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Cicella, badly treated by her stepmother, receives gifts from three fairies. The envious stepmother then sends them her own daughter, who receives only humiliation . For this reason the stepmother sends Cicella to look after pigs, and a great lord falls in love with her. But with a ruse the stepmother gives him her ugly daughter instead, and leaves her stepdaughter in a barrel with the intention of boiling her to death. The lord discovers the foul play and puts the daughter in the barrel; the stepmother arrives and boils her own daughter’s flesh off with hot water. When she discovers her mistake, she kills herself. Ciommetella’s tale was judged to be one of the best told so far, so that when Iacova saw that everyone was struck with amazement she said, “If it were not for the prince and princess’s order, which is the winch that hoists me up and the towline that pulls me, I would put an end to my chatter, for it seems like too much of a stretch to compare the busted lute1 of my mouth to the arch-viola2 of Ciommetella’s words. But since it is my lord’s wish, I will force myself to play for you a little composition3 on the punishment of an envious woman who, although she wanted to sink her stepdaughter, instead led her up to the stars. “In the village of Marcianise4 there was a widow named Caradonia, who was the mother of all envy. She could never see anything go well for a neigh10 The Three Fairies Tenth Entertainment of the Third Day 280 AT 403: The Black and the White Bride, and AT 480: The Spinning-Woman by the Spring and the Kind and the Unkind Girls. This tale bears some similarity to the latter part of 1.5. The “joint efforts” motif is a common one and can be found in Grimm 71 (“How Six Made Their Way in the World”). See also Grimm 13 (“The Three Little Gnomes in the Forest”), 24 (“Mother Holle”), 89 (“The Goose Girl”), 130 (“One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes”), Perrault’s “The Fairies,” MarieJeanne Lhéritier’s “The Enchantments of Eloquence; or, The Effects of Sweetness,” and Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s “Aurore and Aimée” (the last two in The Great Fairy Tale Tradition). 1. See tale 1.3 n24. 2. “A type of large viola that Basile lists among the ‘modern musical instruments’ in the ninth eclogue of the Muse napolitane” (Croce 323). 3. recercatella (Neap.): a short recercata; see tale 1.1 n17. 4. “Commune in the province of Caserta, at Basile’s time in the territory of Capua, 27 km. north of Naples” (Croce 323). bor without getting a lump in her throat; she could never hear of the good fortune of an acquaintance without it going down the wrong way; nor could she see any woman or man happy without getting the hiccups. “This woman had a daughter named Grannizia, who was the quintessence of all cankers, the prime cut of all sea orcas, and the cream of all cracked barrels . Her head was full of nits, her hair a ratty mess, her temples plucked, her forehead like a hammer, her eyes like a hernia, her nose a knotty bump, her teeth full of tartar, and her mouth like a grouper’s; she had the beard of a goat, the throat of a magpie, tits like saddlebags, shoulders like cellar vaults, arms like a reel, hooked legs, and heels like cabbages. In short, she was from head to toe a lovely hag, a fine spot of plague, an unsightly bit of rot, and above all she was a midget, an ugly goose, and a snot nose. But in spite of all this, the little cockroach looked like a beauty to her mother! “Now it happened that one day this good widow married a certain Micco Antuono, a very wealthy farmer from Panecuocolo5 who had twice been bailiff and mayor of that village and was much esteemed by all the Panecuocolese, who set great store by him. Micco Antuono had a daughter, too, by the name of Cicella, who was the most marvelous and beauteous creature in the world: her twinkling eyes cast a spell on you, her little mouth made for kissing put you in a state of ecstasy, and her cream-colored throat sent you into spasms. She was, in short, so charming, savory, gay...

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