|
Book FirstPart IV
Part IV
Andrea Cellini was yet alive when I was about three years old, and he had
passed his hundredth. One day they had been altering a certain conduit
pertaining to a cistern, and there issued from it a great scorpion unperceived
by them, which crept down from the cistern to the ground, and slank away
beneath a bench. I saw it, and ran up to it, and laid my hands upon it. It was
so big that when I had it in my little hands, it put out its tail on one side,
and on the other thrust forth both its mouths. ^1 They relate that I ran in
high joy to my grandfather, crying out: "Look, grandpapa, at my pretty little
crab." When he recognised that the creature was a scorpion, he was on the
point of falling dead for the great fear he had and anxiety about me. He
coaxed and entreated me to give it him; but the more he begged, the tighter I
clasped it, crying and saying I would not give it to any one. My father, who
was also in the house, ran up when he heard my screams, and in his
stupefaction could not think how to prevent the venomous animal from killing
me. Just then his eyes chanced to fall upon a pair of scissors; and so, while
soothing and caressing me, he cut its tail and mouths off. Afterwards, when
the great peril had been thus averted, he took the occurrence for a good
augury.
[Footnote 1: The word is bocche, so I have translated it by mouths. But
Cellini clearly meant the gaping claws of the scorpion.]
When I was about five years old my father happened to be in a
basement-chamber of our house, where they had been washing, and where a good
fire of oak-logs was still burning; he had a viol in his hand, and was playing
and singing alone beside the fire. The weather was very cold. Happening to
look into the fire, he spied in the middle of those most burning flames a
little creature like a lizard, which was sporting in the core of the intensest
coals. Becoming instantly aware of what the thing was, he had my sister and me
called, and pointing it out to us children, gave me a great box on the ears,
which caused me to howl and weep with all my might. Then he pacified me
good-humouredly, and spoke as follows: "My dear little boy, I am not striking
you for any wrong that you have done, but only to make you remember that that
lizard which you see in the fire is a salamander, a creature which has never
been seen before by any one of whom we have credible information." So saying,
he kissed me and gave me some pieces of money.
|
