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Lisa is born from a rose petal and then dies because of a fairy’s curse. Her mother puts her in a room and gives her brother instructions not to open it. But his jealous wife wants to see what is in there, finds Lisa alive, and, after dressing her as a slave, makes her suffer a thousand torments. She is finally recognized by her uncle, who drives his wife away and arranges the richest of marriages for his niece. “Truly,” said the prince, “every man must practice his own trade: the lord that of the lord, the groom that of the groom, and the cop that of the cop. For just as the boy who wants to act like a prince makes himself ridiculous, so the prince who acts like a boy loses his reputation.” Saying this, he turned to Paola and told her that she could let herself go. After sucking her lips at length and scratching her head, she began in this manner: “If it’s worth anything to tell the truth, jealousy is a terrible little demon, a vertigo that makes your head spin, a fever that heats up your veins, a calamity that chills your limbs, a dysentery that makes your intestines churn, and, finally, a sickness that takes your sleep away, makes your food bitter, disturbs your peace, and cuts your life in half; it’s a serpent that bites, a woodworm that gnaws, bile that poisons, snow that numbs, a nail that perforates, a marriage breaker of the delights of Love, a wrecker1 of amorous joys, and a constant tempest in the sea of Venus’s pleasures, from which nothing of good has ever sprung, as you will confess with your own tongues upon hearing the tale that follows. “There once was a baron, the baron of Dark Wood, who had a maiden sister who always went with other young ladies her age to frolic in a garden. And on one of these occasions they found a lovely, overblown rosebush, and 8 The Little Slave Girl Eighth Entertainment of the Second Day 195 AT 410: Sleeping Beauty, and AT 894: The Ghoulish Schoolmaster and the Stone of Pity. Penzer mentions a Turkish tale similar to this one. The tale also shares motifs with Grimm 89, “The Goose Girl” (where the heroine recounts her sorrows to an iron stove), and 54, “Snow White” (the comb and the glass coffin), as well as with Gonzenbach 11 and tale 5.5 of this collection. 1. scazzellacane (Neap.): “literally, someone who separates mating dogs” (Croce 207). pledged that whoever jumped clean over it without touching a leaf would win something. “A number of the girls jumped, straddling their legs, but they all brushed against it, and none of them got clear over. But then it was the turn of Lilla, the baron’s sister, and she took a little running start and then raced off so fast that she jumped clear over the rose. She did cause one petal to fall, but she was so quick and agile that she picked it up in a flash from the ground, swallowed it, and won the prize. “But before three days had gone by she felt pregnant and nearly died of grief, since she knew for certain that she hadn’t been up to any tricks or dirty business, and couldn’t figure out how her belly had swollen up. And so she ran off to some fairies who were friends of hers, who told her not to fear, for it was the rose petal that she had swallowed. When Lilla heard this she tried to hide her belly as best she could, and when it came time to unload the weight she gave birth in secret to a lovely daughter whom she named Lisa. She sent the girl to the fairies, who each gave her a charm, but as the last one came running to see the baby girl she twisted her foot so dreadfully that in her pain she put a curse on her: when she was seven years old, her mother would comb her hair and forget the comb on her head, where it would remain stuck and cause her to die. “When the time arrived, all of this occurred. The poor mother, desperate over this misfortune, first lamented bitterly and then enclosed Lisa in seven crystal caskets, each contained within the other, and put her in the last room of the palace, keeping...

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