The Tale of Tales

by Giambattista Basile

  “And as he was measuring the distance of a hundred miles with the two spans of the glass, he saw a male and a female dove fly by, and when they landed on the lateen mast the male said, ‘Coo coo,’ and the female answered, ‘What’s the matter, my husband, why are you complaining?’ The male dove said, ‘This poor prince bought a falcon, but as soon as it is in the hands of his brother it will take out his eyes; and whoever does not bring it to him or warns him will turn into a piece of marble!’ That said, he went back to crying ‘coo coo,’ and the female dove said to him again, ‘You’re still complaining? Is there some other news?’ And the male dove: ‘There is one more little matter: he also bought a horse, and the first time his brother rides it he will break his neck; and whoever does not bring it to him or warns him will turn into a piece of marble. Coo coo!’ ‘Oh, dear, so many coo coos!’ the female dove began saying again. ‘What else do we have on the cutting board?’ And the male dove said, ‘He’s bringing his brother a beautiful wife, but the first night he goes to bed with her they will both be eaten up by a terrible dragon; and whoever does not bring her to him or warns him will turn into a piece of marble!’

  “That said, the storm ended and the sea’s ill temper and the wind’s anger passed, but a much larger tempest began to rise in Iennariello’s breast on account of what he had heard, and more than a few times he wanted to throw all those things into the sea so that he wouldn’t be carrying the cause of his brother’s ruin. But on the other hand he thought of himself, and of how the first cause of it all originated with him, and he was afraid that if he didn’t bring those things to his brother or if he warned him, he would turn into marble. And so he decided to pay more attention to his proper name than to his family name, since his shirt was tighter than his jacket.

  “Upon his arrival at the port of Shady Thicket his brother, having seen the ship return, was waiting for him on the shore with great joy. And when he saw that he had brought the woman he held in his heart and compared one face with the other and saw that there wasn’t a hair of difference, he felt such joy that that the excessive load of happiness nearly killed him under its burden. Embracing his brother with great delight, he said to him, ‘What is this falcon you have on your fist?’ And Iennariello said to him, ‘I bought it to give to you.’ And Milluccio answered, ‘It truly appears that you love me, for you attempt to humor my every whim; if you had brought me a treasure you certainly couldn’t have pleased me more than with this falcon!’ And as he was about to take it in his hand, Iennariello quickly chopped its head off with a big knife he carried at his side. At this action the king remained stunned and considered the brother of his who had committed this rash act to be crazy, but so as not to disturb the happiness of his return he said not a word.

  “When he saw the horse and asked whose it was, he heard that it was his, and had the desire to ride it; but as the stirrups were being held for him, Iennariello cut its legs clean off with a cleaver. This made the king fume, since it seemed to him that his brother had done it out of spite, and his guts began to churn. But it seemed to be the wrong time to be resentful about it, for he didn’t want to put a bad taste in the bride’s mouth right from the start, she whom he never tired of gazing at and holding by the hand. When they arrived at the royal palace he invited all the lords and ladies of the city to a lovely feast, where in the main hall could be seen a veritable school of cavalry performing curvets and caracoles, and a group of fillies dressed to look like women. And when the dance was over and they had polished off a huge banquet, they went to bed.

  “Iennariello had no thought in his head but to save his brother’s life, and he hid behind the couple’s bed and waited vigilantly to see when the dragon would come. And at midnight a hideous dragon did indeed enter the room, sending out flames from its eyes and smoke from its mouth; it would have made a good middleman for the sale of apothecary’s wormwood,11 so great was the terror the sight of it inspired. When Iennariello saw this, he began to thrash about and deliver blows right and left with a Damascus blade that he had put under his clothes, and among the other blows, he landed one so powerful that it cut one of the columns of the king’s bed in two.12 At the sound of this his brother awoke and the dragon disappeared.

  “When Milluccio saw the knife in Iennariello’s hand and the halved column he began to shout, ‘Hey men, hey people, hallo there, help! Help, this brother of mine is a traitor! He’s come to kill me!’ At these cries a number of assistants who had been sleeping in the antechamber came running, and when Iennariello had been tied up, the king sent him straight off to prison, and the next morning—as soon as the Sun opened its bank to pay out the deposit of light to the creditors of the day—he summoned his council and told them what had happened, which was consistent with the malevolence demonstrated when Iennariello had killed the falcon and the horse to spite him. They sentenced him to death, and even Liviella’s prayers were not strong enough to soften the heart of the king, who said, ‘You do not love me, my wife, since you have more esteem for your brother-in-law than for my life! You saw that dog of an assassin with your own eyes when he came to make mincemeat of me with a blade that could have split a hair in two, and if that column of the bed hadn’t protected me—column of my life!—you would be a bald widow13 by this time!’

  “Thus speaking, he ordered the sentence to be executed. When Iennariello heard the decree served and saw himself reduced to such a terrible state for having done good, he knew not what to think of his affairs: if he said nothing it was bad; if he said something it was worse. It’s awful to get scabies but worse to get ringworm, and no matter what he did it was like falling from a tree into a wolf’s mouth: if he remained silent he would lose his neck under a sword; if he talked he would end his days inside a stone. Finally, after various squalls of consultations with himself, he decided to reveal the whole business to his brother, for since he had to die in any case, he thought it a better solution to inform him of the truth and end his days with the title of innocent than to keep the truth to himself and be banished from the world as a traitor.

  No bruttissemo dragone . . . lo quale sarria stato buono de sanzaro a fare vennere tutta la semmentella de li speziale, pe lo terrore che portava a la vista. [A hideous dragon . . . it would have made a good middleman for the sale of apothecary’s wormwood, so great was the terror the sight of it inspired.]

  “And so Iennariello sent word to the king that he wanted to speak with him about something important for the well-being of the state, and was brought to his presence. He began with a long preamble on the love that he had always had for him, then went on to the trick played on Liviella in order to satisfy his brother’s desires, then to what he had heard from the doves about the falcon, and how, therefore, he had brought it to him so that he would not turn into a piece of marble himself, and how he had killed it without revealing the secret so that he wouldn’t have to see his brother without eyes. As he was saying this he felt his legs hardening and becoming marble, and when he went on in the same manner to tell of the horse, you could see him turning to stone up to his waist and growing miserably rigid,14 something for which he would have paid cold cash at another time; now, instead, his heart was crying. He finally got to the part about the dragon, at which he turned completely to stone and remained standing there in the middle of the hall like a statue. When the king saw this, he blamed his own error and the rash judgment he had passed on a brother who was so good and loving; he remained in mourning for more than a year, and whenever he thought of him he cried a river of tears.

  “In the meantime Liviella gave birth to two sons who were two of the most beauteous things in the world. After a few months, one day the queen had gone out to amuse herself in the countryside and the king found himself with the children in the middle of that same hall. As he was gazing with piddling eyes upon the statue, reminder of his own foolishness that had taken the flower of all men away from him, a big old man came into the hall. His mane of hair covered his shoulder
s and his beard blanketed his chest, and bowing to the king he said, ‘How much would your royal Highness pay if this fine brother of yours were to return to his previous state?’ And the king answered, ‘I would pay my entire kingdom!’ ‘This is not something,’ replied the old man, ‘that requires a payment in riches, but since it is a matter of life it must be paid for with another life.’

  “In part out of the love he had for Iennariello, in part because he felt guilty for the harm that had been done him, the king answered, ‘‘Believe me, my good sir, I would exchange my life for his life, and as long as he comes out from inside that stone, I would be happy to be stuck inside a stone myself.’ When the old man heard this he said, ‘Without putting your life to such a test, since it takes so much hard work to grow a man, the blood of these children of yours smeared on the marble would be enough to revive him immediately.’ At these words the king said, ‘You can always make more children! As long as the mold for these little dolls still exists, more can be made, but let me have my brother back, for I can never hope to have another!’15 Saying this, he made a miserable sacrifice of two innocent kids before an idol of stone, and after he smeared the statue with their blood it immediately came to life and was embraced by the king, and there was more rejoicing than can be described.

  “At the very moment those poor creatures were being put into a casket so that they could be buried with the honor they deserved, the queen returned home. The king had his brother hide, and said to his wife, ‘What would you pay, my heart, to have my brother return to life?’ ‘I would pay,’ answered Liviella, ‘this whole kingdom.’ And the king replied, ‘Would you give the blood of your children?’ ‘Not that,’ answered the queen. ‘I would not be so cruel as to tear out the pupils of my eyes with my own hands!’ ‘Alas,’ resumed the king, ‘I slaughtered the children so that I could see my brother alive! That was, you see, the price of Iennariello’s life!’ As he said this he showed her the children in the casket, and when she saw that bitter spectacle she screamed like a crazy woman and said, ‘O my children; O staffs of this life; O eyes of this heart; O fountains of my blood! Who filthied the windows of the Sun in this way? Who bled the principal vein of my life without a physician’s license? Alas, my children; my children, my cracked hope, clouded light, poisoned sweetness, lost support! You were pierced by the iron, and I am run through by pain! You suffocate in blood; I drown in tears! Alas, you have killed a mother to give life to an uncle, for I can no longer weave the canvas of my days without you, lovely counterweights on the loom of this black life! The organ of my voice will crack now that the bellows have been removed! O children, O children, why don’t you answer your mommy, who once put her blood in your bodies and is now pouring it out to you from her eyes? But since my fate indicates that the fountain of my amusements is dry, there is no longer any reason for me to live in this world, and I will follow in your footsteps and come looking for you!’

  “As she was saying this she ran to a window and was about to jump out when at that very moment her father entered through the same window in a cloud, and said to her, ‘Stop, Liviella, for after taking a journey and performing three services I have had my revenge on Iennariello, who came to my home to steal my daughter from me, by forcing him to stay inside a stone for so many months like a date mussel.16 I have been repaid for the bad act you committed, when you allowed a ship to lead you astray without any respect for me, by having you see two children, or rather two jewels, slaughtered by their own father; and I have mortified the king for falling victim to a pregnant woman’s whim by making him first the criminal judge of his brother and then the executioner of his children. But since I wanted to shave you, not flay you, I intend for all the poison to turn back into marzipan. So go get your children, and my grandchildren, who are more beautiful than ever, and you, Milluccio, embrace me, for I accept you as my son-in-law and as my son, and I forgive Iennariello his offenses, since he did what he did to serve such a worthy brother.’

  “That said, the children came in, and their grandfather couldn’t get his fill of hugging and kissing them. Iennariello partook in this happiness, too, as a third party, since after jumping through so many hoops he was now swimming in macaroni broth. But even with all the pleasures that he experienced in life, the dangers he had been through never left his mind; he reflected on his brother’s mistake and on how careful one must be in order not to fall into a ditch, since every human judgment is false and twisted.”

  10

  PRIDE PUNISHED*

  Tenth Entertainment of the Fourth Day

  The king of Lovely Land is spurned by Cinziella, daughter of the king of Long Furrow. After he avenges himself fiercely, reducing her to a miserable condition, he takes her for his wife.

  If Ciommetella hadn’t made the wizard appear quickly to throw water on the fire, everyone’s spirits would have been squeezed so tightly by pity for Liviella that it would have been hard for them to breathe. But they were all comforted by the poor girl’s comfort, and once their souls were put to rest they waited for Iacova to enter the field with the livery of her tale. And she raced with this lance toward the target of their desire:1 “Those who pull too hard on something break it, and those who look for trouble find trouble and misfortune; if you go to the top of a mountain and fall off, it’s your own fault, as you will hear from the story of a woman who, as a result of her distaste for crowns and scepters, came to be in need of a stable. Even so, the concussions sent by the heavens always come with a poultice, since there has never been a punishment without a caress, nor a club without a piece of bread.2

  “It is said that there once was a king, the king of Long Furrow, who had a daughter named Cinziella. She was as beautiful as a moon, but she hadn’t a dram of beauty that wasn’t counterbalanced by a pound of pride,3 so that she gave heed to no one, and it was impossible for her poor father, who wanted to get her settled, to find a husband, no matter how good or great he might be, that could satisfy her.

  “Among the many princes that had come to ask for her hand in marriage was the king of Lovely Land, who left nothing undone in his attempts to earn Cinziella’s affection. But the more he weighed the scales of his servitude in her favor, the more she measured out crooked rewards; the more he offered her his love at a good price, the more there was a shortage of desire at her end; the more generous of soul he was, the more stingy of heart was she. And not a day went by without the poor man exclaiming, ‘When, O cruel lady, after so many melons of hope that I’ve found to be white as squash, will I be able to taste a red one? When, O cruel bitch, will the tempests of your cruelty calm? When will I have a favorable wind and be able to direct the rudder of my plans into this lovely port? When, after I have besieged you with entreaties and pleas, will I be able to plant the banner of my amorous desires atop the walls of this lovely fortress?’

  “But all of his words were thrown to the wind; although she had eyes that could bore holes in rocks, she did not have ears to hear the laments of he who lay wounded and moaning. On the contrary: she gave him dirty looks, as if he had cut her grapevine. This went on until the poor lord, well aware of the brutality of Cinziella, who paid as much attention to him as the demon does to crooks, retreated with all his revenues and an angry face, saying, ‘I quit the fire of Love!’ But he solemnly swore to take a revenge on that dark Saracen that would force her to repent for having so tormented him.

  “He left town and let his beard grow and put I don’t know what kind of makeup on his face, and after a few months he returned to Long Furrow disguised as a peasant, where he bribed his way into becoming the king’s gardener. And there he attempted to work as best he could, until one day he spread an imperial-style gown studded with gold and diamonds under Cinziella’s windows. When her ladies-in-waiting saw it they immediately informed their mistress, who had one of them ask the gardener if he was willing to sell it. He answered that he was not a merchant or a dealer in used clothes, but that he would gladly give it to her on
the condition that they let him sleep for one night in the princess’s waiting room. When the ladies-in-waiting heard this they said to Cinziella, ‘What do you lose, our lady, by giving the gardener this satisfaction, if you can make off with this gown that is fit for a queen?’ Cinziella let herself be caught by a hook used for fishing quite a different sort of blenny and agreed to it, and after she took the gown she granted the gardener his favor.

  “But the following morning he spread out a similarly made skirt in the same place, and when Cinziella saw it she had someone tell him that if he was willing to sell it she would give him whatever he wanted. The gardener answered that he wasn’t selling, but that he would give it to her for nothing if they let him sleep in the princess’s antechamber. And Cinziella let herself be pulled by the neck so that she could complete her outfit, and contented him.

  “When the third morning arrived—before the Sun showed up to strike the flint to the fuse of the fields—in the same spot he spread out a splendid jacket that matched the rest of the outfit. When Cinziella saw it she said, just as she had for the others, ‘If I don’t have that jacket I’ll never be happy!’ She had someone call the gardener, and she said to him, ‘My good man, I need you to sell me that jacket I saw in the garden, and you can take my heart as payment!’ ‘I am not selling it, my lady, but if it pleases you I will give you the jacket and a diamond necklace as well, if you let me sleep in your bedroom for a night.’ ‘Now you’re really being a boor!’ said Cinziella. ‘It wasn’t enough to sleep in my waiting room and then in my antechamber; now you want the bedroom! Sooner or later you’ll probably even want to get into my bed!’ The gardener answered, ‘My lady, I’ll keep my jacket, and you your bedroom! If you feel like whistling for me, you know where to find me. I’d be happy to sleep on the floor, something you wouldn’t deny a Turk; and if you saw the necklace I intend to give you perhaps you’d offer me a better deal.’