abode of misery,[1] this den of woes, but that I leave you here behind me, a pair of miserable fellows, as big as Santa Chiara on the five ways of Melito,[2] without a stitch upon your backs, as clean as a barber's basin, as nimble as a serjeant, as dry as a plum-stone, without so much as a fly can carry upon its foot; so that were you to run a hundred miles, not a farthing would drop from you. My ill-fortune has indeed brought me to such beggary that I lead the life of a dog, and just as I am, they may put me down in their books; for I have all along, as you well know, gaped with hunger[3] and gone to bed without a candle. Nevertheless, now that I am dying, I wish to leave you some token of my love. So do you, Oratiello, who are my first-born, take the sieve that hangs yonder against the wall, with which you can earn your bread; and do you, little fellow, take the cat, and remember your daddy." So saying he began to whimper, and presently after said, "God be with you, for it is night!"
Oratiello had his father buried by charity, and then took the sieve, and went riddling here and there and everywhere to gain a livelihood; and the more he rid-
- ↑ Mantracchio: a miserable port of Naples so named. The word is Arabic, and signifies a Port.
- ↑ A place near Naples.
- ↑ Literally, 'I have always made gapings and crosses.' This refers to a superstitious practice formerly common in Naples of making the sign of the cross over the mouth when a person gaped: it arose from the notion that the evil spirits seized such moments to enter the body.
