then, thou takest a pledge from Master Priest?
By Christ, I vow, I have half a mind to give thee
a great clout o’ the chin. Go, give it
back at once, a murrain on thee! And look to it
that whatever he may have a mind to, were it our very
ass, he be never denied.” So, with a very
bad grace, Belcolore got up, and went to the wardrobe,
and took out the cloak, and gave it to the clerk,
saying:—“Tell thy master from me:—Would
to God he may never ply pestle in my mortar again,
such honour has he done me for this turn!” So
the clerk returned with the cloak, and delivered the
message to Master Priest; who, laughing, made answer:—“Tell
her, when thou next seest her, that, so she lend us
not the mortar, I will not lend her the pestle:
be it tit for tat.”
Bentivegna made no account of his wife’s words,
deeming that ’twas but his chiding that had
provoked them. But Belcolore was not a little
displeased with Master Priest, and had never a word
to say to him till the vintage; after which, what
with the salutary fear in which she stood of the mouth
of Lucifer the Great, to which he threatened to consign
her, and the must and roast chestnuts that he sent
her, she made it up with him, and many a jolly time
they had together. And though she got not the
five pounds from him, he put a new skin on her tabret,
and fitted it with a little bell, wherewith she was
satisfied.
(1) For this folk-song see Cantilene e Ballate, Strambotti
e Madrigali, ed. Carducci (1871), p. 60.
The fragment there printed maybe freely rendered as
follows:—
The borage is full sappy,
And clusters red we see,
And my love would make me happy;
So that maiden give to me.
Ill set I find this dance,
And better might it be:
So, comrade mine, advance,
And, changing place with me,
Stand thou thy love beside.
— Calandrino, Bruno and Buffalmacco go
in quest of the heliotrope beside the Mugnone.
Thinking to have found it, Calandrino gets him home
laden with stones. His wife chides him:
whereat he waxes wroth, beats her, and tells his comrades
what they know better than he. —
Ended Pamfilo’s story, which moved the ladies
to inextinguishable laughter, the queen bade Elisa
follow suit: whereupon, laughing, she thus began:—I
know not, debonair my ladies, whether with my little
story, which is no less true than entertaining, I
shall give you occasion to laugh as much as Pamfilo
has done with his, but I will do my best.
In our city, where there has never been lack of odd
humours and queer folk, there dwelt, no long time
ago, a painter named Calandrino, a simple soul, of
uncouth manners, that spent most of his time with two
other painters, the one Bruno, the other Buffalmacco,
by name, pleasant fellows enough, but not without
their full share of sound and shrewd sense, and who
kept with Calandrino for that they not seldom found
