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CHAPTER V.

THE PENTAMERONE-TALE OF THE SERPENT-HINDO0

LEGEND.

GIAMBATTISTA Basile, the author of the amusing work named the Pentamerone, or Five Days' Entertainment', was a Neapolitan by birth. He spent his youth in the Isle of Candia, then possessed by the Venetians. He became a member of the Venetian Accademia degli Stravaganti, accompanied his sister, a celebrated singer, to Mantua, and entered the service of the Duke. After rambling a good deal through Italy, he returned to Naples, where he died in the year 1637.

The oldest edition of the Pentamerone bears the date of 1637, the year of the author's death. It is a collection of fifty tales, of the kind we call Fairy Tales, purporting to be related in five days by ten women, for the amusement of a prince and his wife. The tales are narrated in the Neapolitan dialect; and in the opinion of Dr. Grimm, with whom I fully concur, they are by many degrees the best and most amusing collection of the

1 The Neapolitan title is Lo Conto delli Conti, overo lo Trattenemiento de Peccerille, i. e. The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for the Little Ones. I know not whence the title Pentamerone came: it is in no edition that I have

seen.

kind in any language. A great number of the popular tales of other countries are to be found among them, but narrated in so peculiar a manner, as to become altogether original'. There is a great exuberance of fancy displayed in them; they contain several allusions to ancient history and mythology, and have many marks of Orientalism; but they do not always keep within the strict limits of decorum and propriety. Yet the indelicacies which we meet in the Pentamerone, are innocuous rather than injurious; they are the pranks of a luxuriant imagination, and are more apt to excite laughter than any improper feeling.

It is not easy to ascertain how Basile came by his tales. We have no grounds for asserting that they are all Neapolitan; and I am rather inclined to think that he picked them up in various places, and then gave them to his countrymen in their own dialect. His residence in Candia and Venice will perhaps best explain the Oriental traits which they present. It is rather curious, that though he has four tales in common with Straparola, he does not appear to have taken them from the Pleasant Nights, or even to have known that work.

In the Fairy Mythology will be found translations of three of the tales of the Pentamerone. The present volume shall contain two; and these

1 of the ten stories in the Mother Goose's Fairy Tales of Perrault, seven are to be found in the Pentamerone. Let the reader compare Puss in Boots (Le Chat Botté) with the tale of Gagliuso given in the Fairy Mythology, ii. 262.

five are, I believe, the only translations into any language but Italian1.

THE SERPENT.

There was one time a gardener's wife who longed for children more than the suitor longs for a sentence of the judge in his favour, a sick person for cold water, or an innkeeper for the passing away of the dull season. But, gardener as her husband was, she never was able to see the produce she desired.

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It chanced one day, that the poor man went to the mountain to get a faggot for firing; and when he came home with it, and opened it, he found a pretty little serpent among the twigs. Sapatella (that was the name of the gardener's wife), when she saw it, gave a great sigh, and said, Ah! even the serpents have their little serpents; but I came into this world so unfortunate, and have such a noody of a husband, that for all his being a gardener, he cannot make a graft." At these words the little serpent spoke, and said, "Well, then, since you cannot have children, take me for a child, and you will make a good bargain, for I shall love you better than if you were my own mother." Sapatella, hearing a serpent thus speak,

1 MM. Grimm justly take credit to themselves for having been the first to give an analysis of the Pentamerone. I may do the same for having been the first to venture on a translation from it.

had like to have fainted; but plucking up courage, she said, "If it were for nothing else than for this affection which you offer, I am content to take you, and treat you as if you were really the fruit of my womb."

So

So saying, she assigned him a corner of the house for a nursery, and gave him for food a share of what she had, with all the affection in the world; and he increased in size every day. at length when he was grown pretty big, he said one day to Cola' Matteo, the gardener, whom he looked upon as his foster-father, "Daddy, I want to get married." "With all my heart," said Cola Matteo; "we must look out, then, for another serpent like yourself, and try to make up the match between you." "What serpent are you talking of?" said the little serpent. I suppose, forsooth, we are all the same with the vipers and the adders! It is easy to see you are nothing but an Antony, and make a nosegay of every plant. It is the king's daughter I want: so go this very instant, and ask the king for his daughter, and tell him it is a serpent that demands her."

1 Cola, answering to our Nick, is the abbreviation of Nicola. The Italians dock the head, we the tail. Thus Mas (from Tommaso) is Tom; and the celebrated Masaniello is nothing more. than Tom Lamb, not Tom Ring, as I have seen it rendered. Renzo, the hero of Count Manzoni's beautiful novel, would in Ireland be simply Larry, as it comes from Lorenzo. The Italian Tonio and our Tony correspond.Why have we not a readable translation of Manzoni's novel?