Chapter I: Part 1

STRAPAROLA.

VOLUME I.

_Two hundred and ten copies printed on Japanese Vellum._

_No._ 95

THE NIGHTS
OF
STRAPAROLA

NOW FIRST TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY

W. G. WATERS

ILLUSTRATED BY E. R. HUGHES, A.R.W.S.

VOLUME I

]

LONDON: LAWRENCE AND BULLEN

16, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN

MDCCCXCIV

]

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

]

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

]

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.

But the joyous company assembled in the palace at Murano find divers other forms of recreation beside story-telling. They dance and they sing ballads, which are for the most part in praise of the gracious Signora Lucretia, but the chief byplay of the entertainment consists in the setting and solving of riddles. As soon as a fable is brought to an end the narrator is always called upon by the Signora to complete the task by propounding an enigma. This is then duly set forth in puzzling verses, put together as a rule in terms obscure enough to baffle solution, often entirely senseless, and now and again of a character indecent enough to call down upon the propounder the Signora’s rebuke on account of the seeming impropriety of the subject. In fact, a certain number of these enigmas are broad examples of the _double entendre_. The first reading of them makes one wonder how such matter could ever have been put in print, and agree fully with the anger of the Signora, but when the graceful and modest damsel, who may have been the author, proceeds to give the true explanation of her riddle she never fails to demonstrate clearly to the gentle company that her enigma, from beginning to end, is entirely free from all that is unseemly. In “French and English” Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton tells a story illustrating the late survival of this sort of witticism in France. In the early days of Louis Philippe, on one occasion when the court was at Eu, the mayor of the town and certain other local notables were bidden to _déjeuner_ at the chateau, and after the banquet the mayor, in accordance with an old French fashion, asked leave to sing a song of his own making. This composition had two meanings, one lying on the surface and perfectly innocent, and the other, slightly veiled, which, though not immoral, was prodigiously indecent. When the true nature of the song was realized, there was for a second or two silence and confusion amongst the company, but at last, by good luck, someone laughed. The dangerous point was safely rounded, and the mayor brought his song to an end amidst loud applause.

When he published his translation into French of the second part of the “Notti,” Pierre de la Rivey made alterations in almost all the enigmas therein contained, and re-wrote many of those which had already been translated by Louveau, but in neither case did his work tend to make them more decent. In reading over the enigmas as Straparola left them one often feels that the line of reticence, recognized by contemporary decorum, has been crossed, otherwise there would be no need for the ladies to hide their faces, or for the Signora to visit the culprit for the time being with her well-deserved rebuke. But Straparola’s untouched work is almost decent compared with De la Rivey’s emendations.

In spite of the blots above designated, there will be found in the “Notti” a smaller proportion of stories calculated to outrage modern canons of taste than in any of the better known collections of Italian _novelle_. The judgments which have been dealt out to Straparola on the score of indecency by Landau (“Beiträge,” p. 130), by the writer of the article in the “Biographie Universelle,” and by Grimm in his notes to “Kinder und Hausmärchen,” seem to be unduly severe. In certain places he is no doubt brutally coarse, but the number of fables defaced in this manner is not large. If one were to take the trouble to compare the rendering given by Basile in the “Pentamerone,” of stories told also by Straparola, with the rendering of the same in the “Notti,” the award for propriety of language would assuredly not always be given to the Neapolitan, who, it should be remembered, was writing a book for young children. In few of the collections of a similar character is there to be found so genuine a vein of comedy, and for the sake of this one may perhaps be permitted to beg indulgence for occasional lapses—lapses which are assuredly fewer in number and probably not more heinous in character than those of novelists of greater fame. Straparola turns naturally towards the cheerful side of things, the lives of the men and women he deals with seem to be less oppressed with the _tædium vitæ_ than are the creatures of the Florentine and Sienese and Neapolitan novel-writers, and the reason of this is not far to seek. Life in Venice, when once the political constitution was firmly and finally fixed on an oligarchic basis, was more stable, more secure, more luxurious than in any of the other ruling cities of Italy. Social and political convulsion of the sort which vexed the neighbouring states was almost unknown, and, though the forces of the Republic might occasionally suffer defeat and disaster in distant seas and in the Levant, life went on peacefully and pleasantly within the shelter of the Lagunes. The religious conscience of the people was easy-going, orthodox, and laudably inclined to listen to the voice of authority; neither disposed to nourish within the hidden canker of heresy, nor to let itself be worked up into ecstatic fever by any sudden conviction of ungodliness such as led to the lighting of the Bonfire of Vanities in Florence. In a society thus constituted it was inevitable that life should be easier, more gladsome, and more secure than in Milan, with the constant struggle of Pope against Emperor, and later on under the turbulent despotism of the Viscontis and Sforzas; or than in Florence, with its constant civil broils and licentious public life, which not even the craft and power of the leaders of the Medici could discipline into public order; or than in Naples, dominated by the Aragonese kings and harried by the greedy mercenaries in the royal employ; or than in Rome itself, vexed continually by intrigue, political and religious, and by the tumults generated by the violence and ambition of the ruling families.

A reflection of the gracious and placid life the Venetians led will be apparent to all who may observe and compare the art of Venice with the art of Milan, or Florence, or Naples. What a contrast is there between that charming idyll which Titian has made of the marriage of St. Catherine,[11] a group full of joy, and beauty, and sunlight, and set in the midst of one of those delightful sub-alpine landscapes which he painted with such rare skill and insight, and the many other renderings of the same subject by Lombard or Tuscan masters, who, almost invariably, put on the canvas some foreshadowing of the coming tragedy in the shape of the boding horror of the toothed wheel! The Madonnas of Carpaccio and Bellini are stately ladies, well nourished, and having about them that unmistakable air of distinction which grows up with the daily use and neighbourhood of splendid and luxurious modes of life. There is no doubt a look of gravity and holiness upon their handsome faces, but there is no sign, either in the pose or in the glance of them, that they are conscious of any embarrassment, and it would take a very keen eye to discern a trace of quasi-divinity, or of any trouble aroused by the caress of the mysterious child, or of the burden of that “intolerable honour” which has been thrust upon them unsought—a mood which latter-day preachers have detected in renderings of the same theme conceived and executed in the more emotional atmosphere of the Val d’Arno. Take these Venetian Madonnas out of their pictured environment, and put on them a gala dress and sumptuous jewels, and one will find a bevy of comely dames who might well have kept company with the Signora Lucretia of the “Notti” in the fair garden at Murano, and listened to some sprightly story from Messer Pietro Bembo or from Messer Antonio Molino; or they might have gone out with the youths and damsels of whom Browning sings,

“Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to midday,
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?”

In the pictures he draws Straparola illustrates a life like this, with now and then a touch of pathos, perhaps undesigned, as in the prologue to the second Night, where he tells of the laughter of the blithe company, ringing so loud and so hearty that it seemed to him as if the sound of their merriment yet lingered in his ears.[12] There was, therefore, good reason why Straparola’s imaginary exiles from the turbulent court of Milan should have sought at Murano, under the sheltering wings of St. Mark’s lion, that ease and gaiety which they would have looked for in vain at home; there were also reasons equally valid why he should make the genius of the place inspire with its jocund spirit the stories with which the gentle company gathered around the Signora Lucretia wiled away the nights of carnival. In the whole of the seventy-four fables there are hardly half-a-dozen which can be classed as tragic in tone, but of these one—the story of Malgherita Spolatina[13]—is the finest of the whole collection. It is rarely one meets with anything told with such force and sincerity; yet, in placing before his readers this vivid picture of volcanic passion and studied ruthless revenge, Straparola uses the simplest treatment and succeeds _à merveille_. The fact that this fable and certain others of more than average merit belong to the category of stories to which no source or origin in other writings has been assigned, raises a regret that Straparola did not trust more to his own inventive powers and draw less freely upon Ser Giovanni and Morlini. Of these creations of his own the story of Flamminio Veraldo[14] is admirably told and strikingly original and dramatic in subject; so is that of Maestro Lattantio,[15] and, for a display of savage cynicism and withering rage, it would be hard to find anything more powerfully portrayed than the death of Andrigetto.[16]

In the fables of adventure, and in every other case where such treatment is possible, Straparola deals largely with the supernatural. All the western versions, except Straparola’s, of the story best known to us as “Giletta of Narbonne” and as “All’s Well that Ends Well,” are worked out without calling in auxiliaries of an unearthly character. Boccaccio and Shakespeare bring together the husband and the forsaken wife by methods which, if somewhat strained, are quite natural; but Straparola at once calls for the witch and the magic horse, and whisks Isabella off to Flanders forthwith.[17] The interest of the reader is kept alive by accounts of the trials and dangers—a trifle bizarre now and again—which heroes and heroines are called to undergo, the taste of the age preferring apparently this stimulant to the intense dramatic power exhibited in the story of Malgherita, and demanding that the ending should be a happy one, for the pair of lovers nearly always marry in the end, and live long and blissful years. In the tales of country life and character the fun is boisterous and even broad, but it is always real fun, and the laugh rings true. Straparola is often as coarse as Bandello, but, unlike Bandello, he never smirches his pages merely for the sake of setting forth some story of simple brutality, or of leading up to a climax which is at the same time painfully shocking and purposeless. Il Lasca in “Le Cene” makes as free use of the _beffe_ and the _burle_ as Straparola, but the last-named showed in the “Notti” that he was incomparably the better hand in dealing with his material. Il Lasca as a rule sets out his subject on the lines of the broadest farce, but he cannot keep to genuine farce, his natural bent of mind leading him always to elaborate his theme in some unseemly and offensive fashion. Very often he is obscene and savage at the same time, and the abominable practical jokes he makes his characters play the one on the other must surely have outraged even the coarse feeding taste of the age in which he wrote. He delights in working up long stories of lust, and of infidelity, and of vengeance worked on account of these, in a spirit of heartless cruelty which, more often than not, is horrible without being in the least impressive, for the reason that, fine stylist as he was, he lacked the touch of the artist. Masuccio, though his savage indignation against the vices of the priests and monks occasionally became mere brutality, sounded now and then the note of real tragedy, and, inferior as he was to Il Lasca in style, was by far the better story-teller of the two. Both of these would be commonly set down as abler writers than Straparola, yet, by some means or other, the latter could put a touch upon his work which was beyond the power of the others—something which enables one to read the “Notti” without being conscious of that unpleasant aftertaste which one almost always feels on laying down either “Le Cene” or “Il Novellino.”

No other of the Italian novelists used a style as bad as Straparola’s. Errors in grammar abound, and his bald meagre periods often fail to express adequately the sense of the idea he manifestly wishes to portray. His faulty prose did not escape the censure of his contemporaries, for Messer Orfeo dalla Carta, in his introduction to the first part of the “Notti” (edition 1554), makes allusion to it, begging the reader at the same time not to be repelled by what he calls “il basso et rimesso stilo dello autore;” and La Monnoie, in the preface to the French translation (edition 1726) writes in a similar strain. Dalla Carta, probably by way of banter, advances an apology for Straparola’s slovenly work in terms taken from that introduction to the second part which has already been cited, explaining that the author did not write his fables as he would have done, but as they had been told to him by the ten damsels who were the narrators.

Straparola’s Italian is much more like the Italian of the present day than the English of Sidney or the German of Hans Sachs is like modern English or German, but this is not remarkable, considering how much earlier prose writing as an art came to perfection in Italy than in the rest of Europe. The impression gained by reading his prose is that he cared vastly more for subject than for treatment. He laid hold of whatever themes promised to suit his purpose best as a story-teller, careless as to whether other craftsmen had used them before or not, and these he set forth in the simplest manner possible, taking little heed of his style or even of his grammar. He hardly ever indulges in a metaphor. One never feels that he has gone searching about fastidiously for some particular turn of phrase or neatly-fitting adjective; on the other hand, one is often obliged to pause in the middle of some long sentence and search for his meaning in the strange mixture of phrases strung together. Perhaps this spontaneity, this absence of studied design, may have helped to win for him the wide popularity he enjoyed. His aim was to lead his readers into some enchanted garden of fairyland; to thrill them with the woes and perils of his heroes and heroines; to shake their sides with laughter over the misadventures of some too amorous monk or lovesick cavalier, rather than to send them into ecstasy over the measured elegance of his phrases. In many of the later editions of the “Notti,” the meaning has been further obscured, and the style rendered more rugged than ever, owing to the frequent and clumsy excisions made by the censors of morals. The early exclusion of the fourth Fable of the ninth Night shows that the eye of authority was soon attracted towards the popular novelist of the age. The motive for this activity was nominally the care of public morals, and one of the few extant references to Straparola is with regard to the expurgation of his works. In “Cremona Illustrata,” by Franciscus Arisius (Cremona, 1741), we read concerning Caravaggio: “In hoc enim oppido inclytæ stirpis Sfortiadum antiquo feudo ortum habuit Io. Franciscus Straparola cujus liber sæpe editus circumfertur italice hoc programmate: ‘Le tredici piacevolissime notti overo favole ed enimmi.’ Liber vetitus a sacra indicis congregatione et jure quidem merito cum obscenitates sordidas contineat moribus plerumque obnoxias et pluribi vulgatas. Optime quippe animadvertit Possevinus S. J. de cultura ingeniorum cap. 52, quod expediens esset homines potius nasci mutos et rationis expertes, quam in propriam et aliorum perniciam divinæ providentiæ dona convertere, imo ante eum ejusdem sententiæ fuisse M. F. Quintilianum licet gentilem, ipse Possevinus confirmat.”

On reading even the most severely castrated edition of the “Notti,” one may be at first a little surprised to find that some of the most indecent stories (in spite of the care of public morals) have been left almost untouched, and it is not until one realizes the fact that expurgation has been held to mean the cutting out of every word concerning religion and its professors, that one fully understands the principle upon which “Possevinus S. J.” and his colleagues worked. The presence of matter injurious to public morals had evidently less to do with the action of these reformers than certain anecdotes describing the presence of priests and nuns in certain places where, by every rule of good manners, they ought not to have been found. In plain words, the book was prohibited and castrated on account of the ugly picture of clerical morals which was exhibited in its pages.[18] A glance at any of the editions issued “con licenza de’ superiori” will show that the revisers went to their work with set purpose, caring nought as to the mangled mass of letterpress they might leave behind them. In some fables bits are cut out so clumsily that the point of the story is entirely lost; in others the feelings of orthodoxy are spared by changing the hero of amorous intrigue from a _Prete_ to a _Giovene_. In one a pope is reduced to a mere initial (of course standing for a layman), and the famous story of Belphegor is left out altogether. It was surely little short of impertinent to ask for a condemnation of the “Notti” on the ground of offence to public decency from a generation which read such books as “Les facétieuses journées” of Chapuys and “Les contes aux heures perdues;” which witnessed the issue of Morlini’s novels and of Cinthio degli Fabritii’s book, “Dell’ origine delli volgari proverbii,” printed “cum privilegio summi pontificis et sacræ Cæsareæ majestatis;” a generation for which Poggio’s obscene fables were favourite reading, and which remembered that Pietro Bembo had been a cardinal and Giovanni di Medici a pope.

It is impossible to indicate precisely the sources of the fables seriatim, seeing that in many cases there was available for Straparola a choice of origins. An approximate reckoning would give fifteen fables to the novelists who preceded him, twenty-two to Morlini, four to mediæval and seven to oriental legends, thus leaving twenty-eight to be classed as original. Towards the close of his work it would appear that his imagination must have been stricken with sterility, or that he became indolent, for of the concluding twenty fables nineteen are mere translations from Morlini. It is not improbable that such wholesale borrowing as this may have been the cause of the charges of plagiary to which allusion has already been made. From beginning to end he certainly made free use of all the storehouses of materials which were available, selecting therefrom whatever subjects pleased him, and working them up to the best of his skill. It was unreasonable to censure him on this score, seeing that in what he did he merely followed the fashion of the age. If he borrowed from Ser Giovanni, had not Ser Giovanni borrowed also from the “Directorium” and the “Gesta Romanorum”? Folk-lorists have discovered for us the fact that all the stories the world ever listened to may, by proper classification, be shown to be derived from some half-dozen sources. As the sorting and searching goes on, new facts constantly come to light, the drift of which tends to prove that the charge of plagiarism is now almost meaningless. It is hard to say what new and strange fruits may not be gathered from the wide field now covered by the folk-lorist. Formerly he hunted only in the East; now we find him amongst the Lapps and the Zulus—in Labrador, and in the South Pacific as well. A still more extended search will very likely find a fresh source for those of the fables in the “Notti” which have heretofore been classed as the original work of Straparola, and will discover for us a new and genuine author of “Puss in Boots.”

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=Orfeo dalla Carta to all delightful and lovesome ladies, greeting.=

Considering in my mind, kindly ladies, how many in number and how high in excellence are those heaven-born and lofty spirits who, in ancient and in modern times as well, have written down those various fables which, when you read them, give you no small pleasure, I understand—and you in like manner will understand—that they were moved thus to write for no other reason than to give you solace and entertainment. Since I opine, or rather since I am certain that this is the case, you, delightful and lovesome ladies as you are, will not be wroth if I, your good servant, shall publish in your name the Fables and the Enigmas of the ingenious Messer Gioanfrancesco Straparola da Caravaggio, set forth by him with no less elegance than learning. And even if the substance of these should not furnish for your hearing the same pleasure and delight as you are accustomed to find in certain other writers, do not on this account contemn him by thrusting him aside and rejecting him altogether, but rather with joyful faces take him to you as you are accustomed to take the others; because if you, as you read his pages, will bear in mind the diversity of events and the subtle wit contained therein, you will at least derive from them no small instruction.

Besides this, you must not remark too narrowly the poor and negligent style of the author, for the reason that he wrote his fables, not as he wished to write them, but as he heard them from the ladies who related them,[19] adding nought thereunto and taking nought therefrom. And if you shall find him in any respect wanting, blame not him, who did his work to the best of his power and knowledge, but blame me who have published it against his wish. Accept, therefore, with gladsome looks this little gift from me your servant; who, if it be shown to him (as he hopes it may) that his offering is pleasing to you, will in the future do his best to lay before you other things which may prove to be still more to your pleasure and contentment. Be happy and remember me!

From Venice on the XI. day of January, MDLIIII.

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=Proem.=

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=The Fables and Enigmas of Messer Giovanni Francesco Straparola da
Caravaggio.=

=Book the First.=

PROEM.