Another section of the tales would appear to have their origins in the classics, and among these are the stories dealing with Trajan, Cato, Seneca, Socrates, Hector and Troy, Narcissus, Hercules, Aristotle and others.
A number are of oriental origin. Among these may be mentioned the novella treating of Prester John, of “the Greek kept in prison”, “How a jongleur lamented before Alexander”, “God and the Minstrel” and the last one in the book about the Old Man of the Mountain.
As the reader will see, the stories in this collection, which represent what is the oldest or almost the oldest work in prose in the Italian language, and the first book of stories in that tongue, have a very special and characteristic style of their own. Their language is the language of the beginnings of a culture, simple to the point of bareness, full of action, wisdom and wit. The narratives are the narratives of a man unused to [[22]]word-spinning and still a mediæval person of action, a trifle afraid of the mystery of the written word, though probably almost a pedant in comparison with the illiterate world of his time. The language of the tales calls to mind very obviously the style of the Bible, or of the early Hellenic poems, though it is ruder than either. The very simplicity which is one of the charms of the narrative has its drawbacks or rather surprises, especially to modern minds accustomed to a more flexible and more elastic syntax. The personal pronouns have a curious way of getting mixed up in the Novellino. One feels that the story-teller has a perfect, even childish confidence in the reader’s interest, and as a matter of fact, the tales are so short and easily grasped that the doubt as to who is the particular “he” or “she” or “they” referred to is little more than a pedantic one. I have only altered these peculiarities of the prose where it has seemed necessary in order to allow the meaning to come through clearly, for certainly a great deal of the quality and charm of the book lies in its quaint style. To smooth this out overmuch, would certainly destroy the vigour of the [[23]]original. Many of the tales, as I have said elsewhere, are common to many nations, and it is largely due to the strong if abrupt style of the narratives that they give us such a sharp sense of the period to which they belong.
To read the tales in the present collection provides a remarkable contrast with modern prose, which can never seem to say enough. The compiler or author, if so we may call him, of the Hundred Old Tales, eschews all psychology the meaning of which word he was ignorant of, and abstains from comment unless it be in the nature of moral comment. This latter, of course, comes from the older tradition of Latin tales to which books like the Gesta Romanorum and Disciplina Clericalis belong. But in this case, the moral is pointed out out of respect to the older tradition, from which the author could not quite shake himself free, writing, though he was, in a new idiom. These moralisings which conclude some of the tales, or are allowed to be understood, are more a tribute to the moral than the literary traditions of the times.
The beauty and dramatic effect of some of the [[24]]tales is extraordinary. The version given of the Lady of Shalot and how she died for love of Lancelot is exquisite in its purity and tenderness. It is quite a little masterpiece of literature.
“The sail-less vessel was put into the sea with the woman, and the sea took it to Camelot, and drifted it to the shore. A cry passed through the court. The knights and barons came down from the palaces, and noble King Arthur came too, and marvelled mightily that the boat was there with no guide. The king stepped on to it and saw the damsel and the furnishings. He had the satchel opened and the letter was found. He ordered that it should be read, and it ran: ‘To all the Knights of the Round Table this lady of Shalott sends greetings as to the gentlest folk in the world. And if you would know why I have come to this end, it is for the finest knight in the world and the most villainous, that is my Lord Sir Lancelot of the Lake, whom I did not know how to beg that he should have pity on me. So I died for loving well as you can see’.”
It would be hard to surpass the pure simplicity [[25]]of this even in verse. The language moves directly from fact to the written word. There is no hint of conscious colouring, no attempt to heighten the effect by a single adjective. Adjectives indeed are extremely rare in the Novellino, as in all good simple prose for the matter of that. The writer rarely departs from “very beautiful” or “most gentle” or “very rich”. As a rule, the tales are almost adjectiveless, and never are adjectives used to round out an effect or disguise an impoverished period. The rhythm of the tales, almost monotonous perhaps, yet wonderfully strong, moves surely from subject to predicate with the least possible adornment. Adornment, in fact, is not the word to use in this connection, for as such it does not exist. Such adjectival or adverbial phrases as are used are such as are only strictly demanded by the accompanying nouns or verbs. This, of course, is one of the characteristics of good literature in all ages, and especially is to be found in early classic prose.
A typical story of the Middle Ages is the dramatic, macabre tale of the knight who was charged with the custody of a hanged man, and [[26]]found a substitute for the body which had been taken away by the dead man’s friends in the corpse of the husband of a woman to whom the knight makes love. The love scene which takes place at night by the grave-side of the woman’s husband whom she is desperately mourning is grim and picturesque indeed. We have to go to our own Border and Scotch Ballads to find anything similar. Though the tale is of ancient origin, and is to be found in Petronius, it has all the characteristics of awe, swift passion, gloom and mockery which we associate with the so-called dark ages. The little story outlines a drama of great gloom and power in a few rapid touches. The whole thing is told in some three or four hundred words, but the content is packed with action, and not a word is wasted in ornament or comment. If we take two or three of the lines of the tale individually, we see how rich in action and picturesqueness they are, though a chaster and more ascetic prose could hardly be used.
“Do as I say,” says the knight at the graveside; “Take me to husband, for I have no wife, and save my life, for I am in danger.… [[27]]Show me how I may escape if you can, and I will be your husband and maintain you honourably. Then the woman, hearing this, fell in love with the knight.… She ceased her plaint, and helped him to draw her husband from his grave.…” We may note how in the next sentence the writer passes quickly over what has happened on the journey to the scaffold, discarding it as undramatic, for the same sentence goes on at once “… and assisted him to hang him by the neck, dead as he was”.