The Tale of Tales

by Giambattista Basile

  “Nonetheless, when he counted on his fingers the disasters that had occurred and considered that by kicking things to pieces like a real ass he had lost the contest for Grannonia’s good graces, he resolved with all his heart not to let himself be found alive by his mother. And so he opened the little jar of cured nuts that his mother had told him were poisonous and didn’t take his hands out until he could see the bottom of the jar, and when his belly was good and full he stuffed himself into the oven.

  “In the meantime his mother came back. She knocked for a long time, but seeing that no one heard her she gave the door a kick, went in, and called for her son in a loud voice. When she saw that no one was answering she sensed that a bad day was ahead, and as her anguish grew, she shrieked even louder, ‘Oh, Vardiello! Oh, Vardiello, are you deaf; why don’t you hear me? Do you have arthritis; why don’t you come running? Have you got the pip; why aren’t you answering?4 Where are you, gallows face? Where did you sneak off to, you bad seed? Oh, if only I had drowned you at the source, when I made you!’

  “When Vardiello heard all this clamor he finally said, in the most pitiful little voice, ‘Here I am. I’m in the oven and you’ll never see me again, my dear mother.’ ‘Why not?’ answered his poor mother. ‘Because I’ve poisoned myself,’ replied her son. ‘Oh, dear,’ added Grannonia, ‘how did you do that? What reason did you have for committing this crime? And who gave you the poison?’ And, one after the other, Vardiello told her about all the nice ordeals he had been through, and how because of them he wanted to die so that he would have to put up with the trials of the world no longer.

  “When his mother heard this she felt miserable, she felt bitter, and she had a lot to do and say before she could get this melancholy humor out of Vardiello’s head, and since she loved him right down to the bottom of her heart, she gave him some kind of syrup that got the idea of the cured nuts out of his noggin, for they weren’t poison but just a stomach tonic. And when she had convinced him with gentle words and offered him a thousand hugs, she pulled him out of the oven, and then she gave him a nice piece of cloth and told him to go sell it, warning him not to do business with people of too many words.

  “‘Great!’ said Vardiello. ‘Have no doubt, I’ll serve you generously!’ And taking the cloth, he went yelling through the city of Naples, which was where he had brought his merchandise, ‘Cloth, cloth!’ But to everyone who asked him, ‘What kind of cloth is it?’ he answered, ‘You’re not my type, you’re a person of too many words.’ And if someone else said, ‘How much are you selling it for?’ he called him a chatterbox and told him that he was taxing his brain and giving him a headache. Finally, he came across a plaster statue in the courtyard of a house that had been deserted on account of a house imp,5 and the poor boy, foot-weary and tired of running around so much, sat down on a little wall. Not seeing any kind of traffic in that place, which looked like a pillaged farmhouse, he said to the statue, in a state of wonder, ‘Tell me, pal, doesn’t anyone live here?’ And seeing that the statue wasn’t answering, it seemed to him that this was a man of few words, and he said, ‘Do you want to buy this cloth? I’ll give you a good price!’ And seeing that the statue remained silent, he said, ‘I do declare, I’ve found what I was looking for! Take it, have it looked at, and give me whatever you want for it; tomorrow I’ll be back for the dough.’

  “That said, he left the cloth where he had been sitting, and the first mama’s boy who went in there to pay a call to nature found his fortune and carried it off with him. When Vardiello returned to his mother without the cloth and told her how things had gone, she almost had a heart attack, and said to him, ‘When are you going to get your head on straight? Look how many messes you’ve gotten me in! Just remember them all! But it’s my own fault for having tender lungs; I didn’t tan your hide the first time around and only now do I realize that a merciful doctor makes for an incurable wound. You’ll keep on making trouble for me until you get fixed up good, and then we’ll settle our accounts once and for all.’ As for Vardiello, he said, ‘Hush, my dear mother, it won’t be like you say! What more do you want than freshly minted coins? What do you think, that I’m from Ioio6 and don’t know my own business? Tomorrow is yet to come! It’s not far from here to Belvedere,7 and you’ll see if I know how to put a handle on a shovel.’

  “In the morning—when Night’s shadows, chased by the Sun’s cops, were evicted from the town—Vardiello took himself back to the courtyard where the statue was and said, ‘Good day, sir; would it behoove you to give me those four little coins? Come on, now, pay me for the cloth.’ But when he saw that the statue was mute, he picked up a stone and hurled it with all his might, hitting the statue smack in the middle of the chest, so that it burst a vein. And this was the salvation of his house, for several large chunks of plaster cracked off and inside he discovered a pot full of golden scudos.8 He grabbed hold of it with both hands and ran home at breakneck speed, shouting, ‘Mother, Mother, look at all these red beans, look at all of them, just look!’

  “As soon as his mother saw the coins she realized that her son would make the matter public, and told him to wait on the doorstep for the ricotta seller to come by, since she wanted to buy a coin’s worth of milk. Vardiello, who would eat anything up, sat right down in front of the door, and then for more than half an hour his mother, from the window above, sent down a hail shower of more than six rolls9 of raisins and dried figs, which Vardiello gathered up, shouting, ‘Oh, Mother, oh, Mother, get the basins, pull out the tubs, prepare the pails, for if this rain keeps up we’re going to be rich!’ And when his belly was good and full, he went upstairs to sleep.

  “Now it happened that one day two workers, of the sort who hung around the courts, were arguing about who could claim a gold coin that had been found on the ground. Vardiello came along and said, ‘What big jackasses you are to fight over one of those red beans! Me, I couldn’t care less, since I found a whole pot of them.’ When the court police got word of this, they opened their eyes this wide and interrogated him, asking him how, when, and with whom he had found those coins. To which Vardiello replied, ‘I found them in a palace, inside a mute man, when it was raining raisins and dried figs.’ When the judge heard this interval of a minor fifth10 he smelled the business for what it was and sentenced Vardiello to be admitted to a hospital11 with the competence to judge such cases. And so the ignorance of the son made the mother rich, and the good judgment of the mother made up for the son’s asininity, for which it can clearly be seen that a ship steered by a good skipper is only rarely dashed on the rocks.”

  “Mamma, mamma, quanta lupine russe, quantane, quantane!” [“Mother, Mother, look at all of these red beans, look at all of them, just look!”]

  5

  THE FLEA*

  Fifth Entertainment of the First Day

  A king who does not have much to think about raises a flea until it becomes as big as a lamb, then has it skinned and offers his daughter as a reward to anyone who is able to recognize its skin. An ogre identifies it by smell and takes the princess, but she is freed by the seven sons of an old woman after seven trials.

  The prince and the slave split their sides laughing over Vardiello’s ignorance and praised his mother’s good judgment, since she had been able to foresee his bestial behavior and find a remedy for it. When Popa was urged to start talking she waited for all the others to put their chatter under lock and key, and then began to speak: “Resolutions made without judgment always lead to ruin without remedy; he who behaves like a madman suffers like a wise man, as happened to the king of High Mountain, who on account of a four-soled mistake committed a high-heeled1 folly and put his daughter and his honor in immeasurable danger.

  “The king of High Mountain was once bitten by a flea, and when he had picked it off with great dexterity and saw how beautiful and solidly built it was, it seemed a shame to him to execute it on the block of his fingernail. And so he placed it in a carafe and, feeding i
t daily with blood from his own arm, it grew so quickly that at the end of seven months, when he had to change its quarters, it was bigger than a lamb. On seeing this, the king had it skinned, and when the skin had been dressed he issued a proclamation: whoever was able to recognize to which animal the hide belonged would be given his daughter in marriage. After the notice was made public, flocks of people came running, arriving from the asshole of the earth to be present at this exam and try their luck. There was one who said it was a monster cat, another a lynx, one a crocodile, one some animal and another a different one; but they were all a hundred miles off and not one was on the mark.

  “Chisso cuoiero è de l’arcefanfaro de li pulece.” [“This hide belongs to the ringleader of all fleas.”]

  “Finally, an ogre presented himself at this anatomy exam, an ogre who was the most horrible thing in the world and the mere sight of whom brought tremors, diarrhea, worms, and chills to the boldest young man in the world. Now as soon as he arrived the ogre started buzzing around the skin and sniffing at it, and he hit the bull’s-eye straight on when he said, ‘This hide belongs to the ringleader of all fleas.’

  “The king saw that the ogre had grafted onto the right tree2 and summoned his daughter Porziella, who looked like she was made of nothing but milk and blood. Oh, my dear! She was a little spindle, so beautiful that you coddled her with your eyes. The king said to her, ‘Daughter, you know the proclamation I issued and you know who I am. All things considered, I can’t go back on my promise: either you’re a king or you’re poplar bark; I gave my word and now I have to keep it, even if it breaks my heart. Who could ever have imagined that an ogre would win this lottery? But since a leaf can’t fall unless it’s the will of the heavens, we have to believe that this marriage was arranged first of all up there and then down here. So be patient, and if you’re a blessed daughter don’t talk back to your daddy, for my heart tells me that you’re going to be happy; a plain stone jar often houses treasures.’

  “When Porziella heard this bitter decision her eyes grew dark, her face became yellow, her lips drooped, her legs trembled, and she was on the verge of sending the falcon of her soul off to pursue the quail of her suffering.3 Finally, breaking out in tears and raising her voice, she said to her father, ‘Just what kind of bad service have I performed in this house to receive such punishment? What sort of bad manners have I used with you to be delivered into the hands of this bogeyman? O miserable Porziella! Here you are, about to go into the throat of this toad of your own will, like a weasel; here you are, an unfortunate sheep about to be stolen away by a werewolf! Is this the affection you have for your own blood? Is this the love you show toward she whom you called the pupil of your soul? In this way you rip from your heart she who shares your own blood? In this way you remove from your sight she who is the apple of your eye? O father, cruel father, you could not possibly have been born of human flesh! Orcas gave you your blood, wild cats your milk!4 But why do I speak of sea and land animals? Every animal loves its offspring; you alone treat your own seed with a contrary heart and nausea, you alone cannot stomach your own daughter! Oh, better if my mother had suffocated me, if my cradle had been my deathbed, my wet nurse’s tit a bladder of poison, my swaddling clothes nooses, and the little whistle they tied round my neck a millstone, considering that this calamity was to befall me and that I was to find this accursed creature sitting right next to me and to feel myself caressed by a harpy’s hand, embraced by two bear’s shins, and kissed by two pig’s tusks!’

  “She was intending to say more, when the king, sending off smoke in every direction, said to her, ‘Enough with the anger; sugar is expensive! Slow down there; your shields are made of poplar!5 Plug your mouth; it’s spewing filth! Shut up, not a peep; you’re a sharp-tongued, spiteful bigmouth! Whatever I do is done well! Don’t try to teach a father how to have daughters! Cut it out; stick that tongue back in and take care the mustard doesn’t reach my nose, since if I get my paws on you I won’t leave a hair on your head, and I’ll sow this earth with your teeth! Just look at this stink of my own ass who wants to play the man and lay down the law for her father! Since when does a girl whose mouth still reeks of milk have the right to question my will? Hurry up, give him your hand, and get off to his house this instant; I don’t want to see your impudent and presumptuous face in front of my eyes for even another quarter of an hour.’

  “Finding herself in these straits, poor Porziella had the face of one condemned to die, the eyes of one possessed by spirits, the mouth of one who has taken the Domini Agustini6 laxative, and the heart of one whose head is between the blade and the stone.7 She took the ogre’s hand and was dragged by him, without company, into a wood—where the trees formed a palace for the meadow so that it wouldn’t be discovered by the Sun, the rivers complained that when they flowed in the dark they tripped on stones, and the wild animals enjoyed their Benevento, not having to pay duty tax, and wandered safely through the thickets8—in which no one ever entered unless he had lost his way. In this place, dark as a clogged chimney and frightening as the facade of hell, stood the ogre’s house, decorated and plastered all over with the bones of men he had eaten. Anyone who’s a Christian can imagine the tremors, the horror, the tightening of the heart, the runs, the fright, the worms, and the diarrhea that the poor girl experienced: let’s just say that there wasn’t a drop of blood left in her veins.

  “But that was nothing, not even a dried fig, compared to the rest of the change, since she had chickpeas for antipasto and fava beans for dessert.9 Indeed, the ogre returned home from hunting laden down with quarters of slaughtered men and said to her, ‘Now you can’t complain, my dear wife, that I don’t take care of you! Here’s a nice supply of things to go with your bread; take them and enjoy them and love me, for even if the sky were to fall I wouldn’t deprive you of your chow.’ Poor Porziella, retching like a pregnant woman, turned her face the other way. When the ogre saw this gesture he said, ‘That’s what happens when you give sweets to pigs! But never mind: just keep calm until tomorrow morning, for I’ve been invited to hunt wild pigs. I’ll bring a couple of them home for you, and then we can have a first-rate wedding celebration with all our relatives and thus consume our relationship with even greater pleasure.’

  “That said, he marched off into the woods. While Porziella was at the window lamenting her fate, an old woman had the misfortune to pass by the house. Feeling faint with hunger, she asked for some refreshment, to which the miserable girl answered, ‘Oh, my good woman, only God knows my heart. I am under the power of an infernal creature who brings me nothing but quartered men and pieces of slaughtered bodies, and I don’t know how I even have the stomach to look at such revolting things; indeed, my life is the most wretched one a baptized soul has ever lived. And yet I’m a king’s daughter, and yet I was brought up on pappardelle,10 and yet I’ve always lived in the midst of plenty!’

  “As she was saying this she started crying like a little girl whose snack has been snatched away from her, so that the old woman’s heart softened, and she said, ‘Cheer up, my lovely girl; don’t consume your beauty crying, for you have found your fortune and I am here to help you mount any saddle I can. Now listen to me. I have seven sons who are seven jewels, seven oak trees, seven giants—Mase, Nardo, Cola, Micco, Petrullo, Ascadeo, and Ceccone—and they have more virtues than rosemary.11 In particular, each time Mase puts his ear to the ground he hears and eavesdrops on everything that’s happening up to thirty miles away; each time Nardo spits he makes a huge sea of soap; whenever Cola throws down a little piece of iron he makes a field of sharpened razors; every time Micco hurls a stick he makes a tangled wood; whenever Petrullo shakes a drop of water to the ground he makes a frightful river; each time Ascadeo throws a stone he makes a mighty tower spring up; and Ceccone shoots so straight with a crossbow that he can hit a chicken’s eye from a mile away. Now with the help of these seven, all of whom are courteous and kind and will have compassion for your conditio
n, I intend to try and get you out from under the claws of that ogre, for this lovely, tempting morsel is not fit for the gullet of that bogeyman.’ ‘There’s never been a better time than now,’ answered Porziella. ‘That evil shadow of my husband has gone out and won’t be back this evening, so we’ll have time to throw up our heels and clear out of here.’ ‘It can’t be this evening,’ replied the old woman, ‘because I live at some distance from here, but all right: tomorrow morning my sons and I will be here to put an end to your troubles.’

  “That said, she left, and Porziella, with her heart completely at rest, slept through the night. And as soon as the birds shouted, ‘Long live the Sun!’ there was the old woman with her seven sons, and when Porziella had joined them they set off for the city. But they had gone no farther than half a mile when Mase, putting his ear to the ground, shouted, ‘Look out! Hey! The fox is here! The ogre is back home already, and since he didn’t find the girl he’s coming after us with his hat under his armpit.’ Upon hearing this, Nardo spit on the ground and made a sea of soap; when the ogre got there and saw the lather he ran home, got a sack of bran, and smeared great amounts of it all over his feet until, with great difficulty, he surpassed the obstacle.

  “But when Mase put his ear to the ground again he said, ‘Your turn, brother, here he comes.’ Cola threw down his piece of iron, and a field of razor blades shot up. Finding his way blocked, the ogre ran back home again, dressed from head to toe in iron and, after he returned, stepped clear over the ditch. But Mase, when he stuck his ear to the ground once more, shouted, ‘Come on, come on, grab your weapons; the ogre’s going to fly in here at full speed any moment now!’ And Micco quickly took his stick and made a terrifying wood spring up on the spot, a wood most difficult to penetrate. As soon as the ogre got to this impasse he grabbed a cleaver that he carried at his side and began to fell a poplar tree over here, an oak over there; on one side he sent a dogwood crashing, on another a service tree, so that with four or five blows he had beaten the wood to the ground and gotten out of the entanglement unharmed.