Story summary
Resumen de Cuentos del Pentamerón
- 8 min de lectura
- 10 parts
- Audio próximamente
A princess who never laughs sets out to find a prince, then uses three magic gifts after a slave steals her place.
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Cuentos del Pentamerón de un vistazo
Resumen: 8 min de lectura
- Tiempo de lectura
- Unas 4 h 55 min3 h 55 min fast, 5 h 55 min slow
- Duración
- 70.700 palabras
- Nivel en la biblioteca
- Mediano longer sentences, everyday words
- Primera publicación
- 1634by Giambattista Basile
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Cuánto se tarda en leer los clásicos · Actualizado
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Cuentos del Pentamerón in short
Stories from the Pentamerone is a book of tales inside a tale. Zoza, a princess cursed by an old woman, walks for seven years to a tomb where a prince sleeps. A slave takes her place, and the women of the garden are called to entertain the slave with stories.
What Cuentos del Pentamerón is about
What would you do if a stranger's curse told you where your true love lies?
Stories from the Pentamerone was written by Giambattista Basile, a poet and courtier from Naples, who died in 1632. He gathered fairy tales that old women once told to children. Here are early versions of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots and Rapunzel, with ogres, fairies and rascals.
Para quién es. You will love this book if you enjoy fairy tales in their earthy, original forms, with sharp humor and sudden magic. It suits lovers of folklore and anyone curious about where these stories began.
The story in 10 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A curse sends a princess to a tomb
The book opens with a frame that holds every other tale. Zoza, daughter of the King of Woody Valley, never laughs, and her father is desperate to cure her sadness.
At last he builds a fountain of oil outside the palace gates. An old woman comes to soak up the oil with a sponge, and a young page smashes her pitcher with a stone. The two trade insults so wildly that Zoza laughs until she nearly faints. The furious old woman curses her, saying she will never have a husband unless she marries the Prince of Round-Field.
A wicked fairy has shut Prince Taddeo inside a tomb. Any woman who fills a pitcher there with her tears within three days will wake him and marry him. Zoza falls in love with a man she has never seen and leaves the palace. After seven years she reaches the tomb and begins to cry. Exhausted, she falls asleep just as the pitcher is nearly full, and a slave with grasshopper legs adds the last drops herself.
A curse can become a road when the person who receives it keeps walking.
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Kindness and wishes work strange magic
Two early tales show how wishes come true in Basile's world, often in odd and literal ways.
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Fools and rash kings make their own trouble
Basile loves a fool, and Vardiello is his comic masterpiece.
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Stepmothers and ingratitude bring down the proud
Many tales follow children pushed aside by a new wife.
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Brave young men face dragons and ogres
Several tales send young men into danger, and their wits matter as much as their swords.
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Clever cats and quick girls win with wit
Basile enjoys heroes who win by cunning instead of strength.
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Love is tested by spells, curses and journeys
Many tales turn on a lover who is changed, lost or forgotten, and a beloved who goes to find him.
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Magic helpers and strange gifts change fortunes
Some tales are crowded with marvelous helpers.
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Envy, curiosity and the cost of words
Beyond the plots, the tales return again and again to a few ideas.
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A storyteller's voice and a story with a frame
Basile tells these tales in a voice that is part street entertainer and part poet.
Read all 10 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Zoza A princess who has never laughed, she walks seven years to the tomb of Prince Taddeo and hopes to win him with her tears.
- Taddeo The Prince of Round-Field, he wakes from an enchanted tomb and calls ten women to tell tales for his wife.
- The Slave She steals Zoza's place beside Taddeo and demands stories, then listens uneasily as the tales begin to echo her own deceit.
- Peruonto A foolish lad whose kindness to three sleeping youths earns him a charm that grants every wish.
- Cenerentola Known as Zezolla, she is pushed to the hearth by her stepmother and finds help in a magic date tree.
- Cienzo A merchant's son who flees after a quarrel and later kills a seven-headed dragon to save a princess.
- Pippo A poor young man who inherits only a cat, and the cat sets out to make him rich.
- Parmetella A gardener's youngest daughter who follows a golden tree into a cavern and loses a husband through curiosity.
How it ends (spoiler)
Zoza finally tells her own story before everyone, and the Slave tries in vain to stop her. Taddeo sees the truth in Zoza's tears and the Slave's silence, and he makes the Slave confess. He orders her buried alive up to her neck. Taddeo then embraces Zoza, honors her as his wife and Princess, and invites her father to the wedding feast. The storytelling ends.
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Preguntas sobre Cuentos del Pentamerón
What is Stories from the Pentamerone about?
It is a collection of fairy tales set within a frame story. A prince asks ten women to tell tales to his wife, a slave who stole Zoza's place. The tales feature ogres, fairies, cats, princes and clever girls.
Which famous fairy tales come from the Pentamerone?
Early forms of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Rapunzel and Hansel and Gretel appear in these pages. Basile's versions are livelier and stranger, with different names, tests and endings.
Who wrote the Pentamerone and when?
Giambattista Basile, a poet and courtier from Naples, wrote it in the early seventeenth century. He died in 1632. The tales draw on folk stories told in southern Italy, retold in a rich, playful style.
What does the word Pentamerone mean?
It means a work of five days. The full collection of tales is told over five days in the Prince's garden, with a group of women each telling one story. This selection follows that frame.
Is the Pentamerone easy to read?
Each tale is short, with a clear plot, vivid characters and a proverb at the end. The jokes, lists and lively images keep the pace moving, so you can read one story at a time.
Cita esta edición
Basile, Giambattista. Stories from the Pentamerone. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/stories-from-the-pentamerone.
Basile, G. (2026). Stories from the Pentamerone. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/stories-from-the-pentamerone (Original work published 1634)
Basile, Giambattista. Stories from the Pentamerone. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/stories-from-the-pentamerone.
@book{basile2026stories,
author = {Basile, Giambattista},
title = {Stories from the Pentamerone},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/stories-from-the-pentamerone},
note = {First published 1634}
}
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