Page 27 - La Gatta racconta la sua storia - Puss Tells the History of Her Fairy Tale

than many later writers of fairy-tale writers, like
Perrault and Grimm, who based many tales of
their collections on Basile’s work. Basile was
quite unlucky: he died before his masterwork was
printed.
I am sure that Basile based his version of my tale
on Straparola’s version, though he changed some
parts. For Basile, I wasn’t the cat of a dying
mother anymore, but of a dying father, and the
name of my owner, the youngest son, was now
Pippo Cagliuso. His elder brother made a living
by renting out his inheritance, a sieve, and gave
nothing to his younger brother. Just as in any
other tale of mine, I set out to help my starving
master, offering my preys to the king in his name.
I now lived in Naples, and instead of hunting I
went fishing for mullets and breams.

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