rule of his state to his younger brother, stayed on with the sorcerer, paying off fingers of suffering with arm’s lengths of delight, and testifying to the world that you cannot find sweetness dear if you have not first known bitterness.”

  3

  FACE*

  Third Entertainment of the Third Day

  Renza is enclosed in a tower by her father, since it was predicted that she would die from a big bone. She falls in love with a prince and, with a bone brought to her by a dog, makes a hole in the wall and flees. But when she later sees her beloved kiss the bride he has since married, she dies of a broken heart, and out of sorrow the prince kills himself.

  While Cecca was telling her tale to great effect, you could see a stew1 of pleasure and disgust, of comfort and affliction, of laughter and tears cooking. They cried at Penta’s misfortune, they laughed at how her hardships came to an end, they were afflicted to see her in so much danger, it was a comfort to them that she was saved so honorably, they were disgusted by the betrayals of which she was a victim, and they felt pleasure at the vendetta that followed. In the meantime Meneca, who was about to light the fuse of her chatter, took her weapons in hand and said, “It often happens that just when someone thinks he has escaped a misfortune he runs right into one. For this reason a wise man should put all of his affairs in the hands of the heavens and not go searching for magicians’ circles or astrologers’ eyeholes, since if he tries to foresee dangers in a prudent manner he falls to his ruin like a beast. Listen, and you will find that it is true.

  “There once was a king, the king of Narrow Ditch, who had a beautiful daughter. Since he wanted to know what sort of destiny was written for her in the book of the stars, he summoned all the necromancers, astrologers, and gypsies of the land. They came to the royal court, and when some had examined the lines of her hand, others the signs on her face, and others the birthmarks on Renza’s body, for this was her name, each of them spoke their opinion; and the majority of them concluded that she was in danger of tapping the sewer main of her life because of a big bone.2 When the king heard this he decided to duck so that he wouldn’t get hit, and he had a lovely tower built where he enclosed his daughter together with twelve ladies-in-waiting and a governess to serve her, and gave the order that, under penalty of death, they were always to bring her meat without bones so as to bypass that unlucky planet.

  “Renza grew like a moon, and one day, as she was at a window covered by an iron railing, Cecio, the son of the queen of Wide Vineyard, passed by the tower. At the sight of such a beautiful thing he immediately got all heated up, and when he saw that his greeting was returned and that a little laugh filled her mouth, he took heart, moved closer to the window, and said, ‘Hello, register of all of nature’s privileges! Hello, archive of all of the heavens’ concessions! Hello, universal table of all of the titles of beauty!’ Hearing this praise bestowed upon her, Renza became more beautiful in her embarrassment, and as she threw wood onto Cecio’s fire she poured, as someone once said, boiling water on his burns. And since she didn’t want Cecio to outdo her in courtesy, she answered, ‘May you be welcome, O larder of the Graces’ provisions, O warehouse of Virtue’s merchandise, O customshouse of Love’s commerce!’

  “Cecio replied, ‘How can the castle of Cupid’s forces be shut up in that tower? How can the prison of souls be thus jailed? How can there be a golden apple behind that iron railing?’ And when Renza explained the situation to him, Cecio told her that he was the son of a queen but the vassal of her beauty, and that if it were her pleasure to steal away to his kingdom, he would put a crown on her head. Renza was feeling musty inside those four walls and couldn’t wait to air out her life, and so she accepted the proposal and told him to come back in the morning—when Dawn would call the birds as witnesses to the filth Aurora smeared her with3—and they would sneak out together. And after she threw him a kiss from the window, she went back in and the prince returned to his lodgings.

  “Now while Renza was thinking of how she could slip out of there and fool her ladies-in-waiting, a Corsican hound, which the king kept to guard the tower, came into her room with a big bone in its mouth, and as the dog was gnawing on it under the bed Renza put her head down and saw the goings-on. Since all this seemed to have been sent by fortune for her very needs, she kicked the dog out and took the bone, and when she had made it clear to her ladies-in-waiting that her head hurt and they should therefore leave her to rest without bothering her, she set a prop against the door and began, with this bone, to put in a day’s work.

  “Chipping at a stone in the wall, she worked until she pried it away and took enough of the wall out to be able to get through it without hardship. Then she ripped up a couple of sheets and knotted them together like a rope, and—as soon as the curtain of shadows had been raised on the stage of the heavens so that Aurora might come out and recite the prologue to Night’s tragedy—when she heard Cecio whistle she attached the end of the sheets to a doorpost and lowered herself down to the street below where, once Cecio had embraced her and put her on a donkey covered by a rug, they set off for Wide Vineyard.

  “That evening they arrived in a certain place called Face and found a splendid palace there, where Cecio planted his stakes in the lovely farmland and marked off his amorous property. B
ut since Fortune always has the bad habit of tangling the yarn, putting an end to games, and slamming the door on the nose of all the fine plans that lovers may have, just as their pleasure reached its highest point a courier arrived with a letter from Cecio’s mother, in which she wrote that if he did not race home that very instant to see her he would not find her alive, since she was carrying on as best she could but was close to reaching the ‘z’4 of the alphabet of life.

  “Upon hearing this bad news Cecio said to Renza, ‘My heart, this business is of great importance, and I’ll need to run off posthaste in order to arrive in time. So stay for five or six days in this palace, and then I’ll either return or send someone to get you.’ And when Renza heard this bitter news, she burst into tears and answered, ‘O, hapless is my fate! How quickly the barrel of my pleasures has been drained to its dregs, the pot of my good times scraped to its very bottom, the basket of my delights filled with mere scraps! Poor me; my hopes are thrown away with the water, my plans turn to bran, and every satisfaction I have goes up in smoke! I have only just brought this royal sauce to my lips and already it’s caught in my throat, I have only just put my mouth to this fountain of sweetness and already my pleasure has muddied, I have only just seen the sun rise and I can already say, “Good night, uncle mattress!”’