Prince Tancredi has an only daughter (cf. =A=, =B=, =C=, 1), whose name is Ghismonda (Diamond, =C=, Dysmal, =B=, Dysie, =D=, Daisy, =A=). She has a secret amour with a young man of inferior condition (valetto, di nazione assai umile; giovane di vilissima condizione, says Tancredi), sunk in the ballad to the rank of kitchen-boy. This young man, Guiscardo, is, however, distinguished for manners and fine qualities; indeed, superior in these to all the nobles of the court. In the ballad he is a very bonny boy (preferred to dukes and earls, =B=, =C=). Guiscardo is strangled (or suffocated); the bonny boy is smothered between two feather-beds in =B= 8, =C= 7. The bonny boy’s heart is cut out and sent to the king’s daughter in a cup of gold, in the ballad; she washes it with the tears that run from her eyes into the cup. Ghismonda, receiving Guiscardo’s heart in a gold cup, sheds a torrent of tears over it, pours a decoction of poisonous herbs into the cup (ove il cuore era da molte delle sue lagrime lavato), and drinks all off, then lies down on her bed and awaits her death. Tancredi, repenting too late of his cruelty, has the pair buried with honors in one tomb.[31] =Italian. A.= ‘Il padre crudele,’ Widter und Wolf, Volkslieder aus Venetien, p. 72, No 93. A king has an only daughter, Germonia. She has twelve servants to wait upon her, and other twelve to take her to school, and she falls in love with the handsomest, Rizzardo. They talk together, and this is reported to the king by Rizzardo’s fellow-servants. The king shuts Rizzardo up in a room, bandages his eyes, cuts his heart out, puts it in a gold basin, and carries it to his daughter. ‘Take this basin,’ he says; ‘take this fine mess, Rizzardo’s heart is in it.’ Germonia reproaches him for his cruelty; he tells her, if he has done her an offence, to take a knife and do him another. She does not care to do this; however, if he were abed, she would. In a variant, she goes out to a meadow, and ‘poisons herself with her own hands.’ =B.= ‘Flavia,’ Sabatini, Saggio di Canti popolari romani, in Rivista di Letteratura popolare, Rome, 1877, p. 17 f., and separately, 1878, p. 8 f. Flavia has thirteen servants, and becomes enamored of one of these, Ggismónno. His fellows find out that the pair have been communing, and inform the king. ‘Ságra coróna’ orders them to take Ggismónno to prison, and put him to death. They seat him in a chair of gold, and dig out his heart, lay the heart in a basin of gold, and carry it to Flavia, sitting at table, saying, Here is a mess for you. She retires to her chamber, lies down on her bed, and drinks a cup of poison.