The
Tale of Chanticleer and Pertelote
Once there was an old widow who
lived on a little farm. Since her husband died, she had been very poor. She had
only three pigs, three cows, some chickens, and a sheep named Molly. Her diet
was in keeping with her livestock shed: she never had a tasty sauce or dainty
morsel. Her meals were largely made up of milk and bread, sometimes with a bit
of bacon or an egg or two. Nevertheless she worked hard and was merry.
The old widow had a little yard
fenced in with sticks and a ditch, and that is where she kept her chickens. The
pride of her farm was her rooster, whose name was Chanticleer. Chanticleer was
a marvel of a bird. In all the land there was no match for his crowing; his
voice was merrier than the church organ on mass days. It was loud and clear,
and rang out at each hour on the hour. He was never a second off.
Chanticleer was also a handsome
bird. The comb on the top of his head was redder than coral and shaped like the
top of a castle wall. His black bill shone like ink, his legs and feet were
blue like azure, his nails were white as lilies, and his feathers were like
gold. Chanticleer had seven hens, and they all looked very much like him. But
the most beautiful of the hens was Pertelote.
She was polite, kind, generous, and
friendly. She bore herself so well that since they were chicks she had held
Chanticleer’s whole heart. The love between them made them wonderfully happy,
and it was a joy to wake up to them singing love songs in the light of the
rising sun.
One morning just before dawn
Chanticleer slept on his perch, among the hens and next to the fair Pertelote.
He began to groan terribly. When Pertelote heard this she woke him up, saying:
“Oh, dear heart! What ails you so? A
fine sleeper you are!”
“Madame,” he said, “I have had such
a troubling dream that even now my heart is sorely frightened! I dreamed that
as I roamed about our yard, I saw a great beast like a hound who wished to
seize my body and kill me. He was between yellow and red in color, with black
on the tips of his tail and ears, and a long slender snout and glowing eyes.
Even now his looks frighten me almost to death.”
“Oh, you coward!” said Pertelote.
“You have lost all my love. Scared of a dream! Didn’t Cato say, ‘Don’t listen
to dreams’?” (Cato was a Roman writer of long ago. Pertelote was a very
well-read hen.)
“Cato is wise,” said Chanticleer,
“but there are others who are wiser, and they say differently. I heard once
that there was a man who dreamed that his friend would be murdered, and he
cried out for his help. The man woke with a start, but then rolled over and
went back to sleep, sure it meant nothing. But the next day he found his friend
murdered, just as he had been in the dream.”
“Fie!” said Pertelote.
“I heard another story,” said
Chanticleer, “about two men who were preparing to sail to a distant land. The
night before they planned to depart, the first man had a dream, in which he was
warned that if he set sail the next day, he would surely drown. Upon waking he
told his friend of his dream. The second man laughed. ‘The wind is perfect!’ he
said. ‘I will not allow a silly dream to keep me from my business!’ And so the
second man set sail alone. But before he was half-way there, the bottom tore
out from his boat, and the sailors from the other boats watched helplessly as
he was swept into the waves.”
“Fie!” said Pertelote.
“Look at Joseph, then,” said
Chanticleer. “He did not think that dreams were useless. Remember the pharaoh’s
dream, of the seven fat cows and the seven skinny cows? He called for someone
who could tell him what it meant. Joseph explained that the cows meant there
would be seven years with much food and then seven years of little food. If the
pharaoh had not listened and saved up food, his people would have starved.”
“Oh, fie!” said Pertelote yet again.
Chanticleer felt rather foolish.
“Well, I say the dream has meaning,”
he told her, “but let us talk of something merry! When I see you, with such
lovely red around your eyes, all my fear melts away.”
And with that he flew down from his
rafter, and all his hens followed, because it was day now. He strutted up and
down the yard on his toes, never putting his feet on the ground, and whenever
he clucked his hens would gather around him. He looked as grand as a prince or
a lion, and knew it. When the morning was half over, he had clasped Pertelote
in his wing twenty times. At nine o’clock he was prancing about the yard with
his hens beside him, and he cast his face up to the sun to call the time.
“Pertelote, my heart’s bliss,” said
Chanticleer, “listen to how the happy birds sing, and see how the flowers
spring up from the wet ground! It is April, and my heart is light and full of
joy.”
That, dear reader, is what we call irony.
For as Chanticleer sang of how wonderful life was, a sly fox lay among the
cabbages. He had sneaked into the yard that very night, and was now waiting for
his chance to catch Chanticleer and eat him for his supper.
Pertelote and the other hens lay in
the warm sun and bathed themselves in the sand, and Chanticleer kept marching about the yard. He
sang more merrily and well than the mermaids of the sea, and mermaids are very
good singers. Then he happened to land his eye upon a butterfly making its way
toward the cabbages. He watched it land on a plant, and then he saw the hiding
fox.
Chanticleer no longer wanted to
crow, and he shrieked “Caw! Caw!” instead. He started up with terror in his
heart. All beasts know to run from their natural enemies, even when they have
never seen them before. And Chanticleer would have flown to the henhouse and
safety if the fox had not spoken.
“Alas, gentle sir!” said the fox.
“Where are you going? Are you afraid of me, your own dear friend? I do not mean
you any harm. I only came to listen to your singing. It is as beautiful and
merry as the voice of any angel in heaven.”
Chanticleer stayed on the dirt, but
he still did not trust the fox.
“I am Don Russel. I knew your dear
father, God rest his soul,” said the fox, “and your mother too. I was happy to
have both of them in my house. Surely, all that your father sang came from his
heart. He would stand up on his toes, and close his eyes, and stretch out his
long, slender neck, so that he could sing all the better. I have read of the
most famous singers that ever lived, but none matched your father. Tell me, can
you sing like him?”
Chanticleer had begun to flap his
wings with excitement. He was very pleased with Don Russel’s flattery. And he
stood high on his toes, and stretched out his neck, and closed his eyes, and
began to crow loudly. Up started Don Russel. He seized Chanticleer by the
throat, and dashed into the woods with him.
Not since King Priam of the Trojans
was seized by his beard and slain have ladies cried so loudly as the hens did
when Don Russel took Chanticleer. And above all Pertelote shrieked. The other
animals joined in. The ducks quacked, the geese flew high over the trees, and
the bees buzzed angrily from their hive. The birds and beasts and the old widow
ran shouting after the fox. They made a noise that even an angry army cannot
make.
“If I were you,” said Chanticleer,
“I would say, ‘Turn back, knaves! I have reached the woods, and you will never
catch me now. I will eat this rooster for my supper.’”
“Haha!” said the fox, looking back.
“Turn back, knaves! I have reached the woods, and you will never catch me now.
I will eat this rooster for my supper!”
But as soon as Don Russel opened his
mouth to yell at the farm animals, Chanticleer freed himself from the fox’s
open mouth and flew up to a tree.
When Don Russel saw that Chanticleer
had escaped, he thought fast. He looked up at Chanticleer and said, “Alas! I
have done wrong to frighten you. Come down from the tree, and I will show you
that I meant no harm.”
“Fool me once, shame on you,” said
Chanticleer. “But fool me twice, shame on me! Never again will your flattery
make me sing and close my two eyes. For he who willfully shuts his eyes where
he should see, may God never let him thrive.”
“May God give him bad fortune who
speaks when he should keep his peace,” said the fox, and slunk away.
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