“In the meantime, Saporita gulped down the hazelnuts and threw the shells out the window. The doctor arrived, and after taking her pulse, observing her face, examining her urine, and sniffing at the chamber pot, he concluded, along the lines of Hippocrates and Galen, that her illness consisted of too much blood and too little work. The merchant, to whom this sounded like utter nonsense, put a coin in his hand and sent him off all warm and smelly,13 and when he was about to go off in search of another doctor Saporita told him that there was no need for that, since the mere sight of the first one had cured her. And so her husband, embracing her, told her that from then on she was to conduct her life without working, since it’s impossible to grow grapes and cabbages,14 or to have a full barrel and a drunken slave girl.”
E però, pigliato na perteca longa longa. . . . vennereo passanno certe fate. [And so she took a very long pole. . . . [S]ome fairies happened to pass by.]
5
THE DRAGON*
Fifth Entertainment of the Fourth Day
Due to the actions of a queen, Miuccio is sent off to face various dangers, and he manages to overcome all of them honorably with the help of an enchanted bird. The queen finally dies, and when it is discovered that Miuccio is the king’s son he frees his mother, who becomes the wife of that king.
The tale of the seven little pork rinds fattened up the soup of the prince’s pleasure to such a degree that it was dripping with oil as he tasted the ignorant malice and the malicious ignorance of Saporita, which had been ladled out with so much gusto by Tolla. But Popa, not wanting to do a crumb worse than Tolla, sailed off on the sea of nursery stories with the tale that follows: “Those who try to harm others encounter their own demise, and those who go looking to ensnare a third or even fourth person with betrayals and deceit often remain ensnared in the traps that they themselves have prepared, as you will hear about in the tale of a queen who with her own hands built the trap where her foot got caught.
“It is said that there once was a king, the king of High Marina. Due to the cruelty and tyranny that he practiced, one day, when he had gone to enjoy himself with his wife at a little castle far from the city, his royal seat was occupied by a sorceress. For this reason he prayed to a wooden statue that gave certain answers in code, and the statue answered that he would recover his kingdom only when the sorceress lost her sight. Seeing as the sorceress was well guarded but could also detect the scent of the people he dispatched to cause her trouble, whom she then executed like dogs, he fell into a state of despair, and to spite the sorceress took the honor and with the honor the lives of all the women of the land that he could get his hands on.1
“After hundreds of women were led there by their bad fortune and saw the bottoms knocked out of their reputations and their days smashed to smithereens, among the others arrived a girl named Porziella. She was the most resplendent thing you could find on the whole earth: her hair was a set of handcuffs for the cops of Love, her forehead a tablet on which was written the price list for the shop of the Graces of amorous pleasures, her eyes two lighthouses that signaled the vessels of desire to turn their prow toward the port of joys, her mouth a honeycomb amid two rose hedges. When she fell into the king’s hands and it was her turn at roll call,2 he intended to kill her like the others, but right when he was lifting his dagger a bird dropped some sort of root on his arm, and he began to tremble so hard that the weapon fell from his hand. This bird was a fairy who, while she had been asleep a few days earlier in a wood—where under the tent of shadows heat refreshed itself on the galley of fright—was approached by a certain satyr that wanted to do some bad things to her; she had, however, been awakened by Porziella, whose footsteps she now followed in order to reciprocate the favor.
“Now when the king saw what had happened, he thought that the beauty of that face had sequestered his arm and mandated his dagger not to impale her as he had done with so many others. And so he decided that one madman per house was enough and that he would not bathe the tool of death with blood as he had done with the instrument of life, but instead wall her up in an attic of his palace until she died. And he did just that: he closed the poor and embittered girl behind four walls without leaving her anything to eat or drink, so that she would take her departure as quickly as possible.
“When the bird saw her in this predicament, it consoled her with human words and told her to keep her spirits up, since to pay her adequate thanks for the favor she had done, the bird would be willing to help her with its own blood. And as much as Porziella pleaded with the bird, it would never say who it was, only that it was indebted to her and would leave nothing undone to serve her. And seeing as the poor girl was weak with hunger, it went for a fly outside and came back immediately with a sharp knife lifted from the king’s pantry and told her to make, a little at a time, a hole in a corner of the attic that would open onto the kitchen, where the bird would always be able to get something to keep her alive. Porziella thus exerted herself for a good while and dug until she made a path for the bird, which, after ascertaining that the cook had gone to get a bucket of water at the fountain, went down through the hole and carried off a lovely spring chicken that was warming and brought it back to Porziella. To remedy her thirst, since it didn’t know how to bring her something to drink, the bird flew to the larder, where there were a lot of grapes hanging, and brought her a lovely bunch, and that’s how she fared for a number of days.
“In the meantime Porziella, who was pregnant, gave birth to a lovely son, whom she nursed and brought up with the continual help of the bird. But when he got bigger his mother was advised by the fairy that she should enlarge the hole and remove as many planks from the attic walls as were needed to allow Miuccio (for that was the name of the son) to go through, and after lowering him with some little cords that the bird had brought, put the planks back in place so that it couldn’t be seen where he had gone down. Porziella did as the bird told her to, and ordered her son never to say where he came from nor whose son he was, and then lowered him down when the cook was out. When the cook came back and saw such a lovely boy, he asked him who he was, how he had entered, and what he had come for. Miuccio, keeping his mother’s advice in mind, said that he had lost his way and was looking for a master. During this exchange the steward arrived, and upon seeing a young lad of such high spirits, he thought that he would be a good page for the king. He brought him to the royal chambers, and when the king saw this boy who was as handsome and charming as a jewel, he immediately took a liking to him. He kept him in his service as a page and in his heart as a son and had him given all of the training appropriate for a gentleman, so that he grew up to be the most virtuous member of the court, and the king loved him far more than he did his own stepson.
“For this reason the queen began to hold the boy in distaste and even hate him. And the more her envy and malevolence gained ground, the more the favors and kindness the king bestowed on Miuccio smoothed the boy’s way, until the queen got it into her head to soap the staircase of his fortune so well that he would slide straight down from the top.
“After tuning their instruments together one evening, the king and the queen were playing the music of conversation when the queen told the king that Miuccio had bragged that he could make three castles in the air. Both because he was curious and to please his wife, as soon as it was morning—when the Moon, schoolmistress of shadows, gave its pupils a holiday for the festival of the Sun—the king sent for Miuccio and ordered him to make three castles in the air as he had promised, or else the king would make him jump in the air himself.3
“When Miuccio heard this he went to his room and began to utter a bitter lament, for he saw how fragile the grace of princes was and how the favors they granted were so short-lived. But as he was crying and shedding copious tears, all of a sudden the bird arrived and said to him, ‘Take heart, O Miuccio, and have no fear as long as you’ve got me here, for I can pull you from the fire.’ After saying this, it ordered h
im to get a quantity of cardboard and glue and with it to make three big castles. Then the bird brought in three large griffins and tied one to each castle.4 Once they were flying in the air Miuccio called the king, who at such a spectacle came running with his whole court, and this proof of Miuccio’s ingenuity only caused the king to feel an even greater affection for him and to shower him with the most extraordinary blandishments. And thus snow was added to the queen’s envy and fire to her contempt, since she saw that nothing was going as she wished, and she was never awake during the day without thinking of the way nor asleep at night without dreaming of the means to remove this speck from her eye. After a few more days she said to the king, ‘My husband, it is now time to return to our past greatness and to the pleasures of a year ago, for Miuccio has offered to blind the fairy and with an outlay of eyes allow you to buy back your lost kingdom.’
“The king felt himself touched where it hurt, and called Miuccio to him that very instant and said, ‘I’m quite amazed, considering how much I love you and that you have the ability to place me back on the throne from which I have tumbled, that you go around in such light-hearted fashion and don’t attempt to remove me from the miserable state in which I find myself: demoted, as you can see, from a kingdom to the woods, from a city to a poor little castle, and from commanding a great number of people to being barely served by a few starving servants5 able to do nothing more than cut bread and pour out broth. Therefore, if you do not wish me ill fortune, run at once and go blind the eyes of the fairy who has my possessions, because when you close her shops you’ll open the warehouse of my greatness, and when you put out those lanterns you’ll light the lamps of my honor, which are now dark and sooty.’ Upon hearing this proposal Miuccio intended to answer that the king was badly informed and had mistaken him for someone else, since he was neither a crow that dug out eyes nor a latrine cleaner who unclogged holes, but the king continued, ‘Not another word; that’s how I want it and that’s how it will be! Let’s just say that I’ve prepared the scales in the mint of this brain of mine: on this plate there’s a reward, if you do what you are supposed to; and on this other one there’s a punishment, if you do not do what I order you to.’
. . . l’ordenaie . . . e fattone tre gran castielle e, facenno venire tre gruosee grifune, ne pose legato uno pe castiello, li quale volanno pe coppa l’aiero Miuccio chiammaie lo re. [. . . it ordered him . . . to make three big castles. Then the bird brought in three large griffins and tied one to each castle. Once they were flying in the air Miuccio called the king.]
“Miuccio, who couldn’t butt horns with a rock and was dealing with a man that would make any mother who gave him her daughter miserable, went off to a corner to despair. Then the bird arrived and said to him, ‘Is it possible, Miuccio, that you always drown in a glass of water? And if I had been killed, would you have held forth with such a dirge? Don’t you know that I worry about your life more than my own? So don’t lose heart. Follow me and you’ll see what Moniello is capable of!’6 And the bird flew off. Then it stopped in a wood, where it began to chirp and was surrounded by a flock of birds, to whom it announced that those with the wherewithal to take out the sorceress’s eyes would receive a safeguard against the talons of sparrow hawks and goshawks and a pass against muskets, bows and arrows, crossbows, and hunters’ birdlime.
“Among these was a swallow that had made its nest in a rafter of the royal palace; it hated the sorceress since she had kicked it out of her room a number of times with the suffumigations that were part of her accursed spells. For this reason, in part out of its desire for revenge and in part to win the prize the bird was promising, it offered to do the job. And when it had flown off like lightning to the city and entered the palace, it found the fairy lying on a sofa, where she was being cooled with a fan by two ladies-in-waiting. The swallow dived straight down into the fairy’s eyes and, shitting into them, took away her sight, and when she saw night at noon and realized that with this closing of her customshouse the merchandise of her kingdom was exhausted, she gave up her scepter shrieking like a damned soul. Then she holed up in some grottos where, beating her head on the wall in continuation, she ended her days.
“Once the sorceress was gone the counselors sent off ambassadors to the king to tell him that he could come back and enjoy his home, since the blinding of the sorceress had made it possible for him to see this lovely day. And at the same time they arrived Miuccio did, too, and, egged on by the bird, said to the king, ‘I have served you in good coin: the sorceress has been blinded, the kingdom is yours. And if therefore I deserve any payment for this service, I want nothing more than to be left alone with my troubles without being put in such danger again.’ The king embraced the boy with great affection and had him put on his hat7 and sit at his side, and only heaven knows how the queen swelled up with rage—so much so that from the spectrum of colors that showed on her face you could recognize the wind of ruin that she was plotting in her heart against poor Miuccio.
“Not very far from the castle lived a frightfully fierce dragon that had been born from the same womb as the queen; when her father had summoned the astrologers to utter some prediction on the matter, they had said that his daughter would live for as long as the dragon lived, and that when one of them died the other would necessarily die, too. Only one thing could resuscitate the queen, and this was if her temples, her breastbone, her nostrils, and her wrists were lubricated with the blood of the same dragon.8
“Now then, the queen, being well familiar with the fury and the strength of this animal, decided to send Miuccio right into its claws, since she was sure of the fact that the dragon would make a nice mouthful of him and that he would be like a strawberry in the throat of a bear. Turning to the king, she said, ‘My word, Miuccio is truly the treasure of your house, and you would be an ingrate if you did not love him, all the more so because he has let it be known that he would like to kill the dragon, which, even if it is my brother, is such an enemy of yours that I prefer one hair of my husband to a hundred brothers.’ The king, who hated this dragon to death and had no idea how to get it out of his sight, immediately called Miuccio and said, ‘I know that you’ve got a good handle on things, and so, after doing so very much for me, you’re going to have to do me one more favor, after which you can spin me any way you wish. Get going this instant and kill the dragon. You’ll do me a signal service for which I will reward you well.’
“At these words Miuccio nearly lost his senses, and when he was able to articulate a few words he said to the king, ‘This is getting to be a headache! Now you’re really starting to rub me the wrong way! Is my life like the milk of a black sheep, for you to wreak such havoc on it? This is no peeled pear that glides smoothly down your throat; this is a dragon that can tear you up with its claws, break your bones with its head, smash you to pieces with its tail, rip you to shreds with its teeth, poison you with its eyes, and kill you with its breath! So how is it that you want to send me to my death? This is the pension9 I get for having given you a kingdom? Who is the accursed soul that has thrown this die on the table? Who is the son of hell that is jerking you around like this and has impregnated you with these words?’ The king, who was as light as a ball when it came to being tossed around but heavier than a rock when it came to holding fast to what he had once said, dug in his heels and said, ‘You’ve done this and you’ve done that, and now you’re losing your way right at the best part! But not another word: go and remove this plague from my kingdom, unless you want your own life to be removed!’
“Miuccio, poor soul, saw himself offered first a favor and then a threat, first a caress on the face and then a kick in the ass, first a warm one and then a cold one. He pondered over how changeable fortunes are in court, and he would have liked to have his stomach more than empty of the acquaintance of the king. But since he knew that talking back to great and beastly men is akin to shaving a lion’s beard, he went off into a corner to curse his fate, which had reduced him to
the court in order to cut short the hours of his life. And as he was sitting on a doorstep with his face between his knees, washing his shoes with his tears and warming his balls10 with his sighs, the bird appeared before him with an herb in its beak and, throwing it into his lap, said, ‘Get up, Miuccio, and rest assured that you won’t be playing “unload the ass” with your days, but “rout the enemy”11 with the dragon’s life. Take this herb, and when you get to the grotto of that hideous animal toss it in, and the dragon will immediately become so terribly drowsy that it will fall into a deep sleep. And right away throw it a party with a nice big knife in its backside12 and then come back here, where things will go much better than you think. Enough said: I know what I’ve got down here; we have more time than money; and he who has time has life.’
The Tale of Tales Page 40
