Boter

Besedilo

Boter

_Cola Jacovo, a miser, has a sponging friend who sucks him dry. Unable to shake him off by tricks or stratagems, he sticks his head out of the sack at last and drives him from the house with a torrent of abuse._ _The tale was truly delightful, gracefully told and attentively heard, so that a thousand things combined to season it and make it pleasing. But every scrap of time that slipped between one tale and the next kept the slave-woman on the rack and dealt her another blow; so Jacova was urged to take her turn. She tapped the barrel of her stories to refresh her listeners’ thirst, and began in this fashion._ A lack of discretion, my lords, makes the yardstick drop from the hand of the merchant of judgment, sends the compass astray in the hand of the architect of good breeding, and robs the mariner of reason of his bearings. Taking root in the soil of ignorance, it bears no fruit but shame and disgrace, as we see happen every day. This befell, in particular, a certain brazen-faced fellow, as I shall tell you.

There was once a certain Cola Jacovo, a miser from Pomegliano, married to Masella Cernecchia of Resina, a man as rich as the sea, who had so much he did not know what he owned: his pigs were safely penned, and he had straw enough to last till Judgment Day. Yet although he had neither children nor any other encumbrances, and measured his money by the bushel, he could have run a hundred miles without letting slip a coin worth a hundred and twentieth of a carlino. Denying himself everything, he led a wretched dog’s life, all to put something by and heap up his hoard. Nevertheless, whenever he sat down to keep body and soul together, along came that curse of a friend of his, never an ounce short, never a step behind him. As though he had a clock in his belly and an hourglass between his teeth, he always reported for duty at feeding time, to join them at table; and with a forehead as hard as a pestle, he fastened himself upon them so firmly that they could not have driven him off with kicks.

He counted every mouthful that went down their throats, dropping hints and casting out feelers, until someone said, “If you would care to join us”—whereupon, without much pressing, he thrust himself squarely between husband and wife. Then, as though starved, famished, sharpened to a razor’s edge, ravenous as a hunting dog, with a wolf in his belly, he set to at a flying pace, like a man racing home from the mill. His hands worked like a piper’s, his eyes rolled like a stray cat’s, his teeth ground like millstones. Swallowing everything whole, with one mouthful overtaking the next, he stuffed his cheeks, loaded his gullet, and made himself a belly like a drum. When he could see the bare glaze of the dishes, and had swept the whole country clean, without so much as a “God keep you,” he seized a jug and puffed at it, gulped it, emptied it, swilled it, drained it at a single breath until the bottom showed. Then off he went about his own affairs, leaving Cola Jacovo and Masella with their noses a foot long. Seeing how little discretion their friend possessed, how, like a sack split at the seams, he gobbled, guzzled, chomped, crammed, gulped, drained, stripped, picked, bundled away, wolfed, flattened, combed, battered, mangled, and demolished everything on the table, they did not know what to do to rid themselves of this bloodsucker, this plaster over the heart, this plague in their breeches, this August purge, this persistent fly, this burrowing tick, this torment, this bony growth, this burden, this perpetual tax, this octopus, this weasel, this weight, this headache. They longed for the hour when they might eat at their ease for once, without this helping hand, this fattening piece of cork. So one morning, having learned that their friend had gone out of town as an official’s assistant, Cola Jacovo said, “Oh, praise the sun in Leo! Once in a hundred years we’ve been granted the chance to work our jaws, set our grinders trotting, and put something under our noses without all this fretting of our backsides! Well, if the court means to ruin me, I’ll ruin myself: in this shitty world, you get only what you can snatch with your teeth. Quick, light the fire! Now that we’ve a free hand to give ourselves a proper combing, let’s satisfy our longing for something tasty, some dainty morsel.” So saying, he ran to buy a fine eel from Pantano, a rotolo of sifted flour, and a good flask of Mangiaguerra wine. Returning home, he fried the eel while his wife busied herself making a splendid pie. When everything was ready, they sat down at table; but scarcely were they seated when, lo and behold, their great glutton of a friend was knocking at the door. Masella looked out, saw this spoilsport come to wreck their pleasure, and said to her husband, “My dear Cola Jacovo, never was a pound of meat sold at the butcher’s shop of human pleasures without the makeweight bone of sorrow! Never did anyone sleep between the white sheets of contentment without some bedbug of trouble!

“Never was a wash of pleasure hung out without a shower of disappointment falling on it! Here’s our bitter mouthful tied in a knot; here’s this damned dinner stuck in our throats!” To which Cola Jacovo replied, “Put away what’s on the table: spirit it off, hide it, shove it into holes where it won’t show; then open the door. Finding the village already plundered, perhaps he’ll have the decency to leave soon and give us room to choke down this little bit of poison.” While their friend was sounding the alarm and ringing a triumphant peal, Masella thrust the eel behind a cupboard, the flask beneath the bed, and the pie between the mattresses; and Cola Jacovo ducked under the table, peering through a hole in the cloth, which hung down to the floor. Their friend saw all these manoeuvres through the keyhole. When the door was opened, he came in with a fine tale ready, looking utterly flustered and terrified. Masella asked what had happened to him. “While you left me wasting away outside,” he said, “in such torment and anxiety, waiting for the crow to come home before you would open the door, a snake slithered round my feet. Oh, mother of mercy, what a monstrous, hideous creature! Just imagine: it was as big as the eel you put in the cupboard. Finding myself cornered and in danger, trembling like a reed, with my innards spinning from fright, my guts crawling with fear, and my limbs shaking with terror, I picked up a stone as big as the flask beneath the bed, and—whack!—caught it on the head and flattened it into a pie like the one between the mattresses. And as it lay dying and writhing, I could see it looking at me just as my friend is looking from under the table. There isn’t a drop of blood left in my body, I’m so frightened and appalled!” At these words Cola Jacovo, who could no longer sit still or swallow this sweet talk, poked his head out of the tablecloth like a puppet appearing onstage and said, “So that’s how it is! A pretty pie indeed! Now we’ve filled the spindle, eh? Now we’ve baked our bread, eh? Now we’ve won our lawsuit, eh? If we owe you anything, summon us before the bailiff; if we’ve offended you, lodge a complaint at the Mint; if you feel injured, put me on a short tether; if you’ve an itch, give yourself an enema with a funnel; if you’ve a claim, press it with a fox’s tail, and go stick that nose of yours in Naples! What manners are these? What way is this to behave? Anyone would think you were a soldier billeted on us, demanding our goods as your due! You should have been content with a finger, not taken the whole hand: with all this commotion you’ll soon drive us from our own house! To a man without discretion, the whole world belongs; but whoever won’t measure himself will be measured by others, and if you have no yardstick, we have augers and rolling pins! In short, you know the saying: a stout pestle for a stout forehead. So let every hedgehog go back to his own pallet, and leave us with our own troubles. If you think you’ll keep playing this tune from now on, you’re wasting your breath: you won’t bring it off. If you imagine you’ll always lie soaking in this gravy, wait on, wait on—March has shaved you bare, and you can take your toothpick elsewhere! If you think this is an open tavern for that rotten gullet of yours, however fast you run to cram it, forget it! Get it out of your head! It’s wasted effort, a thing of wind; there’s no more bait here, no more curds for you! You’d scented the gulls and pigeons, you’d spotted the helpless wards, you’d sounded out the asses, you’d found the land of plenty! Now go back where you came from: you won’t have your way again. You may call this house a feather, for it has flown beyond your reach; you’ll draw no more water at my expense! You’re a dinner-sniffer, a bread-evictor, a table-wrecker, a kitchen-sweeper, a pot-licker, a bowl-cleaner, a great gullet, a sewer-pipe, with a craving, a wolf, a deluge, a bottomless pit inside you! You’d eat an ass’s packsaddle and the bottom out of a ship; you’d swallow the Prince’s bear and wear out a blood-drain. Neither the Tiber nor the Garigliano would suffice you, and you’d eat Mariaccio’s breeches! Go round the other churches, go cast your dragnet, go gather rags from rubbish heaps, go hunt nails for coffins, go beg wax for funerals, go unblock privy drains to fill that crop of yours—and let this house be fire to you! Everyone has troubles of his own; everyone knows what he carries beneath his clothes; everyone knows what sits upon his stomach. We have no need of bankrupt firms, broken-down connections, and shattered lances like you! Save himself who can: you must be weaned from this little teat! You bird that wastes the daylight, you idler, you lazybones—work, work! Take up a trade! Find yourself a master!”

The wretched friend, hearing this plain-spoken harangue, this bursting of an abscess, this carding without a comb, stood cold and frozen as a thief caught in the act, a pilgrim who has lost his way, a sailor whose boat has broken up, a whore who has lost her customer, a little girl who has fouled the bed. Tongue between his teeth, head lowered, beard thrust into his chest, eyes streaming, nose drooping, teeth chilled, hands empty, heart dwindling, tail between his legs, thoroughly roasted, silent and speechless, he gathered up his traps and went, never once looking back. And well did that worthy saying fit his case: _A dog unasked to wedding feasts_ _Had best stay home, or taste the sticks._ They laughed so much at the shameless friend’s disgrace that they did not notice how the Sun, having been too prodigal with his light, had gone bankrupt, slipped his golden keys beneath the door, and made his escape. But Cola Ambruoso and Marchionno came out in chamois breeches and slashed serge doublets to perform the second interlude, and pricked up every ear to hear the rigmarole of the eclogue that follows.

THE DYE. AN ECLOGUE. _Cola Ambruoso and Marchionno._ _Col._ Of all the trades, Marchionno, dyeing deserves—as someone said, I cannot remember whether a scullion or a cook—the highest praise and foremost place.

_M._ I deny your conclusion, Cola Ambruoso, for that is a filthy trade: your hands are always stained with gallnuts, vitriol, and alum, just like the bottom of a cooking pot.

_C._ On the contrary, it is the cleanest of all occupations, just the thing for a man who wishes to look spotless when he is foul with grease. _M._ Next you’ll persuade me it’s a perfumer’s trade, or an embroiderer’s! Away with you, away: you’ve made a blunder.

_C._ I mean to prove to you, and maintain it even inside an oven, that the dyer’s trade is a gentleman’s business. Nowadays it is practised above all others; by it a man makes his living and wins esteem.

Though his belly be full of fraud and his breast full of vice, dye covers every flaw. _M._ What have a man’s vices to do with dyeing wool and silk braid?

_C._ How plain it is you know nothing of the matter! You think I mean dyeing stockings or old rags. The dye I speak of is something other than indigo or brazilwood: a dye that makes a mulberry colour look like flesh.

_M._ I’m all in the dark; I don’t understand a scrap. This talk of yours muddles and clouds everything. _C._ Listen: if you understand me, you’ll learn to be a dyer—or at least to recognize those who dye.

And you’ll take great pleasure in learning this new art, an art much practised among the craftiest folk; an art that undertakes to make a cockroach look like a cat.

Listen: suppose there’s a triple-distilled gallows-bird who sweeps up everything he comes across or sets eyes on, who lifts whatever he sees and clips whatever he finds. Now someone who knows this dye will not give him the infamous name of thief or robber, swindler or rogue, but will say he uses his judgment, digs money out of the earth, knows how to earn, and could make a living even in a wood.

He makes the most of things, he’s a fine fellow, a hook, a dragnet, a go-getter, a corsair of the purest metal, who never loses his cap in a crowd. In short, with this dye so fine and elegant,

a scoundrel wins the name of shrewd. _M._ Ah, now you’re filling my hand! This is a marvellous art—but not one that works for poor folk, only for certain high-and-mighty fellows who are allowed, without so much as blinking, to call their thefts gifts and their stolen goods fruits brought from afar.

_C._ Then there’s a coward, a turncoat, a Judas, a breeches-fouler, a hen, a poor-spirited creature with the heart of a chick, terrified, appalled, frozen, frightened, trembling like a reed, always spinning the thinnest thread, always with worms crawling through him and his innards in a whirl, afraid of his own shadow. If anyone looks at him askance, he turns into a heap of worms;

if someone threatens him, you see him like a plucked quail, deathly and pale. His words fail him, he gets the runs on the spot; if the fellow reaches for his sword, he takes to his heels and bolts. Yet with this noble dye people consider him prudent, steady, a worthy man who proceeds by plumb line and compass, who does not catch turds on the wing or buy quarrels for ready money. He is no bait for the law courts; he minds his own business and keeps quiet and still. Thus, my son, a rabbit comes to be taken for a fox.

_M._ It seems to me a man who saves his skin knows what he’s about. I once read in a history—I cannot say whether handwritten or printed—that a fine retreat saves a whole life.

_C._ But then, on the other hand, you see a man of honour, a daring fellow, a man of heart who would not yield an inch to Rodomonte, who could stand toe to toe with Orlando and butt heads with Hector, who will not let a fly brush past his nose, whose deeds come before his words, who keeps every swaggering bully and faction-leader on short rations and makes him put both feet into one shoe. He knows how to wield his weapons, has the spirit of a lion, would fight death itself, never takes a backward step, and always charges like a ram.

But once he is treated with this dye, everyone takes him for an impudent daredevil, rash, insolent, touchy, mad, all vitriol, a firebrand, a house-wrecking blaze, a fellow who sets his foot against every stone, who fishes for quarrels with a stick, an unreasonable man, a dissolute, unbridled creature who never lets a day pass without making trouble, who keeps the neighbours in turmoil and provokes the very stones in the street. In short, he is thought a man worthy of rhymes—and of an oar in the galleys.

_M._ Hush, they’re right: a wise, well-balanced man is one who wins respect without a sword. _C._ Here’s a skinflint, a starveling, a tight-belt, a pitch-lined purse, a brazier’s pair of pincers, a dry-shitter, a constipated wretch, a nail-gnawer, a Sienese horse, a squeezed orange, a corkwood pig, a plum stone, a niggardly ant out of a sorb-apple, the very mother of poverty and want, who, like a kicking horse, would sooner give you a pair of kicks than a hair from his tail.

A sour, grasping miser who could run a hundred miles without dropping a farthing, who would take a hundred bites at a bean and tie a hundred knots round half a fivepenny piece, who never shits so that he need not eat. But apply this dye at once and he is called a thrifty man,

one who does not throw away or squander what he owns, who does not let his property go floating downstream, who is a good householder and lets not a crumb fall to the floor. In the end he is called—though only by certain scoundrels—

a man as exact as a compass, as firm as pincers. _M._ Oh, what a filthy breed, with their hearts lodged in their pennies! He keeps fasts no doctor ordered, wears a hundred patches, always looks miserable, treats himself like a beggar and a scullion, and dies lean in the midst of plenty.

_C._ But the reverse of that medal is the man who scatters and spends, who would sink a ship and saddle a mint with debt, a sack split at the seams, spilling all he has, who takes no account of his possessions.

You see a hundred round him, spongers and parasites without a single virtue, and he showers money on them wholesale. He squanders without judgment, flings away without reason, gives to dogs and pigs, and goes up in smoke.

Yet with this dye he acquires the reputation of a generous soul, courteous, magnanimous, and noble, who would give you the eyes out of his head, a friend to his friends, with a royal air about him, never refusing anyone who asks. And with this fine excuse he empties his coffers and strips his house bare.

_M._ Whoever calls such a man generous lies in his throat. A generous man gives at the right time and place; he does not throw good coins at worthless people and buffoons, but bestows his crowns upon the honourable, deserving poor.

_C._ Look at a great guzzler, a well-filled pot, a woolly ram, a horned Martin, a leap-and-butt, a house with two doors, a pair of shoes made of horn, a fellow whose home stands at the fork in the road;

a “Yes, sir, as you please,” a little bull, the original painting of infamy and the very image of its copy. Dye even him, and they call him quiet, a worthy man, a gentleman who minds his own business, gets on with everyone, and is courteous to all. His house is open to his friends; he stands on neither ceremony nor points of honour; he is soft as bread, sweet as honey, you may do what you please with him. And meanwhile, without so much as blushing, he trades in flesh and saves his bones.

_M._ Such men live off the fat these days. Just look at one of them going to the tavern at night: the lantern shines through his horns. _C._ A man lives in retirement, does not mix with rogues and scoundrels, shuns disturbances, wants no headaches, has no wish to answer to every Tom, Dick, and Harry. He lives quietly, his own master, with no one to wake him when he sleeps or count his mouthfuls when he eats.

Yet someone will dye him too, calling him unsociable and savage, a turd of a sparrowhawk, with neither scent nor stink, a sour, insipid creature, crusty, hard-hearted, a man without savour or affection, wretched, brutish, a lump, macaroni without salt.

_M._ Oh, happy the man who lives in a desert, who neither sees others nor has his fill of them! Let people say what they please; I find one saying well proved: better alone than in bad company.

_C._ But then, on the other side, they find a sociable man, flesh and nail with his friend, a good, affable companion who treats everyone informally. And with this dye—who would believe it?—he finds people to cut and snip at him, stitch and unpick him, work against the nap, and plead his case behind his back,

calling him shameless, a pushy fellow, a fart in breeches, a forehead hard as an awl, a broken lace among a dozen, a brazen wretch, parsley in every sauce, who wants to salt everything he sees and poke his nose into everything he hears, a meddler, an arrogant busybody. Add that to your account and spend it, poor fellow!

_M._ He deserves that and worse. The Spaniard understood it when he said long ago, “Too much familiarity breeds contempt.” _C._ If a man happens to speak wittily, chat, discourse, and display his ingenuity and eloquence, if wherever you touch or turn him you find him lively and ready with an apt reply,

this dye reduces him to such a state that he gains nothing but the title of prattler and loudmouth, a sewer-pipe, a fellow who could outdo the cicadas, with more words than a magpie, who deafens you and addles your brains with so much nonsense and rigmarole, so many ogre’s tales, so much droning and fuss, that when he sets his tongue in motion, with a mouth like a hen’s backside, he poisons, stuns, and plagues you.

_M._ In this age of great asses, do what you will, you’ll always be wrong. _C._ But if another man stays quiet and mute, holds his peace, seals his lips, and saves his mouth for figs, so that you never hear him utter a peep, this dye changes his colour too: he is called Anthony the Simpleton, a limp fool, a lump of a dolt, a blockhead, a stump from hell, always cold and frozen, like a bride who has come to a bad match.

And so I see no North Star to steer through this gulf: speaking is bad, and silence worse. _M._ Truly, nowadays you don’t know how to deal with people, you don’t know how to fish; there’s no beaten path for the traveller. Blessed is he who guesses right in this world.

_C._ But who could ever tell to the last drop all the effects of this dye? It would take a thousand years, certainly, and a tongue of metal would not suffice. Let a man do what he will, behave as he pleases, his colour is changed all the same: the buffoon is called a wit who provides entertainment;

the spy, a man who knows the workings of this topsy-turvy world; the scoundrel, ingenious and enterprising; the lazy man, of a phlegmatic temper; the glutton, a lover of good living;

the flatterer, an accomplished courtier who understands his master’s humour and knows how to please him; the whore, courteous and obliging; the ignorant man, simple and good-hearted.

And so it goes, from one to the next; but enough. It is no wonder, then, that at court the wicked flourish and the good lament, for their lords are fooled by this colouring dye, and keep swapping and exchanging, as we have always seen, leaving the worthy man for the rogue.

_M._ Wretched is he who serves! Oh, better had his mother borne him dead: he runs through storms and never hopes for port. _C._ The court is made solely for vicious folk; it always keeps the good man at a distance, gets him out of the way, pushes him off, and flings him aside.

But let us leave these matters: once I begin scratching where it itches, I should not finish tomorrow or the day after. So let us put a full stop here and go our way, now that the sun is playing hide-and-seek; we’ll do the rest another evening.

_Colambruoso closed his mouth and the Sun closed the day at the very same moment. So, having agreed to return the following morning with a fresh supply of tales, they went home, sated with words and laden with appetite._ _End of the Second Day._ THIRD DAY OF THE ENTERTAINMENT FOR LITTLE ONES.

No sooner had the Sun’s visit set free all the shadows imprisoned by the tribunal of night than the Prince and his wife returned with the women to the same place, to pass pleasantly the hours that lay between morning and mealtime. They sent for the musicians and began to dance with great delight, performing the Roggiero, the Villanella, the Ogre’s Tale, the Sfessania, the Beaten Peasant, All Day Long with That Little Dove, the Tordiglione, the Dance of the Nymphs, the Gypsy Girl, the Capricious Girl, My Bright Star, My Sweet Loving Fire, She Whom I Go Seeking, the Chatterbox and Little Chatterbox, Yes, Sir, As You Please, Low and High, the Chiaranzana with its pointed toe, See Whom I Fell in Love With, Snatch It, It Will Do You Good, the Clouds That Drift Through the Air, the Devil in His Shirt, Living on Hope, Change Hands, the Cascarda, and the Spagnoletta, ending the dances with Lucia the Bitch to please the slave-woman. Thus the time flew by without their noticing, and the hour for eating arrived, when all the good things under heaven were served up—indeed, they are eating still. When the tables had been cleared away, Zeza, who was sharpened to a razor’s edge and eager to tell her tale, began as follows.