Note 296 — Terminal Essay. (continued 2)

Boccaccio (ob. Dec. 2, 1375), may easily have heard of The Thousand Nights and a Night or of its archetype the Hazár Afsánah. He was followed by the Piacevoli Notti of Giovan Francisco Straparola (A.D. 1550), translated into almost all European languages but English: the original Italian is now rare. Then came the Heptameron ou Histoire des amans fortunez of Marguerite d’Angoulême, Reyne de Navarre and only sister of Francis I. She died in 1549 before the days were finished: in 1558 Pierre Boaistuan published the Histoire des amans fortunez and in 1559 Claude Guiget the “Heptameron.” Next is the Hexameron of A. de Torquemada, Rouen, 1610; and, lastly, the Pentamerone or El Cunto de li Cunte of Giambattista Basile (Naples, 1637), known by the meagre abstract of J. E. Taylor and the caricatures of George Cruikshank (London, 1847–50). I propose to translate this Pentamerone direct from the Neapolitan and have already finished half the work.