For the second year, I am teaching a senior elective in fairy tales. Recently, we read Giovan Francesco Straparola’s story “Tebaldo” (1550 CE). Like many fairy tales, this one begins with an intact nuclear family and everything is fine until the mother dies. Unlike in “Cinderella” and “Snow White,” the father does not remarry. Although to be quite honest, that would be preferable to what happens next.

When his daughter grows up, he realizes that she is even lovelier and more accomplished than her mother and decides he will marry her himself.

I would definitely prefer an evil step-mother.

Anyway, the daughter escapes with the help of her old nurse [think of the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet my students admonished], she gets remarried to a king of a faraway land, and has two children.

In the meanwhile, her lusty father figures out where she is and decides to break up the marriage. He disguises himself as a merchant and travels to the kingdom (England) where his daughter is now queen. He gains her confidence and manages to be allowed to sleep in the same room as her children. He kills the children with her own dagger, leaves the dagger as evidence, and climbs out the window.

Now this is where the story takes another turn. Straparola then says that “a famous astrologer” arrives in the city and the king summons him to the palace to find the murderer. The astrologer tells the king to examine the daggers of the people in the court — even his own mother’s dagger and, lastly, his wife’s dagger. It is discovered that the queen’s dagger is bloody and the king devises a horrible punishment for her.

The astrologer tells the old nurse what he has done and the old nurse travels to the queen’s new land to release her [a different student pointed out that a Marxist reading of the text would focus on the fact that the commoners have more sense and give better advice than the royalty] Once the queen’s innocence is established, the king summons his army, goes to Tebaldo’s kingdom (Salerno), captures him, and puts him to death horribly. Everyone goes back to England and lives happily ever after.

Now when I read this, I assumed the astrologer was another character and that the incestuous father Tebaldo had gone back to his own country.

One of my students asked, “Isn’t the astrologer Tebaldo?” My quick answer was, “No.” But then I paused and reread that section of the story.

Straparola never identifies Tebaldo as the astrologer. The last time Tebaldo is identified by name is when (disguised as a merchant), he kills the children and plants the dagger. After that the next morning, he has his long beard cut off, changes his clothes and walks around the city.

When the astrologer appears, Straparola says: “Soon the news of the children’s murder was spread throughout the city just when a famous astrologer had arrived” (Zipes, 51). This sentence led me to assume the astrologer was a new character. But then why would he go back to find the nurse as my perspicacious student pointed out?

Goodness but these girls ask great questions.

It seems like this is not mere coincidence that the astrologer shows up and leads the king to find the planted evidence. It is not careless narration that the astrologer makes his appearance after the disguised Tebaldo shaves off his beard. The details are too striking.

But then why would Straparola not make it clearer to the reader that the astrologer is Tebaldo? Why is it interesting that the reader (or at least this one) is confused about who the astrologer is? Is this to remind us that no one can be trusted? Is this a critique of astrology as an unreliable source of knowledge — particularly when the writer of the story is (presumably) a Catholic Italian? Is this a reminder that circumstantial evidence should not be the only basis upon which a conviction is made?

The conversation we had about this text was multi-faceted. The girls offered various interpretations of the actions based on psychoanalysis, feminism, Marxism, and reader response literary theories. They found the story deeply disturbing (incest, remember?) but bravely explored how the violence of the tale revealed often suppressed aspects of both humanity and society.