Peter the Fool 2

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The queen, though assenting to this doom, was fearful lest the public execution of the victims might draw down upon the king the anger of the people; so she persuaded him to have made a huge cask into which the three might be put and cast into the sea to drift at random. Then, at least, no one might witness their dying agony.

This the king agreed to; and when the cask was made, the condemned ones were put therein, with a basket of bread and a flask of wine, and a drum of figs for the child, and thrust out into the rough sea, with the expectation that the waves would soon dash it to pieces against the rocks. But this was not to be their fate.

Peter's poor old mother, when she heard of her son's misfortune, died of grief in a few days; and the unhappy Luciana, tossed about by the cruel waves, and seeing neither sun nor moon, would have welcomed a similar fate. The child, since she had no milk to give it, had to be soothed to sleep with now and then a fig. But Peter seemed to care for nothing, and ate the bread and drank the wine steadily, laughing the while.

"Alas! alas!" cried Luciana in despair. "You care nothing for this evil which you have brought upon me, a poor innocent girl. You eat and drink and laugh without a thought of the danger around us.

"Why," replied Peter, "this misfortune is more your own fault than mine. If you had not mocked me so, it would never have happened. But do not lose heart. Our troubles will soon be over."

"I believe that," cried Luciana, "for the cask will soon be split on a rock, and then we must all be drowned."

"No, no," said Peter." Calm yourself. I have a secret, and were you to know what it is, you would be vastly surprised and vastly delighted too, I believe."

"What secret can you know," said Luciana, "which will avail us in such danger as this?"

"I will soon tell you," Peter replied. "I have a faithful servant, a great fish, who will do me any service I ask of him, and there is nothing he cannot do. I may as well tell you it was through his working that you became with child."

"That I cannot believe," said Luciana. And what may this fish of yours be called?"

"His name is Signor Tunny," replied Peter.

"Then," said Luciana, "to put your fish to the test, I will ask you to transfer to me the power you exercise over him, and to command him to do my bidding instead of yours."

"Be it as you will," said Peter; and without more ado he called the tunny, who at once rose up near the cask, whereupon Peter commanded him to do everything that Luciana might require of him.


She at once exercised her power over the fish by ordering him to make the waves cast the cask ashore in a fair safe cleft in the rocks on an island, a short sail from her father's kingdom.

As soon as the fish had worked her will so far, she laid other and much harder tasks upon him. One was to change Peter from the ugly fool that he was into a clever, handsome gallant. Another was to have built for her forthwith a rich and sumptuous palace with lofty halls and chambers and girt with carven terraces. Within the court there was to be laid out a beautiful garden, full of trees which should bear, instead of fruit, pearls and precious stones, and in the midst of it two fountains, one of the freshest water and the other of the finest wine. All these wonders were wrought by the fish almost as soon as Luciana had spoken.

Now all this time the king and the queen were in deep misery in thinking of the cruel death they had contrived for Luciana and her child, how they had given their own flesh and blood to be eaten by the fishes. Therefore, to find some solace in their woe, they determined to go to Jerusalem and to visit the Holy Land. So they ordered a ship to be put in order for them, and furnished with all things suited to their state.

They set sail with a favoring wind, and before they had gone a

hundred miles they came in sight of an island upon which they could see a stately palace, built a little above the level of the sea. Seeing that this palace was so fair and sumptuous, and standing, moreover, within Luciano's kingdom, they were seized with a longing to view it more closely. So, having put into a haven, they landed on the island.

Before they had come to the palace Luciana and Peter saw and recognized them, and, having gone forth to meet them, greeted them with a cordial welcome, but the king and queen did not know their hosts for the great change which had come over them.

The guests were taken first into the palace, which they examined in every part, praising loudly its great beauty, and then they were led by a secret staircase into the garden, the splendor of which pleased them so amazingly that they swore they had never at any time before looked upon a place so delightful.

In the center of this garden there stood a noble tree, which bore on one of its branches three golden apples. These the keeper of the garden was charged to guard jealously against robbers, and now, by some secret working which I cannot unravel, the finest of these apples was transported into the folds of the king's robe about his bosom, and there hidden.

Luciano and the queen were about to take their leave when the keeper approached and said to Luciana, "Madam, the most beautiful of the three golden apples is missing, and I can find no trace of the thief."

Luciana forthwith gave orders that the whole household should be searched, one by one, for such a loss as this was no light matter. The keeper, after he had searched thoroughly everyone, came back and told Luciana that the apple was nowhere to be found.

At these words Luciana fell into great confusion, and, turning to the king, said, "Your majesty must not be wroth with me if I ask that even you allow yourself to be searched, for I prize the golden apple that is lost almost as highly as my life."

The king, unsuspicious of any trick, and sure of his innocence, straightway loosened his robe, and lo! the golden apple fell from it to the ground.

The king stood as one dazed, ignorant as to how the golden apple could have come into his robe, and Luciana spoke, "Sire, we have welcomed you to our house with all the worship fitting to your rank, and now, as a recompense, you would privily rob our garden of its finest fruit. Meseems you have proved yourself very ungrateful."

The king, in his innocence, attempted to prove to her that he could not have taken the apple, and Luciana, seeing his confusion, knew that the time had come for her to speak, and reveal herself to her father.

"My lord," she said, with the tears in her eyes, "I am Luciana, your hapless daughter, whom you sentenced to a cruel death along with my child and Peter the fisher boy. Though I bore a child, I was never unchaste. Here is the boy, and here is he whom men were wont to call Peter the Fool. You wonder at this change. It has all been brought about by the power of a marvelous fish whose life Peter spared when he had caught it in his net. By this power Peter has been turned into the wisest of men, and the palace you see has been built. In the same way I became pregnant without knowledge of a man, and the golden apple was conveyed into the folds of your robe. I am as innocent of unchastity as you are of theft."

When the king heard these words his eyes were opened, and he knew his child. Then, weeping with joy, they embraced each other, and all were glad and happy. After spending a few days on the island, they all embarked and returned together to Capraia, where with sumptuous feastings and rejoicings Peter was duly married to Luciana, and lived with her in great honor and contentment, until Luciano died, and then he became king in his stead.

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