=Flamminio Veraldo sets out from Ostia in search of Death, and, not
finding it, meets Life instead; this latter lets him see Fear and
make trial of Death.=
Many are the men who with all care and diligence go searching narrowly
for certain things, which, when they have gained them, they find of no
value, and would gladly forego, fleeing therefrom with all speed, just
as the devil flies from holy water. This was the case of Flamminio, who,
when he went seeking Death, found Life, who made him see Fear and make
trial of Death. All of which you will find clearly set forth in this
fable.
In Ostia, an ancient city situated no great distance from Rome, there
lived in former days, according to the common report, a young man of a
nature rather weak and errant than stable and prudent, whose name was
Flamminio Veraldo. He had heard it said over and over again that there
was in all the world nothing more terrible and frightful than Death, the
dark and inevitable one, seeing that he shows pity to none, having
respect to no man, however poor or rich he may be. Wherefore, being
filled with wonder at what he had heard, he determined by himself to
find and to see with his own eyes what manner of thing this might be
which men called Death. And having attired himself in coarse garments,
and taken in hand a staff of strong cornel-wood well shod with iron, he
set forth from Ostia. Flamminio, when he had travelled over many miles
of road, came one day into a certain street, in the midst of which he
espied, sitting in his stall, a cobbler making shoes and gaiters, and
this cobbler, although there was lying about a great quantity of his
finished work, kept on steadily at his task of making yet more.
Flamminio, going up to the cobbler, said to him, ‘God be with you, good
master!’ and to this the cobbler replied, ‘You are right welcome here,
my son.’ Then said Flamminio, ‘What is this task you labour at?’ ‘I
labour indeed,’ replied the cobbler, ‘and toil hard that I may not
languish in want.[31] Nevertheless, I am in want, and I weary myself
over making shoes.’ ‘Why do you thus,’ said Flamminio, ‘seeing that you
have so many pairs made already? What is the good of making more?’ ‘I
make them,’ said the cobbler, ‘to wear myself, to sell for my own
sustenance and for the sustenance of my little household, and in order
that when I become an old man I may be able to live on the money I have
made by my handicraft.’ ‘And what will you do next?’ asked Flamminio.
‘After this,’ said the cobbler, ‘I shall die.’ ‘You will die!’ cried
Flamminio in reply. ‘Yes,’ said the cobbler. Then cried Flamminio, ‘Oh,
my good master! can you of your own knowledge tell me what may be this
thing they call Death?’ The cobbler answered, ‘Of a truth I cannot.’
‘What, have you never seen him?’ said Flamminio. To this master cobbler
made answer, ‘I have never seen him, nor have I any wish to see him now,
or to taste his quality. Moreover, all men say that he is the strangest
and most terrible monster the world holds.’ Then Flamminio said, ‘At
least you will be able of your knowledge to teach me and tell me where
he abides, because day and night I wander over mountains and through
valleys and swamps seeking him without ever hearing tidings as to where
he may be found?’ The cobbler answered, ‘I know nothing as to where
Death may dwell, nor where he is to be found, nor what he is made of;
but if you go on with your journey somewhat farther, peradventure you
will find him.’
Whereupon Flamminio, having taken his leave, parted from the cobbler,
and betook himself onwards to a spot where he came upon a dense and
shadowy forest, and entered therein. In a certain place he saw a
peasant, who, though he had already cut a vast pile of wood for burning,
went on cutting more with all his might. And when they had exchanged
greetings one with another, Flamminio said to him, ‘My brother, what are
you going to do with so vast a heap of wood as this?’ And to this the
peasant made answer, ‘I am preparing it to kindle fire therewith in the
winter that is coming, when we shall have snow and ice and villainous
mist, so that I may be able to keep warm myself and my children, and to
sell whatsoever may be to spare, and to buy with the profit thereof
bread and wine and clothing, and all other things which may be necessary
for our daily sustenance, and thus to pass our lives until Death comes
to fetch us.’ ‘Now, by your courtesy,’ said Flamminio, ‘could you tell
me where this same Death is to be found?’ ‘Of a surety I cannot,’ the
peasant replied, ‘seeing that I have never once seen him, nor do I know
where he abides. I am here in this wood all the day long taking heed to
my own affairs. Very few wayfarers come into these parts, and I know
none of those who pass by.’ ‘What then shall I do to find him?’ demanded
Flamminio; and to this the peasant made answer, ‘As to myself, I know
not at all what to say to you nor how to direct you. I can only bid you
to travel yet farther onward, and then peradventure you may meet with
him.’
Having taken leave of the peasant, Flamminio departed and walked and
walked until he came to a certain place where dwelt a tailor, who had a
vast store of clothes upon the pegs, and a warehouse filled with all
kinds of the finest garments. Said Flamminio to him, ‘God be with you,
my good master!’ and the tailor replied, ‘And the same good wish to
you.’ ‘What are you going to do with all this store of fair and
sumptuous raiment, and all the noble garments I see here? Do they all
belong to you?’ Then the master tailor made answer, ‘Certain of them are
my own, some belong to the merchants, some to the gentlefolk, and some
to various people who have dealings with me.’ ‘But what use can they
find for so many?’ asked Flamminio. ‘They wear them in the different
seasons of the year,’ the tailor answered, and showing them all to
Flamminio, he went on, ‘These they wear in the summer and these in the
winter, and these others in the seasons which come between, clothing
themselves sometimes in one fashion and sometimes in another.’ ‘And in
the end what do they do?’ asked Flamminio. The tailor answered, ‘They go
on in this course until the day of their death.’ Flamminio hearing the
tailor speak of Death said, ‘Oh, my good master! could you tell me where
I may find this Death you tell of?’ The tailor, speaking as if he were
inflamed with anger and perturbed in spirit, said: ‘My son, you go about
asking questions which are indeed strange. I surely cannot tell you nor
direct you where he may abide, for I never let my thoughts turn to him,
and it is an occasion of great offence to me when anyone begins to talk
of him. Wherefore I bid you either to discourse of some other matter or
to go your way, for all such talk as this displeases me vastly.’ And
Flamminio, having taken leave of the tailor, departed on his journey.
It came to pass that Flamminio, after he had traversed many lands, came
at last to a desert and solitary place, where he found a hermit with his
beard all matted with dirt, and his body worn away by the passage of the
years and by fasting, letting his mind concern itself only in
contemplation. Whereupon, thinking that assuredly he had at last found
Death, Flamminio thus addressed him: ‘Of a truth, I am very glad to meet
with you, holy father.’ ‘The sight of you is welcome to me, my son,’ the
hermit replied. ‘My good father,’ said Flamminio, ‘what do you here in
this rough and uninhabitable spot, cut off from all pleasure and from
all human society?’ ‘I pass my time,’ answered the hermit, ‘in prayers
and in fastings and in contemplation.’ Then Flamminio inquired, ‘And for
what reason do you follow this life?’ ‘Why, my son,’ exclaimed the
hermit, ‘I do all this to serve God, to mortify this wretched flesh of
mine, to do penance for all the offences I have wrought in the sight of
the eternal and immortal God and of the true son of Mary, and in the end
to get salvation for my sinful soul, so that when the hour of my death
shall come I may render it up pure of all stain, and in the awful day of
judgment, by the grace of my redeemer and by no merit of my own, may
make myself worthy of that happy and glorious home where I may taste the
joys of eternal life, to which blessedness God lead us!’ Then said
Flamminio, ‘Oh, my dear father! spare a few words to tell me—if it be
not an offence to you—what manner of thing is this Death, and after what
fashion is it made?’ The holy father answered, ‘Oh, my son! trouble not
yourself to gain knowledge of this thing you seek; for Death is a very
terrible and a fearful being, and is called by wise men the final end of
all our sufferings, a misery to the happy, a happiness to the miserable,
and the term and limit of all worldly things. It severs friend from
friend; it separates the father from the son, and the son from the
father, the mother from the daughter, and the daughter from the mother.
It cuts the marriage bond, and finally disunites the soul and the body,
so that the body, severed from the soul, loses all its power and becomes
so putrid and of so evil a savour that all men flee therefrom and
abandon it as a thing abominable.’ ‘And have you never set eyes on him,
my father?’ asked Flamminio. ‘Of a certainty I have never seen him,’
answered the hermit. ‘But can you tell me what I should do in order to
see him?’ asked Flamminio. ‘Ah, my son!’ said the hermit, ‘if you are
indeed so keenly set on finding him, you have only to keep going further
and further on; because man, the longer the way he has journeyed through
this world, the nearer he is to Death.’ The young man having thanked the
holy father, and received his benediction, went his way.
Then Flamminio, continuing his journey, traversed a great number of deep
valleys and craggy mountains and inhospitable forests, seeing by the way
many sorts of fearsome beasts, and questioning each one of these whether
he was the thing called Death, and always getting in return the answer
‘No.’ At last, after he had passed through many lands and seen many
strange things, he came to a mountain of no little magnitude, and having
climbed over this, he began to descend into a gloomy and very deep
valley, closed in on all sides by profound caverns. Here he saw a
strange and monstrous wild beast, which made all the valley re-echo with
its roaring. ‘Who are you?’ said Flamminio. ‘Ho! is it possible that you
may be Death?’ To which the wild beast made answer, ‘I am not Death; but
pursue your way, and soon you will find him.’
Flamminio, when he heard the answer he had so long desired to hear, felt
his heart grow lighter. The wretched youth, now worn out by fatigue and
half dead by reason of the long weariness and the heavy toil he had
undergone, was almost sunk in despair, when he found himself on the
borders of a wide and spacious plain. Having climbed to the summit of a
little hill of no great height, delightful, and covered with flowers, he
looked round about him, now here, now there, and espied the lofty walls
of a magnificent city not far from the spot where he stood. Whereupon he
began to walk more rapidly with nimble steps, and when the shadows of
evening were falling he came to one of the city gates, which was adorned
with the finest white marble. And when he had entered therein, with the
leave of the keeper of the gate, the first person he met was a very old
woman, full of years, with a face like that of a corpse, and a body so
meagre and thin that, through her leanness, it would have been easy to
count one by one every bone in her body. Her forehead was thickly marked
with wrinkles, her eyes were squinting, watery, and red, as if they had
been dyed in purple, her cheeks all puckered, her lips turned inside
out, her hands rough and callous; her head was palsied, and she trembled
in every limb; she was bent almost double in her gait, and she was clad
in rough and dusky clothes. Over and above this she bore by her left
side a keen-edged sword, and carried in her right hand a weighty cudgel,
at the end of which was wrought a point of iron made in the shape of a
triangle, and upon this staff she would now and then lean as if to rest
herself. On her shoulders also she carried a large wallet, in which she
kept a great store of phials and pots and bottles all filled with divers
sorts of liquors and unguents and plasters fitted for the remedying of
various human ailments and accidents. As soon as Flamminio’s eye fell
upon this toothless ugly old harridan he was seized with the thought
that peradventure she might prove to be that Death to find whom he was
going wandering about the world; so having approached her he said, ‘Ah,
my good mother, may God keep and preserve you!’ In a husky voice the old
woman made answer to him, ‘And may God keep and preserve you, my son!’
‘Tell me, my mother,’ Flamminio went on, ‘whether perchance you may be
the thing men call Death?’ The old woman replied, ‘No, I am not. On the
other hand, I am Life; and know, moreover, that I happen to have with me
here in this wallet which I carry behind my back certain liquors and
unguents by the working of which I am able with ease to purify and to
cure the mortal body of man of all the heavy diseases which afflict him,
and in the short space of a single hour to relieve him in like manner
from the torture of any pain he may feel.’ Then said Flamminio, ‘Ah, my
good mother! can you not let me know where Death is to be found?’ ‘And
who may you be,’ asked the old woman, ‘who make this demand of me with
so great persistence?’ Flamminio answered, ‘I am a youth who has already
spent many days and months and years wandering about in search of Death,
and never yet have I been able to find in any land a man who could tell
me aught concerning him. Wherefore, if you should happen to possess this
knowledge, I beseech you of your courtesy to let me share it, because I
am possessed by so keen a desire to look upon him and to know what he is
like, in order that I may be certain whether he really is the hideous
and the dreadful thing which all men hold him to be.’
The old woman, when she heard the foolish request of the young man,
spake thus to him: ‘My son, when would it please you that I let you see
Death, and judge how hideous he is, and when would you make trial of his
terrors?’ To this Flamminio replied: ‘Ah, my mother! keep me no longer
in suspense I beg you, but let me see him now, at this present moment.’
Thereupon the old woman, to satisfy his desire, made him strip himself
quite naked, and, while he was taking off his garments, she worked up
together certain of her drugs useful in the cure of divers diseases, and
when the thing was ready, she said to him: ‘Bend yourself down here, my
son.’ And he, in obedience to her direction, bent down. ‘Now bow your
head and close your eyes;’ and Flamminio did as she bade him. Scarcely
had the old woman finished her speech than she took the sharp blade
which she wore by her side and with one blow struck off his head from
his shoulders. Then she quickly took up the head, and, having replaced
it upon the bust, she smeared it well with the plaster which she had
prepared, and thereby the wound was quickly healed. But how the thing
which now happened was caused I cannot say, whether it arose through the
over-quickness of the old hag in putting back the head upon the
shoulders, or whether she herself brought it to pass through her own
craft. The head when it was joined once more to the body was put on hind
part forward. Wherefore Flamminio, when he looked down upon his
shoulders, his loins, and his big buttocks standing out (all of which
things he had never seen hitherto), fell into such a fit of terror and
dismay that, not being able to think of any place where he might be
suffered to hide himself, he cried out to the old woman in a trembling
dolorous voice: ‘Alas, alas, my good mother! bring me back once more to
my old shape; bring me back, for the love of God, for by my faith I have
never seen anything more frightful and more hideous than what I now
behold. Alas! deliver me from this miserable state in which I now find
myself fixed. Alas! alas! do not delay your help, my sweet good mother.
Lend me your aid, for I am sure you can help me easily if you will.’ The
cunning old woman still kept silence feigning all the while to know
nothing of the mischance that had been wrought, and letting the wretched
fellow work himself into an agony and stew in his own fat;[32] but at
last, after having kept him in this plight for the space of two hours,
she agreed to work the remedy he sought. So, having made him bend
himself down as before, she put her hand to her sharp-cutting sword and
struck off his head from his shoulders. Then she took the head in her
hand, and, having placed it upon the trunk and smeared it well with her
ointment, brought Flamminio back to his former condition.
The youth, when he perceived that he had once more become his old self,
put on his clothes; and now, having seen what a terrible thing, and by
his own experience proved what a hideous and ugly thing Death was, he
made his way back to Ostia by the shortest and the quickest way he knew
without saying any more farewell words to the old woman, occupying
himself for the future in reaching after Life and flying from Death,
devoting himself more diligently to the consideration of those matters
which he had hitherto neglected.
It now only remained that Lionora should propose her enigma, so she gave
out the following one in merry wise:
About a meadow fair and wide,
Gay decked with flowers on every side,
Three nymphs on task divine intent,
Pass to and fro, and firmly bent
To speed their work, nor night nor day
Take pause, nor rest upon their way.
One in her left the distaff plies,
Between another’s feet swift flies
The spindle, and last one doth stand
With keen-edged weapon in her hand,
And cuts in twain the fragile strand.
This enigma was very easily understood by all the company, because it
was clear that the fine and spacious meadow must be this world in which
all men dwell. The three nymphs are the three sisters, Clotho, Lachesis,
and Atropos, who by the fancy of the poets are held to represent the
beginning, the middle, and the end of our lives. Clotho, who holds the
rock, shows forth our birth; Lachesis, who spins it, the season of our
existence, and Atropos, who severs the thread just spun by Lachesis,
inevitable Death.
Already the watchful cock, bird sacred to Mercury, had given signal by
his crowing of the approaching dawn, when the Signora brought to an end
the story-telling for the night, and all the guests departed to their
own homes, pledged, however, to return on the following evening under
whatever penalty the Signora might deem fitting to inflict.
=The End of the Fourth Night.=
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
=Night the Fifth.=
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
=The Fables and Enigmas of Messer Giovanni Francesco Straparola da
Caravaggio.=
=Night the Fifth.=
The sun, the glory of the smiling firmament, the measurer of our
fleeting time, and the true eye of the universe, from whom likewise the
horned moon and all the stars receive their radiance, had at last hidden
his red and burning rays beneath the waters of the sea, and the chaste
daughter of Latona, circled around by bright and beaming stars, was
already lighting up the clustering shadows of the obscure night, and the
shepherds, quitting the wide and open fields and the fresh herbage and
the cool and limpid streams, had taken their way back with their flocks
to their wonted folds, and, worn out and weary as they were, had sunk
into deep slumber on the beds of soft and yielding rushes, when the fair
and noble troop of companions, letting go thought of everything else,
hastened to the place of meeting. And when it had been signified to the
Signora that all had come, and that it was now time to recommence the
story-telling, she, escorted in courteous and reverent wise by the other
ladies, went joyful and smiling with soft and measured step to the hall
of meeting. Then having graciously greeted the company of friends with
gladsome face, she ordered them to bring out the vase of gold. In this
were put the names of five ladies, and of these the first to come out
was that of Eritrea, the second that of Alteria, the third that of
Lauretta, the fourth that of Arianna, and the last that of Cateruzza.
When this was done they all began to dance to the music of the flutes,
and to pass from one to another pleasant and loving words. Immediately
after the end of the dance, three damsels, by the leave of the Signora,
began the following song.
SONG.
Madonna, when the springs of passion rise,
And through thy fair sweet bosom surge and swell;
And in those lucent sacred eyes,
Which tell me I may live, and eke my death may tell;
From those gracious looks and kind,
A gracious hope my longings find.
Now calm, and now spurred on by rage,
With hope and fear a fight I wage;
Eftsoons my hope the vantage gains,
And I am rid of all my pains,
And know no stroke of fate can lure,
Or drive me from my course secure.
Wherefore I bless the passing days;
Great nature, and the stars I praise,
That thy fair self my passion fired,
Thy service sweet my song inspired.
As soon as the three damsels had brought to an end their amorous
canzonet, which seemed to break up the air around into sighs of passion,
the Signora made a sign to Eritrea, who had been chosen for the first
place this evening, that she should make a beginning of her
story-telling. The damsel, seeing that she could in no wise excuse
herself, put aside all bashfulness, and began to speak in turn that the
order which had hitherto prevailed might not be disturbed.
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]