La Cittá di smeraldo

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Crybabie

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(If anybody knows were I can read the original story of this piece or the real title please tell me!! I want to read the full novel of this T_T)

The story takes place in a small town in Italy in the 1500-1600s. The story's about an ugly man who hid in an old castle alone. Because of his looks he received lots of hate and cruelty while growing up. He never opened his heart to anyone. Whenever people with hidden motives tried to approach him, he hid in anger. The mans only happiness was to plant flowers in his garden.
One day a woman appeared near the man's castle. She jumped over the garden fence and stole a flower. This angered the man at first. So he watched his garden all night. But when he accidently fell asleep, the woman took another flower. This continued on for several nights. Next, the man pretended to be asleep and watched the woman steal his flowers over and over again. After a while he started becoming curious about the woman and began waiting for her. Without realizing, he kept waiting for her to come and the next day seemed a little brighter.
Following after her one day, he realized that she was selling the flowers that she stole from him to make a living. The man desperately wanted to help the woman. But he was afraid she would be terrified by the way he looks. He knew she would not love his "grotesque" appearance. He came to a conclusion that the only way he would be able to help her is by letting her continue stealing flowers from his garden. The man decided to make flowers that doesn't exist on the planet so that the woman can sell them at a expensive price. So he began to make the flower in his castle.
After many unsuccessful attempts, the man finally made a flower that didn't exist and filled his garden. But the woman stopped coming. No matter how long he waited for her, the woman never came back to his garden. Days, weeks, and months flew by and he eventually found out that the woman that stole his flowers and his heart had died..




The message in this story was to love yourself. In the story, the man didn't love himself which caused him to have such a low confidence and couldn't moved forward. If he had loved himself, he could have had the courage to show himself to the woman and helped her before she passed away and confess his feeling for her.

(I posted this because the story really tugged on my heartstrings the same way that the song, "The truth untold" by BTS and its lyrics was based on this tragic story. You should check it out too. HERE'S A LINK ) YOU WELCOME.

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Comments

    1. luluam Sep 9, 2022
      I'm so into this story... i was hoping for his happy ending ,and now i found he got married. i really want to kmow about him more...
    2. Smeraldo Jan 13, 2019
      :)
      @Crybabie
      I can also tell you that in the oral tradition the location of the "Città di Smeraldo" (even if it is not a city because in Italian città means city. It is in fact a small village) changes often so that you can find it in Piemonte (in the version that was told to me), Lombrardia or Veneto (that are all Italian "regions" of the north. One of the northwest. A central and one of the north-east.

      Also in the original version the flowers were not obviously called emerald flowers, but it was simply said that at night, under the light of the moon, they shone like emeralds. Quality that made them the most precious and rare flowers in the world. Obviously these flowers do not exist in reality.

      And I forgot to say that, according to the story, these flowers with their truth "finally revealed to the world" grow ONLY where the village used to be. That's why in the stories that run on the internet it is said that they grow only in Italy. But it is incorrect, because they grow only in a specific point. Or so my grandmother used to say.

      It must be said that there is another version of the story (I do not know if it is a variant created by my grandmother to lighten the story that told me, because as a child I felt empathy for the ugly man) in which the ugly man accepts himself and get married (obviously without ever forgetting the poor girl). And he also has an heir. Since then the single heir of the family (which has escaped the plague) takes care of the flowers when they bloom, having inherited the lands that once included the "emerald city", and in late spring evenings, under the light of the moon, you can see someone walking in the middle of a field of "emeralds" remembering the lost story.



      Finally, a small addition, because I'm particularly fond of this story and I noticed, in recent months, that is often mentioned. I traced the blog that brought it under the lights and I want to say the photos that have been attached are of Florence that moves us several hundred kilometers from the places of history and that is obviously still standing.
      P.S. Sorry for my english and for the long post


      @Ddraig
      yep. But I'm particularly fond of this story because they often told it to me. Here is the reason for the emerald name. :)
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    3. Crybabie Jan 12, 2019
      Thanks for the people who took their time to read this. Sorry for my english, it's my second language. And thank u very much @Smeraldo for the information of this story ♡ I didnt think anyone would know about it ;-;
    4. Ddraig Jan 11, 2019
      Smeraldo comments on smeraldo....

      That's a lovely folktale.... I believe I had heard/read it somewhere but I am not sure.
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    5. Smeraldo Jan 11, 2019
      There is no written story.
      It's an oral story that is handed down in northern Italy.


      My grandmother (I'm Italian) told me the story when I was a child. But the story that now turns on the internet is incomplete.


      What is not said is that the ugly man (son of a nobleman) paid (anonymously) the funeral for the girl and made sure to give her a wonderful grave. Then, one night he took courage and decided to give her the flowers anyway: "his untold truth" could finally be whispered to his beloved. He planted the emerald flowers around the tomb and returned to his castle from which he only went out at night to go to the grave and "talk to the girl". However, in 1630 (about) the plague arrived in Italy and "La Città si Smeraldo" was abandoned and forgotten along with the story of the ugly man and the girl. But the flowers did not forget. And this is why, towards the end of spring , at the gates of what remains of the emerald city you can still see the flowers that grow where there was the village cemetery telling, to those who can listen to them, the untold truth.




      The girl and the ugly man have almost been forgotten. But his love had managed to survive not only the plague but also the passing of the centuries.
    6. Emmyy Jun 3, 2018
      OMG ! Soooo sad. .I would love to read it also please post if you find novel.. Thx !
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