The Pleasant Nights

The hero is now equipped to arrive in a foreign city, the third major folk motif, where he will compete for the prize princess through a combination of martial prowess, self-transformational magic, and gallantry. As in most bride-winning fairy tales, the hero either performs remarkable feats or solves riddles, with or without meeting the princess in advance. (This is not always the case, however, as in Pietro’s rise as the ‘lazy-boy’ (III.1), or Constantino’s fortune (XI.1) gained entirely through the agency of his cat.) Fortunio might very well have won his princess simply by jousting for her, as in some versions at lower mimetic levels in the trajectory from myth to realism. But Straparola arranges for the hero to meet the princess by soaring into her room as an eagle before returning to his human shape. Nothing could be less realistic than Fortunio hiding from the girl’s father by crawling under her hair as an ant. Yet this is the very scene that Jean de Mailly develops as a tender, delicate, and sentimental exchange at a level of far greater social realism for his French readers in the age of préciosité and the salons. At the same time, as with bride-winning in The Merchant of Venice, Straparola’s tale preserves the tri-partite design and the social rituals of selection by riddle, fortune, and gaming skills. Victory in the tournament over such adversaries as the swarthy Saracen, representing for the princess the horrors of a booty marriage, is a telling, quasi-allegorical episode. Fortunio secures the marriage by martial prowess; nevertheless, as a sociable hero, he demonstrates a profile of manly gallantry in the field and the boudoir. This was of precious concern in later years to the likes of Mme. d’Aulnoy, who repeatedly fanticized her metro-man as hero.

By definition, the story of Fortunio has something to do remotely with sirens in Homer and jousting as in Boccaccio’s Teseida. The one is about seduction and self discipline and the other is about competition for a bride through combat, both of them representing archetypes redeployed in Straparola’s story. But a long investigation into potential sources has produced only remote treatments of the individual motifs, and nothing like the compound formula intrinsic to the folk tale. A century and a half prior to the publication of the Piacevoli notti, Ser Giovanni, in The Pecorone (IX.2), tells a long episodic story we might provisionally name ‘Arrighetto and Lena, the king of Aragon’s daughter,’ in which a beautiful princess, although closely guarded by a royal father bent on refusing all suitors, is nevertheless looked upon by the eligible princes of the chivalric world as a prize catch.72 The son of the German emperor makes a plan to get himself inside the girl’s private quarters by enclosing himself inside a great golden eagle sent to her city on purpose to be sold in a shop just opposite the palace. It goes without saying that the object ends up in the princess’s apartments. That the bird is an eagle may be coincidental, but that the suitor is chased back inside the bird for refuge when the girl cries out in dismay upon seeing a strange man approaching her has motivic specificity. She is scolded by her household staff and told to cease her false alarms, forcing her to deal with her suitor and to test his civility, just as Doralice is told by her father to cease her outcries, thereby allowing Fortunio to identify himself and express his honest devotion. Straparola may indeed have modified this segment of his fairy tale in the image of Ser Giovanni’s wooing scene. But this is far from a complete source. Thereafter, the tales go their separate ways, for Ser Giovanni’s lovers do not plan their coordinated wardrobe for the final day of the tournament, as in Straparola, but elope by sea, bringing the whole of Europe into a massive war near Vienna over the ‘abduction’ of this willing maiden.73

Further tales predating Straparola with promising affinities to that of ‘Fortunio’ are tellingly few, except in the most generic of ways, such as Marie de France’s Lai of Yonec, in which a lover from a neighbouring realm flies up to the window of a married woman incarcerated in a tower in the form of a bird, there to enjoy her until the suspicious husband sets a trap from which the creature escapes with grave injuries. For real cognates, one must turn to the folk tale collections of the nineteenth century where the Straparolan type in part or in whole is well represented. Emmanuel Cosquin includes two tales with clear connections in his Contes populaires de Lorraine. In ‘Les dons des trios animaux’ (The gifts of the three animals), three brothers set out on the road of life and soon part ways.74 He who takes the middle way encounters a lion, an eagle, and an ant disputing their respective portions of a dead donkey. The launching tale has been reduced to this bare formula, but serves to take the cobbler protagonist to the animal feud which, in resolving, wins him their gratitude and their magic powers. Tokens of the kind encountered in the story of Livoretto (III.2) reappear: the lion gives a chin whisker, the eagle a feather, and the ant a leg, each one with transformational power. The hero’s task is to liberate a princess kept by an ogre and a seven-headed beast (see Cesarino X.3). He enters the room of the princess as an ant and in becoming a man causes her considerable alarm. But in due course she instructs him in how to cut off the heads and to find the three eggs that will slay the giant (because one contains his soul), as well as generate a coach containing garments with which to cut a fine figure when they arrive back in the realm. The fairy tale ending seems nigh, except that the hero has a rival for the princess who, by kicking him into the water, is thereafter able to claim the hero’s deeds as his own, meanwhile terrifying the princess into compliance. The mermaid is replaced by a whale, who is induced to reveal, incrementally, the body of the hero by a musician who plays on his violin for longer and longer periods of time – showing first the head, then down to the waist, then to the thighs, and finally the entire body, whereupon the hero assumes his eagle form and makes his escape. This princess, tellingly, does not go in search of her spouse. Now with the gift of a gold-cornered handkerchief the hero reclaims his beloved and the king burns the pretender. How different the tale must seem with an ogre and hydra conquest instead of a joust, and with a whale in the place of a mermaid, and yet the three core elements – the grateful animal helpers, the bride quest, and the abduction by a sea creature – are sequentially intact and structurally paralleled, despite the substitutions.75 This is a story in the Straparolan tradition, but which in its details and texture is quite far removed from ‘Fortunio.’ We are thus challenged to imagine a stemma by which this story and Straparola’s might be connected to a common source.

In another, tellingly named ‘Fortuné’ (No. 50) and possessed of very particular echoes, the hero encounters the wolf, the eagle, and the ant and settles their argument, as in Straparola. From them he gains his shape-shifting powers. This princess, however, is held underground by a lion, at least most of the time, for on occasion she negotiates visits to see her sisters (as Beauty does in ‘Beauty and the Beast’). When the hero appears, having entered as an ant, the princess cries out and brings Lion running (just as the king comes running at the cries of Doralice), but the hero has already recovered his ant disguise (precisely as in Straparola). So far so good, but this story ends rather abruptly when the hero simply goes in quest of the egg that will slay the lion as soon as it is broken over his brow, a coup administered by the princess. The return to marriage and silence ever after requires but one more sentence. Cosquin makes his observation, however, that the story is the same as that employed by Straparola and that a common prototype emerges through the retrofitting of the implicit substitutions, a thesis further intimated by the common name of the two protagonists.76 The implications are that the name was also common to the folk source employed by Straparola, along with the types of animals, and that through three centuries of accidents and variations, these features, together with the signature configuration of episodes, persisted from narrator to narrator down to the midnineteenth century. The only alternative is that Straparola’s own tale influenced the later oral tradition.

The same configuration appears in one of the legendary tales collected by Campbell in the West Highlands (no. 4, var. 1). In this version a father promises his son to a siren, much as the mother in Straparola curses her son to be abducted by one. Thus the tale has a similar course to run, but in very different colours.77 In the interim, the boy settles a dispute between a lion, a wolf, and a falcon, thereby gaining transformational powers. He then delivers a princess from a dragon and marries her – an already familiar substitution. Later he is lured by an undine, and it is his loyal spouse who must surmise his fate, seek him out, and play her harp on the shore in order to see him brought to the surface in incremental fashion until he flies away as a falcon. Only then does the hero go on a quest to find the egg that will liberate his princess abducted in turn by the same siren. Therein lies a most strange variation that cannot delay us here, but it is fascinating to see the re-admixture of elements and the doubling of episodes which may inspire ever-evolving readings. Straparola’s story type was current as far as the edge of the Hebrides.78

It was also known among the East Indians, but of the story collected by Maive Stokes in the nineteenth century, its age and origins are difficult to determine. In the tale entitled ‘How the Raja’s Son Won the Princess Labam,’ the young hero not only acquires the help of ants and tigers whom he has befriended along the way, but also the services of a magic flying bed, a water-producing bowl, and a beating stick.79 With these he goes courting, secretly enters the princess’s bedroom, and leaves mysterious gifts behind, such as betel leaves and a shawl. To win the princess, however, he had ‘impossible’ tasks to perform, such as getting oil from mustard seed and slaying two demons, all of which he accomplishes with the help of his animal friends. At the end, the young couple returns to the hero’s homeland with the magic bag, bowl, bed, and stick.

In matters of style, Straparola appears to be his own man, although there are occasional passages in which his wording takes inspiration from other writers. He would not be the first to employ stylistic echoes; rather to the contrary, writers in that age were given to repeating phrases, proverbs, and touchstone passages gleaned from their fellows with a proficiency uncultivated by the modern stylist. In a sense, it is remarkable that in his choice of stories to imitate, Straparola was not a ‘Boccaccian,’ as were so many of his colleagues. Yet it is from Boccaccio that he would, from time to time, lift a stylistic passage. When Fortunio is newly arrived in Doralice’s room, terrifying her with his full human presence, at one moment he places his hand over her mouth, saying: ‘But if you continue to cry out, one of two misfortunes will befall us: either your honour and your fair name will be tarnished, or you will be the cause of your death and mine.’ In Boccaccio’s story of Ricciardo and Catella (III.6) in the Decameron, there is a similar passage in which he says to her, ‘and if you keep crying out, two things will come about. The first is that your honor and good fame will be lost. After that, it will lead to our deaths, both mine and yours.’ Turning to the originals, the wordings are as follows: ‘gridarete’ ‘griderrete,’ ‘due cose averrà’ ‘due cose ne verrano,’ ‘vostro chiaro nome e buona fama fie guasta’ ‘vostro onore e la vostra buona fama fia guasta.’ The sustained similarities would seem to leave little in doubt. The more perplexing question is why Straparola suddenly thought of or needed Boccaccio, or whether such passages simply floated about in the memories of Renaissance writers, ready for transcription when a parallel context arose. Do they represent buried echoes, secret intertextual pleasures, homage, or simply verbal tags that remained from his reading?

III. Fable 5
Isotta and the Cowherd Travaglino

ERITREA

Isotta, the wife of Lucaferro Albani of Bergamo, devises how she may trick Travaglino, her brother Emiliano’s cowherd, and thus prove him to be a liar. But she loses her husband’s farm and returns home worsted in her attempt and full of shame, bringing with her a bull’s head with gilded horns.

So great is the power of truth, our infallible guide, that according to the Holy Scriptures it would be easier for the heavens and the earth to pass away than for truth to fail. It has so far-reaching a character, according to the writings of the wise the world over, that truth conquers even time itself and not the inverse. As with oil, which ever rises when mixed in a vessel with water, so too will truth rise above lies. No one should marvel at this prologue of mine, for I have written it because I was moved by the malignity of a wicked woman who thought to lead a poor simple lad to tell a lie by her false words and cunning allurements, but only caused him to speak the plain truth to her own undoing. All this I propose to set before you in this fable of mine, which I hope, regarding both time and place, will prove more profitable than harmful to you all.

To begin then, noble ladies, in Bergamo, an ancient city of Lombardy, there lived not long ago a man of wealth and standing whose name was Pietromaria Albani. To this man were born two sons, Emiliano and Lucaferro. He possessed likewise two farms in a township not far away, one of them known by the name of Ghorem and the other by that of Pedrench. These two brothers, namely Emiliano and Lucaferro, divided the farms between them by lot after the death of Pietromaria their father, with Pedrench falling to the share of Emiliano, while Ghorem fell to Lucaferro. Now Emiliano owned a very fine flock of sheep, a herd of lusty young bullocks, and a second herd of productive cows, and one Travaglino, his herdsman, had charge over all these cattle. He was a man of the most approved truth and loyalty, a man who would forfeit his life rather than tell a lie, and who kept watch over his herds with incomparable zeal. Beside his troop of cows, Travaglino kept several very fine bulls, among them one of particular beauty. With Emiliano, this bull was so great a favourite that he had its horns gilded over with the finest gold. And as often as Travaglino went to Bergamo to look after his affairs, Emiliano never failed to ask about the welfare of his favourite bull with the gilded horns.

It came about that while Emiliano was deep in conversation with his brother Lucaferro and his friends, Travaglino came near the gathering and made a sign to Emiliano his master that he would like to speak to him, whereupon he withdrew from his brother and his friends and went apart with Travaglino where they held a long conversation. Now this happened so often that at last Lucaferro lost his patience and on one occasion became so indignant and enraged that he blurted out his feelings, ‘To tell you the truth, I’m surprised by your behaviour, Emiliano. You take more account of this rascal of a cowherd than you do of your own brother and your many trusted friends. Not once, but a thousand times I should say, you’ve gone away from us when we were together in the open street or playing games as if we had been so many animals only fit to be driven to the slaughterhouse, to go hobnobbing with that scruffy peasant Travaglino, your cowherd, launching into such long conversations that you’d have us believe you had matters of the greatest importance to discuss, while in fact you talk about things that aren’t worth a straw.’

Emiliano replied, ‘Lucaferro, my good brother, there is surely no need for you to fly into so hot a passion with me, heaping all these injurious words upon poor Travaglino, who, after all, is a very worthy young fellow and someone by whom I set great store both by reason of his efficiency in his calling and for his staunch loyalty to me. Moreover, he has yet another especially good quality, inasmuch as he would never tell a lie, not even to gain all the gold in the world, and he has other excellent traits besides for which I hold him in high esteem. Don’t be amazed, then, that I should treat him kindly.’

This answer only served to rouse the other’s bile, leading them first to bandy words in anger, and then to nearly put their hands to their swords. Finally, when Lucaferro saw how highly his brother praised Travaglino’s qualities, he said, ‘You speak loudly enough today of his efficiency, good faith, and truthfulness, but I tell you that this cowherd of yours is the most bungling, the most disloyal loon in the world, as well as the biggest liar that nature ever made. Moreover, I’ll pledge myself to bring all this to your attention and to let you hear him tell a falsehood before your very face.’ After they had spent a good deal of time wrangling, they ended by wagering their respective farms over the question, settling the affair in this fashion: that if Travaglino should be proved a liar, then Emiliano’s farm should pass to Lucaferro, but that if he should be found truthful, Emiliano would become the owner of Lucaferro’s. So, calling in a notary, they had a legal instrument drawn up and ratified by all the forms required in such cases.

After the brothers had parted from one another, and after their wrath and indignation had somewhat abated, Lucaferro began to regret the wager most intently, as well as the legal instrument enacted under the seal of the notary. He found himself haunted by the fear that in the end he might lose his farm, which was the only sustenance he had for himself and his family. One day, when he was in his house, Isotta his wife remarked that he was in a very melancholy mood. Not knowing the reason, she said to him, ‘Heigh-ho, my good husband! What can be the matter with you that you are so sad?’

Lucaferro answered her, ‘Wife, hold your tongue, for goodness’s sake. Don’t make my troubles any greater than they are already.’

With that, Isotta began to be very curious and handled her inquisition so well that at last her husband told her everything. Her face all radiant with satisfaction, she then said to him, ‘Is that all there is to put you into such a state of fear and agitation? Keep up your spirits, for you’ll see that I have enough wit about me to make this lout Travaglino tell lies to his master’s face not only once but a thousand times.’ When Lucaferro heard these words, he was much comforted.

Knowing full well that the beautiful bull with the gilded horns was a particular favourite with her brother-in-law, Emiliano, Isotta decided to lay out her lures in that direction first. So, having dressed herself in a provocative way and daintily painting her face, she made her way alone out of Bergamo and over to Pedrench. There she found Emiliano’s farm and Travaglino at work making ricotta cheese inside the house. She greeted him, saying, ‘Travaglino, I’ve come to pay you a visit, have a draught of milk, and eat some of your fine cheese.’

‘Welcome, my mistress,’ Travaglino replied. After seating her, he began to prepare the table, setting out his choice ewe’s-milk cheese and other good cheer to honour the lady. Yet he was most surprised to see her there at the farm all alone and looking so jolly, for it was by no means her custom to visit him in that way, making him doubt that she was actually Isotta, the wife of his master’s brother. Yet, because he had seen her many times before, he did his best to make much of her and to pay her the honour due her estate.

When the meal was over and the table cleared, and Travaglino was about to return to his cheese-making, Isotta said to him, ‘Travaglino, my good fellow, let me lend you a hand in making your cheese.’

‘Do whatever you’d like, Signora,’ he replied. Without saying another word, she tucked up her sleeves as far as her elbows, thus laying bare her fair, wanton, well-rounded arms white as snow, and set to work with a will to help Travaglino make his cheese, letting him, now and again, get a glimpse of her swelling bosom, where he might see her little breasts like two fine apples. Besides this, she artfully brought her own rosy cheek so close to Travaglino’s face that they almost touched one another. Now Travaglino, to be sure, was only a simple countryman and cowherd, but he was no dullard, and although he understood clearly enough from her looks and manner that she was all excited, he did what he could to distract her with words and glances that pretended to a complete ignorance of the ways of love. But Isotta, who began to persuade herself that the youth was on fire with love for her, felt herself suddenly so inflamed with amorous desire for him that she could scarce keep herself in bounds. But though Travaglino saw clearly enough the drift of her lascivious ways, he dared not venture a word about it, fearing that he might trouble and offend her unduly.

To put an end to Travaglino’s bashful dallying, the impassioned lady said to him, ‘Travaglino, what is the reason you stand there so mum and pensive and won’t venture to say a word to me? Maybe you’re thinking about asking me something? Go ahead, don’t keep your desire a secret, whatever it may be. You’d only be injuring yourself, not me, because I’m entirely at your pleasure and command.’

Travaglino, when he heard these words, came alive and made show of a great desire to enjoy her. The silly woman, seeing him moved at last by his amorous urges, knew the time had come to set about the business in the back of her mind, so on she went, ‘Travaglino, I’m going to ask you a very great favour, and if you are so churlish as to refuse it, I’ll have you plainly know that it’s because you hold my love for you most lightly. Moreover, your refusal would be the cause of my ruin or even of my death.’

To this speech, Travaglino replied, ‘Signora, for the love I feel for you, I’m ready to devote my life and all I own in this world to your service. Were you to ask me to carry out some enterprise of great difficulty, yet by reason of my love, and that which you have shown for me, I will accomplish it with ease.’

Isotta then took courage from his words and said, ‘And if you’re indeed my friend, such as I take you to be, I will know soon enough.’

‘Lay whatever command on me that you wish, Signora,’ replied Travaglino, ‘and you’ll see quite readily whether I’m your friend or not.’

‘All I want from you,’ said Isotta, ‘is the head of that bull of yours with the gilded horns. Give me that and you can do with me whatever you please.’

When he heard this request, Travaglino was nearly overcome with amazement, but he was so excited by the prickles of fleshly desire and the allurements of the lusty wench before him that he answered, ‘Signora, can this be all you would want of me? Not only will you have the head of the bull, but the sack it comes in – all this I willingly hand over to your keeping.’ Saying this, Travaglino plucked up heart and folded the lady in his arms and together they took part in the sweetest delights of love. When this was done, Travaglino cut off the bull’s head and, having put it in a sack, he handed it over to Isotta. She then set off for home smug in her satisfaction that she had accomplished her purpose and seized her pleasure into the bargain, albeit with more horns than farms.

Now Travaglino, as soon as the lady had taken her departure, began to feel rather troubled in mind, casting about for some excuse he might put upon his master when called to account for the death of the bull with the gilded horns which Emiliano so greatly loved. The wretched youth was held by these tormenting thoughts, having no idea what to say or do, when it occurred to him at last to take the branch of a bare tree, to dress it up with some of his own poor garments, and to make believe that it was Emiliano. Then, standing before this scarecrow, he proposed to make trial of what he would do and say whenever he should be brought face to face with his master. After he had set up the branch in a room of the house with his own cap on its head and certain of his garments upon its back, Travaglino left the chamber, then turned and reentered, saluting the branch, ‘Good day, my master.’

And then making answer to himself, he said, ‘I’m glad to see you, Travaglino. How do you find yourself, and how are things going at the farm? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything of you.’

‘I’m very well,’ replied Traviglino, ‘but I’ve been so busy recently that I haven’t found the time to come and see you.’

‘How did you leave the bull with the gilded horns?’ asked Emiliano.

Then Travaglino replied, ‘Master, the bull wandered into the woods and the wolves got him.’

‘So where’s his hide and his head with the gilded horns?’

Then Travaglino stood still and couldn’t think of a thing to say, and afterwards left the room all confused. After a little while, he came in again and started anew with his discourse, ‘God keep you, good master.’

‘And you too, Travaglino,’ said Emiliano, ‘and how prosper things at the farm? How is the bull with the gilded horns?’

‘I’m very well,’ said Travaglino, ‘praise God, but one day not long ago the bull broke out of the yard, and then after fighting with some of the other bulls, he was so heavily mauled by them that he is dead of his injuries.’

‘Then where are his skin and his gilded horns?’ asked Emiliano.

But Travaglino had no better an idea what to answer to this question than he did before. Finally, having gone through the same conversation several times, he gave the matter up in despair, entirely unable to devise a reasonable-sounding reply.

Now Isotta, who had by this time regained her house, said to her husband, ‘What will that poor lout Travaglino do when he sets about excusing himself to Emiliano for the death of the bull with the gilded horns his master is so fond of? How will he get out of this without telling a lie or two? Look, here’s the head of the bull, which I’ve brought back with me for a testimony against him whenever he starts his fibbing.’ But the lady didn’t mention a word to her husband about how she had made two fine horns for his brow bigger than those of a royal hart. When he saw the bull’s head, Lucaferro was overjoyed and could hardly contain his glee, certain that he now would win his wager. Yet, matters fell out rather differently, as you’ll find out in a moment.

After he had tried out several rounds of questions and answers with his scarecrow man, talking exactly as though he were with the master, and finding that no answers would serve his purposes, Travaglino decided, without further delay, to go and find the owner, no matter what might happen. Hence, having set out for Bergamo, he presented himself to his master, giving him a hearty salute. After greeting his herdsman in return, Emiliano said to him, ‘And what business has been on your mind lately, Travaglino, that you have let so many days go by without coming in, or without letting us have any news of you?’

Travaglino replied, ‘Master, the many jobs I have had in hand have kept me fully occupied.’

‘And how goes my bull with the gilded horns?’ asked Emiliano.

When he heard these words, poor Travaglino was entirely overcome with confusion. His face flushed as red as fire with shame and he was tempted to find some excuse for his fault and to hide the truth. But in the end, for fear of losing his good name, he took courage in hand and launched into the story of Isotta from beginning to end, how she had beguiled him, and how his dealings with her had ended in the death of the bull. Emiliano, as he listened to the story, was amazed beyond measure, but however great his fault might have been, Travaglino at least proved to be a truthful fellow and good to his word. So in the end, Emiliano won the wager and got the farm and Lucaferro gained nothing but a pair of horns for his own head, while his good-for-nothing wife, Isotta, in trying to dupe another, was magnificently duped herself and got nothing but shame for her trouble.

Once the tale was ended, everyone in that worthy company was vociferous in blaming the dissolute Isotta and equally loud in commending Travaglino, holding the silly wanton woman up to ridicule who had given herself to a herdsman in such a vile way because of her pestilential avarice. But seeing that Eritrea had not yet propounded her enigma, the Signora, glancing at her, made a sign that she must not interrupt the procedure they had followed so far, whereupon Eritrea, without further delay, recited her enigma.

I saw one day in fine spring weather,

A head and a breech full close together.

Another breech I likewise found

Squatting at ease upon the ground.

And one, as strong as any mule,

Stood quiet, subject to the rule

Of two, who in the head shone bright,

And looked with pleasure at the sight.

Meantime the head pressed closer still,

And ten there were who worked with will,

With dexterous grasp now up, now down,

No prettier sight in all the town.

If the ladies had made merry over the fable, they were no less pleased with the riddle. But seeing there was not one of them who could solve it, Eritrea spoke as follows, ‘My enigma, ladies and gentlemen, is intended to describe one who sits down under a cow and sets to work milking her. And for the same reason, he who milks the cow must keep his head close to the cow’s breech while, for his convenience, sits with his own breech on the ground. Although she is incredibly patient, yet to restrain her she is watched by the two eyes of the person milking her, and is stroked by two hands and the ten fingers which draw the milk from her.’ This enigma pleased them all greatly, including its interpretation. But seeing the stars had now disappeared from the heavens, except for the morning star, the Signora asked that the company should retire to rest, each and every one, but to return again the next evening under pain of fine and punishment.

The End of the Third Night

III.5 Commentary

This novelette is a meditation, not upon hypocrisy and the detection of lies through the course of time as taught by the proverbial sense of the opening figure, but upon the cognitive speculations entertained by rational creatures caught between the good of truth-speaking and the good of rationalized mendacity – the fashioning of information in the interests of self protection and self advancement. Travaglino vacillates, in fact, between his ability to entertain lies provisionally in his mind and his self-appraised inability to succeed in lying, labouring under the conviction that his mind would crumple under interrogation, or that his stuttering or facial expressions would give him away. This is a story about the expediency of the lie, the social costs in speaking the truth, and the lie detector factor that is built into the semiotics of the body itself. There is thus tension between the Travaglino touted as a man of principled truth, a man constitutionally incapable of lying, and the Travaglino who always opts for the truth only because he mistrusts his capacity to lie and get away with it.

In a more conventional thematic sense, this is a story about professional and personal integrity of such a high calibre that it is taken for remarkable, automatically imputing the counter-thesis that among humans in general, truth is a frail thing made relative to interest. The latter is what we expect of mere mortals. Thus all men, out of interest, are corruptible, and, moreover, when it comes to sexual opportunity, the male of the species is both gull to desire and a hypocrite born: he will copulate on the basis of attraction, accept risk in accordance with drives more basic than ethics, and prevaricate to cover his guilt according to the most plausible scenario. Where extraordinary virtue purports to render fellow mortals beyond temptation, it is felt as an injury to the lesser mortals of the fallen world who will be out to take them down. The story is archetypal in the nature of the proposed seduction; the protagonist must balance out his obligations to honour, duty, and ethical integrity with his drives as a biological being, sexual opportunism, and hedonic rewards. This story further destabilizes the reader by offering no clear option between the truth and the lie in light of the preliminary wager to which the protagonist is not made a party. What is truth in relation to a contest between a man willing to wager his farm, and in some versions even his life, to compel a lie and the intended victim who is reputedly incapable of lying, although he has every motive for doing so? Truth is both a condition of the ethical soul and a relation of fact as reported in the light of ultimate evidential demonstration. The story is a simple one, but one that merits reflection as a riddle concerning the options of the ethical man, veracity, and the drives of the natural man, self interest, and confabulation.

That moment of reflection concerning such matters is embodied in a mock dialogue with in inanimate object – a feature common to all versions of this story on record, indeed a defining and signature feature. It is the moment of simulated debate when the protagonist must come to terms with his options by pretending that his cap or his staff stuck in the ground is his king or patron to whom he must give account. He may even hold the trees in mock debate. In each instance, he projects a conversation, supplying both sides himself, in which he either tells lies and entertains the consequences, or tells the truth and entertains the consequences. This ability to create imagined drafts of future acts and to weigh their costs and benefits is one of humankind’s greatest evolutionary endowments. The future may be partially planned, barring contingency, by forecasting multiple consequences and choosing from among them the best course of action. Such provisional thinking is, at the same time, calibrated according to the best reasonable assessments of the self with regard to capacities, entitlements, and limitations. Travaglino’s advantage is not only controlled provisional drafts of future options, but knowledge of his own limitations and the preoccupations of his patron. Ultimately his greatest gamble is on the patron’s capacity for empathy, his ability to imagine the world from Travaglino’s point of view and to confess in all honesty that in the cowherd’s place, he too would have been unable to resist temptation. Clearly, something of all this must have registered with auditors through the centuries who, through their approbation and ensuing discussions, confirmed the value of the story, thereby inciting its preservation in the memories of scops, trouvères, and raconteurs over a considerable period of time. The story is brilliant in all these regards, an object lesson in cognitive computations.

At the same time, the story is a vehicle of fantasy concerning seduction. This is a tale of unexpected sexual opportunity, of excitement and anticipated jouissance, exploited with great sensuality in its ‘oriental’ redactions – fables in which a veiled beauty enters the room, alone, whereupon she raises her veil to reveal pure enchantment, followed by all the arts of seduction as prelude to making her outrageous demands. It is a tale of the predatory and absolute power women hold over men as tricksters in the guise of seductresses. The social history of the world offers infinite variations upon this universal vulnerability – all to minimum cautionary effect. It is a tale of the assailable and defenceless male, programmed by hormones, anticipated pleasure, and fantasy to accept the rare sexual opportunities that come his way, against lingering intimations of the high wages for random carnal knowledge. The story is profoundly poetic in that regard. At the very centre of this economy is not merely the power of beauty or the blandishments and cajolery of the siren, but the whim of the female that must be met, the appetites of a pregnant woman, or the costly dare of slaughtering a ‘fetishized’ animal. It is about the absurd challenges imposed by women and assumed by men as their destiny in the game of ‘show’ prowess and sexual reward. The entire age of chivalry was built upon this principle of female biddings and challenges and male ritual exploits in a climate of danger and risk. Women are entitled to make demands in exchange for their favours, and the macho ego is too easily fired to calculate the risks. For some women, raising the ante in relation to the power of their own beauty becomes little more than a snare.

Evidence for the history of this undoubtedly ancient Eastern story is both scant and late, calling for further investigation. The tale appeared in the West in two closely related Turkish versions (they are actually the same tale) suggesting that it was born among the Ottomans and entered Europe at an unspecified moment, there to experience further elaboration and diversification. The story as a Turkish tale, per se, must be assigned to the reign of Amurath II (Murad II, 1421–51), according to the ‘princeps’ manuscript, eventually translated by François Pétis de la Croix (1625–95), in which the ruler is named. But clearly the Ottomans were themselves literary retainers of a more ancient tradition, for the stories were not only in circulation in Europe before that date, but the Ottoman ‘author’ acknowledges his debt to Arabic originals from unspecified and possibly non-surviving works. Among these tales is the quite splendid ‘History of Saddyq, Master of the Horse.’92 Togaltimur-Can, king of Tartary, employed Saddyq (True) as his horse master because of his inability to lie. But Vizier Tangribirdi hated him without cause, apart from envy, and sought Saddyq’s demise. As a force at court, he was proud of his ability to ruin courtiers at will and for that further reason he was miffed by the horse master’s unassailable virtue. Taking up her father’s cause, Hoschendan (Shapely) prepared herself for the mission both in matters of make-up and wardrobe. At the employee’s door, she dismisses her slaves and enters alone to practice all her incomparable arts of seduction – a portion of the tale no doubt relished by tellers and hearers alike. Transported by desire, Saddyq becomes putty in her hands, but not without remonstrance and a long period of resistance. She craves a repast of horse liver and heart – an Ottoman delicacy – consisting of the organs of the most prized animal in the stable. Saddyq offers to buy a horse in its place, but she would accept no substitutions. He must acquiesce to her malicious conditions in order to satisfy his eroto-frenzy. After their mutual supper, she at least paid her debt throughout the night before repairing home to tell her father of her exploit – a dear price paid to appease a parent otherwise delighted by her success. The vizier then relates all to the king, leaping over the fact of his daughter’s sexual involvement. The horse master is called to account. Meanwhile, stricken by the cognizance of his own folly, the protagonist carries out the mock interview, speaking to his cap as though it were King Togaltimur. After rehearsing both responses, he realizes that in mendacity as in truth he would be cut to pieces, and that truth is hence the better way to go. After the real interview, the king turns to the vizier and asks for an appropriate punishment, whereupon the latter recommends death by slow roasting. There has been no wager and no victory in which the king might have found consolation for his loss. Rather, as magistrate, he simply opts for mercy over justice because his horse master had told the truth, confessing that in his place he would have been equally tempted. As for the vizier, his dirty secret does not come out, and yet his disappointment drives him to his sickbed, realizing that his daughter had prostituted herself for nothing. Read in parallel with Straparola’s ‘Isotta and the Cowherd, Travaglino,’ their association is undeniable – they are the same story. But clearly, though separated by perhaps no more than 100 years, they belong entirely to their respective worlds, the one of sultans and viziers, of veiled beauties and Ottoman court culture, the other of local farms and the craft of a libertine housewife. Were the Ottoman tale a presumed source, the comparatist must account for the substitutions during so short a period of time that would have permitted the one to have evolved into the other, or simply credit Straparola with the transformation. But, in fact, despite its important status as a survivor from the tradition, this remote analogue is best considered a late literary development from an earlier tradition, the existence of which is witnessed by a sole early European survivor. In brief, while the tale may be Eastern in origin, we cannot assume that the earliest surviving Eastern version is to be valued necessarily as a source.93

Inversely, however, turning to the earliest version on record in the West can be equally baffling. It is No. 111 of the Gesta romanorum, ‘Of Vigilance in our Calling,’ in which a gentleman has a cow of such prize for its white colour and pure milk that he tips its horns with gold.94 We are off to a good start, for in dating the Gesta to 1300 or shortly thereafter, we have a version that shares an important detail with Straparola’s and thereby suggests a continuum over the intervening two and a half centuries linking the two together. Nevertheless, this early version of the tale of the cherished white cow is a diminished and ‘contaminated’ effort that can only have been extrapolated from a more coherent version, an oikotype that can be imagined only through reconstruction. Either the source tale employed by the Gesta’s compiler, or the compiler himself, conflated this miniature novella with the classical tale of Argus, Io, and Hermes, for the keeper of the herd is no other than Argus of the hundred eyes, while the would-be thief of the gold-tipped horns is Mercury who, with his music and recitations, puts the guardian to sleep a few eyes at a time before cutting off his head. It is a botched job of the first order, for Argos has, indeed, an opportunity to talk to his staff in an effort to rehearse his options (a feature maintained down to the nineteenth century), but he has no occasion for testing his choices or for confirming his virtues in the presence of his patron. In refusing to sell the animal, he is simply slain. Yet the inclusion of these two critical details, the goldtipped horns and the interview with the staff, some 250 years before the Piacevoli notti, implies the story’s European lineage reaches back not only before Straparola, or before the Ottomans had gained a firm hold on their new homeland in Asia Minor, but before the Gesta itself, having fallen away from a prototype uncontaminated by the intrusion of such classicizing overlays. There is little other explanation for the existence of Straparola’s version in the form we know it. This tale, thus, must have belonged to European folk literature for a period of 700 years, derived at an early date from the Arabic lore that contributed to the tradition of the Sages and Viziers.95 The present tale is presumably a transcription of the version (or one of the versions) of this story tradition current in the Veneto during Straparola’s lifetime. Such stories must have existed whereby the narrative type was carried from the thirteenth century down to the nineteenth.

These scattered and highly contrasting literary snapshots of a ‘living’ story produce more innuendo than hard inflections about the history of the tradition except to confirm its existence in three remarkably contrasting literary renditions from three distinct periods. Just when this oriental tale began its journey in the West is a matter for speculation, and the extent to which it was subject to the diasporic effects of oral culture must be sketched in from only a few disparate examples. Thus, Straparola’s tale becomes a precious mid-point marker of the state of its passage from the Middle Ages to the modern era, where indeed it reappears, but in limited numbers.

Another intervening version, published in 1800 in the Volcks–Sagen of Johann Carl Christoph Nachtigal (Otmar), confirms the wide (and necessary) circulation of the story in the eighteenth century, this one coming from northern Europe. It has been enhanced in full comic, novelistic fashion and thoroughly laundered with regard to matters of sexual license and shameful conduct. This plot comes down to a wager between two friendly bishops, with a rather expensive wine cask at play between them. The local bishop, Heinrich, has a pet ram in the custody of his trusty herder, Conrad. The visiting bishop, miffed by Heinrich’s familiarity with his rustic, whom he teases about getting married, and in whose categorical honesty he has an expressed confidence, makes up his mind to bring down the herder’s credit. He puts a bad construction upon all such men in the service echelons before taking his leave; the visiting bishop is a snob. Back at home he calls upon his man, Peter, for advice, who is like a court fool and advisor to him. Peter proposes that they enlist Lise, Conrad’s heartthrob, to purchase the ram from him or forswear their eventual marriage. Conrad offers her far more in its place, but she insists, saying that she had already promised that specific animal to another and then begins to shed tears, while hinting in accusatory tones at the explanatory lies he could employ. The herder then drives his crook in the ground and thereupon hangs his coat to represent the bishop. In a dialogue with himself he tries out all the excuses, realizing that he could never carry off such lies. So he decides in favour of the truth, gives the ram to Lise for her house money, and prepares to confront the two bishops, who are by that time waiting for him. The ram is in Peter’s stall by then and he is gloating over his imminent victory. But Conrad tells the truth in every detail, leaving the home bishop both angered yet delighted, once the truth of it all is confirmed. The visiting bishop admits to their plot and its failure. So Bishop Heinrich offers to officiate at the herder’s wedding and give the newlyweds half his flock. The visiting bishop returns the ram and has the great cask built that is still seen in Halberstadt today. This is a literary treatment in keeping with late eighteenth-century German sensibilities, but at the core is the signature action of the failed temptation, all speaking to the wisdom of the title: ‘Erlich währt am längsten!’ (Honesty is the best policy).96 This literary adaptation does double duty as an exemplum upon a text and as explanatory lore about the origins of the Halberstadt cask.

But there are folk versions as well. The two to follow are both from Sicily, the one collected by the redoubtable Giuseppe Pitrè, and the other by Laura Gonzenbach, as retold by Italo Calvino. In the first, a king has a calf so beautiful he calls it ‘Golden Horn.’97 That vestige is all that now remains of the golden-tipped horns of Straparola. Its keeper is called ‘Old Man Truth’ who, as in the sixteenth-century tale, is frequently called to account, responding to the king in the same formulaic interview of questions and answers. This same incantation is repeated when the herdsman reviews his options in talking to the trees along the way to the palace. The king’s ministers, hearing the boasts of the keeper’s unfailing veracity, take this as a challenge and profess they will make him lie. Such is their motivation, without wager or envy. In lieu of the seduction plot, two of the ministers dress up as women, one of them padded out to look pregnant; together they go to the country to pay the keeper a visit. There the pregnant one puts up such a fuss about her craving for calf meat, accompanied by dizziness and swooning, that the keeper is brought to slaughter the prized animal. On the way to the palace, he repeats all the versions of the excuses with which he has been prompted, but rejects them because the king would demand evidence he could not supply. Upon hearing the truth, the king experiences a dual reaction: loss over the animal but rejoicing that he had won the wager, lifting the employee to even higher esteem. As for the ministers, there are no repercussions. The tale, collected in Palermo, simply is what it is, a memorable anecdote providing clear record of the survival of the story chosen by Straparola.

Gonzenbach found the tale, ‘Massaru Verità,’ in Catania which Calvino later rendered as ‘Steward Truth.’98 In this version, the king has four prized animals kept by his steward who, every Saturday, must go to report on their well-being. During each trip, he rehearses the stock dialogue, talking to his hat as a stand-in for the king. A jealous minister vows to make him lie, but fails to hit upon the means until his wife comes along with a solution of her own. She too primps herself up for the occasion, and for the arrival of such a beauty the steward bustles over his hospitality. But in lieu of seduction, she too feigns pregnancy and craves roast beef that can only be provided by the slaughter of the choicest calf. Like her counterpart, she conducts a charade of moaning accompanied by predictions of imminent death unless she is quickly satisfied. Less sociable than her predecessors, she dines on the fatted calf and leaves in haste. In this tale, the staff as interlocutor makes a return to which the steward propounds one lie after the other concerning the fourth animal, after rehearsing the prevailing truth about the other three. On the way to the palace he repeats the formula, now with the trees, until he reaches a more satisfactory conclusion. We are not told which until he delivers the truth to his master, but we could have guessed. In this tale, both king and minister had wagered their lives, so that in speaking the truth, the king’s life is spared and the minister’s is forfeited. Each tale reveals the folk tale process at work, both in relation to each other, and in relation to a prototype recorded by Straparola predating these by more than 300 years.

Only two examples of the story’s pan-European distribution can be cited here, the first one telling of ‘Faithful Svend’ from Danish Fairy Tales, in which two men wager their estates over Svend the cowherd’s flawless loyalty and truthfulness.99 Svend’s calumniator in the matter takes the bet and sends him with a message to his wife. She gets him drunk, makes him gamble away his fine clothes lent for the occasion, and turfs him out. On the road back he engages in the mock interviews, setting his tattered hat upon his walking stick, rehearsing lies that he cannot trust himself to deliver. By telling the truth he wins the bet and gains the forfeited estate for himself. It is a rather trivialized and laundered version, lacking all erotic play, but shows the story’s currency in the North. The second comes from Portugal. ‘O boi Cardil’ (The ox named Cardil) is the story of the king’s criado who could never tell a lie. When the king boasted of him, the hearer laughed and began to plot his downfall. His wife participated in the would-be sex scandal that involved boi Cardil’s slaughter. The king’s questions, the ritual answers, and then the pure truth all fall into place.100

This story must have been a traditional vignette by the time it came to Straparola, whether from an oral or a literary source. It is easy to imagine its transmission through late medieval jest books, or collections of fabliaux, or exempla, this one on the advantages of unflinching truthfulness, but none such have come to light. Should one turn up in the wake of the Gesta romanorum that has been overlooked here, it would come as no surprise. Inversely, just as the story was in circulation among the folk in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it must likewise have been in circulation in the sixteenth, thereby supplying Straparola with his precise model. This is a wager story, a seduction plot, a tale of cuckoldry as the deceived wife carries away her gold-tipped horns to her husband, only to forfeit the farm. And always it is a tale about truth as the best policy with an amusing, ironic twist.

III. Fable 4
Fortunio, the King’s Daughter, and the Mermaid

III.4 Commentary

III. Fable 5
Isotta and the Cowherd Travaglino

III.5 Commentary

III. Fable 4Fortunio, the King’s Daughter, and the Mermaid

III.4 Commentary

III. Fable 5Isotta and the Cowherd Travaglino

III.5 Commentary

III. Fable 4
Fortunio, the King’s Daughter, and the Mermaid

III. Fable 5
Isotta and the Cowherd Travaglino