“Parmetella did everything that her lover had advised her to do, but as she was returning with the instruments she opened the box, and suddenly a flute here, a shawm there, some bagpipes over here, a recorder over there, began to fly through the air making a thousand sounds, and Parmetella ran after them clawing her face to shreds. In the meantime the ogress came down, and when she couldn’t find Parmetella she went to a window and cried out to the door, ‘Crush that traitor!’ And the door answered, ‘I don’t want to hurt the unfortunate girl, for she propped me open!’ Then the ogress yelled at the horse, ‘Trample that crook!’ And the horse answered, ‘I don’t want to trample her, for she gave me some hay to chew on!’ Finally the ogress called the dog over, saying: ‘Sink your teeth into that coward!’ And the dog answered, ‘Let the poor little thing go, for she gave me a loaf of bread!’
“Now as Parmetella went shouting after the instruments, she ran into Thunder-and-Lightning, who gave her a real dressing-down and said to her, ‘O traitor, when are you ever going to learn, at your own expense, that you’re in this situation because of your accursed curiosity?’ As he was saying this he called the instruments with a whistle and shut them back up in the box, and then told her to bring them to his mother. When the ogress saw Parmetella she screamed, ‘O cruel destiny, even my sister is against me, and refused to do me this favor!’
“Meanwhile, the new bride arrived. She was a plague, a cancer, a harpy, and an evil shadow, with a pug nose and buck teeth; she was an owl, a cracked barrel, and stiff as a pole, so that if you put a hundred flowers and garlands on her she would have looked like a tavern that had just opened.5 Her mother-in-law prepared a great banquet for her, and since her intentions were bad, she had the table set near a well, where she placed her seven daughters, each with a torch in her hand. She gave Parmetella, however, two torches, and had her sit on the edge of the well, with the idea that if she got sleepy she might fall to the bottom.
“Now while the food was coming and going and the blood was beginning to heat up, Thunder-and-Lightning, who was sitting there like an unwilling bride, said to Parmetella, “O traitor, do you love me?’ And she answered, ‘All the way up to the terrace!’ And he replied, ‘If you love me, give me a kiss!’ And she, ‘God help me, may it never be! May the heavens preserve that fine thing sitting next to you for a hundred years, with health and baby boys!’ And the bride answered, ‘It’s quite clear that you’ll always be a wretch, even if you live to be a hundred, if you find kissing such a handsome young man disgusting. I myself let a shepherd smooch with me for two chestnuts!’
“When he heard this fine news, the bridegroom flew into a rage and swelled up like a toad, so that the food he was eating got stuck in his throat. Nevertheless, he pretended the tripe was heart and swallowed the pill, thinking that he would settle his accounts and pay off his debt later on. But when the tables had been cleared he dismissed his mother and sisters, and he, the bride, and Parmetella were left together before going to bed. As he was having Parmetella take off his shoes he said to the bride, ‘My wife, did you see how this fussy girl refused to give me a kiss?’ ‘She was wrong,’ answered the bride, ‘to back off from kissing you, since you’re such a handsome young man. I, on the other hand, let myself be kissed by a boy who looks after sheep, for two chestnuts!’
“Thunder-and-Lightning could contain himself no longer; with lightning flashes of disdain and thunderbolts of actions, when the mustard reached his nostrils he grabbed a knife and slit his wife’s throat. Then he dug a grave in the cellar, buried her there, and, hugging Parmetella to him, said, ‘You are my joy, you are the flower of all women, the mirror of all honorable ladies! And so turn your eyes to me, give me your hand, offer me your mouth, join your heart to mine, for I want to be yours as long as the world is still the world!’
“As he was saying this they went to bed, and they remained there, taking their pleasure, until the Sun released its horses of fire from the barn of water and sent them to pasture in the fields sown by Dawn. When the ogress came in with some fresh eggs to cheer the newlyweds and to say, ‘Blessed are those who marry, and take a mother-in-law!’ she found Parmetella in the arms of her son, and after hearing how the business had been conducted she ran straight to her sister’s so that they could orchestrate a way to get rid of that speck in their eye without her son being able to help her.
“But when she discovered that out of grief for the daughter who had been baked in the oven her sister had thrown herself in, too, so that the stink of something burning was infecting the whole neighborhood, such was her desperation that she transformed from an ogress into a ram and banged her head against the wall so many times that her brains came splattering out. And when Thunder-and-Lightning had restored peace between Parmetella and her sisters-in-law, they were all happy and content, proving the truth of the saying: those who resist win.”
5
SUN, MOON, AND TALIA*
Fifth Entertainment of the Fifth Day
Talia dies because of a little piece of flax and is left in a palace, where a king chances to pass by and causes her to have two children. The children fall into the hands of the king’s jealous wife, who orders that they be cooked and served to their father and that Talia be burned. The cook saves the children and Talia is freed by the king, who has his wife thrown into the same fire that had been prepared for Talia.
Although the story of the ogresses might have solicited a bit of compassion, instead it was the cause of pleasure, for everyone was happy that Parmetella’s affairs had gone far better than expected. After this tale it was Popa’s turn for deliberating, and since her feet were already in the stirrups she began to speak in this manner:1
“There once was a great lord who at the birth of a daughter named Talia summoned all the wise men and fortune-tellers of his kingdom to predict her future. After conferring a number of times, they concluded that she would find herself in great danger because of a little piece of flax. And so the king issued a prohibition aimed at avoiding that baleful encounter: in his house neither flax nor hemp nor anything of the sort was to enter.
“But when Talia came to be a big girl and was looking out the window one day, she saw an old woman who was spinning pass by. Since she had never seen a distaff or a spindle and was greatly pleased by all that winding, she became so curious that she had the woman come up and, taking the distaff in her hand, she began to draw the thread. But then, by accident, a little piece of flax got under her fingernail and she fell dead to the ground.
“At the sight of this the old woman started running, and she’s still jumping down those stairs. And when the hapless father heard of the accident that had occurred, he paid for that pail of bitter wine with a barrel of tears and had her placed inside that same palace, which was in the country, seated on a velvet chair under a brocade canopy. Then he closed the doors and abandoned forever the palace that had been the cause of such great sorrow, so as to thoroughly erase every memory of this misfortune.
“But some time later a king who was out hunting lost his falcon, which after it escaped flew in a window of that house. When it didn’t respond to his call the king knocked at the door, since he thought people lived there. After knocking for a long time he had a harvester’s ladder brought, intending to scale the house himself to see what was inside. He climbed up and looked all over the place and, not finding a living soul, just stood there awhile like a mummy. Finally he arrived at the room where Talia sat, as if enchanted, and when he saw her he thought she was asleep. He called to her, but no matter what he did and how loud he yelled she did not wake up, and since her beauty had enflamed him, he carried her in his arms to a bed and picked the fruits of love. Then he left her in the bed and returned to his kingdom, where he did not remember what had happened for a long time.
“After nine months Talia unloaded a pair of babies, one a boy and the other a girl, who looked like two bejeweled necklaces. They were cared for by two fairies that
had appeared in the palace, who would place them at their mother’s teats; one day, when they were trying to suck but couldn’t find the nipple, they grabbed her finger and sucked so long that the piece of flax came out. Talia felt like she was awakening from a long sleep, and when she saw those jewels beside her she offered them her tit and held them as dear as her own life.
“And while she did not know what had happened to her and how it was that she was alone in that palace with two children by her side and people who brought her things to eat without her being able to see them, the king, who had remembered her, found an occasion to go hunting and came to see her. Finding her awake and in the company of two painted eggs of beauty, he was stunned with joy and told Talia who he was and what had happened. They made friends and a strong bond was established, and after staying several days with her he took his leave with the promise that he would return and take her away with him. He then went back to his kingdom, where he mentioned Talia and the children at every chance he got, so that when he was eating he had Talia in his mouth and also Sun and Moon, for those were the names he had given the children, and when he went to bed he called for the one and the other.
“The king’s wife had already become a little suspicious after her husband’s delay in returning from the hunt, and when she heard all this talk of Talia, Moon, and Sun she felt burned by something other than the sun. And so she called her secretary and said to him, ‘Listen here, my boy: you’re between Scylla and Charybdis,2 the jamb and the door, the club and the prison bars. If you tell me who my husband is in love with I’ll make you rich, and if you hide it from me I’ll make sure you’re found neither dead nor alive.’ Her crony was on the one hand all shaken up by fear and on the other fleeced by interest, which is a blindfold on honor’s eyes, a veil on the face of justice, and a crowbar on words given. He thus gave her bread for bread and wine for wine, at which the queen sent the secretary to visit Talia on the king’s behalf and tell her that he wanted to see the children. Talia sent them to him with great joy, and that heart of Medea ordered the cook to slit their throats, make various little dishes and delicacies out of them, and then serve them to her poor husband. The cook, however, was of tender lung, and when he saw those two lovely golden apples he took pity on them and gave them to his wife to hide, instead preparing two goat kids in a hundred different sauces.
“The king came home, and the queen had the food served with great gusto. While the king was eating with great gusto, too, and exclaiming, ‘Oh, on the life of Lanfusa,3 this dish is so good! Oh, on the soul of my grandpa, this other one is so tasty!’ she kept on saying, ‘Eat up, for you’re eating what is yours.’ The king paid no attention to this refrain two or three times, but finally, when he heard the music keeping up, he answered, ‘I know that what I’m eating is mine, since you didn’t bring a thing with you to this house!’ and he got up angrily and went out to the nearby countryside to unleash his anger.
“In the meantime the queen, not yet satisfied with what she had done, called the secretary back and had him summon Talia with the excuse that the king was waiting to see her. Talia came the instant she heard this, eager to find her light without realizing that only fire awaited her, and she appeared before the queen, who with a face like Nero’s, livid with rage, said to her, ‘May you be welcome, madam slut!4 So you’re that fancy piece of trash, that weed with whom my husband takes his pleasure! So you’re that bitch who makes my head spin like a top! Go on, you’ve reached purgatory, and I’m going to make you pay for the pain you’ve caused me!’
“When Talia heard this she began to apologize, saying that it wasn’t her fault and that the king had taken possession of her territory when she was under a sleeping spell. But the queen, who had no intention of listening to excuses, had a huge fire lit right there in the courtyard of the palace and then ordered that Talia be thrown onto it. Seeing that things had taken a bad turn, Talia fell down on her knees before the queen and begged her to at least give her the time to take off the clothes she was wearing. Not so much out of pity for the poor girl as to retrieve those gold-and-pearl-embroidered clothes, the queen said, ‘Get undressed; that I will allow you to do.’ Talia began to undress, letting out a shriek with every piece of clothing she took off. And when she had taken off her dress, her skirt, and her jacket, and was about to take off her petticoat, she let out the last shriek while they dragged her off to supply the ashes for the laundry tub where Charon5 washed his breeches.
“At that very moment the king ran in and, discovering this spectacle, demanded to know the whole story. He then asked about his children and heard his own wife, who reproached him with betraying her, tell him of how she had gotten him to devour them. When the hapless king heard this he fell prey to desperation and began to cry, ‘So I was the werewolf that attacked my own little sheep! Alas, why didn’t my veins recognize the springs of their own blood? O renegade Turk, what kind of a ferocious thing did you do? Just wait; you’re going to end up as compost in a broccoli plot, and I won’t be sending this face of a tyrant to the Colosseum6 for her penance!’ And as he was saying this he ordered that she be thrown into the same fire lit for Talia, together with the secretary who had been an instrument in the bitter game and a weaver of the wicked plot. He was intending to do the same with the cook who he thought had chopped up his children, but the cook threw himself at the king’s feet and said, ‘Actually, my lord, the service I performed for you would deserve a pension7 other than a furnace full of coals, a subsidy other than a pole in the ass, an entertainment other than to blacken and shrivel in a fire, and a profit other than to mix the ashes of a cook with those of a queen! This is certainly not the great thanks that I expect for having saved your children in spite of that sack of dog bile, who wanted to kill them so that what was part of your body would return to that same body.’
“When he heard those words the king was beside himself and thought he was dreaming, nor could he believe his own ears. He finally turned to the cook and said, ‘If it is true that you saved my children, you may rest assured that I will free you from turning the spit and that I will place you in the kitchen of this heart, where you can turn my desires as you please and claim for yourself a prize so great that you will consider yourself happy to be in this world!’ While the king was speaking these words the cook’s wife, who saw the state of need her husband was in, brought Moon and Sun before their father. And, playing the game of three with his wife and children, he sent out a whirlwind of kisses first to the one and then to the other, and when he had given the cook a large reward and named him his gentleman-in-waiting he took Talia for his wife. She enjoyed a long life with her husband and children, and recognized after all her ordeals that for those who are lucky, good rains down even when they are sleeping.”
6
SAPIA*
Sixth Entertainment of the Fifth Day
Sapia, the daughter of a great baroness, makes a wise man out of the king’s son Carluccio, who hadn’t even been able to learn the alphabet. When he receives a slap on the cheek from Sapia, Carluccio decides to take revenge by marrying her, and after a thousand torments he has three babies with her and, without realizing it, they are reconciled.
The lord prince and the princess were full of joy when they saw Talia’s affairs come to a happy end, for they never would have believed that amid such a tempest she could find a safe port. And after they ordered Antonella1 to unsheathe her tale, she took hold of it in this manner: “There are three species of idiots in the world, each of which deserves more than the other to be put in the oven: the first is those who do not know, the second those who do not want to know, and the third those who think they know. The idiot about whom I am about to talk to you is of the second species, who does not want knowledge to enter his noggin and thus hates those who teach it to him, trying, like a modern-day Nero,2 to cut off their bread supply.
“There once was a king, the king of Closed Castle, who had a son so thickheaded that there was no way t
o get him to learn the ABCs, and whenever anyone talked to him about reading or learning, he would blow up; neither screaming nor beatings nor threats served any purpose. And so his poor father was swollen like a toad with anger, and he didn’t know what to do to stimulate the wits of this wretch of a son so as not to have to leave his kingdom in the hands of Mamelukes,3 for he knew that it was impossible to fuse ignorance and the governance of a kingdom.
The Tale of Tales Page 50