Pentamerone

Pentamerone, a famous collection of fifty folk-tales (Naples, 1637), written in the Neapolitan dialect, by Giambattista Basile, which are supposed to be told during five days by ten old women for the entertainment of a Moorish slave who has usurped the place of the rightful princess. An admirable German translation (enriched by notes) by Felix Liebrecht appeared at Breslau in 1846. Thirty-one of the stories were translated by J. E. Taylor (1848); Sir Richard Burton printed a complete English translation in 1893 (2 vols.). (For the Decameron and the Heptameron, see BOCCACCIO, MARGARET OF NAVARRE). The Pentameron stories are of the greatest value to the student of folk-tales.