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Updated: June 9, 2025
The fair hostess gave him a jewel; and the vagabond skewed such a brutal eagerness in seizing it with his filthy hands, and making not the least acknowledgment, that when they got out of the house, Morgante was ready to fell him to the earth. He called him scoundrel and poltroon, and said he had disgraced him for ever. "Softly!" said the brute-beast.
Meridiana is a Borzlam, and travels with her own people, and not with old Fulcher, who is a gorgio, and a basket-maker." "I was not speaking of old Fulcher, but Pulci, a great Italian writer, who lived many hundred years ago, and who, in his poem called 'Morgante Maggiore, speaks of Meridiana, the daughter of "
She was the daughter of a great lord; and when she got home, she did honour to Morgante as to an equal, and put Margutte into the kitchen, where he was in a state of bliss. He did nothing but swill, stuff, surfeit, be sick, play at dice, cheat, filch, go to sleep, guzzle again, laugh, chatter, and tell a thousand lies. Morgante took leave of the young lady, who made him rich presents.
Morgante has two brothers, both of them giants, and in the first canto of the poem, Morgante is represented with his brothers as carrying on a feud with the abbot and monks of a certain convent, built upon the confines of heathenesse; the giants being in the habit of flinging down stones, or rather huge rocks, on the convent.
So saying, he made him put some wood on the fire, and perform a hundred other offices to render every thing snug; and then he slept: and next day he cheated his great scoundrelly companion at drink, as he had done the day before at meat; and the poor shabby devil complained; and Morgante laughed till he was ready to burst, and again and again always cheated him.
It is not to be supposed that they lived only upon locusts; doubtless, it also rained manna upon them from heaven; but here one is regaled with stones, which the giants pour on us from the mountain. These are our nice bits and relishes. The fiercest of the three, Morgante, plucks up pines and other great trees by the roots, and casts them on us."
Morgante, who had the great bell-clapper in his hand above-mentioned, struck it on the ground with astonishment, as much as to say, "Who the devil is this?" and then set himself on a stone by the way-side to observe the creature. "What's your name, traveller?" said Morgante, as it came up. "My name's Margutte," said the phenomenon.
"A word to the wise," said Morgante; "you shall see if I grieve for my brethren, and whether or no I submit to the will of God, and behave myself like an angel. So dust to dust; and now let us enjoy ourselves. I will cut off their hands, all four of them, and take them to these holy monks, that they may be sure they are dead, and not fear to go out alone into the desert.
He had a pair of boots on, which Morgante felt tempted to draw off, that he might see what he would do on waking. He accordingly did so, and threw them to a little distance among the bushes. The sleeper awoke in good time, and, looking and searching round about, suddenly burst into roars of laughter. A monkey had got the boots, and sat pulling them on and off, making the most ridiculous gestures.
The "Morgante," of which parts were probably written as a mere sample to amuse a supper party, became interesting to Pulci, in the mere matter of inventing and stringing together new incidents; and despite its ludicrous passages, it must have been more seriously written by him, and more seriously listened to by his friends, than would a similar production now-a-days.
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