Italian Folktales (103 page)

“But tell me, dear, did you ever carry the princess any message?”

“Never, Viceroy.”

At that, the king regained his senses. “Oh, my wife, you were innocent!” he began crying. “Oh, dear wife, I killed you without cause!”

“Please calm down, Majesty,” said the viceroy. “We may yet find a remedy.”

“How can matters be remedied, now that she is dead? Oh, my wife, my wife, I've lost you forever.”

The viceroy went behind a screen, dressed up like the princess she actually was, put back her hair that had been cut off, and reappeared before mother-in-law, prince, and court.

“Who are you?” cried the queen.

“Your daughter-in-law! Don't you recognize me?” But the prince already had his wife in his arms, hugging and kissing her.

The sentence had been delivered while she was still disguised as the viceroy: the old woman was to be burned at the stake, and the English lord guillotined. No time was lost in executing the order.

The great queen wrote her son, the emperor of Brazil, about the episode, and he still marvels to this day. “Children, children, just fancy: my secretary was my sister-in-law, and I never suspected it!”

The two captains—the one who killed a dog instead of the princess, and the one who rescued her and took her to Brazil—were elevated to the rank of court grandees. And all the sailors were awarded red pompons for their berets.

 

(
Palermo
)

159

The son of a merchant became an orphan at an early age along with his sister, who was the apple of her brother's eye. He got his education, then put his services at the disposal of the king of Portugal. His penmanship so delighted the eye that the king engaged him as his secretary. Now it happened that certain letters written by him went to the king of Spain, who exclaimed, “What exquisite handwriting! This scribe would make me an excellent secretary.” So he wrote to the king of Portugal:

 

I have read your letter, and I am full of admiration for the beautiful hand your secretary writes. In the name of the friendship that binds us, I beseech you to let me have him to be my secretary, since there is no one in Spain who writes so handsomely.

These kings always made a point of showing one another the utmost courtesy. Therefore the king of Portugal, however much he hated to lose his secretary, told the young man to go to his colleague.

“Majesty,” inquired the youth, “what am I to do about my sister? I can't just walk off and leave her.”

“Don Giuseppe,” answered the king, “I have no idea. All I know is that you must go. Your sister is a good maiden, and stays to herself. Tell your maidservant to keep an eye on her, and you will have nothing to worry about.”

The youth had no choice but inform his sister of the situation. “Dear little sister, here's how matters stand: I am obliged to go away, the king of Spain wants me as his secretary. You will remain behind with our maidservant. When I am all settled, I'll send for you to come to Spain too.” The sister burst into tears. “So we won't feel so far apart,” he continued, “let's have our portraits painted. I'll take yours with me, and you'll keep mine here with you.” That they did.

The king of Spain heartily welcomed Don Giuseppe and immediately put him to writing, while he stood by admiring the beautiful script. He became so fond of this new secretary that he would say, no matter what problem arose in the kingdom, “Don Giuseppe, you take care of that . . . Use your own judgment, in which I have complete confidence. Whatever you do is well done!”

As a result, intense jealousy spread among all the highest placed men at the court—the squire, the original secretary, the knight—and they sought some way to tarnish Don Giuseppe's reputation.

The squire went to the king and said, “Good for you, Majesty! You certainly found the right man! I'm referring to Don Giuseppe whose praises Your Majesty is always singing! Goodness knows what he is secretly about while all your trust is in him!”

“What are you saying? What is the matter?”

“What's the matter? Every day in his room he takes out a portrait, contemplates it, kisses it, and weeps. And then he hides it!”

So the king went and surprised Don Giuseppe kissing the portrait. “May one ask whom you are kissing, Don Giuseppe?”

“My sister, Majesty.”

The king looked at the portrait and saw such a beautiful maiden that he could not help but be impressed. Her brother then proceeded to relate all her charms.

But also present was the squire, who could never resist putting Don Giuseppe in the wrong. He glanced over the king's shoulder at the portrait and snorted, “Who, this woman? But I know her and have had dealings with the same.”

“With my sister?” exclaimed the youth. “But she's never been out of doors! How could you have seen her when no one else has ever laid eyes on her?”

“Yes, I have had to do with your sister.”

“Liar!”

After much arguing back and forth, the king interrupted them. “Let the matter be settled once and for all: if it is true, Squire, that you have had to do with Don Giuseppe's sister, then you have one month to bring in proof of it. If you produce it, Don Giuseppe will be beheaded. Prove nothing and
you
will be beheaded.”

It was a royal order, and final. The squire departed. When he reached Palermo, he began sounding out everybody on this maiden, and they all said she was a rare beauty, but that no one had ever seen her, since she never left the house. Days and days went by, and every day the squire could feel the ax a little closer to his neck. He was thus walking around one evening wringing his hands and saying, “What can I possibly do?” when an old woman approached him. “Please give me something, kind Sir, I'm starving!”

“Off with you, cursed hag!”

“Give me something, and I will help you.”

“I'd like to see the person who could help me right now!”

“Tell me the trouble, and I'll help you.”

So the squire told her everything.

“What! Is that all? Leave everything to me and consider youself already in possession of the needed evidence.”

It poured down rain that night, and there was much lightning and thunder. The old woman leaned against the front door, shivering with cold and pitifully weeping. At the sound of her wails, the mistress of the house, who was none other than Don Giuseppe's sister, said, “Poor old thing! Bring her inside!”

The front door was opened, and the old woman stepped inside all huddled up. “Brrrrrrrr! I'm freezing to death!”

The lady immediately seated her at the fireside and had food served to her. Sly as could be, the old woman took in everything, noting in which room the mistress slept. When the mistress at last went off to bed and, exhausted by the long evening of stormy weather, fell asleep, the old woman tiptoed into her bedchamber, lifted the covers, and gazed at the maiden from head to foot. On her right shoulder grew three little hairs that were like three golden threads. With a tiny pair of scissors the old woman snipped them and tied them up in the corner of her handkerchief. Then she drew the covers back over the maiden and quietly returned to her own bed.

She huddled up again and started wailing anew. “I can't get my breath! I can't stay here any longer, let me out!”

The mistress of the house woke up and said to her maid, “Let that old woman out, or none of us will get a wink of sleep.”

The squire was walking up and down in front of the palace. The old woman gave him the three hairs and walked away with a handsome reward. The next day the squire sailed back to Spain.

“Majesty,” he said, going before the king, “here is the sign of Don Giuseppe's sister! Three gold hairs from her right shoulder!”

“Woe is me!” said Don Giuseppe, covering his face with his hands.

“Now I will give you a month's time: defend yourself, or the sentence will be carried out. Guards!”

The guards came forth, surrounded the secretary, and marched him off to prison, where he was given one slice of bread and one glass of water daily. But the jailer, seeing what a good person the prisoner was, began smuggling to him the same food as the other prisoners received. What pained Don Giuseppe most of all, however, was that he couldn't write his sister a single line. He finally appealed to the jailer. “Would you grant me a favor? Would you allow me to write my sister a note, and then post it yourself?”

The jailer had a big heart and said, “Go ahead.” So Don Giuseppe wrote his sister, telling her everything that had happened and how he was about to be beheaded on her account. The jailer took the letter and posted it.

The sister, who, having received no word from her brother up to now, was worried, and anxiously read the letter. “My dear little brother!” she cried. “How could such misfortune have befallen us?” She began thinking how she could help him.

She sold all their possessions and property, and with the proceeds bought as many fine jewels as she could. Then she went to a skillful goldsmith and said, “Make me a beautiful boot set with all my jewels.” Next, she ordered a mourning dress of solid black, and set sail for Spain.

Upon her arrival in Spain she heard the sound of trumpets, and what should she see but soldiers leading a man blindfolded to the scaffold. Wearing her long black dress, with only a stocking on one foot and the marvelous boot on the other, she began running through the crowd crying, “Have mercy, Your Majesty! Have mercy!”

For this beautiful lady dressed in black, with one foot so magnificently shod and the other one bare, everyone made way. The king heard her. “Don't lay a hand on her,” he said to the soldiers. “What is the matter?” he asked her.

“Have mercy, Majesty, and justice be done! Have mercy, Majesty, and justice be done!”

“It is granted. Speak!”

“Majesty, your squire, after enjoying my person, stole my boot that formed a pair with this one”—and she showed the boot set with diamonds and other precious stones.

The king was dumbfounded. He turned to the squire. “And you were able to do such a deed! After taking your pleasure with this young woman, you stole her boot! And you now have the nerve to stand before me!”

The squire fell into the trap. He replied, “But, Majesty, I never saw this lady before!”

“What do you mean you never saw me! Be careful what you say!”

“I swear I never saw you before!”

“If that is so, then why did you claim to have had dealings with me?”

“When did I ever say that?”

“When you swore you had known the sister of Don Giuseppe, so as to send him to his death!”—whereupon she made herself known to the king.

The squire was forced to confess his fraud. Seeing the sister's innocence, the king ordered Don Giuseppe freed and brought to his side, while the squire was blindfolded and led to the scaffold. Brother and sister embraced, weeping for joy. “Off with his head!” ordered the king, and the squire was beheaded then and there. The king returned to the palace with the brother and sister and, seeing how beautiful and virtuous she was, he asked her to marry him.

 

They were as happy as happy could be,

While here we sit, picking our teeth.

 

(
Palermo
)

 

160

Once, it is told, there was a king of Spain who had a left-hand squire and a right-hand squire. The left-hand squire was married to a “Madonna,” so beautiful, gracious, and modest was she. In all the time he had been at court, the right-hand squire had never laid eyes on that beautiful countenance, and was half angry over this.

He took to telling the king, “Majesty, you can't imagine what a handsome wife the left-hand squire has! A magnificent lady indeed, Majesty!”

On another day, he said, “Majesty, this morning I caught a glimpse of your squire's wife, and the sight left me speechless. There simply aren't words to tell you how lovely she is!”

And still another time. “Would you believe, Majesty, that the left-hand squire's lady grows lovelier all the time?”

Overnight the king was filled with desire to see this beauty for himself. He mounted his horse and rode with his knights up to the left-hand squire's palace. At that very moment the lady happened to be at the window. The king felt his heart skip several beats. He looked at her as they rode by, but that was all he could do, since it was unfitting for a king to stop and stare up at a window, lest the people gossip. He came back by the palace on his way home, but the lady, modest soul that she was, had withdrawn from the window. Unable to let matters rest, the king went home to his palace and ordered no one to leave it until his return: he had got the bright idea of calling on the lady while her husband was under orders to stay inside the royal palace.