“As he was saying this the poor little soul disintegrated like a corpse in a crypt when it sees the light of day. Cianna took the ashes and mixed them with a small measure of tears, made a grave, and buried them, praying to the heavens that they might find peace and rest. And after climbing the mountain, which left her out of breath, she waited until Time came out of the house.
“He was an old man with a very long beard, and he wore an ancient cloak that was covered with little sewn-on labels bearing the names of this person and that; he had large wings and ran so fast that she lost sight of him at once. When she entered his mother’s house she was frightened by the sight of the old woman’s black bark and, immediately grabbing the weights, she told the old woman what she wanted. The woman emitted a shriek and called her son, but Cianna told her, ‘You can hit your head against these walls all you like, but it’s certain that you won’t see your son while I’m holding these weights!’ The old woman saw that her way was blocked, and to lure her in began saying, ‘Let go of them, my darling, don’t stop my son’s journey, something that no living man in the world has ever done! Let go of them, may God help you, and I promise you, on the acid that my son uses to corrode all things, that I will not harm you.’ ‘You’re wasting your time,’ answered Cianna. ‘You’ll have to do better than that if you want me to let them go.’ ‘I swear to you, on those teeth that gnaw on all mortal things, that I will let you know whatever you want.’ ‘You’re not going to get a crumb out of me,’ replied Cianna. ‘I know you’re tricking me!’ And the old woman: ‘All right, then! I swear to you, on those wings that fly everywhere, that I want to do you a bigger favor than you can imagine!’ Cianna let go of the weights and kissed the old woman’s hand, which smelled of mold and stank of must. Seeing the good manners of the girl, the old woman said to her, ‘Hide behind that door, and when Time arrives I’ll get him to say what you want to know. And as soon as he goes out again—since he never stays still in one place—you can slip out. But don’t let him hear you, for he is so greedy that he spares not even his own children, and when he has nothing else he eats himself and then regerminates.’
“After Cianna did what the old woman told her to, Time arrived, light and agile, and very quickly nibbled at everything he could get his hands on, even the plaster on the walls. When he was about to leave his mother told him everything that she had heard from Cianna, begging him, in exchange for the milk that she had given him, to answer, point by point, all the questions that were asked of him. After a thousand entreaties her son answered, ‘You may tell the tree that it can never be dear to people while it keeps treasures buried under its roots; the mouse that they will never be safe from cats unless they attach a little bell to the cats’ legs so that they can hear them when they come; the ant that they will live for a hundred years if they can do without flying, for when an ant wants to die it puts on wings; the whale to keep its spirits up and count among its friends the sea mouse,15 which will always be its guide and keep it from going the wrong way; and the little doves that when they build a nest on top of the column of richness they will return to their previous state.’
“That said, Time began to run his usual course and Cianna, taking leave of the old woman, went down the mountain at the same moment that the seven doves arrived, following in the footsteps of their sister. Tired from such a long flight, they went and perched on the horns of a dead ox, and no sooner had they put their feet down than they became the handsome young men they had been before and, marveling over this fact, they heard the answer Time had given and understood that the horns, as the symbol of the goat, were the column of richness referred to by Time. And after celebrating their happiness with their sister, they set out on the same road that Cianna had traveled.
“When they found the oak tree and told it what they had heard from Time, the tree begged them to take the treasure out from under it, since this was why its acorns had lost their reputation. The seven brothers found a hoe in a nearby garden and dug until they found a large jar full of gold coins, which they divided in eight parts among themselves and their sister in order to carry them more easily. But then, since they were tired from their journey and from the weight, they went to sleep next to a hedge. And when a bunch of bandits16 passed by and saw those poor souls sleeping with their heads on the bundles of coins, they tied their hands and feet to some trees and took off with the beans, leaving them to lament not only the wealth that had no sooner been found than had slipped through their hands but their life itself, since without the hope of help they ran the risk of being consumed by either their own hunger or the hunger of some wild beast. And while they were wailing over their unfortunate plight, along came the mouse, and when it heard Time’s answer, out of gratitude for the service done it gnawed through the ropes that bound them and set them free.
. . . e compresero che lo cuorno, comme simmolo de la capra, fosse la colonna de la ricchezza azzennata da lo Tiempo. [. . . and they understood that the horns, as the symbol of the goat, were the column of richness referred to by Time.]
“After walking for a good while longer they met up with the ant in the road, who, once it had heard Time’s advice, asked Cianna why she was so out of spirits and wan. When Cianna told of the troubles they had had and the way they had been swindled by the thieves, the ant answered, ‘Hush, for now I have the opportunity to pay you back for the favor I received from you! You should know that while I was carrying a load of wheat underground I saw a place where those murderous dogs stash their spoils. They’ve made a number of cavities under an old building, where they stow all their stolen goods, and now that they’ve gone off for some more loot I want to accompany you and show you where it is so you can get back what is yours.’ That said, it set off on a road that led to some dilapidated houses, where it showed the seven brothers the entrance to one of the ditches. They lowered Giangrazio down, since he was more courageous than the others; he found all the money that had been stolen from them, brought it out, and then they set off toward the seashore.
“There they found the whale and told it of the good suggestions offered by Time, the father of all advice, and while they were going on about their travels and everything that had happened to them, the rogues suddenly sprang out before them, armed to the teeth, for they had followed in the trail of their footsteps. At the sight of this Cianna and her brothers said, ‘Alas, this time there’s not going to be a hair left of these hapless souls; here come the bandits now, arms in hand, and they’ll skin us alive!’ ‘Have no fear,’ answered the whale. ‘I’d pull you out of fire to pay you back for the loving kindness you showed me! Get on my back and I’ll take you right off to a safe place.’
“The poor things, who saw their enemies at their back and the water up to their necks, got on the whale, which swam away from the rocks and brought them to within sight of Naples. Not feeling safe about putting them ashore for fear of getting beached, the whale said, ‘Where do you want me to leave you, along the Amalfi coast?’ And Giangrazio answered, ‘See if we can avoid doing that, my lovely fish, because I wouldn’t willingly get off in any of those places; in Massa they say “offer your greeting and move on,” in Sorrento “clench your teeth,” in Vico “take some bread with you,” in Castellamare “neither friends nor buddies.”’17
“And so to please him the whale changed course and went off in the direction of the Salt Rock,18 where it left them, and when the first boat of fishermen came by they asked to be brought to land. They then returned to their town healthy, beautiful, and rich, and were a comfort to their mother and father; and they enjoyed, thanks to Cianna’s goodness, a happy life, which demonstrated the authenticity of the ancient saying: Do good whenever you can, and then forget about it.”
9
THE CROW*
Ninth Entertainment of the Fourth Day
To please Milluccio, the king of Shady Thicket, his brother Iennariello takes a long journey, and when he brings his brother back what he had desired and
frees him from death, he is condemned to death himself. But in order to prove his innocence he becomes a marble statue, and then due to a strange incident he returns to his former state and lives happily.
If I had a hundred reeds in my throat, a bronze chest, and a thousand tongues of steel,1 I would not be able to describe how much Paola’s tale was appreciated when it was heard how none of the good deeds that Cianna performed had gone unrewarded. And so they had to increase the dose of entreaties to Ciommetella so that she would tell her tale, since she had lost her confidence about pulling the cart of the prince’s orders as well as the others did. Even so, she had no choice but to obey, and in order not to ruin the game she began to speak in this manner: “The proverb that says ‘we see crooked and judge straight’ is truly a great one, but so difficult to put to use that few men have good enough judgment to hit the nail on the head. On the contrary: in the sea of human affairs most are freshwater fishermen who catch only crabs, and those who think they can take more accurate measure of what passes through their heads are the ones most likely to be mistaken. And so it happens that people dash around wildly, labor away blindly, think upside down, act rashly, judge as if it were a game of smash-the-top,2 and, most of the time, with a bad tumble from a good resolution to a gross mistake, buy themselves a commonsense repentance, as did the king of Shady Thicket, about whose adventures you’ll hear if you use the doorbell of courtesy to call me from inside the revolving door of modesty, and then lend me your ear for a bit.
“Now it is said that there once was a king of Shady Thicket named Milluccio, who was so taken by hunting that he neglected the most vital things in his state and his home so that he could follow the tracks of a hare or the flight of a lark. And he continued down this road so far that one day fortune took him to a wood that had put together a tightly serried squadron of land and trees to keep the horses of the Sun from breaking through. Here, on top of a splendid piece of marble, he found a freshly killed crow.
“When the king saw the bright red blood that had spattered the brilliant white stone, he heaved a great sigh and said, ‘O heavens, couldn’t I have a wife as white and red as that stone, with hair and eyelashes as black as the feathers of this crow?’3 And he became so immersed in this thought that for a good while he acted out The Menaechmi4 with the stone, and he looked like a marble statue that was making love with that other marble. And as he drove this dismal whim into his head and fed it with the pap of desire, at the snap of a finger he went from a toothpick to a bean pole, a jujube to an Indian squash, a barber’s warming pan to a glassblower’s furnace, and a dwarf to a giant, so that he thought of nothing else but the image of that thing set in his heart like a stone in stone.5 Wherever he turned his eyes he always found the same form that he carried in his breast and, forgetting all his other business, he had nothing but that marble in his head. He had grown so thin over the stone that he was dwindling down hair by hair, since the stone was the mill that ground his life, the porphyry6 where the colors of his days were mixed, the flint where the match of his soul was lit, the magnet that attracted him, and, lastly, the stone that had taken root in his gall bladder and gave him no rest.
“When Iennariello, his brother, saw him so waxen and sallow, he said, ‘My brother, what has come over you? Your pain is lodged in your eyes and your desperation seated atop the pallid signboard of your face! What has happened to you? Talk, open your heart to your brother! The stink of coal in a closed room infects those within; powder compressed inside a mountain sends fragments of rock flying through the air; scabies shut up inside veins makes the blood rot; wind held inside the body generates flatulence and bad colics. So then, open your mouth and tell me what you’re feeling, and at the end you can rest assured that wherever I can I’ll put a thousand lives on the line if I can be of use to you.’
“Chewing on words and sighs, Milluccio thanked him for his kind love and told him that he had no doubts about his affection, but that there was no cure for his illness since it was born of a stone on which he had sown his desires without the hope of any fruit, a stone from which he could not hope for even one mushroom of happiness, a stone of Sisyphus7 that pushed his plans up a mountain and, once it got to the top, sent them rolling down—crash!—to the bottom. Finally, after a thousand prayers he told him everything about his love.
“When Iennariello heard the matter, he comforted him as best he could and told him to cheer up and not be dragged down by that melancholic humor, for to content him he was determined to travel through the world until he found a woman who was the original of that stone. And he immediately armed a large ship full of merchandise, dressed himself as a merchant, and set off in the direction of Venice8—mirror of Italy, shelter of virtuous men, ledger of the marvels of Art and Nature—where he had a pass prepared that would allow him to travel to the East. Then he set sail in the direction of Cairo, and when he entered the city and saw a man carrying a beautiful falcon, he immediately bought it to take back to his brother, who was a hunter. A little while later he encountered someone else with a marvelous horse, and he bought this, too, and then went to a tavern to refresh himself from the labors he had undergone at sea.
“But the next morning—when the army of stars was charged by the general of light and removed its tents from the stockade of the sky, abandoning its post—Iennariello began to walk around the city, setting his eyes on everything like a lynx and looking at this woman and that, to see if by chance he might find the resemblance with a stone on a face of flesh. And as he wandered here and there without direction, always turning and looking around like a thief afraid of cops, he came across a tramp wearing a hospital of plasters and a junk shop of rags, who said to him, ‘My good man, what’s wrong? Why do you look so bewildered?’ ‘I should tell you my business?’ answered Iennariello. ‘Now I’ve really baked my bread, if I start telling my side of things to cops!’ ‘Just a minute, my handsome young man,’ replied the tramp. ‘Human flesh is not sold by weight! If Darius had not told his troubles to a stable boy, he would not have become master of Persia.9 So then, it wouldn’t be such a strange thing if you told a poor tramp your business, for there’s no stick so thin it can’t be used to clean your teeth.’ Iennariello, who heard the poor little fellow speaking in such a well-ordered and sensible manner, told him what had brought him to that town and what he was so diligently searching for. When the tramp had listened to this, he answered, ‘Now you see, my son, how you need to take every person into account! For although I’m trash I’ll still be good for fertilizing the garden of your hopes. Now listen: with the excuse of begging for alms I’ll go knock on the door of a beautiful young woman, the daughter of a necromancer. Open your eyes wide; look at her, contemplate her, study her, consider her, take her measure, and you’ll find the image of the woman your brother desires.’
“Saying this, he knocked on the door of a house not far from there, where a girl named Liviella came out and threw him a piece of bread, and as soon as Iennariello saw her it seemed to him that this was a building made according to the plan given to him by Milluccio. He gave the tramp a nice offering and sent him off, and went back to the tavern and disguised himself as a vendor of notions. Then he took two little cases filled with all the world’s bounty and walked by Liviella’s house hawking his wares until she called him over. And after taking a look at all the beautiful hairnets, veils, ribbons, headkerchiefs, laces and patches, linens, buckles, pins, pots of rouge, and bonnets he had, and inspecting all the merchandise and then inspecting it again, she finally told him to show her some other beautiful thing, and he answered, ‘My lady, in this case I have ordinary and low-priced things, but if you deigned to come to my ship I would show you things that are out of this world, for I have beautiful treasures worthy of a great lord.’ Liviella did not lack in curiosity, and so as not to compromise the nature of women she said to him, ‘Upon my word, if my father weren’t away I’d like to stop by.’ ‘Even more reason for coming,’ replied Iennariello, ‘si
nce he might not grant you this pleasure. I promise I’ll show you things so lavish they’ll drive you mad. Such necklaces and earrings; such belts and corsets; such combs, bracelets, and lacework! In short, I intend to make your eyes pop out of your head.’
“Upon hearing of this grand display, Liviella called for a friend to accompany her and set off for the ship. Once she was aboard, Iennariello kept her enchanted by showing her the many beautiful things he had brought with him, at the same time that he cleverly had the anchor pulled and the sails unfurled, and before Liviella lifted her eyes from the merchandise and saw that they were far from land, the ship had already traveled several miles. When she became aware of the deceit it was too late, and she began to act like Olympia,10 but the other way around, since if the latter lamented that she had been left on a rock Liviella lamented that she had left the rocks.
“But then Iennariello told her who he was, where he was taking her, and of the fortune that awaited her, and, moreover, described to her Milluccio’s beauty, valor, virtue, and, finally, the love with which he would receive her. And he did and said so much that she quieted down and even begged the wind to take her quickly to see the colors of the drawing that Iennariello had sketched for her. But as they were thus sailing cheerfully on, they suddenly heard the waves whispering under the ship, and although they were speaking in a low voice, the ship’s captain, who could understand, shouted, ‘Everyone on the alert; there’s a storm coming, and let’s pray to God that it spares us!’ At these words the testimony of a gust of wind was added, and then the sky was covered with clouds and the sea filled with breakers. And since the waves were curious to know everyone else’s business, they came aboard the ship without being invited to the wedding. One of the men tried to bail the water out with a ladle and a little tub, one tried to evict it with a pump, and while all the sailors, seeing as it was a matter of their lives, either took the helm or worked the sails or the sheets, Iennariello climbed up to the crow’s nest with a long-distance glass to see if he could catch sight of some land where they might set anchor.
The Tale of Tales Page 44