At the next sitting she began the “wordy tale.” Up to that time she had offered nothing in prose form but short didactic pieces, such as will appear in subsequent chapters of this book, and the circle was lost in astonishment at the unfolding of this story, so different in form and spirit from anything she had previously given.
Her stories are, as already stated, dramatic in form. Indeed they are condensed dramas. After a brief descriptive introduction or prologue, all the rest is dialogue, and the scenes are shifted without explanatory connection, as in a play. In the story of “The Fool and the Lady” which follows, the fool bids adieu to the porter of the inn, and in the next line begins a conversation with Lisa, whom he meets, as the context shows, at some point on the road to the tourney. It is the change from the first to the second act or scene, but no stage directions came from the board, no marks of division or change of scene, nor names of persons speaking, except as indicated in the context. In reproducing these stories, no attempt has been made to put them completely in the dramatic form for which they were evidently designed, the desire being to present them as nearly as possible as they were received; but to make them clearer to the reader the characters are identified, and shift of scene or time has been indicated.
THE FOOL AND THE LADY
And there it lay, asleep. A mantle, gray as monk’s cloth, its covering. Dim-glowing tapers shine like glowflies down the narrow winding streets. The sounds of early morning creep through the thickened veil of heavy mist, like echoes of the day afore. The wind is toying with the threading smoke, and still it clingeth to the chimney pot.
There stands, beyond the darkest shadow, the Inn of Falcon Feather, her sides becracked with sounding of the laughter of the king and gentlefolk, who barter song and story for the price of ale. Her windows sleep like heavy-lidded eyes, and her breath doth reek with wine, last drunk by a merry party there.
The lamp, now blacked and dead, could boast to ye of part to many an undoing of the unwary. The roof, o’er-hanging and bepeaked, doth ’mind ye of a sleeper in his cap.
The mist now rises like a curtain, and over yonder steeple peeps the sun, his face washed fresh in the basin of the night. His beams now light the dark beneath the palsied stair, and rag and straw doth heave to belch forth its baggage for the night.
(Fool) “Eh, gad! ’Tis morn, Beppo. Come, up, ye vermin; laugh and prove thou art the fool’s. An ape and jackass are wearers of the cap and bells. Thou wert fashioned with a tail to wear behind, and I to spin a tale to leave but not to wear. For the sayings of the fool are purchased by the wise. My crooked back and pegs are purses—the price to buy my gown; but better far, Beppo, to hunch and yet to peer into the clouds, than be as strong as knights are wont to be, and belly, like a snake, amongst the day’s bright hours.
“Here, eat thy crust. ’Tis funny-bread, the earnings of a fool.