The Queen of the Fays and Other Marvelous Tales by Brian Stableford

Author:Brian Stableford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Coat Press
Published: 2019-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

Fortunio

There was once a man who, having heart and spirit in mediocre fortune, did not believe himself to be inferior to any other. He sought in marriage a young woman who had, like him, a great deal of merit and mediocre wealth, and he married her. Although the two of them did not have a large fortune, they would have lived together very content with their lot if they had been able to have children, believing that to be the mark of the benediction of a marriage.

After desiring that for a long time in vain, having resolved to adopt one for their consolation, they were walking along a river bank one day when they perceived a cradle floating on the water. Curious to know what it was, they set forth in a boat; their curiosity was soon satisfied, for they encountered what they wished; it was a child who appeared to them to be marvelously beautiful, and a great hope, by virtue of the rules of physiognomy, of which they prided themselves in having some knowledge. As they held him to be their fortune, they gave him the name of Fortunio, brought him up and instructed him with all possible care.

The child having been born with the finest inclinations in the world, he did honor to the education they gave him, so well that he satisfied fully those from whom he received it, and consoled them for not having been able to bring children into the world. He even became so dear to them that they only thought of augmenting their fortune in order to be able to launch him in society and one day to leave him a considerable succession, in order to enable him to live with the splendor appropriate to his birth, as it had appeared to them to be by virtue of the richness of the swaddling-clothes by which he was enveloped.

During the time when they were occupied in that care, however, the amiable wife became pregnant, which did not diminish in any way the tenderness she had for Fortunio, nor that of her husband. They said to one another that if heaven was augmenting their family, it would also take care of augmenting their wealth, and that they would have reason to be satisfied if it gave them a son as amiable as the one they owed to fortune.

Heaven granted their prayers and gave them a son, such that was not possible to be prettier at birth. As he grew older, he became more lovable every day, and in addition to the contentment he gave to his father and mother he had a great deal of amity for Fortunio, whom he believed to be his older brother, and lived with him for a long time in great union. That would have lasted eternally if a young man who sometimes shared in their pleasures had not told him that he had reason to complain of the fact that Fortunio was treated with as much generosity as

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