=Pre Scarpafico, having been once duped by three robbers, dupes them
thrice in return, and lives happily the rest of his days.=
The end of Signora Alteria’s story, which she has set forth with so
great skill, supplies me with a theme for my own, which peradventure may
please you no less than hers, though on one point it will show a
variance, inasmuch as she pictured to us Pre Severino neatly entrapped
by Cassandrino; while in the story I am about to tell you, Pre
Scarpafico threw the net no less adroitly over divers knaves who were
trying to get the better of him.
Near to Imola, a city always plagued by factious quarrels and ultimately
destroyed thereby, there lived once upon a time a priest named
Scarpafico, who served the village church of Postema. He was well to do,
but miserly and avaricious beyond measure, and he had for housekeeper a
shrewd and clever woman named Nina, who was so alert and pushing that
she would never scruple to tell any man whatever might come into her
mind. And because she was faithful and prudent in administering his
affairs he held her in high esteem.
Now when good Pre Scarpafico was young he was as jolly a priest as there
was to be met in all the country round; but at this time age had made
walking on foot irksome to him, so the good Nina was always persuading
him to buy a horse, in order that his days might not be shortened
through too great fatigue. At last Scarpafico, overborne by the
persuasions of his servant, went one day to the market, and having seen
there a mule which appeared exactly to suit his need, bought it for
seven golden florins.
It happened that there were three merry fellows at the market that day,
of the sort which liefer lives on the goods of others than on its own
earnings—as sometimes happens even in our own time—and, as soon as they
saw the bargain struck, one said to the others, ‘Comrades, I have a mind
that the mule yonder should belong to us.’ ‘But how can that be
managed?’ said the others. Then the first speaker replied, ‘We must post
ourselves along the road he will take on his journey home, about a
quarter of a mile apart one from another, and as he passes each one must
affirm positively that the mule he has bought is not a mule at all, but
an ass, and if we are brazen enough in our declaration the mule will be
ours.’
Accordingly they started from the market and stationed themselves
separately on the road, as they had appointed, and when Pre Scarpafico
approached the first of the thieves, the fellow, feigning to be on the
road to the market, said, ‘God be with you, sir!’ to which Scarpafico
replied, ‘And welcome to you, my brother.’ ‘Whence come you, sir?’ said
the thief. ‘From the market,’ Scarpafico answered. ‘And what good
bargains have you picked up there?’ asked the thief. ‘This mule,’ said
Scarpafico. ‘Which mule?’ exclaimed the robber. ‘Why, the mule I am
riding,’ returned Scarpafico. ‘Are you speaking in sober truth, or do
you mock me?’ asked the thief; ‘because it seems to me to be an ass, and
not a mule.’ ‘Indeed,’ Scarpafico answered, and without another word he
went his way. Before he had ridden far he met the next robber, who
greeted him, ‘Good morrow, sir, and where may you come from?’ ‘From the
market,’ answered Scarpafico. ‘And was there aught worth buying?’ said
the robber. ‘Yes,’ answered Scarpafico, ‘I bought this mule which you
see.’ ‘How, sir,’ said the robber, ‘do you mean to say you bought that
for a mule, and not for an ass? What rascals must be about, seeing you
have been thus cheated!’ ‘An ass, indeed,’ replied Scarpafico; ‘if
anyone else should tell me this same tale, I will make him a present of
the beast straightway.’ Then going his way, he soon met the third thief,
who said to him, ‘Good morrow, sir. You come mayhap from the market?’ ‘I
do,’ replied Scarpafico. ‘And what may you have bought there?’ asked the
robber. ‘I bought this mule which I am riding,’ said Scarpafico. ‘Mule,’
said the fellow; ‘do you really mean what you say? Surely you must be
joking when you call that beast a mule, while it is really an ass.’
Scarpafico, when he heard this tale, said to the fellow, ‘Two other men
I have met told me the same story, and I did not believe them, but now
it appears certain that the beast is an ass,’ and having dismounted from
the mule, he handed it over to the thief, who, having thanked the priest
for it, went off to join his companions, leaving good Pre Scarpafico to
make his way home on foot.
As soon as he came to his house he told Nina how he had bought a nag at
the market, thinking it to be a mule, but that it had proved to be an
ass; and how, having been told that he had mistaken one beast for the
other by several people he had met on the road home, he had given the
beast to the last of them. ‘Ah, you poor simpleton!’ cried Nina. ‘Cannot
you see they have played you a trick? I thought you were cleverer than
this. In truth, they would not have fooled me thus.’ ‘Well, it is no use
to grieve over it,’ said Scarpafico. ‘They may have played me a trick,
but see if I do not play them two in return. Be sure that these fellows,
after having once fooled me, will not rest content with that, but will
soon be weaving some new plot whereby they may plunder me afresh.’
Not far from Pre Scarpafico’s house there lived a peasant, who had
amongst his goats two which were so much alike that it was impossible to
tell one from the other. These two goats the priest bought, and the next
day ordered Nina to prepare a good dinner for himself and some friends
he proposed to invite—some boiled veal, and roast fowls and meat, and to
make savoury sauces thereto, and a tart of the sort she was accustomed
to serve him with. Then he took one of the goats and tied it to a hedge
in the garden, and having given it some fodder, he put a halter round
the neck of the other and led it off to the market, where he was at once
accosted by the three worthies of the late escapade. ‘Welcome, good sir,
and what may be your business here to-day? You are come, no doubt, to
make another good purchase?’ To which Scarpafico replied, ‘I have come
to buy divers provisions, for some friends are coming to dine with me;
and if you will consent to join our feast it will please me greatly.’
The cunning rascals willingly accepted Scarpafico’s invitation, and he,
when he had bought everything he required, bestowed all his purchases on
the back of the goat, and said to the beast, ‘Now go home and tell Nina
to boil this veal, and to roast the fowls and the meat, and tell her,
moreover, to make savoury sauce with these spices, and a fair tart. Do
you understand? Now go in peace.’ And with these words he drove off the
laden goat, which, being left to go where it would, wandered away, and
what befell it no one knows. Scarpafico and his companions and some
other friends of his strolled about the market-place till the hour of
dinner, and then they all repaired to the priest’s house, where the
first thing they saw on entering the garden was the goat which
Scarpafico had tied to the hedge, calmly ruminating after its meal of
herbage. The three adventurers at once set it down as the goat which Pre
Scarpafico had despatched home with his purchases, being beyond measure
amazed thereat; and when they were all come in, the priest said to Nina,
‘Have you prepared everything as the goat told you?’ and she,
understanding his meaning, replied, ‘Yes, sir, in a few minutes the
roast loin and the fowls and the boiled veal will be ready, and the
sauce made with spices, and the tart likewise; all as the goat told me.’
The three robbers, when they saw set forth the roast and boiled and the
tart, and heard what Nina said, were more astonished than ever, and at
once began to cast about how they might get possession of the goat by
theft; but when the dinner had come to an end, and they found themselves
as far as ever from compassing their felonious purpose, they said to
Scarpafico, ‘Sir, will you do us the favour to sell us that goat of
yours?’ But Scarpafico replied that he had no wish to part with it, for
it was worth more money than the world held; but, after a little, he
consented to oblige them, and to take in exchange for it fifty golden
florins. ‘But,’ he added, ‘take warning, and blame me not afterwards if
the goat does not obey you as it obeys me, for it knows you not or your
ways.’
But the three adventurers heeded not this speech of Scarpafico, and,
without further parley, carried off the goat, rejoicing in their
bargain. When they came to their homes, they said to their wives, ‘See
that you prepare no food to-morrow save that which we shall send home by
the goat.’ On the morrow they went to the piazza, where they purchased
fowls and divers other viands, and these they packed on the goat’s back,
and directed it to go home, and to tell to their wives all they ordered.
The goat, thus laden, when it was set at liberty, ran away into the
country and was never seen again.
When dinner-hour was come the three confederates straightway went home
and demanded of their wives whether the goat had come back safely with
the provisions, and whether they had duly cooked these according to the
directions given. The women, amazed at what they heard, cried out, ‘What
fools and numskulls you must be to suppose that a beast like that would
do your bidding! You surely have been prettily duped. With your cheating
other people every day, it was quite certain you would be caught
yourselves at last.”
As soon as the three robbers saw that Scarpafico had verily made fools
of them, besides having eased their pockets of fifty golden florins,
they were hotly incensed against him, and, having caught up their arms,
they set forth to find him, swearing they would have his life. But the
cunning priest, who fully expected that the robbers would seek vengeance
upon him when they should discover how he had tricked them, had taken
counsel with Nina thereanent. ‘Nina,’ he said, ‘take this bladder, which
you see is full, and wear it under your dress; then, when these robbers
come, I will put all the blame on you, and in my rage will make believe
to stab you; but I will thrust the knife in this bladder, and you must
fall down as if you were dead. The rest you will leave to me.’
Scarcely had Scarpafico finished speaking when the confederates arrived,
and at once made for Scarpafico as if to kill him. ‘Hold, brothers,’ he
cried, ‘what you would bring against me is none of my doing, but the
work of this servant of mine, most likely on account of some affront of
which I know nothing.’ And, turning towards Nina, he struck his knife
into the bladder, which he had previously filled with blood, and she
forthwith feigned to be dead and fell down, while the blood gushed in
streams about where she lay. Then the priest, looking upon his work,
made great show of repentance, and bawled out lustily, ‘Oh, wretched man
that I am! what have I done in thus foolishly slaying this woman who was
the prop of my old age? How shall I manage to live without her?’ But
after a little he fetched a bagpipe, made according to a fancy of his
own, and blew a tune upon it, until at last Nina jumped up safe and
sound, as if recalled to life.
When the robbers saw what happened they forgot their anger in their
astonishment, and, after a little chaffering, they purchased the bagpipe
for two hundred florins, and went highly delighted to their homes. A day
or two after it chanced that one of them fell out with his wife, and,
becoming enraged, stabbed her in the breast with his knife and killed
her. The husband at once took the bagpipe which had been bought of
Scarpafico, and blew into them as Scarpafico had done in hopes of
reviving her; but he spent his wind to no purpose, for the poor woman
had verily passed from this life to the next. When the second thief saw
what his comrade had done, he cried out, ‘What a fool you are! you have
bungled the affair. Wait and see how I do it.’ And with these words he
seized his own wife by the hair, and cut her throat with a razor. Then,
taking the bagpipe, he blew with all his might, but with no better
result than the first. The third fellow, who was standing by, nothing
daunted by the failure of the others, served his own wife in the same
way to no better purpose; so the three were all alike wifeless. With
hotter anger against Scarpafico than ever, they hurried to his house,
resolved that this time they would pay no heed to his plausible tales,
and seized him and thrust him into a sack, purposing to drown him in a
neighbouring river. But as they bore him along something gave them an
alarm, and they ran to hide themselves for a while, leaving Pre
Scarpafico in his sack by the wayside.
They had not been gone many minutes before a shepherd, driving his flock
to pasture, went by; and, as he drew nigh, he heard a plaintive voice
saying, ‘They want me to take her, but I will have none of her; for I am
a priest, and have no concern with such matters.’ The shepherd stopped
short, somewhat frightened, because he could not discover whence came
the voice, which kept repeating the same words over and over again; but,
having looked now here, now there, his eye at last fell on the sack in
which Scarpafico was tied up. The shepherd opened the sack and let the
priest come forth, demanding why he had been thus tied up, and what he
meant by the words he kept uttering. Whereupon Scarpafico declared that
the seigneur of the town insisted on marrying him to one of his
daughters, but that he himself had no stomach for the match, because,
besides being a priest, he was too old to wive. The shepherd, who, like
a simpleton, believed every word the cunning priest told him, at once
cried out, ‘Good father, do you think the seigneur would bestow her upon
me?’ ‘I believe he would,’ said Scarpafico, ‘provided you get into this
sack and let me tie you up.’ The silly shepherd at once crept in, and
Scarpafico, having fastened the sack, got away from the place as quickly
as he could, driving the poor shepherd’s flock before him.
When an hour or so had passed the three thieves returned, and, without
examining the sack, they bore it to the river and threw it in, thus
sending the wretched shepherd to the fate they had destined for Pre
Scarpafico.
They then took their way homewards, and, as they were conversing, they
perceived a flock of sheep grazing hard by, and at once began to scheme
how they might easiest carry off a couple of lambs. But when they drew
anigh, judge their amazement at seeing Pre Scarpafico, whom they
believed to be lying at the bottom of the river, tending the flock as a
shepherd. As soon as they had recovered from their amazement, they
demanded of him how he had managed to get out of the river, and he
straightway answered: ‘Away with you! you have no more sense than so
many jackasses. If you had thrown me a little farther into the stream, I
should have come back with ten times as many sheep as you see here.’
When the robbers heard this they cried out, ‘Ah! Pre Scarpafico, will
you at last do us a good turn? Will you put us into sacks and throw us
into the river? Then, you see, we shall no longer have need to be
footpads and rascals, and will live as honest shepherds.’ ‘Well,’
answered Scarpafico, ‘I will do so much for you; indeed, there is no
favour in the world I would not grant you, on account of the love I bear
you;’ and, having got three good sacks of strong canvas, he tied the
three thieves therein so firmly that there was no chance of their
getting out, and threw them into the river. Thus they went to the place
which was their due, and Scarpafico went back to Nina with good store of
gold and cattle, and lived many years in happiness and prosperity.
Cateruzza’s tale gave great pleasure to all the company, and won high
praise, especially the part of it which dealt with Pre Scarpafico’s
cunning scheme whereby, in exchange for the mule he gave away, he gained
much money and a fine flock of sheep. Cateruzza then set forth her
enigma:
A sturdy blacksmith and his wife,
Who lived a simple honest life,
Sat down to dine; and for their fare
A loaf and a half of bread was there.
But ere they finished came the priest,
And with his sister joined the feast.
The loaf in twain the blacksmith cleft,
So three half loaves for the four were left.
Each ate a half, each was content.
Now say what paradox is meant.
The solution of Cateruzza’s enigma was, that the blacksmith’s wife was
the priest’s sister. When the husband and wife had sat down to their
meal, the priest came in and joined them, and then, apparently, there
were four of them, to wit, the blacksmith and his wife, and the priest
and his sister; but in reality there were but three. As each one had a
third of the bread they were all contented. After Cateruzza had
explained her very ingenious enigma, the Signora gave the signal to
Eritrea to give them her story, and she forthwith began.