Part 1
STRAPAROLA.
VOLUME I.
_Two hundred and ten copies printed on Japanese Vellum._
_No._ 95
[Illustration: The Siren]
THE NIGHTS OF STRAPAROLA
NOW FIRST TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY
W. G. WATERS
ILLUSTRATED BY E. R. HUGHES, A.R.W.S.
VOLUME I
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LONDON: LAWRENCE AND BULLEN
16, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
MDCCCXCIV
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Contents.
PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix
INTRODUCTION xi
PROEM 1
NIGHT THE FIRST 9
THE FIRST FABLE. Salardo, son of Rainaldo Scaglia, quits Genoa and goes to Montferrat, where he disobeys certain injunctions laid upon him by his father’s testament, and is condemned to death therefor; but, being delivered, he returns to his own country 11
THE SECOND FABLE. Cassandrino, a noted robber, and a friend of the prætor of Perugia, steals the prætor’s bed and his horse Liardo, but afterwards becomes a man of probity and good repute 20
THE THIRD FABLE. Pre Scarpafico, having been once duped by three robbers, dupes them thrice in return, and lives happily the rest of his days 28
THE FOURTH FABLE. Tebaldo, Prince of Salerno, wishes to have his only daughter Doralice to wife, but she, through her father’s persecution, flees to England, where she marries Genese the king, and has by him two children. These, having been slain by Tebaldo, are avenged by their father King Genese 35
THE FIFTH FABLE. Dimitrio the chapman, having disguised himself as a certain Gramottiveggio, surprises his wife Polissena with a priest, and sends her back to her brothers, who put her to death, and Dimitrio afterwards marries his serving-woman 44
NIGHT THE SECOND 55
THE FIRST FABLE. Galeotto, King of Anglia, has a son who is born in the shape of a pig. This son marries three wives, and in the end, having thrown off his semblance, becomes a handsome youth 58
THE SECOND FABLE. Filenio Sisterno, a student of Bologna, having been tricked by certain ladies, takes his revenge upon them at a feast to which he has bidden them 66
THE THIRD FABLE. Carlo da Rimini vainly pursues Theodosia with his love, she having resolved to live a virgin. In striving to embrace her he meets with divers misadventures, and is well beaten by his own servants to boot 77
THE FOURTH FABLE. The devil, having heard divers husbands railing over the humours of their wives, makes trial of matrimony by espousing Silvia Balastro, and, not being able to endure his wife for long, enters into the body of the Duke of Malphi 83
THE FIFTH FABLE. Messer Simplicio di Rossi is enamoured of Giliola, the wife of Ghirotto Scanferla, a peasant, and having been caught in her company is ill-handled by her husband therefor 91
NIGHT THE THIRD 99
THE FIRST FABLE. A simple fellow, named Peter, gets back his wits by the help of a tunny fish which he spared after having taken it in his net, and likewise wins for his wife a king’s daughter 102
THE SECOND FABLE. Dalfreno, King of Tunis, had two sons, one called Listico and the other Livoretto. The latter afterwards was known as Porcarollo, and in the end won for his wife Bellisandra, the daughter of Attarante, King of Damascus 110
THE THIRD FABLE. Biancabella, the daughter of Lamberico, Marquis of Monferrato, is sent away by the stepmother of Ferrandino, King of Naples, in order that she may be put to death; but the assassins only cut off her hands and put out her eyes. Afterwards, her hurts having been healed by a snake, she returns happily to Ferrandino 125
THE FOURTH FABLE. Fortunio, on account of an injury done to him by his supposed father and mother, leaves them, and after much wandering, comes to a wood, where he finds three animals, who do him good service. Afterwards he goes to Polonia, where he gets to wife Doralice, the king’s daughter, as a reward for his prowess 140
THE FIFTH FABLE. Isotta, the wife of Lucaferro Albani of Bergamo, devises how she may trick Travaglino the cowherd of her brother Emilliano and thereby show him to be a liar, but she loses her husband’s farm and returns home worsted in her attempt, and bringing with her a bull’s head with gilded horns 152
NIGHT THE FOURTH 163
THE FIRST FABLE. Ricardo, King of Thebes, had four daughters, one of whom, having become a wanderer and altered her name of Costanza to Costanzo, arrived at the court of Cacco, King of Bettinia, who took her to wife on account of the many worthy deeds wrought by her 167
THE SECOND FABLE. Erminione Glaucio, an Athenian, takes to wife Filenia Centurione, and, having become jealous of her, accuses her before the tribunal, but by the help of Hippolito, her lover, she is acquitted and Erminione punished 179
THE THIRD FABLE. Ancilotto, King of Provino, takes to wife the daughter of a baker, and has by her three children. These, after much persecution at the hands of the king’s mother, are made known to their father through the strange working of certain water, and of an apple, and of a bird 186
THE FOURTH FABLE. Nerino, the son of Gallese, King of Portugal, becoming enamoured of Genobbia, wife of Messer Raimondo Brunello, a physician, has his will of her and carries her with him to Portugal, while Messer Raimondo dies of grief 199
THE FIFTH FABLE. Flamminio Veraldo sets out from Ostia in search of Death, and, not finding it, meets Life instead; this latter lets him see Fear and make trial of Death 208
NIGHT THE FIFTH 217
THE FIRST FABLE. Guerrino, only son of Filippomaria, King of Sicily, sets free from his father’s prison a certain savage man. His mother, through fear of the king, drives her son into exile, and him the savage man, now humanized, delivers from many and measureless ills 221
THE SECOND FABLE. Adamantina, the daughter of Bagolana Savonese, by the working of a certain doll becomes the wife of Drusiano, King of Bohemia 236
THE THIRD FABLE. Bertholdo of Valsabbia has three sons, all of them hunchbacks and much alike in seeming. One of them, called Zambo, goes out into the world to seek his fortune, and arrives at Rome, where he is killed and thrown into the Tiber, together with his two brothers 245
THE FOURTH FABLE. Marsilio Vercelese, being enamoured of Thia, the wife of Cechato Rabboso, is taken by her into her house during her husband’s absence. He having come back unexpected, is cozened by Thia, who feigns to work a spell, during which Marsilio silently takes to flight 259
THE FIFTH FABLE. Madonna Modesta, wife of Messer Tristano Zanchetto, in her young days gathers together a great number of shoes, offerings made by her various lovers. Having grown old, she disposes of the same to divers servants, varlets, and other folk of mean estate 269
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ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I.
_To face page_
FRONTISPIECE. (THIRD NIGHT, FOURTH FABLE. THE SIREN.)
PROEM. THE PALACE AT MURANO 1
FIRST NIGHT, FOURTH FABLE. DORALICE IN THE KING’S CHAMBER 39
SECOND NIGHT, FIRST FABLE. THE PIG PRINCE 63
SECOND NIGHT, SECOND FABLE. THE SCHOLAR’S VENGEANCE 72
THIRD NIGHT, THIRD FABLE. BIANCABELLA AND THE SERPENT 128
THIRD NIGHT, FIFTH FABLE. ISOTTA AND TRAVAGLINO 156
FOURTH NIGHT, SECOND FABLE. THE TRIAL OF THE SERPENT 184
FIFTH NIGHT, FIRST FABLE. GOLDEN HAIR 234
FIFTH NIGHT, FOURTH FABLE. THE CONJURATION OF THE KITE 266
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Introduction.
The name of Giovanni Francesco Straparola has been handed down to later ages as the author of the “Piacevoli Notti,” and on no other account, for the reason that he is one of those fortunate men of letters concerning whom next to nothing is known. He writes himself down as “da Caravaggio;” so it may be reasonably assumed that he first saw the light in that town, but no investigator has yet succeeded in indicating the year of his birth, or in bringing to light any circumstances of his life, other than certain facts connected with the authorship and publication of his works. The ground has been closely searched more than once, and in every case the seekers have come back compelled to admit that they have no story to tell or new fact to add to the scanty stock which has been already garnered. Straparola as a personage still remains the shadow he was when La Monnoie summed up the little that was known about him in the preface to the edition, published in 1725, of the French translation of the “Notti.”
He was doubtless baptized by the Christian names given above, but it is scarcely probable that Straparola can ever have been the surname or style of any family in Caravaggio or elsewhere. More likely than not it is an instance of the Italian predilection for nicknaming—a coined word designed to exhibit and perhaps to hold up to ridicule his undue loquacity; just as the familiar names of Masaccio, and Ghirlandaio, and Guercino, were tacked on to their illustrious wearers on account of some personal peculiarity or former calling. Caravaggio is a small town lying near to Crema, and about half way between Cremona and Bergamo. It enjoyed in the Middle Ages some fame as a place of pilgrimage on account of a spring of healing water which gushed forth on a certain occasion when the Virgin Mary manifested herself. Polidoro Caldara and Michael Angelo Caravaggio were amongst its famous men, and of these it keeps the memory, but Straparola is entirely forgotten. Fontanini, in the “Biblioteca dell’ eloquenza Italiana,” does not name him at all. Quadrio, “Storia e ragione d’ogni poesia,” mentions him as the author of the “Piacevoli Notti,” and remarks on his borrowings from Morlini. Tiraboschi, in the index to the “Storia della letteratura Italiana,” does not even give his name, and Crescimbeni[1] concerns himself only with the enigmas which are to be found at the end of the fables. It is indeed a strange freak of chance that such complete oblivion should have fallen over the individuality of a writer so widely read and appreciated.
The first edition of the first part of the “Piacevoli Notti” was published at Venice in 1550, and of the second part in 1553. It would appear that the author must have been alive in 1557, because, at the end of the second part of the edition of that year,[2] there is a paragraph setting forth the fact that the work was printed and issued “ad instanza dell’ autore.” Some time before 1553 he seems to have been stung sharply on account of some charges of plagiarism which were brought against him by certain detractors, for in all the unmutilated editions of the “Notti” published after that date there is to be found a short introduction to the second part, in which he somewhat acrimoniously throws back these accusations, and calls upon all “gratiose et amorevole donne” to accept his explanations thereof, admitting at the same time that these stories are not his own, but a faithful transcript of what he heard told by the ten damsels in their pleasant assembly. La Monnoie, in his preface to the French translation (ed. 1726), maintains that this juggling with words can only be held to be an excuse on his part for having borrowed the subject-matter for his fables and worked it into shape after his own taste. “Il declare qu’il ne se les est jamais attribuées, et se contente du mérite de les avoir fidèlement rapportées d’après les dix damoiselles. Cela, comme tout bon entendeur le comprend, ne signifie autre chose sinon qu’il avoit tiré d’ailleurs la matière de ces Fables, mais qu’il leur avoit donné la forme.”
This contention of La Monnoie seems reasonable enough, but Grimm, in the notes to “Kinder und Hausmärchen,” has fallen into the strange error of treating Straparola’s apology as something grave and seriously meant, and in the same sentence improves on his mistake by asserting that Straparola took all the fairy tales from the mouths of the ten ladies. “Von jenem Schmutz sind die Märchen[3] ziemlich frei, wie sie ohnehin den besten Theil des ganzen Werkes ausmachen. Straparola hat sie, wie es in der Vorrede zum zweiten Bande (vor der sechsten Nacht) heisst, aus dem Munde zehn junger Fräulein aufgenommen und ausdrücklich erklärt, dass sie nicht sein Eigenthum seien.”
The most reasonable explanation of this mistake lies in the assumption that Grimm never saw the introduction to the second part at all. Indeed, the fact that he often uses French spelling of the proper names suggests that he may have worked from the French translation. Straparola makes no distinction between fairy tales and others. His words are, “che le piacevoli favole da me scritte, et in questo, et nell’ altro volumetto raccolte non siano mie, ma da questo, et quello ladronescamente rubbate. Io a dir il vero, il confesso, che non sono mie, e se altrimente dicessi, me ne mentirei, ma ben holle fedelmente scritte secondo il modo che furono da dieci damigelle nel concistorio raccontate.”
Besides the “Notti” only one other work of Straparola’s is known to exist—a collection of sonnets and other poems published at Venice in 1508, and (according to a citation of Zanetti in the “Novelliero Italiano,” t. iii., p. xv, Ven. 1754, Bindoni) in 1515 as well.[4] A comparison of these dates will serve to show that, as he had already brought out a volume in the first decade of the century, the “Piacevoli Notti” must have been the work of his maturity or even of his old age. With this fact the brief catalogue of the known circumstances of his life comes to an end.
Judging from the rapidity with which the successive editions of the “Notti” were brought forth from the press after the first issue—sixteen appeared in the twenty years between 1550 and 1570—we may with reason assume that it soon took hold of the public favour.[5] Its fame spread early into France, where in 1560 an edition of the first part, translated into French by Jean Louveau, appeared at Lyons, to be followed some thirteen years later by a translation of the second part by Pierre de la Rivey, who thus completed the book. He likewise revised and re-wrote certain portions of Louveau’s translation, and in 1725 an edition was produced at Amsterdam, enriched by a preface by La Monnoie, and notes by Lainez. There are evidences that a German translation of the “Notti” was in existence at the beginning of the seventeenth century, for in the introduction to Fischart’s “Gargantua” (1608) there is an allusion to the tales of Straparola, brought in by way of an apology for the appearance of the work, the writer maintaining that, if the ears of the ladies are not offended by Boccaccio, Straparola, and other writers of a similar character, there is no reason why they should be offended by Rabelais. The author of the introduction to a fresh edition of the same work (1775) remarks that he knows the tales of Straparola from a later edition published in 1699. Of this translation no copy is known to exist.
In the “Palace of Pleasure” Painter has given only one of the fables, the second Fable[6] of the second Night; and in Roscoe’s “Italian Novelists” another one appears, the fourth Fable of the tenth Night. At the end of the last century the first Fable of the first Night was printed separately in London under the title, “Novella cioe copia d’un Caso notabile intervenuto a un gran gentiluomo Genovese.”[7] A translation of twenty-four of the fables, prefaced by a lengthy and verbose disquisition on the author, reputed to be from the pen of Mazzuchelli, appeared at Vienna in 1791;[8] but Brackelmann, in his “Inaugural Dissertation” (Gottingen, 1867), has an examination of the introduction above named, which goes far to prove that Mazzuchelli had little or nothing to do with it. In 1817 Dr. F. W. V. Schmidt published at Berlin a translation into German of eighteen fables selected from the “Notti,” to which he gave the title “Die Märchen des Straparola.” To his work Dr. Schmidt affixed copious notes, compiled with the greatest care and learning, thus opening to his successors a rich and valuable storehouse both of suggestion and of accumulated facts. It is almost certain that he must have worked from one of the many mutilated or expurgated editions of the book, for in the complete work there are several stories unnoticed by him which he would assuredly have included in his volume had he been aware of their existence.
One of the chief claims of the “Notti” on the consideration of later times lies in the fact that Straparola was the first writer who gathered together into one collection the stray fairy tales, for the most part brought from the East, which had been made known in the Italian cities—and in Venice more especially—by the mouth of the itinerant story-teller. These tales, incorporated in the “Notti” with others of a widely different character, were without doubt the principal source of the numerous French “Contes des Fées” published in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Perrault, Madame D’Aulnoy, and Gueulette took from them many of their best fables; and these, having spread in various forms through Northern and Western Europe, helped to tinge with a hue of Orientalism the popular tales of all countries—tales which had hitherto been largely the evolution of local myths and traditions.
Four of Straparola’s fables are slightly altered versions of four of the stories in the “Thousand and One Nights,”[9] which, as it will scarcely be necessary to remark, were not translated into any European language till Galland brought out his work at the beginning of the eighteenth century. One of these, the third Fable of the fourth Night, is substantially the same as the story of the Princess Parizade and her envious sisters, given in Galland’s translation. To account for this close resemblance we may either assume that Galland may have looked at Straparola’s fable, or that Straparola may have listened to it from the mouth of some wandering oriental or of some Venetian traveller recently come back from the East—the tale, as he heard it, having been faithfully taken from the same written page which Galland afterwards translated. Another one, the story of the Three Hunchbacks—the third Fable of the fifth Night—has less likeness to the original, and has been imitated by Gueulette in his “Contes Tartares.” The treatment of the story of the Princess Parizade by Straparola furnishes an illustration to prove that, bad as his style was, he was by no means deficient in literary skill and taste. He brings into due prominence the wicked midwife, who is _particeps criminis_ with the queen-mother and the sisters in the attempted murder of the children, and who has on this account full and valid motive for acting as she did, seeing that interest and self-preservation as well would have prompted her to compass their destruction. On the other hand, in the Arabian tale it is hard to understand why the female fakir should have been led to persuade the princess to send her brothers off on their quest. Again, in the fable of Prince Guerrino[10] Straparola has displayed great ingenuity in weaving together a good story out of some half dozen of the widely-known fairy motives, any one of which might well have been fashioned into a story by itself.
After reading the “Notti” through one can hardly fail to be struck by the amazing variety of the themes therein handled. Besides the fairy tales—many of them classic—to which allusion has already been made, there is the world-famous story of Puss in Boots, an original product of Straparola’s brain. There are others which may rather be classed as romances of chivalry, in the elaboration of which a generous amount of magic and mystery is employed. The residue is made up of stories of intrigue and buffo tales of popular Italian life, some of which—not a large number, when one takes into consideration the contemporary standard of decency in such matters—are certainly unpleasant in subject and coarse in treatment, but with regard to the majority of these one is disposed to be lenient, inasmuch as the fun, though somewhat indelicate, is real fun. When the duped husband, a figure almost as inevitable in the Italian Novella as in the modern French novel, is brought forward, he is not always exhibited as the contemptible creature who seems to have sat for the part in the stories of the better known writers. Indeed, it sometimes happens that he turns the tables on his betrayers; and, although Straparola is laudably free from the vice of preaching, he now and then indulges in a brief homily by way of pointing out the fact that violators of the Decalogue generally come to a bad end, and that his own sympathies are all on the side of good manners. It is true that one misses in the “Notti” those delicious invocations of Boccaccio, commonly to be found at the end of the more piquant stories, in which he piously calls on Heaven to grant to himself and to all Christian men _bonnes fortunes_ equal to those which he has just chronicled.
The scheme of the “Notti” resembles in character that of the Decameron, of Le Cene, and of other collections of a similar kind. In the Proem to the work it is set forth how Ottaviano Maria Sforza, the bishop-elect of Lodi—the same probably who died in 1540, after a life full of vicissitude—together with his daughter Lucretia, is compelled by the stress of political events to quit Milan. The Signora Lucretia is described as the wife of Giovanni Francesco Gonzaga, cousin of Federico, Marquis of Mantua, but as no mention of this prince is made it may be assumed that she was already a widow. Seeing that her husband died in 1523, an approximate date may be fixed for the “Piacevoli Notti,” but historical accuracy in cases of this sort is not to be expected or desired. After divers wanderings the bishop-elect and his daughter find a pleasant refuge on the island of Murano, where they gather around them a company of congenial spirits, consisting of a group of lovely and accomplished damsels, and divers cavaliers of note. Chief amongst the latter is the learned Pietro Bembo, the renowned humanist and the most distinguished man of letters Venice ever produced. With him came his friend Gregorio Casali, who is described as “Casal Bolognese, a bishop, and likewise ambassador of the King of England.” Both Gregorio Casali and his brother Battista were entrusted by Henry VIII. with the conduct of affairs of state pending between him and the Pope, and the former certainly visited England more than once. The king showed him many signs of favour during his stay, and when in 1527 Casali found himself shut up in Rome by the beleaguering army of the Constable of Bourbon, he was allowed free exit on the ground of his ambassadorial rank. Bernardo Cappello, another friend of Bembo, is also of the company, and a certain Antonio Molino, a poet of repute, who subsequently tells a fable in the dialect of Bergamo—a feat which leads to a similar display of local knowledge on the part of Signor Benedetto Trivigiano, who discourses in Trevisan. It may be remarked, however, that by far the greater number of the fables are told by the ladies.