Reading Notes: Popular Italian Stories, Part B

For my second reading this week, I decided to continue with Thomas Crane’s Italian Popular Tales and summarize The Language of Animals.

Reading Notes

• A father had a son who was in school for ten years, and finally finished.
• The father threw a great banquet in honor of the son, and invited many important people to come.
• At the banquet, someone asked the son what he had learned, and the son responded that he had learned the languages of dogs, frogs, and birds respectively.
• This was met with ridicule, and the father was so upset at the shame the son had brought upon their name that he ordered his son killed.
• However, the servants he ordered to do the deed faked it, and the son fled the country.
• Eventually the son came to the house where the treasurer of the prince lived, and was granted lodging.
• A multitude of dogs gathered outside the castle; when asked, the son, understanding the language of the dogs, explained it meant that a hundred assassins would attack the castle that evening, and that the appropriate cautions should be taken.
• Soldiers were placed around the castle, and sure enough thieves tried to attack, but were defeated.
• The treasurer tried to give the son his daughter in gratitude, but the son refused, saying he would return in a year and three days.
• The son left, and came to a city where the king’s daughter couldn’t rest because the frogs in the fountain croaked so much.
• The son learned that the princess had thrown a cross into the fountain, and as soon as it was removed the girl recovered.
• Again, the king wanted the son to marry the princess in gratitude, but he refused, saying he would return in a year and three days.
• The son left and headed for Rome, making friends with three men along the way.
• One day they all took refuge under a tree to sleep, and a flock of birds flew to rest on the tree and woke the men with their singing.
• When asked, the son said that the birds sang because one of the men was to be the new Pope; a dove landed on his head, and sure enough he was made Pope.
• After he was made Pope, the son sent for his father, the treasurer, and the king to come before him.
• All three were sure they were in trouble for some sin they had committed, but the son had them all discuss their deeds.
• He then turned to his father and told him that he had ordered him killed because he said he understood the languages of a few animals, but the other two men were very grateful that the son had such knowledge.
• His father repented, the son pardoned him, and they lived on.

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