The cruel treatment she endured
When jealousy had filled my mind with spite.
To see her slightest wishes gratified
Will be my purpose now, with greater zeal
Than when, suspecting her, I tried
To break her patience with her long ordeal.
If future ages celebrate her name
For never yielding to the trials she bore,
Her peerless virtue justifies the fame
By which she will be honoured evermore.’
As when the skies are leaden grey
Obscuring all the light of day,
And everywhere the threatening cloud
Warns that a storm is close at hand:
If winds should part this gloomy shroud,
And spreading far across the land
The rays of sunshine, clear and bright,
Make it once more a joyous sight;
So too those eyes cast down by sadness
Were lifted now in sudden gladness.
Her unknown father has been found,
The secret of her birth explained;
The young princess’s joy is unconstrained:
She casts herself upon the ground
Before the Prince, and there she kneels
To hold him closely; he at last reveals
His tender love: he lifts her to her feet,
Embraces her, then takes her hand,
And goes with her across the hall to greet
Her mother, who from joy can scarcely stand;
The sudden rapture makes her senses numb.
And though her heart, so grievously beset
By constant woes, has never yet,
In years of misery, been overcome,
The burden of delight is now too great:
She seems to sink beneath its weight.
She reaches out in order to embrace
Her cherished daughter, whom by Heaven’s grace
She has recovered after all these years,
But then can only weep with happy tears.
At this, the Prince said: ‘In some other place
You will be able to express
The love you feel: but now, you need to dress
As noblewomen do; your rank has changed;
A wedding also has to be arranged.’
To church the loving pair are led, and there
That each will cherish each they swear,
And forging bonds that none can sever
Engage themselves to love for ever.
Then follows every sort of pleasure:
Music-making, games, and dances,
Jousts with riders breaking lances,
And sumptuous feasts consumed at leisure.
Towards Griselda all direct their gaze:
Her patience, long and sorely tried,
Is now at last admired and glorified.
Indulgent to their lord’s capricious ways,
The people in their joy can even praise
That cruel test Griselda had to face:
Without it, we should not have seen,
They say, that virtue which has always been,
Though rare at any time or place,
An honour to her sex, but shown
In perfect form by her alone.
Letter to M....,* on sending him
The History of Griselda
HAD I submitted to all the different opinions I have been given about the work which I am sending to you, nothing would have remained of it except a simple story, plain and bare; in which case I would have done better not to have anything to do with it, but to leave it as it is between its blue covers,* where it has lain for so many years.
I read it first to two friends of mine.
‘Why spend so long,’ said one of them, ‘on the character of your hero? We have not the slightest need to know what he did in his council in the mornings, and even less how he amused himself during the afternoon. All that sort of thing ought to be left out.’
The other said: ‘For my part, I wish you would remove the humorous reply he makes to the representatives of his people when they urge him to get married; such remarks are inappropriate for a dignified and responsible prince. And if you would permit me,’ he went on, ‘I would advise you also to suppress your long description of the hunt. What relevance does it have to the basic story? Believe me, such adornments are empty and pretentious, which weaken your poem rather than enriching it. The same applies,’ he added, ‘to the preparations made for the Prince’s wedding; the whole passage is pointless and unnecessary. As for your ladies who lower their coiffures, cover their bosoms, and lengthen their sleeves, the humour is feeble, as it is with the orator who congratulates himself on his eloquence.’
‘I would also ask you,’ said the one who had spoken first, ‘to remove the Christian reflections made by Griselda, when she says that God wishes to put her to the test; it’s not the right place for a sermon. And I cannot put up with the callous way in which the Prince treats her—it makes me angry, and I would leave it out. I know it is part of the story, but that’s no matter. I would also remove the episode of the young lord, which is only there so that the young princess can get married: it makes the tale too long.’
‘But,’ I said, ‘the story would end badly without it.’
‘All I can say is,’ he answered, ‘that I would remove it all the same.’
A few days later, I read the piece to two other friends, who said not a word about the passages I have just mentioned, but took me to task over a number of others. ‘Far from complaining that your criticisms are too harsh,’ I told them, ‘I am sorry that they are not more severe; you have let me get away with innumerable passages that have been found to deserve the strictest censure.’
‘And which are those?’ they asked.
‘I have been told,’ I said, ‘that the description of the Prince’s character takes too long, and that nobody is interested in what he did in the morning, and even less in the afternoon.’
‘Criticism like that,’ they both said together, ‘cannot have been meant seriously.’
‘I am also criticized,’ I went on, ‘for the reply made by the Prince to those who are urging him to get married, which is said to be too humorous, and beneath the dignity of a responsible prince.’
‘Really?’ said one; ‘and why is there a problem when a prince in Italy, where it is common to hear joking remarks made by the most dignified of people, and those of the highest position, makes jokes about women and marriage, seeing that he makes a point of being hostile to them, and when in any case they are constantly the object of mockery? However that may be, I must plead for mercy on behalf of the passage in question, and also the passages about the orator who thinks he has converted the Prince and the coiffures that are worn lower; for critics who dislike the Prince’s humorous answer will probably show no quarter to these either.’
‘Your guess is correct,’ I said. ‘But from another angle, those who want only to be entertained cannot bear Griselda’s Christian reflections, when she says that it is God who wishes to test her. They say they are an irrelevant sermon.’
‘Irrelevant?’ the other one replied; ‘not only do they suit the subject, but they are absolutely necessary. You needed to make your heroine’s patience credible; and what other means did you have, except to make her regard her husband’s cruel treatment of her as coming from the hand of God? If it were not for that, she would be taken for the stupidest woman there has ever been, which would certainly not make a good effect.’
‘They also dislike,’ I told them, ‘the episode in which the young lord marries the young princess.’
‘They are wrong,’ he responded; ‘since the work is a true poem, although you call it a story, it is necessary that nothing should be left incomplete when it ends. But if the young princess were to go back to her convent without being married, although she was expecting to be, neither she, nor the readers of your story, would be content.’
As
a result of this discussion I decided to leave my work more or less as it had been when it was read in the Academy.* In a word, I took care to correct anything that had been proved to be bad in itself, but as regards the passages which, I found, had no other fault except that they were not to the taste of certain people who were perhaps a little too fussy, I left them as they were.
I give a meal: a single guest
Unfortunately dislikes one course;
So must I then agree perforce
To leave it out but keep the rest?
‘Live and let live,’ they say, is best;
To satisfy our different wishes
Menus must offer different dishes.
Whatever the truth of the matter, I thought that I should leave it to the public, whose decisions are always right. I shall learn from them what to think on the question, and I shall scrupulously follow their opinion if a second edition of this work should ever happen to be published.*
Three Silly Wishes*
TO MADEMOISELLE DE LA C.*
You’re sensible, I know, Mademoiselle;
If it were otherwise, I’d take good care
Never to let you read or hear
The comic tale I have to tell.
It’s not romantic; it’s about
A length of sausage. ‘Oh, my dears!
How dreadful!’ simpering girls cry out,
‘For shame! a sausage? fie!’—-for theirs
Are hearts more earnestly inclined;
Their books are of another kind:
They’re full of tender love-affairs.
But, Mademoiselle, for you who are,
When telling tales, ahead by far
Of all the rest; you who beguile
Both eye and ear, making us seem to see,
Not merely hear the story, since your style
Is natural and vivid: you’ll agree
That manner and not matter is the key;
For what we prize a story for
Is less what it’s about, and more
The way it’s told. If this is true,
I’m sure you’ll like my tale; its moral too.
A WOODCUTTER there was, once long ago,
Who, weary of the wretched life he led,
Had one desire: to rest in peace, he said,
Upon the shores of Acheron* below
In Hades. This was his pitiable claim:
Whatever wish he’d made, since he was born,
The gods’ response had always been the same:
They’d treated him with cruelty and scorn.
One day, as he complained, there in the wood
The great god Jupiter before him stood,
Complete with thunderbolt. The man’s dismay
Was more than I can easily portray.
‘I ask you nothing,’ trembling, on his knees,
He said; ‘No wish from me, oh lord, and please
No lightning, sir; and then we’ll be all square.’
‘Mortal,’ said Jupiter, ‘be not afraid;
I come, moved by the protests you have made,
To show you that your judgements are unfair.
Attend therefore. You are allowed to make
Three wishes; and, whatever they may be,
As master of the world I undertake
At once to grant them fully. On your side,
Think what will make you happiest, and see
How best your needs can now be satisfied.
Your happiness depends on how you use
This chance: reflect with care before you choose.’
The god, so saying, skywards took his flight.
The man heaved up his bundle on his back
And high in spirits took his homeward track;
His load of logs had never seemed so light.
Said he, while jogging cheerfully along:
‘Now this is serious; the proper way
Is not to rush; we mustn’t get it wrong;
I’ll find out what the missus has to say.’
Arriving at the wretched hovel which
Served as his home, he cried: ‘Hey, Meg! we’re rich!
Let’s have a feast tonight—stoke up the fire!
Just wish, that’s all—we’ll get what we desire!’
Then he explained in detail what had passed.
His spouse’s mind was working fast,
And soon she readily devised
A hundred plans; but recognized
The pressing need for care and tact,
And said: ‘Good William, we must act
Without impatience; too much haste,
And all our hopes could go to waste.
Together let’s discuss what’s best to do,
Then sleep on it. Tomorrow we shall see
Exactly what these wishes ought to be.’
Her William says: ‘That’s my opinion too.
Now Meg, some wine: go to the special cask—
You know—behind the logs, and fill a flask.’
On her return, he drinks, and takes his seat
To rest awhile beside the blaze.
And then: ‘If only, by this fire,’ he says,
I had a length of sausage here to eat;
My dearest wish, is that.’ And as he speaks,
His wife perceives with much surprise
A sausage of imposing size
Approaching from the hearth. She shrieks;
But it continues its advance,
Wriggling towards her on the floor.
A moment’s thought, and she is sure
That what has caused this strange mischance
Must be the careless wish her man
Has stupidly and rashly made.
Much mortified, she then began
An angry conjugal tirade.
Upon the wretched William’s head
Were heaped reproaches and abuse.
‘You could have been an emperor,’ she said,
‘With clothes of gorgeous silk, you silly goose,
And diamonds, rubies, pearls, and gold. Instead,
Sausage is what you choose, for Heaven’s sake!’
‘All right; I’ve chosen badly, I confess,’
He said, ‘I made a serious mistake;
Next time I’ll do better.’ She said: ‘Oh yes?
And pigs might fly. The man’s a proper ass
Who’d wish for something so completely crass.’
Enraged, the husband more than once came near
To wishing that his Meg might disappear.
(Between ourselves, without this wife
He might have had a better life.)
‘We men,’ he cried, ‘are born to constant woes.
Plague take the woman, and the sausage too!
I wish to God, you evil-tempered shrew,
That now it hung upon your nose!’
No sooner had he said this word
Than high in Heaven the wish was heard.
The sausage stuck; and by a yard or more
Meg’s nose grew longer. She was cross before;
This latest unforeseen event
Did not reduce her discontent.
Meg was attractive; she’d a pretty face;
And speaking honestly, with due respect
For truth, this decoration, in that place,
Did not produce a good effect.
However, it compelled her, as it hung
Over her mouth and chin, to hold her tongue,
And since a husband naturally seeks
To have a wife who seldom speaks,
For him a silent wife was bliss;
He couldn’t wish for more than this.
But then he thought, as inwardly he mused:
‘This accident’s a dreadful thing,
But with one wish remaining to be used
I could, all in one go, become a king.
A king!—with that, there’s nothing can compare.
But what about the future queen?
She m
ight be plunged in deep despair
As things are now, if she were seen
Upon her throne, in robes and crown,
With all that sausage hanging down.
On this, it’s right to hear her views;
For she must be the one to choose
Whether she rather would, or not,
Be queen and keep the awful nose she’s got,
Or else be what she was before,
A woodman’s wife and nothing more,
But with a nose of normal size,
As it was once, till everything went wrong.’
Now even though there’s no one who denies
That grandeur, rights, and powers belong
To kings and queens; though everybody tries
To praise a royal nose, however long;
Yet since what women yearn for most of all
Is to attract, she kept her peasant’s shawl,
For that was what she finally preferred,
Rather than be a queen and look absurd.
The husband, too, remained a woodman still.
He didn’t rule as emperor, or fill
His purse with golden coins. His last resource,
His one remaining wish, was used, of course,
As best he could: to see his wife once more
Looking the same as she had been before.
To wish aright is not for humankind:
We are too rash, improvident, and blind.
Whatever the gifts that Heaven may dispense,
Not many men will use them with good sense.
Donkey-Skin
TO THE MARQUISE DE LAMBERT*
Some lofty persons seldom smile,
And cannot bear to give their time,
Regarding literary style,
To anything that’s not sublime.
With views like theirs I can’t agree.
The highest minds, it seems to me,
May sometimes condescend to go
To watch, let’s say, a puppet-show,
Without incurring loss of face.
Given the proper time and place,
Sublimity may suit less well
Than some diverting bagatelle.
Nor should it cause us much surprise
That men of sense, at times oppressed
By hours of work, should think it wise
To free themselves from reason’s bonds,
And pleasantly be lulled to rest
By some old tale of maids distressed,
Of ogres,* spells, and magic wands.
Ignoring, then, the blame I may incur
For wasting time, I’ll do as you prefer,
Complete Fairy Tales Page 9
