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The Love for Three Oranges (fairy tale)

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The Love for Three Oranges
The prince releases the fairy woman from the fruit. Illustration by Edward G. McCandlish for Édouard René de Laboulaye's Fairy Book (1920).
Folk tale
NameThe Love for Three Oranges
Also known asThe Three Citrons
Aarne–Thompson groupingATU 408 (The Three Oranges)
RegionItaly
Published inPentamerone, by Giambattista Basile
RelatedThe Enchanted Canary
Lovely Ilonka

"The Love for Three Oranges" or "The Three Citrons" is an Italian literary fairy tale written by Giambattista Basile in the Pentamerone.[1] It is the concluding tale, and the one the heroine of the frame story uses to reveal that an imposter has taken her place.

Synopsis

A king, who only had one son, anxiously waited for him to marry. One day, the prince cut his finger; his blood fell on white cheese. The prince declared that he would only marry a woman as white as the cheese and as red as the blood, so he set out to find her.

The prince wandered the lands until he came to the Island of Ogresses, where two little old women each told him that he could find what he sought here, if he went on, and the third gave him three citrons, with a warning not to cut them until he came to a fountain. A fairy would fly out of each, and he had to give her water at once.

He returned home, and by the fountain, he was not quick enough for the first two, but was for the third. The woman was red and white, and the prince wanted to fetch her home properly, with suitable clothing and servants. He had her hide in a tree. A black slave, coming to fetch water, saw her reflection in the water, and thought it was her own and that she was too pretty to fetch water. She refused, and her mistress beat her until she fled. The fairy laughed at her in the garden, and the slave noticed her. She asked her story and on hearing it, offered to arrange her hair for the prince. When the fairy agreed, she stuck a pin into her head, and the fairy only escaped by turning into a bird. When the prince returned, the slave claimed that wicked magic had transformed her.

The prince and his parents prepared for the wedding. The bird flew to the kitchen and asked after the cooking. The lady ordered it be cooked, and it was caught and cooked, but the cook threw the water it had been scalded in, into the garden, where a citron tree grew in three days. The prince saw the citrons, took them to his room, and dealt with them as the last three, getting back his bride. She told him what had happened. He brought her to a feast and demanded of everyone what should be done to anyone who would harm her. Various people said various things; the slave said she should be burned, and so the prince had the slave burned.

Variants

It is Aarne-Thompson type 408, and the oldest known variant of this tale.[2] Scholarship point that the Italian version is the original appearance of the tale, with later variants appearing in French, such as the one by Le Chevalier de Mailly (Incarnat, blanc et noir (fr)).[3] In de Mailly's version, the fruits the girls are trapped in are apples.[4][5][6]

19th century Portuguese folklorist Consiglieri Pedroso stated that the tale is "familiar to the South of Europe".[7] In the same vein, folklorist Stith Thompson suggested the tale had a regular occurrence in the Mediterranean Area, distributed along Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal.[8]

Scholar Linda Dégh suggested a common origin for tale types ATU 403 ("The Black and the White Bride"), ATU 408 ("The Three Oranges"), ATU 425 ("The Search for the Lost Husband"), ATU 706 ("The Maiden Without Hands") and ATU 707 ("The Three Golden Sons"), since "their variants cross each other constantly and because their blendings are more common than their keeping to their separate type outlines" and even influence each other.[9]

Further scholarly research points that variants exist in Austrian, Ukrainian and Japanese traditions.[10]

Italy

Italo Calvino included a variant The Love of the Three Pomegranates, an Abruzzese version known too as As White as Milk, As Red as Blood but noted that he could have selected from forty different Italian versions, with a wide array of fruit,[11] such as the version The Three Lemons, published in The Golden Rod Fairy Book.[12]

A scholarly inquiry by Italian Istituto centrale per i beni sonori ed audiovisivi ("Central Institute of Sound and Audiovisual Heritage"), produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s, found fifty-eight variants of the tale across Italian sources.[13]

Despite a singular attestation of the tale in a Norwegian compilation of fairy tales, its source was a foreign woman who became naturalized.[14]

Hungary

Variants of the tale are also present in compilations from Hungary. One tale was collected by László Merényi with the title A nádszál kisasszony[15] and translated by Jeremiah Curtin as The Reed Maiden.[16] In this story, a prince marries a princess, the older sister of the Reed Maiden, but his brother only wants to marry "the most lovely, world-beautiful maiden". The prince asks his sister-in-law who this person could be, and she answers it is her elder sister, hidden with her two ladies-in-waiting in three reeds in a distant land. He releases the two ladies-in-waiting, but forgets to give them water. The prince finaly releases the Reed Maiden and gives her the water. Later, before the Reed Maiden is married to the prince, a gypsy comes and replaces her.

Another variant is Lovely Ilonka, collected by Elisabet Róna-Sklárek and also published by Andrew Lang. In this tale, the prince quests for a beautiful maiden to marry and asks an old lady. The old woman points him to a place where three bulrushes grow and warns him to break the bulrushes near a body of water.

Antal Hoger collected the tale A háromágú tölgyfa tündére ("The Fairy from Three-Branched Oak Tree"). A king goes hunting in the woods, but three animals plead for their lives (a deer, a hare and a fox). All three animals point to a magical oak tree with three branches and say, if the king break each of the branches, a maiden shall appear and request water to drink. With the first two branches, the maidens die, but the king gives water to the third one and decides to marry her. They both walk towards the castle and the king says the fairy maiden should wait on the tree. A witch sees the maiden, tricks her and tosses her deep in a well; she replaces the fairy maiden with her own daughter.[17]

Greece

Austrian consul Johann Georg von Hahn collected a variant from Asia Minor titled Die Zederzitrone. The usual story happens, but, when the false bride pushed the fruit maiden into the water, she turned into a fish. The false bride then insisted she must eat the fish; when the fish was gutted, three drops of blood fell to the floor and from them sprouted a cypress. The false bride then realized the cypress was the true bride and asked the prince to chop down the tree and burn it, making some tea with its ashes. When the pyre was burning, a splinter of the cypress got lodged in an old lady's apron. When the old lady left home for a few hours, the maiden appeared from the splinter and swept the house during the old woman's absence.[18] Von Hahn remarked that this transformation sequence was very similar to one in a Wallachian variant of The Boys with the Golden Stars.[19]

Asia

The tale is said to be "very popular in the Orient".[20] Scholar Ulrich Marzolph remarked that the tale type AT 408 was one of "the most frequently encountered tales in Arab oral tradition", albeit missing from The Arabian Nights compilation.[21]

Richard McGillivray Dawkins, on the notes on his book on Modern Greek Folktales in Asia Minor, suggested a Levantine origin for the tale, since even Portuguese variants retain an Eastern flavor.[22]

A Persian variant, titled The Three Silver Citrons, was recorded by Katherine Pyle.[23]

In another Persian variant, The Orange and Citron Princess, the hero received the blessing of a mullah, who mentions the titular princess. The hero's mother advises against her son's quest for the maiden, because it would lead to his death. The tale is different in that there is only one princess, instead of the usual three.[24]

A Turkish variant, titled The Three Orange-Peris, was recorded by Hungarian folklorist Ignác Kúnos.[25] The tale was translated as The Orange Fairy in The Fir-Tree Fairy Book.[26]

In a variant from India, The Anar Pari, or Pomegranate Fairy, the princess released from the fruit suffers successive deaths ordered by the false bride, yet goes through a resurrective metamorphosis and regains her original body.[27]

As pointed by Richard McGillivray Dawkins, the Indian tale of The Bél-Princess, collected by Maive Stokes,[28] and The Belbati Princess, by Cecil Henry Bompas,[29] are "near relatives" of The Three Citrons, since the two Indian tales are about a beautiful princess hidden in a fruit and replaced by a false bride.[30]

The tale was the basis for Carlo Gozzi's commedia dell'arte L'amore delle tre melarance, and for Sergei Prokofiev's opera, The Love for Three Oranges.

A literary treatment of the story, titled The Three Lemons and with an Eastern flair, was writter by Lillian M. Gask and publish in 1912, in a folktale compilation.[31]

The tale was also adapted into the story Las tres naranjitas de oro ("The Three Little Golden Oranges"), by Spanish writer Romualdo Nogués.[32]

A Hungarian variant of the tale was adapted into an episode of the Hungarian television series Magyar népmesék ("Hungarian Folk Tales") (hu), with the title A háromágú tölgyfa tündére ("The Fairy from the Oak Tree"). This version also shows the fairy's transformation into a goldfish and later into a magical apple tree.

Hillary DePiano's play The Love of the Three Oranges is based on Gozzi's scenario and offers a more accurate translation of the original Italiian title, L'amore delle tre melarance, than the English version which incorrectly uses for Three Oranges in the title.

See also

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

References

  1. ^ Giambattista Basile, Pentamerone, "The Three Citrons"
  2. ^ Steven Swann Jones, The Fairy Tale: The Magic Mirror of Imagination, Twayne Publishers, New York, 1995, ISBN 0-8057-0950-9, p. 38.
  3. ^ Barchilon, Jacques. "Souvenirs et réflexions sur le conte merveilleux". In: Littératures classiques, n°14, janvier 1991. Enfance et littérature au XVIIe siècle. pp. 243-244. [DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/licla.1991.1282]; www.persee.fr/doc/licla_0992-5279_1991_num_14_1_1282
  4. ^ "Carnation, White, and Black". In: Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas. Fairy tales far and near. London, Paris, Melbourne: Cassell and Company, Limited. 1895. pp. 62-74. [1]
  5. ^ "Red, White and Black". In: Montalba, Anthony Reubens. Fairy tales from all nations. London: Chapman and Hall, 186, Strand. 1849. pp. 243-246.
  6. ^ "Roth, weiss und schwarz" In: Kletke, Hermann. Märchensaal: Märchen aller völker für jung und alt. Erster Band. Berlin: C. Reimarus. 1845. pp. 181-183.
  7. ^ Pedroso, Consiglieri. Portuguese Folk-Tales. London: Published for the Folk-Lore Society. 1882. pp. iv.
  8. ^ Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. pp. 94-95. ISBN 0-520-03537-2
  9. ^ Dégh, Linda. Narratives in Society: A Performer-Centered Study of Narration. FF Communications 255. Pieksämäki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, 1995. p. 41.
  10. ^ Pedrosa, José Manuel. "Cidras y naranjas, o cuentos persas, cuentos españoles y cuentos universales". In: Maryam Haghroosta y José Manuel Pedrosa. Los príncipes convertidos en piedra y otros cuentos tradicionales persas. Guadalajara, España: Palabras del Candil. 2010. pp. 26-39.
  11. ^ Italo Calvino, Italian Folktales, pp. 737-8. ISBN 0-15-645489-0
  12. ^ Singleton, Esther. The golden rod fairy book. New York, Dodd, Mead & company. 1903. pp. 158-172.
  13. ^ Discoteca di Stato (1975). Alberto Mario Cirese; Liliana Serafini (eds.). Tradizioni orali non cantate: primo inventario nazionale per tipi, motivi o argomenti [Oral and Non Sung Traditions: First National Inventory by Types, Motifs or Topics] (in Italian and English). Ministero dei beni culturali e ambientali. pp. 93–95. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  14. ^ Stroebe, Klara; Martens, Frederick Herman. The Norwegian fairy book. New York: Frederick A. Stokes company. [1922.] pp. 16-22
  15. ^ Merényi László. Eredeti Népmesék. Masódik Rész. Pest: Kiadja Heckenast Gusztáv. 1861. pp. 35-64.
  16. ^ Curtin, Jeremiah. Myths and Folk-tales of the Russians, Western Slavs, and Magyars. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1890. pp. 457-476.
  17. ^ Antal Horger. Hétfalusi csángó népmesék (Népköltési gyüjtemény 10. kötet). Budapest: Az Athenaeum Részvénytársulat Tulajdona. 1908. pp. 96-103.
  18. ^ Hahn, Johann Georg von. Griechische und Albanesische Märchen 1-2. München/Berlin: Georg Müller. 1918 [1864]. pp. 244-250.
  19. ^ Hahn, Johann Georg von. Griechische und Albanesische Märchen 1-2. München/Berlin: Georg Müller. 1918 [1864]. pp. 404.
  20. ^ Stroebe, Klara; Martens, Frederick Herman. The Norwegian fairy book. New York: Frederick A. Stokes company. [1922.] p. 22.
  21. ^ Marzolph, Ulrich; van Leewen, Richard. The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia. Vol. I. California: ABC-Clio. 2004. p. 12. ISBN 1-85109-640-X (e-book)
  22. ^ Dawkins, Richard McGillivray. Modern Greek in Asia Minor: A study of the dialects of Siĺli, Cappadocia and Phárasa, with grammar, texts, translations and glossary. London: Cambridge University Press. 1916. pp. 271-272.
  23. ^ Pyle, Katherine. Tales of folk and fairies. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1919. pp. 180-200.
  24. ^ Lorimer, David Lockhart Robertson; Lorimer, Emily Overend. Persian tales. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd. 1919. pp. 135-147.
  25. ^ Kúnos, Ignácz. Turkish fairy tales and folk tales collected by Dr. Ignácz Kúnos. London, Lawrence and Bullen. 1896. pp. 12-30.
  26. ^ Johnson, Clifton. The fir-tree fairy book; favorite fairy tales. Boston: Little, Brown. 1912. pp. 158-172.
  27. ^ Dracott, Alice Elizabeth. Simla Village Tales, or Folk Tales from the Himalayas. England, London: John Murray. 1906. pp. 226-237.
  28. ^ Stokes, Maive. Indian fairy tales, collected and tr. by M. Stokes; with notes by Mary Stokes. London: Ellis and White. 1880. pp. 138-152.
  29. ^ Bompas, Cecil Henry. Folklore of the Santal Parganas. London: David Nutt. 1909. pp. 461-464.
  30. ^ Dawkins, Richard McGillivray. Modern Greek in Asia Minor: A study of the dialects of Siĺli, Cappadocia and Phárasa, with grammar, texts, translations and glossary. London: Cambridge University Press. 1916. p. 272.
  31. ^ The Junior Classics, Volume 2: Folk Tales and Myths. Selected and arranged by William Patten. New York: P. F. Collier and Son. 1912. pp. 500-511.
  32. ^ Nogués, Romualdo. Cuentos para gente menuda. segunda Edición. Madrid: Imprenta de A. Pérez Dubrull. 1887. pp. 36-45. [2]

Further reading

  • Cardigos, Isabel. "Review [Reviewed Work: The Tale of the Three Oranges by Christine Goldberg]" Marvels & Tales 13, no. 1 (1999): 108-11. Accessed June 20, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/41388536.
  • Da Silva, Francisco Vaz. "Red as Blood, White as Snow, Black as Crow: Chromatic Symbolism of Womanhood in Fairy Tales." Marvels & Tales 21, no. 2 (2007): 240-52. Accessed June 20, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/41388837.
  • Hemming, Jessica. "Red, White, and Black in Symbolic Thought: The Tricolour Folk Motif, Colour Naming, and Trichromatic Vision." Folklore 123, no. 3 (2012): 310-29. Accessed June 20, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/41721562.
  • Mazzoni, Cristina. "The Fruit of Love in Giambattista Basile's “The Three Citrons”." Marvels & Tales 29, no. 2 (2015): 228-44. Accessed June 20, 2020. doi:10.13110/marvelstales.29.2.0228.
  • Oriol, Carme. (2015). "Walter Anderson’s Letters to Joan Amades: A Study of the Collaboration between Two Contemporary Folklorists". Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore 62 (2015): 139-174. 10.7592/FEJF2015.62.oriol.
  • Prince, Martha. "The love for three oranges (Aarne-Thompson Tale Type 408): A study in traditional variation and literary adaptation." Electronic Thesis or Dissertation. Ohio State University, 1962. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/
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