domenica 26 aprile 2015

Chichibio and the crane - part 3


From Decamerone (1349-1351) by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375),

the novel “Chichibio and the crane”

part 3



Chichibio straddled with fear, he wanted to escape but coudn’t. When he arrives at the river, first he sees a dozen cranes sleeping and standing on one leg and and shout:” sir, you can see for yourself that I was right last night, cranes have only one leg!.” Sir Corrado respons:’ wait i am going to show you that they have two !”and saying that he gets close to the birds and scream oh! Oh!”. Hearing that sound, the cranes unfold the second leg and run away. Sir Corrado looks at Chichibio and says to him:” well, rascal, didn’t I tell you? I didn’t think they had two!!”. Chichibio, at first stays silent, but then cluthching at straws, respond:” you are right, Sir, but perhaps you didn’t scream oh oh at the crane from last night Because if you would have done it, for sure she would have unfold her second leg and consequently the second thigh!”. When Sir Corrado hears this, he started to laugh, but he doesn’t fell like punishing this very good cook and he forgives him from the bad joke.

 translated by IsabelleWanlin Hocquet