The Tale of Tales

by Giambattista Basile

  2. Sciglia e Scariglia (Neap.): “Scylla was a maiden transformed into a monster, with the head and body of a woman and the tail of a fish, who devoured six of Ulysses’s companions (Homer, Odyssey 12). After she was killed by Hercules she was reborn in the sea god Forco, of whom she was daughter, and lay in ambush in the Strait of Messina. Carybdis, which also appears in the myth of the Argonauts, was the whirlpool situated on the other shore of the strait” (Rak 954).

  3. See eclogue 1 (“The Crucible”) n4.

  4. Troccola (Neap.): from the Neapolitan trocula, a rattle or clapper, and so by association a chatterbox, busybody, or woman of little consideration (Penzer 2:131). Also the name of a character in tale 4.7.

  5. In Greek and Roman mythology, the ferryman who transported the souls of the dead across the River Styx to Hades.

  6. Culiseo (Neap.): The Colosseum, Rome’s great amphitheater, was begun by Emperor Vespasian and finished by his son Titus in 90; according to Christian legend, it was the site of barbarous cruelty. Basile also puns on culo (ass).

  7. chiazza morta (Neap.): This, as well as aiuto de costa (subsidy) and trattenemiento (entertainment), is a term of Spanish origin, relative to military pensions and other forms of assistance. See tale 1.7 n29.

  *. AT 891: The Man Who Deserts His Wife and Sets Her the Task of Bearing Him a Child. Penzer notes similarities with the frame of the Panchatantra, in which there are three ignorant sons, and discusses the “spite marriage” motif in Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, Decameron 3.9, as well as other lesser-known variants (2:138). See also Straparola 7.1 (“Ortodosio Simeoni”) and Gonzenbach 36.

  1. In the text, Ciulla.

  2. Possibly a reference to Nero’s rejection of Seneca.

  3. Originally slave soldiers, they were an important part of the armies that won control of various Muslim states in the Middle Ages. Famous for the violence they used, in many circumstances, to control court politics, they came to rule Egypt from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries and continued to be powerful until the nineteenth century (vs., in common usage, fool).

  *. AT 653: The Four Skillful Brothers. See Straparola 7.5. Penzer comments on the “joint efforts” motif seen already, e.g., in tale 1.5, and notes its great popularity in both East and West (2:143). See also Morlini 80 and Grimm 129 (“The Four Skillful Brothers”).

  1. In the text, Luccia and Iacova, respectively.

  2. Wordplay: chi va spierto deventa aspierto (Neap.): “he who wanders becomes an expert.”

  3. I.e., to receive strokes of the whip for stealing.

  4. I.e., oar strokes in prison galleys for break-ins.

  5. I.e., the rope of a noose.

  6. I.e., “whipped by his jailers, with a paper mitre on his head” (Croce 510).

  7. scopierto a ramme (Neap.): ramme were false coins of gold-plated copper (Guarini and Burani 570). Basile puns with rimmo (oar).

  8. See eclogue 1 (“The Crucible”) n4.

  9. lo Verlascio de Capoa (Neap.): “the amphitheater of Capua; also used as a general expression for anything ancient, or a ruin” (Croce 589).

  10. trucco (Neap.): See tale 1.10 n20.

  11. “Allusion to the various powers (exhilarant, aphrodisiac, toxic) of the ‘sardonic herb,’ a plant of Sardinia” (Guarini and Burani 573). See also introduction to day 1 n8.

  12. “In the famous ‘Grotto of the Dogs,’ near Naples, experiments were performed in which animals were made to lose their senses by inhaling the carbon dioxide of which the cave is full, and then plunged into the waters of the nearby Lake of Agnano to see if they could be revived” (Croce 513).

  13. See tale 1.1 n7.

  *. AT 327A: Hansel and Gretel, and AT 450: Little Brother and Little Sister. See Perrault, “Little Thumbling,” and Grimm 15 (“Hansel and Gretel”); Penzer gives other Italian versions (2:149).

  1. In the text, Paola and Carmosina, respectively.

  2. The comments on the previous tale refer, in fact, to tale 5.6.

  3. As is done to signal a memorable day.

  4. Like the one used by the king of Chiunzo (tale 4.7) to file the chain that bound Marziella to the siren.

  5. canesca (Neap.): Guarini translates as shark (from the Calabrese caniscu) (576).

  6. The mythical thread of Ariadne led Theseus out of the Cretan labyrinth.

  7. See tale 5.1 n6.

  8. The scribes would have written the proclamation announcing that the pirate was wanted.

  9. A short theatrical or musical piece, usually inserted between the acts of a longer play or opera and commonly performed at court festivities.

  *. AT 408: The Three Oranges. This tale reappears in Lorenzo Lippi’s Malmantile racquistato (1676), as well as in Carlo Gozzi’s theatrical fairy tale L’amore delle tre melarance, and has numerous variants in the East and West (which Penzer lists in part). The motif of the red and white girl is found in tale 4.9, and that of the supplanted bride in the frame tale and tale 3.10. Penzer notes that “a fruit from which a maiden comes out is an old idea among storytellers,” offering examples from the Ocean of Story and other Indian collections, among others (2:158).

  1. In the text, Carmosina and Iacova, respectively.

  2. “Probably an emblematic character of popular chronicles” (Rak 1014).

  3. Wordplay: polletra (hernia) vs. pollitro (colt).

  4. This is the only transoceanic voyage in The Tale of Tales; its end point is the Indies, or the New World.

  5. “A metaphor for the man of letters, deriving from several classical sources that had entered into vogue” (Rak 1014).

  6. liccasalemme (Neap.): the Arabic greeting “peace to you.”

  7. The Strait of Gibraltar.

  8. As he had rained himself, in the form of a shower of gold, into Danae’s lap.

  9. fatto na magreiata (Neap.): See tale 1.2 n17.

  10. According to Croce, “the text reads tempio, but it should be tempo, i.e., with the color of her menstrual blood” (527).

  11. pernaguallà (Neap.): “A caricatured way of referring to the character of Lucia in the course of the dances of the moresca, catubba, Sfessania, and Lucia, . . . probably a deformation of the middle-eastern expression ‘witness of Allah’ or ‘half-moon of God’” (De Simone 933).

  12. culo gnamme gnamme (Neap.): “Allusion to the stereotype of the shambling Moor” (Guarini and Burani 589).

  13. nè cierne-Locia (Neap.): lit., “watching Lucia,” but also pun on geneaolgia, i.e., “don’t make it as long as a genealogical tree” (Guarini and Burani 589).

  14. Trick fountains and other water games were popular in seventeenth-century gardens.

  15. sospennatur (Neap.): “‘may he be hanged,’ the formula used to condemn someone to execution by hanging” (Croce 530).

  16. Cuccorognamma (Neap.): “a nickname of uncertain meaning: perhaps from cucco (darling, but also cuckoo) and rognamma (scabies, mange)” (Guarini and Burani 592).

  17. Convolvolus scammonea, an Asian plant (though a variety is also found on Mediterranean shores) from whose root was extracted a resin used in purgatives (Rak 1015).

  1. See introduction to day 1 n6.

  2. “There exists a vast literature on ‘tarantulism,’ or the bite of the tarantula and the cure of the bitten through music and dance. See, for example, Francesco Berni, Orlando innamorato II, XVII, 6–7: ‘As in Puglia they are wont to do against the poison of those animals whose bite drives people to be possessed by madness and are commonly called the “tarantulated”; and you must find someone who will play a while until he finds a note pleasing to the bitten person, who then begins to dance, and dancing, sweats, and thus drives the dreadful plague from himself’” (cit. Croce 590). More recently, see, e.g., the writings of the anthropo
logist Ernesto de Martino, in particular Sud e magia (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1959).

  3. See tale 1.10 n25.

  4. The last line simulates the transition from the fictive universe of the tales to the reality of the oral storyteller, who after finishing his or her tale would offer the audience good wishes and leave, modestly rewarded for the effort.