If the words with which Alboin was pelted by the ladies on this occasion be correctly given by the old chronicle, it is clear that freedom of speech was very fearlessly exercised by the remonstrants,—or rather, by the revilers. It was in vain that the King held his hand aloft, and essayed to speak. He was overwhelmed by a hurricane of screams, squalls, screeches, and reproaches, for issuing the decree in question. One loose-tongued termagant exclaimed above her sisters, that there would have been some sense in him, if he had conferred on every woman the right of taking seven husbands; but to allow every man to have seven wives!!—” and the very idea of such an outrage so worked upon the amiable furies, that they interrupted the loud speaker by a howl so shrill, so intense, so exasperating, that Alboin, after stopping his ears with his gauntleted hands, gave a signal which his guards obeyed by charging the body of remonstrants, and driving them into the streets,—with much attendant ruffling of collars and disturbing of stomachers. When the hall was cleared, there remained Bertoldo, looking still demurely at the King, and with an inquiring aspect about his expression. Alboin seemed annoyed for a moment; but at length, smiling, he acknowledged that the fool was right, and that women were tigresses.
The revolt of the women, and the share that Bertoldo had had therein, coming to the knowledge of Alboin’s not very gentle Queen, she sent for the jester, who, throughout the interview, kept up with her Majesty, as was indeed his custom in most of the conversations in which he took part, a constant fire of proverbs. As he contrived to surpass the royal lady in this species of “capping,” she rather unfairly ordered him, under escort, to carry a letter to certain officials, which letter enjoined them to whip the bearer. At Bertoldo’s urgent request, the Queen condescended to add a postscript, whereby the scourgers were directed to spare the head, but by no means to be merciful in an opposite direction. When prisoner and escort reached the gaol, Bertoldo stepped forward, letter in hand, announced himself as head of the company, and bade the hangman’s lackeys to lay lustily on his tail, or followers. The poor wretches were lashed till they were raw; and at this practical joke the court laughed, and all that was asked of Bertoldo was, that he should maintain a tournament of words with Alboin’s own official court fool.
This fool’s name, or nickname, was Fagotto. He was short, fat, and bald; and he was the challenger of Bertoldo. When the King acceded to his request, and ordered the duel of the two fools to take place, he remarked to Fagotto, “Now, proceed; but take heed not to resemble Benevento, who went out to shear, and came home shorn.”
Fagotto replied with a pompous boast, and then turning on his rival, assailed him with a species of amenities like those that used to pass between carnival fools on the Paris Boulevards, and before which every decent person fled. From this contest Bertoldo issued triumphant; but the King again taxed his wit by ordering him to demonstrate in what way, as he had asserted, the daylight was whiter than milk, and stimulated him to success by promising him the bastinado if he failed.
Bertoldo is said to have proved his assertion by a simple process. Having access everywhere, he entered the King’s bedchamber at night, and closing all the blinds, placed a pail of milk in the middle of the room. Alboin rising in the dark, overthrew the pail, and then calling lustily for daylight, Bertoldo let the same in upon him, with the remark, that if the milk had been clearer than daylight, he would have seen the former without the aid of the latter. Whereupon Alboin rubbed his shins, shook his head, and supposed his philosophy was wrong.
Bertoldo subsequently had to prove that the royal political system was quite as rickety as the royal philosophy. It seems that the ladies of the capital had united in demanding “their rights.” They insisted on the equality of women and men; and demanded therefore that in all matters of government they should be employed in the same way as their lords had hitherto been, exclusively. Alboin had a soft heart, and was inclined to yield to the request; but Bertoldo offered to show the incapacity of the petitioners to fill the offices to which they aspired, by a trick of his own devising, and according to his own office. He enclosed a bird in a casket, and delivering the same to a deputation of ladies, in the name of the Queen, he informed them that their petition was granted, and that the first official duty confided to them was the guardianship of this casket. The ladies carried it off, full of delight and promises of fidelity. But they had no sooner reached the house of one of them, than, after a very little hesitation, in a fit of intense curiosity, they lifted the lid of the casket, and away flew the treasure.
Their remorse was great—not that they had betrayed their trust, but that not one had observed what sort of bird it was; and that consequently their fault was irreparable. In a body, and with the Queen at their head, they presented themselves before the King, imploring pardon. As before stated, Alboin had a gentle heart where ladies were in the case; and he granted an unreserved pardon,—much to the disgust of the ungallant Bertoldo, who declared that such a King was not worth rendering homage to, and that, for his part, he would never bow to him again. Alboin, remembering the threat, assembled his court early on the following morning, and ordering the upper part of the open doorway to be covered with boards, so that any one entering must necessarily bow to the King, seated opposite, sent for Bertoldo. When the fool arrived, he saw how it was intended to press a stooping homage out of him; but his ready wit amply served him, and swinging suddenly round, he entered the royal presence by “one turn astern!”
The other stories related of Bertoldo, almost do outrage to Romance, as they assuredly do to Reason. Of the more credible, and yet sufficiently silly, jokes, there is not one that is not told of other jesters, and much of both belongs probably to the History of Fiction.
Next to Bertoldo, and far better known to light historians generally, stands joyous and unlucky Gonella, the favourite yet ill-treated jester of Borso, Duke of Ferrara, to whose service he was transferred from that of Nicholas, Count of Este, the father of Borso, who died in 1441.
Borso was a coarse fellow, who savoured coarse jokes; and Gonella, despite his own more refined taste, was obliged to supply his patron with that he best liked. Hence the proverb, addressed to one who is too roughly playing the fool, “We are not now in the days of Duke Borso.”