# The Bathkeeper (A Tale)



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I thought I'd just share with you all a funny and depressing medieval tale I just read.

*The Bathkeeper* (originally Spanish)

A prince went to take a bath one day. Although he was young, he was so fat that he could not see where his genitals were, and when he undressed, the bathkeeper saw him and began to weep. "Why are you weeping?" asked the prince.

"Because you are a king's son, the only one he has, and you can't make use of your private parts as other men can, for I really believe that you couldn't lie with a woman."

The prince asked him: "What shall I do? My father wants to marry me off, and I don't know whether I'll be able to make love to a woman." Then he added, "Take these ten pieces of silver, and go and find me a beautiful woman." The bathkeeper thought to himself, "I can keep the money and let my wife go to him, since I know very well that he won't be able to sleep with her." Then he went to fetch his wife, and the prince went to bed with her, and the bathkeeper spied on them, and saw the prince making love to his wife.

The prince laughed, and the bathkeeper was sorely distressed, saying, "I brought this on myself." Then he called out to his wife, "Go home at once."

"How can I?" she replied, "since I promised the prince that I'd sleep with him all night." And when he heard this, with the grief and anguish that he felt, he hanged himself and so he died.

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It's all in that uplifting punchline! Merry Christmas.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

It would make a great secular cantata. I will write one as soon as I possibly can and upload the libretto onto my blog.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> It would make a great secular cantata. I will write one as soon as I possibly can and upload the libretto onto my blog.


I was thinking operetta but you do your thing man!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

There are similarities to The Magnificent Mandarin. Choreograph a ballet to go with the uplifting music. The story needs padding anyway.

[Couldn't be worse than an opera.]


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