The Tale of Tales

by Giambattista Basile

  “But as he was out at sea thinking of she who was in the sea, the Sun’s sappers12 began to clear the way for the passage of the army of its rays, and after he got dressed the king set off with Ciommo to the shore. When they found Marziella, the king took out the file they had brought and with his own hands sawed the chain off the foot of his loved one, at the same time, however, fabricating another, even stronger chain in his own heart. He then hoisted she who rode astride his heart to the saddle and spurred the horse on to the royal palace, where he had ordered that Marziella find all of the loveliest ladies of the town waiting to receive her and honor her as their mistress.

  “They got married with great festivities, and the king requested that, along with the numerous barrels13 that were burned in the light displays, Troccola herself be included in a little cask, as payment for the trick she had played on Marziella. He then sent for Luceta and gave her and Ciommo everything they needed to live a lord’s life. Puccia was banished from the kingdom and spent the rest of her life begging; for not having sowed a little piece of pizza she had for the rest of her life a dearth of bread. For it is the will of the heavens that those who lack compassion will never find it.”

  8

  THE SEVEN LITTLE DOVES*

  Eighth Entertainment of the Fourth Day

  Seven brothers leave their home because their mother does not give birth to a daughter. She finally has one, and while they are awaiting the news and the sign, the midwife sends the wrong signal, on account of which they go wandering through the world. The sister grows up, searches for her brothers, finds them, and after various adventures they all return home rich.

  The tale of the two little pizzas was truly a stuffed pizza, which everyone savored so much that they’re still licking their fingers. But Paola was prepared to tell her tale, and the prince’s command was like the eye of a wolf that took the words out of everyone’s mouth, and so she began to speak in this manner: “When you do a favor you always find one; benevolence is the hook of friendship and the spike of love; if you don’t sow you can’t reap. Ciulla has given you an antipasto of an example, and I’ll give you another as an after-dinner treat, as long as you remember what Cato said: ‘Talk little at table.’1 Thus do me the courtesy of lending me your ears, and may the heavens make them always grow, so that you can hear satisfying and pleasing things.

  “There once was, in the town of Arzano,2 a good woman who unloaded a son every year, until they got to be seven and you might have taken them for a seven-piped syrinx of the god Pan, each pipe bigger than the next. Once they lost their baby ears3 the boys said to their mother, Iannetella, who was pregnant again, ‘You should know, my dear mother, that if you do not have a girl, after so many boys, we’ve made a firm resolution to leave this house to go out into the world and wander far and wide like a blackbird’s children.’ When the mother heard this bad news, she begged the heavens to strip her sons of this desire and to prevent her from losing seven such jewels. And when the hour of the delivery arrived, the sons said to Iannetella, ‘We’re going to retire up to that crag, the cliff right across from here. If you give birth to a boy put an inkstand and a pen on the windowsill, and if you give birth to a girl put a serving spoon and a distaff there, and if we see the signal for a girl we’ll come home and spend the rest of our lives under your wings, but if we see the signal for a boy you can forget about us and give us the name of feathers!’

  “Her sons left, and the heavens willed it that Iannetella gave birth to a lovely little daughter. But when the midwife was told to give the sign to the brothers, she was such a scatterbrain and a dolt that she put out the inkwell and the pen. At the sight of that, the seven brothers threw up their heels and walked so far that after three years of traveling they reached a wood—where the trees did a flower dance4 to the sound of a river that played in counterpoint on the stones—in which there lived an ogre. Because this ogre’s eyes had once been torn out by a woman when he was sleeping, he was such an enemy of the female sex that he ate up every one of them that he could get.

  “When the young men reached the ogre’s house, tired from their travels and weak with hunger, they asked him if he would have the compassion to give them a few bites of bread. The ogre answered that he would give them enough to live on if they were willing to serve him, and they wouldn’t have to do anything but lead him around, one of them each day, like a little puppy. When the young men heard this, they felt like they had found a mother and a father, and they agreed to the terms and remained in the service of the ogre, who, once he had memorized their names, now called for Giangrazio, now Cecchitiello, now Pascale, now Nuccio, now Pone, now Pezillo, and now Carcavecchia, for these were the brothers’ names. And he gave them a room on the ground floor of his house and supplied them with what they needed to stay alive.

  “But in the meantime their sister had grown up, and, upon hearing that seven brothers of hers had left to go wandering through the world because of the midwife’s forgetfulness and that no one had received any news of them since, she got a whim to go searching for them. And she did and said so much that her mother, in a daze after all those pleas, dressed the girl as a wayfarer and gave her permission to leave.

  “She walked and walked, always asking everywhere she went if anyone had seen seven brothers, and she traveled through so many towns that she finally received news of them in a tavern, and after getting directions to the wood, one morning—when with the penknife of its rays the Sun was erasing the inkblots that Night had made on the paper of the sky—she found herself in that very place, where she was recognized with great joy by her brothers, who cursed the inkwell and the pen that had forged so many of their misfortunes. Once they had showered her with a thousand caresses, they warned her to stay locked up in a certain room so the ogre wouldn’t see her and, moreover, to give a part of anything to eat that she happened to get hold of to a cat that lived in the room, or else it would harm her in some way. Cianna, for this was the sister’s name, wrote this advice in the notebook of her heart, and she shared everything she had with the cat, always cutting fairly, always saying ‘this is for me, this is for you, and this is for the daughter of the king,’ always giving the cat its part right down to the fennel.

  “Now it happened that the brothers had gone hunting on behalf of the ogre, and they left a basket of chickpeas for her to cook. While picking through them she had the bad luck to find a hazelnut, which wreaked havoc on her peace, for after she put it in her mouth without giving half of it to the cat, to spite her the animal ran to the hearth and peed on the fire until it went out. When Cianna saw this, she didn’t know what to do, and she left the chambers against her brothers’ orders and went into the ogre’s apartment to ask for a little fire. When he heard the voice of a woman the ogre said, ‘The master is always welcome!5 Wait just a moment, for you’ve found what you’re looking for!’ That said, he took a whetstone, greased it with oil, and began to sharpen his fangs. Cianna, who saw that the cart was off to a bad start, grabbed some embers, ran into her room, and propped the door shut, making sure to push bars, chairs, bedroom benches, little chests, rocks, and everything that was in the room against it.

  “As soon as the ogre’s teeth were sharpened he ran to the room, and, finding the door locked, he began to kick it and try to knock it down. At the sound of this the seven brothers arrived, and when they found themselves in the middle of this uproar and heard themselves accused by the ogre of being traitors because their room had become the Benevento6 of his female enemies, Giangrazio, who was the oldest and had more good sense than the others, saw that the deal was about to go under and said to the ogre, ‘We know nothing about this matter, and it might just be that this accursed girl came into the room by mistake while we were out hunting. But since she has barricaded herself behind the door, come with me and I’ll take you to a place where we can attack her without giving her any way to defend herself.’ And he took the ogre by the hand and led him to a deep, deep ditch wh
ere they gave him a push and sent him crashing to the bottom. Then they grabbed a shovel that they found on the ground, covered him with earth, and, after getting their sister to open up, chewed her out for the mistake she had made and the danger she had placed herself in, and told her to use her head more wisely in the future and to take care not to pick grass around the place where the ogre was buried or else they would all become seven little doves. ‘Heaven forbid,’ answered Cianna, ‘that I would do you this harm!’ And after they took possession of the ogre’s things and became masters of the whole house, they spent their time happily waiting for the winter to go by—for the Sun to give the Earth the present of a green skirt embroidered with flowers, for having taken possession of the house of Taurus7—so that they could set off on their journey to return home.

  “It happened that while her brothers were gathering wood on the mountain to protect themselves from the cold that was increasing daily, a poor wayfarer arrived in that wood. Because he had made fun of a bogeyman sitting in a pine tree, the bogeyman had thrown down one of the fruits of the tree and hit him on the noodle, and he had a bump so enormous that the poor thing was screaming like a damned soul. Cianna came out when she heard the noise and felt pity for his suffering. She immediately picked a rosemary sprig from a bush that had grown on the ogre’s grave and, with some chewed-up bread and salt, made him a plaster, and after giving him a little meal sent him on his way.

  “While Cianna was setting the table as she waited for her brothers, in flew seven little doves, who said to her, ‘O you who are the cause of all our ills, better if your hands had been paralyzed before you picked that damned rosemary, which will force us to fly off to the seashore! What did you do, eat cat’s brain,8 my sister, so that our warning slipped your mind? Here we are, turned into birds and exposed to the talons of kites, sparrow hawks, and goshawks; here we are, turned into companions to bee eaters, blackcaps, goldfinches, screech owls, lady finches, owls, magpies, crows, wheatears, titmice, wild capons, shrikes, larks, water hens, woodcocks, siskins, golden orioles, chaffinches, wrens, great tits, butcher birds, wrynecks, skylarks, greenfinches, flycatchers, hoopoes, scissortails, little grebes, sedge warblers, herons, wagtails, garganeys, tufted ducks, goslings, linnets, and woodpeckers! You’ve fixed things nice! We come back to our town to find nets and birdlime waiting for us! You treat the head of a wayfarer but break the heads of your seven brothers, and there will be no remedy for our ailment unless you go find the mother of Time,9 who will teach you the way to rid us of our troubles.’

  “Cianna felt like a skinned quail because of the mistake she had made and asked her brothers’ pardon, offering to travel all over the world until she found the house of that old woman. She begged them to stay in the house at all times so that nothing bad might happen before she got back, and then she began to walk. And she never grew tired, and although she was on foot the desire to help her brothers carried her along like a pack mule, and she covered three miles an hour.

  “When she had arrived at a shore—where the sea, with a smack of its waves, beat the rocks that wouldn’t give the answers to the Latin exercises they had been assigned—she saw a large whale, which said to her, ‘My dear young lady, what are you doing?’ And she: ‘I’m looking for the house of the mother of Time.’ ‘You know what you need to do?’ replied the whale. ‘Keep going straight down this coast, and at the first river you reach go upstream and you’ll find someone who’ll show you how to get there. But do me a favor: as soon as you find that kind old woman, ask her if she would do me the pleasure of coming up with a solution for swimming safely without hitting the rocks and ending up on the sand so often.’ ‘Just leave it to me,’ said Cianna, and she thanked the whale for showing her the way and began to trot along the beach, and after a long journey she arrived at the river, which like a tax commissioner was pouring silver coins into the bank of the sea, and then took the path that went upstream. She came to a lovely countryside, where the meadow aped the sky with its green mantle starred with flowers; there she encountered a mouse that said to her, ‘Where are you going all alone like that, lovely lady?’ And she: ‘I’m looking for the mother of Time.’ ‘You have too far to walk,’ the mouse went on, ‘but don’t lose heart, for everything has an end. Just keep walking toward those mountains, which as the free lords of these fields ask that they be addressed by the title of “your highness,” and you’ll always have better news than what you’re looking for. But do me a favor: as soon as you’ve reached the house you want, get that nice little old woman to tell you what kind of solution we might find for freeing ourselves from the tyranny of cats, and then command me as you wish, since I’ll be your bought slave.’

  “After she promised him she would do this favor, Cianna set off toward the mountains, which although they looked close took forever to get to. Nonetheless, after she got there as well as she could she sat down, tired, on a stone, and noticed an army of ants carrying a large supply of wheat. One of them, turning to Cianna, said to her, ‘Who are you? And where are you going?’ Cianna, who was polite with everyone, said, ‘I am an unfortunate girl, who because of something very important to me is looking for the house of the mother of Time.’ ‘Keep on walking,’ said the ant, ‘and when those mountains open out onto a large plain you’ll get some new information. But do me a big favor: see that you find out from that old woman what we ants can do to live longer, for it seems to me that one of the crazy things about earthly affairs is that we acquire and accumulate so much to eat for such a short life, which, like an auctioneer’s candle, is put out at the best bid that the years make.’ ‘Don’t worry,’ said Cianna, ‘for I intend to repay you for the kindness you’ve shown me.’

  “And when she had gone over those mountains, she found herself on a lovely plain across which she walked for quite a while until she came to a large oak tree10—witness to antiquity, bonbon11 of a once-happy bride, morsel given by Time to the present century, so bitter over lost sweetness. The tree, forming lips from its bark and a tongue from its pith, said to Cianna, ‘Where, oh where are you going all breathless like that, my girl? Come under my shade and rest yourself.’ And she, giving it her many thanks, excused herself and explained that she was in a hurry to find the mother of Time. When the oak heard this it said, ‘You’re not very far away; before you walk for another day you’ll see a house on top of a mountain where you’ll find what you’re looking for. But if you have as much kindness as you have beauty, try to discover what I might do to get back my lost honor, for I’ve gone from being the nourishment of great men to food for pigs.’ ‘Leave this matter to Cianna,’ she answered. ‘I’ll see that I serve you well.’

  “That said, she left and walked on without ever taking a rest until she reached the foot of a spoilsport of a mountain that went around with its head in the clouds just to bother them. There she found a little old man who, tired of walking, had gone to sleep in the middle of some hay. When he saw Cianna he immediately recognized her as the one who had medicated his bump; and when he heard what the girl was looking for he told her that he was bringing Time the rent on the land that he had cultivated, and that Time was a tyrant who had usurped everything in the world and wanted taxes from everyone, in particular from men of his age. And since he had received a favor from Cianna’s hand, he wanted to pay her back a hundred times over by offering her a few good words of caution having to do with her ascent of this mountain. He was sorry not to be able to accompany her there, but his age, condemned to descend more readily than to climb, forced him to remain on the lower slopes of those mountains where he would settle his accounts with the clerks of Time, which are the troubles, misfortunes, and infirmities of life, and pay his debt to Nature.

  “And so he said to her, ‘Now listen carefully, my dear, innocent girl: you must know that on top of that mountain you’ll find a crumbling house that was built before anyone remembers. The walls are cracking, the foundation rotting, the doors worm-eaten, the furniture moldy: in short, every
thing is consumed and destroyed. On one side you can see broken columns, on the other shattered statues; nothing remains intact but a quartered coat of arms over the door, where you can see a serpent biting its tail, a stag, a crow, and a phoenix.12 Upon entering you’ll see silent files, saws, scythes, and pruning hooks on the ground, and hundreds and hundreds of cauldrons full of ashes, labeled like apothecary jars with names such as Corinth, Saguntum, Carthage, Troy, and a thousand other cities13 gone bad whose ashes are kept by Time in memory of his exploits. Now as soon as you get near the house, hide somewhere until you see Time come out, and when he leaves, you slip in. In the house you’ll find a very old woman whose beard touches the ground and whose hump reaches the sky; her hair, like the tail of a dapple-gray horse, covers her heels, and her face is like a lettuce-leaf collar,14 the folds stiff with the starch of the years. She will be sitting on a clock that’s fastened to the wall, and since her eyelids are so heavy that they bury her eyes she won’t be able to see you. Once you’re inside, take off the clock’s weights right away, then call the old woman and beg her to grant you what you wish. She will immediately call her son and tell him to eat you, but since the clock his mother is sitting on is missing its weights he won’t be able to walk, and she’ll be forced to give you what you want. But don’t believe any of the oaths that she swears to unless she swears on the wings of her son. In that case you can believe her; do what she tells you to do, and you’ll be satisfied.’