[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
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.”
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
=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.
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
=Proem.=
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
=The Fables and Enigmas of Messer Giovanni Francesco Straparola da
Caravaggio.=
=Book the First.=