Volume 1 — Night the Fourth. (continued 2)

After he had left the church, Nerino waited outside until such 202time as the fair dame should likewise issue forth, and then, having given her a modest obeisance with a smiling countenance, he went with her as far as her home. Now, as soon as Nerino had got to know clearly the house where she dwelt, he began to cast amorous eyes upon her, and never a day passed on which he would not pass up and down ten times in front of her window. Wherefore, having a great desire to hold converse with her, he set about considering what course he should follow in order to keep unsullied the honour of the lady, and at the same time to attain his own end. But, having pondered over the affair, and looked at it on every side without lighting upon any course which seemed to promise security, he at last, after a mighty amount of imagining, determined to make the acquaintance of an old woman who lived in a house opposite to that occupied by Genobbia. After having sent to her certain presents, and settled and confirmed the compact between them, he went secretly into the old woman’s lodging, in which there was a certain window overlooking the hall of Genobbia’s house, where he might stand and gaze at his good convenience at the lady as she went up and down about the house; at the same time, he had no wish to divulge himself, and thereby give her any pretext for withdrawing herself from his sight. Nerino, having spent one day after another in these amorous glances, at last found himself no longer able to resist the burning desire within him which consumed his very heart; so he made up his mind to write a letter and to throw it down into her lodging at a certain time when he should judge her husband to be away from home. And several times he wrote letters as he had planned and threw them down to her.

But Genobbia, without reading the billet she picked up, cast it into the fire, and it was burnt. After she had done this several times, on a certain day it came into her mind to break open one of the notes and see what might be written therein. When she had broken the seal and marked that the writer was no other than Nerino, the son of the King of Portugal, who declared thereby his fervent love of her, she was at first wellnigh confounded, but after a little, when she had called to mind the poor cheer she enjoyed in her husband’s house, she plucked up heart and began to look kindly upon Nerino. At last, having come to an agreement with him, she found means to bring him into the house, when the youth laid before her the story of the ardent love he bore her, and of the torments he 203endured every day on her account, and in like manner the way by which his passion for her had been kindled. Wherefore the lady, who was alike lovely and kindly-hearted and complaisant, felt herself in no humour to reject his suit. And while the two thus foregathered, happy in the consciousness of mutual love and indulging in amorous discourse, lo and behold! Messer Raimondo knocked suddenly at the door. When Genobbia heard this she bade Nerino go straightway and lie down on the bed, and to let down the curtains, and to remain there until such time as her husband should be once more gone out. The husband came in, and having taken divers trifles of which he had need, went away without giving heed to aught besides, and a little later Nerino followed him.

On the following day, when it happened that Nerino was walking up and down the piazza, Messer Raimondo by chance went that way, to whom Nerino make known by sign that he wanted to have a word with him. Wherefore, having approached him, he spake thus: ‘Signor, have I not a good bit of news to tell you?’ ‘And what may it be?’ replied Messer Raimondo. ‘Do I not know,’ said Nerino, ‘the house where dwells that beautiful lady? and have I not had some delightful intercourse with her? But because her husband came home unexpectedly she hid me in the bed, and drew the curtains for fear that he should see me; however, he soon went out again.’ ‘Is it possible?’ said Messer Raimondo. ‘Possible!’ answered Nerino, ‘it is more than possible—it is a fact. Never in all my life have I seen so delightful, so sweet a lady as she. If by any chance, signor, you should meet her, I beg you to speak a good word on my behalf, and to entreat her to keep me in her good graces.’ Messer Raimondo, having promised to do what the youth asked him, went his way with ill will in his heart. But before he left Nerino he said, ‘And do you propose to go in search of your good fortune again?’ To this Nerino replied, ‘Return! what should one do in such case?’ Then Messer Raimondo went back to his house, and was careful to let drop no word in his wife’s presence, but to wait for the time when she and Nerino should again come together.

When the next day had come Nerino once more stole to a meeting with Genobbia, and while they were in the midst of their amorous delights and pleasant converse the husband came back to the house, but the lady quickly hid Nerino in a chest in front of which she heaped a lot of clothes from which she had been ripping the wadding to keep 204them from destruction by insects. The husband, making believe to search for certain things, turned the house upside down, and pried even into the bed, but, finding nothing of the sort he looked for, went about his business with his mind more at ease.

Very soon Nerino also departed, and afterwards, chancing to meet Messer Raimondo, he thus addressed him: ‘Signor doctor, what would you say if you heard I had paid another visit to my charming lady, and that envious fortune broke in upon our pleasure, seeing that the husband again arrived and spoilt all our sport?’ ‘And what did you then?’ said Messer Raimondo. ‘She straightway opened a chest,’ said Nerino, ‘and put me therein, and in front of the chest she piled up a heap of clothes which she was working at in order to preserve them from moth, and after he had turned the bed upside down more than once without finding aught, he went away.’ What tortures Messer Raimondo must have suffered when he listened to these words I leave to the judgment of any who may know the humours of love.

Now Nerino had given to Genobbia a very fine and precious diamond, within the golden setting of which was engraved his name and his likeness. The very next day, when Messer Raimondo had gone to see to his affairs, the lady once more let Nerino into the house, and while they were taking their pleasure and talking pleasantly together, behold! the husband again came back to the house. But the crafty Genobbia, as soon as she remarked his coming, immediately opened a large wardrobe which stood in her chamber, and hid Nerino therein. Almost immediately Messer Raimondo entered the chamber, pretending as before that he was in search of certain things he wanted, and in quest thereof he turned the room upside down. But, finding nothing either in the bed or in the chest, like a man out of his wits he took fire and strewed it in the four corners of the chamber, with the intention of burning the place and all that it contained.

Now the party walls and the wooden framing of the apartment soon caught fire, whereupon Genobbia, turning to her husband, said: ‘What is this you are doing, husband? Surely you must be gone mad. Still, if you wish to burn up the room, burn it as you will, but by my faith I will not have you burn this wardrobe, wherein are all the papers relating to my dowry.’ So, having summoned four strong porters, she bade them carry the wardrobe out of the house and bear it into the neighbouring house which belonged to the old woman. Then she opened the wardrobe secretly when no one was by and 205returned to her own house. Messer Raimondo, now like one out of his mind, still kept a sharp watch to see whether anybody who ought not to have been there might be driven out of hiding by the conflagration, but he met with nothing save the smoke, which was becoming insufferable, and the fierce flames which were consuming the house. And by this time all the neighbours had gathered together to put out the fire, and so well and heartily did they work that in time it was extinguished.

On the following day, as Nerino was sallying forth towards the fields in the valley, he met Messer Raimondo, and after giving him a salute, said to him: ‘Aha, my gentleman! I have got a piece of news to tell you which ought to please you mightily.’ ‘And what may this news be?’ said Messer Raimondo. ‘I have just made my escape,’ said Nerino, ‘from the most frightful peril that ever man came out of without loss of his life. I had gone to the house of my lovely mistress, and while I was spending the time with her in all manner of delightful dallying her husband once more broke in upon our content, and after he had turned the house upside down, lighted some fire, and this he scattered about in the four corners of the room and burnt up all the chattels there were about.’ ‘And you,’ said Messer Raimondo, ‘where were you the while?’ Then answered Nerino, ‘I was hidden in a wardrobe which she caused to be taken out of the house.’ And when Messer Raimondo heard this, and clearly understood all which Nerino told him to be the truth, he was like to die of grief and passion. Nevertheless, he did not dare to let his secret be known, because he was determined still to catch him in the act. Wherefore he said to him, ‘And are you bent upon going thither again, Signor Nerino?’ to which Nerino made answer, ‘Seeing that I have come safely out of the fire, what else is there for me to fear?’ And, letting pass any further remarks of this sort, Messer Raimondo begged Nerino that he would do him the honour of dining with him on the morrow; which civility the young man willingly accepted.

When the next day had come, Messer Raimondo bade assemble at his house all his own relations and his wife’s as well, and prepared for their entertainment a rich and magnificent repast—not in the house which had been half consumed by fire, but in another. He gave directions to his wife, moreover, that she also should be present, not to sit at table as a guest, but to keep herself out of sight, and see to the ordering of aught which might be required for the banquet. As 206soon as all the kinsfolk had assembled, and the young Nerino as well, they were bidden take their places at the board, and as the feast went on Messer Raimondo tried his best with his charlatan science to make Nerino drunk, in order to be able to work his will upon him. Having several times handed to the youth a glass of malvoisie wine, which he never failed to empty, Messer Raimondo said to him: ‘Now, Signor Nerino, cannot you tell to these kinsfolk of mine some little jest which may make them laugh?’ The luckless Nerino, who had no inkling that Genobbia was Messer Raimondo’s wife, began to tell the story of his adventures, keeping back, however, the names of all concerned.

It chanced at this moment that one of the servants went into the room apart where Genobbia was, and said to her: ‘Madonna, if only you were now hidden in some corner of the feasting-room, you would hear told the finest story you ever heard in your life. I pray you go in quick.’ And, having stolen into a corner, she knew that the voice of the story-teller belonged to Nerino her lover, and that the tale he was giving to the company concerned himself and her as well. Whereupon this prudent and sharp-witted dame took the diamond which Nerino had given her, and, having placed it in a cup filled with a very dainty drink, she said to a servant, ‘Take this cup and give it to Signor Nerino, and tell him to drink it off forthwith, that he may tell his story the better.’ The servant took the cup and placed it on the table, whereupon Nerino gave sign that he wished to drink therefrom; so the servant said to him, ‘Take this cup, signor, so that you may tell your story the better.’

Nerino took the cup and forthwith drank all the wine therein, when, seeing and recognizing the diamond which lay at the bottom, he let it pass into his mouth. Then making pretence of rinsing his teeth, he drew forth the ring and put it on his finger. As soon as he was well assured that the fair lady about whom he was telling his story was the wife of Messer Raimondo, he had no mind to say more, and when Messer Raimondo and his kinsfolk began to urge him to bring the tale which he had begun to an end, he replied, ‘And then and there the cock crowed and the day broke, so I awoke from my sleep and heard nothing more.’ Messer Raimondo’s kinsmen, having listened to Nerino’s story, and up to this time believed all he had said about the lady to be the truth, now imagined that both their host and the young man were drunk.

207After several days had passed it happened that Nerino met Messer Raimondo, and feigning not to know that he was the husband of Genobbia, told him that within the space of two days he would take his departure, because his father had written to him to bid him without fail to return to his own country. Whereupon Messer Raimondo wished him good speed for his journey. Nerino, having come to a private understanding with Genobbia, carried her off with him and fled to Portugal, where they long lived a gay life together; but Messer Raimondo, when he went back to his house and found that his wife was gone, was stricken with despair, and died in the course of a few days.

Isabella’s fable pleased the ladies and gentlemen equally well, and they rejoiced especially that Messer Raimondo himself proved to be the cause of his own misfortune, and that the thing which he had courted had really fallen upon him. And when the Signora marked that this discourse was come to an end, she gave the sign to Isabella to finish her task in due order, and she, in no wise neglectful of the Signora’s command, gave the enigma which follows:

In the middle of the night,

Rises one with beard bedight.

Though no astrologer he be,

He marks the hours which pass and flee.

He wears a crown, although no king;

No priest, yet he the hour doth sing.

Though spurred at heel he is no knight;

No wife he calls his own by right,

Yet children many round him dwell.

Sharp wits you need this thing to tell.

Here the cleverly-devised enigma of Isabella came to an end, and although the various listeners went casting about in various directions, no one hit upon the exact truth except the somewhat haughty Lodovica, who, mindful of the slight which had of late been put upon her, rose to her feet and spake thus: “The enigma which our sister has set us to guess means nothing else than the cock, which is on the alert to crow while it is yet night; which wears a beard and has knowledge of the passage of time, although he is no astrologer. He bears a crest instead of a crown, and is no king; he sings the hours, yet is no priest. Besides this, he wears spurs on his heels; he has no wife, and brings up the children of others, that is to say, the young chickens.”

208All the listeners commended this solution of Isabella’s skilful enigma, especially Capello, who said: “Signora Isabella, Lodovica has given you back bread for your bannock,^[29] seeing that a short time ago you very cleverly declared the meaning of her enigma and now she has mastered yours; but for this reason you must not harbour malice one against another.” Then Lodovica answered promptly, “Signor Bernardo, when the night time is come, I will pay you back yea for yea.”^[30]

But in order to keep the discourse within limits, the Signora imposed silence upon all, and, turning her face towards Lionora, whose turn it was to tell the last story of the night, directed her to begin, with due courtesy, her fable, and the damsel, with the best grace in the world, thus began.

THE FIFTH FABLE.

Flamminio Veraldo sets out from Ostia in search of Death, and, not finding it, meets Life instead; this latter lets him see Fear and make trial of Death.

Many are the men who with all care and diligence go searching narrowly for certain things, which, when they have gained them, they find of no value, and would gladly forego, fleeing therefrom with all speed, just as the devil flies from holy water. This was the case of Flamminio, who, when he went seeking Death, found Life, who made him see Fear and make trial of Death. All of which you will find clearly set forth in this fable.

In Ostia, an ancient city situated no great distance from Rome, there lived in former days, according to the common report, a young man of a nature rather weak and errant than stable and prudent, whose name was Flamminio Veraldo. He had heard it said over and over again that there was in all the world nothing more terrible and frightful than Death, the dark and inevitable one, seeing that he shows pity to none, having respect to no man, however poor or rich 209he may be. Wherefore, being filled with wonder at what he had heard, he determined by himself to find and to see with his own eyes what manner of thing this might be which men called Death. And having attired himself in coarse garments, and taken in hand a staff of strong cornel-wood well shod with iron, he set forth from Ostia. Flamminio, when he had travelled over many miles of road, came one day into a certain street, in the midst of which he espied, sitting in his stall, a cobbler making shoes and gaiters, and this cobbler, although there was lying about a great quantity of his finished work, kept on steadily at his task of making yet more.

Flamminio, going up to the cobbler, said to him, ‘God be with you, good master!’ and to this the cobbler replied, ‘You are right welcome here, my son.’ Then said Flamminio, ‘What is this task you labour at?’ ‘I labour indeed,’ replied the cobbler, ‘and toil hard that I may not languish in want.^[31] Nevertheless, I am in want, and I weary myself over making shoes.’ ‘Why do you thus,’ said Flamminio, ‘seeing that you have so many pairs made already? What is the good of making more?’ ‘I make them,’ said the cobbler, ‘to wear myself, to sell for my own sustenance and for the sustenance of my little household, and in order that when I become an old man I may be able to live on the money I have made by my handicraft.’ ‘And what will you do next?’ asked Flamminio. ‘After this,’ said the cobbler, ‘I shall die.’ ‘You will die!’ cried Flamminio in reply. ‘Yes,’ said the cobbler. Then cried Flamminio, ‘Oh, my good master! can you of your own knowledge tell me what may be this thing they call Death?’ The cobbler answered, ‘Of a truth I cannot.’ ‘What, have you never seen him?’ said Flamminio. To this master cobbler made answer, ‘I have never seen him, nor have I any wish to see him now, or to taste his quality. Moreover, all men say that he is the strangest and most terrible monster the world holds.’ Then Flamminio said, ‘At least you will be able of your knowledge to teach me and tell me where he abides, because day and night I wander over mountains and through valleys and swamps seeking him without ever hearing tidings as to where he may be found?’ The cobbler answered, ‘I know nothing as to where Death may dwell, nor where he is to be found, nor what he is made of; but if you go on with your journey somewhat farther, peradventure you will find him.’

210Whereupon Flamminio, having taken his leave, parted from the cobbler, and betook himself onwards to a spot where he came upon a dense and shadowy forest, and entered therein. In a certain place he saw a peasant, who, though he had already cut a vast pile of wood for burning, went on cutting more with all his might. And when they had exchanged greetings one with another, Flamminio said to him, ‘My brother, what are you going to do with so vast a heap of wood as this?’ And to this the peasant made answer, ‘I am preparing it to kindle fire therewith in the winter that is coming, when we shall have snow and ice and villainous mist, so that I may be able to keep warm myself and my children, and to sell whatsoever may be to spare, and to buy with the profit thereof bread and wine and clothing, and all other things which may be necessary for our daily sustenance, and thus to pass our lives until Death comes to fetch us.’ ‘Now, by your courtesy,’ said Flamminio, ‘could you tell me where this same Death is to be found?’ ‘Of a surety I cannot,’ the peasant replied, ‘seeing that I have never once seen him, nor do I know where he abides. I am here in this wood all the day long taking heed to my own affairs. Very few wayfarers come into these parts, and I know none of those who pass by.’ ‘What then shall I do to find him?’ demanded Flamminio; and to this the peasant made answer, ‘As to myself, I know not at all what to say to you nor how to direct you. I can only bid you to travel yet farther onward, and then peradventure you may meet with him.’

Having taken leave of the peasant, Flamminio departed and walked and walked until he came to a certain place where dwelt a tailor, who had a vast store of clothes upon the pegs, and a warehouse filled with all kinds of the finest garments. Said Flamminio to him, ‘God be with you, my good master!’ and the tailor replied, ‘And the same good wish to you.’ ‘What are you going to do with all this store of fair and sumptuous raiment, and all the noble garments I see here? Do they all belong to you?’ Then the master tailor made answer, ‘Certain of them are my own, some belong to the merchants, some to the gentlefolk, and some to various people who have dealings with me.’ ‘But what use can they find for so many?’ asked Flamminio. ‘They wear them in the different seasons of the year,’ the tailor answered, and showing them all to Flamminio, he went on, ‘These they wear in the summer and these in the winter, and these others in the seasons which come between, 211clothing themselves sometimes in one fashion and sometimes in another.’ ‘And in the end what do they do?’ asked Flamminio. The tailor answered, ‘They go on in this course until the day of their death.’ Flamminio hearing the tailor speak of Death said, ‘Oh, my good master! could you tell me where I may find this Death you tell of?’ The tailor, speaking as if he were inflamed with anger and perturbed in spirit, said: ‘My son, you go about asking questions which are indeed strange. I surely cannot tell you nor direct you where he may abide, for I never let my thoughts turn to him, and it is an occasion of great offence to me when anyone begins to talk of him. Wherefore I bid you either to discourse of some other matter or to go your way, for all such talk as this displeases me vastly.’ And Flamminio, having taken leave of the tailor, departed on his journey.

It came to pass that Flamminio, after he had traversed many lands, came at last to a desert and solitary place, where he found a hermit with his beard all matted with dirt, and his body worn away by the passage of the years and by fasting, letting his mind concern itself only in contemplation. Whereupon, thinking that assuredly he had at last found Death, Flamminio thus addressed him: ‘Of a truth, I am very glad to meet with you, holy father.’ ‘The sight of you is welcome to me, my son,’ the hermit replied. ‘My good father,’ said Flamminio, ‘what do you here in this rough and uninhabitable spot, cut off from all pleasure and from all human society?’ ‘I pass my time,’ answered the hermit, ‘in prayers and in fastings and in contemplation.’ Then Flamminio inquired, ‘And for what reason do you follow this life?’ ‘Why, my son,’ exclaimed the hermit, ‘I do all this to serve God, to mortify this wretched flesh of mine, to do penance for all the offences I have wrought in the sight of the eternal and immortal God and of the true son of Mary, and in the end to get salvation for my sinful soul, so that when the hour of my death shall come I may render it up pure of all stain, and in the awful day of judgment, by the grace of my redeemer and by no merit of my own, may make myself worthy of that happy and glorious home where I may taste the joys of eternal life, to which blessedness God lead us!’ Then said Flamminio, ‘Oh, my dear father! spare a few words to tell me—if it be not an offence to you—what manner of thing is this Death, and after what fashion is it made?’ The holy father answered, ‘Oh, my son! trouble not yourself to gain knowledge of this thing you 212seek; for Death is a very terrible and a fearful being, and is called by wise men the final end of all our sufferings, a misery to the happy, a happiness to the miserable, and the term and limit of all worldly things. It severs friend from friend; it separates the father from the son, and the son from the father, the mother from the daughter, and the daughter from the mother. It cuts the marriage bond, and finally disunites the soul and the body, so that the body, severed from the soul, loses all its power and becomes so putrid and of so evil a savour that all men flee therefrom and abandon it as a thing abominable.’ ‘And have you never set eyes on him, my father?’ asked Flamminio. ‘Of a certainty I have never seen him,’ answered the hermit. ‘But can you tell me what I should do in order to see him?’ asked Flamminio. ‘Ah, my son!’ said the hermit, ‘if you are indeed so keenly set on finding him, you have only to keep going further and further on; because man, the longer the way he has journeyed through this world, the nearer he is to Death.’ The young man having thanked the holy father, and received his benediction, went his way.

Then Flamminio, continuing his journey, traversed a great number of deep valleys and craggy mountains and inhospitable forests, seeing by the way many sorts of fearsome beasts, and questioning each one of these whether he was the thing called Death, and always getting in return the answer ‘No.’ At last, after he had passed through many lands and seen many strange things, he came to a mountain of no little magnitude, and having climbed over this, he began to descend into a gloomy and very deep valley, closed in on all sides by profound caverns. Here he saw a strange and monstrous wild beast, which made all the valley re-echo with its roaring. ‘Who are you?’ said Flamminio. ‘Ho! is it possible that you may be Death?’ To which the wild beast made answer, ‘I am not Death; but pursue your way, and soon you will find him.’

Flamminio, when he heard the answer he had so long desired to hear, felt his heart grow lighter. The wretched youth, now worn out by fatigue and half dead by reason of the long weariness and the heavy toil he had undergone, was almost sunk in despair, when he found himself on the borders of a wide and spacious plain. Having climbed to the summit of a little hill of no great height, delightful, and covered with flowers, he looked round about him, now here, now there, and espied the lofty walls of a magnificent city not far from the spot where he stood. Whereupon he began to walk more 213rapidly with nimble steps, and when the shadows of evening were falling he came to one of the city gates, which was adorned with the finest white marble. And when he had entered therein, with the leave of the keeper of the gate, the first person he met was a very old woman, full of years, with a face like that of a corpse, and a body so meagre and thin that, through her leanness, it would have been easy to count one by one every bone in her body. Her forehead was thickly marked with wrinkles, her eyes were squinting, watery, and red, as if they had been dyed in purple, her cheeks all puckered, her lips turned inside out, her hands rough and callous; her head was palsied, and she trembled in every limb; she was bent almost double in her gait, and she was clad in rough and dusky clothes. Over and above this she bore by her left side a keen-edged sword, and carried in her right hand a weighty cudgel, at the end of which was wrought a point of iron made in the shape of a triangle, and upon this staff she would now and then lean as if to rest herself. On her shoulders also she carried a large wallet, in which she kept a great store of phials and pots and bottles all filled with divers sorts of liquors and unguents and plasters fitted for the remedying of various human ailments and accidents. As soon as Flamminio’s eye fell upon this toothless ugly old harridan he was seized with the thought that peradventure she might prove to be that Death to find whom he was going wandering about the world; so having approached her he said, ‘Ah, my good mother, may God keep and preserve you!’ In a husky voice the old woman made answer to him, ‘And may God keep and preserve you, my son!’ ‘Tell me, my mother,’ Flamminio went on, ‘whether perchance you may be the thing men call Death?’ The old woman replied, ‘No, I am not. On the other hand, I am Life; and know, moreover, that I happen to have with me here in this wallet which I carry behind my back certain liquors and unguents by the working of which I am able with ease to purify and to cure the mortal body of man of all the heavy diseases which afflict him, and in the short space of a single hour to relieve him in like manner from the torture of any pain he may feel.’ Then said Flamminio, ‘Ah, my good mother! can you not let me know where Death is to be found?’ ‘And who may you be,’ asked the old woman, ‘who make this demand of me with so great persistence?’ Flamminio answered, ‘I am a youth who has already spent many days and months and years wandering about in search of Death, and never yet have I been 214able to find in any land a man who could tell me aught concerning him. Wherefore, if you should happen to possess this knowledge, I beseech you of your courtesy to let me share it, because I am possessed by so keen a desire to look upon him and to know what he is like, in order that I may be certain whether he really is the hideous and the dreadful thing which all men hold him to be.’

The old woman, when she heard the foolish request of the young man, spake thus to him: ‘My son, when would it please you that I let you see Death, and judge how hideous he is, and when would you make trial of his terrors?’ To this Flamminio replied: ‘Ah, my mother! keep me no longer in suspense I beg you, but let me see him now, at this present moment.’ Thereupon the old woman, to satisfy his desire, made him strip himself quite naked, and, while he was taking off his garments, she worked up together certain of her drugs useful in the cure of divers diseases, and when the thing was ready, she said to him: ‘Bend yourself down here, my son.’ And he, in obedience to her direction, bent down. ‘Now bow your head and close your eyes;’ and Flamminio did as she bade him. Scarcely had the old woman finished her speech than she took the sharp blade which she wore by her side and with one blow struck off his head from his shoulders. Then she quickly took up the head, and, having replaced it upon the bust, she smeared it well with the plaster which she had prepared, and thereby the wound was quickly healed. But how the thing which now happened was caused I cannot say, whether it arose through the over-quickness of the old hag in putting back the head upon the shoulders, or whether she herself brought it to pass through her own craft. The head when it was joined once more to the body was put on hind part forward. Wherefore Flamminio, when he looked down upon his shoulders, his loins, and his big buttocks standing out (all of which things he had never seen hitherto), fell into such a fit of terror and dismay that, not being able to think of any place where he might be suffered to hide himself, he cried out to the old woman in a trembling dolorous voice: ‘Alas, alas, my good mother! bring me back once more to my old shape; bring me back, for the love of God, for by my faith I have never seen anything more frightful and more hideous than what I now behold. Alas! deliver me from this miserable state in which I now find myself fixed. Alas! alas! do not delay your help, my sweet good mother. Lend me your aid, for I am sure you can help 215me easily if you will.’ The cunning old woman still kept silence feigning all the while to know nothing of the mischance that had been wrought, and letting the wretched fellow work himself into an agony and stew in his own fat;^[32] but at last, after having kept him in this plight for the space of two hours, she agreed to work the remedy he sought. So, having made him bend himself down as before, she put her hand to her sharp-cutting sword and struck off his head from his shoulders. Then she took the head in her hand, and, having placed it upon the trunk and smeared it well with her ointment, brought Flamminio back to his former condition.

The youth, when he perceived that he had once more become his old self, put on his clothes; and now, having seen what a terrible thing, and by his own experience proved what a hideous and ugly thing Death was, he made his way back to Ostia by the shortest and the quickest way he knew without saying any more farewell words to the old woman, occupying himself for the future in reaching after Life and flying from Death, devoting himself more diligently to the consideration of those matters which he had hitherto neglected.

It now only remained that Lionora should propose her enigma, so she gave out the following one in merry wise:

About a meadow fair and wide,

Gay decked with flowers on every side,

Three nymphs on task divine intent,

Pass to and fro, and firmly bent

To speed their work, nor night nor day

Take pause, nor rest upon their way.

One in her left the distaff plies,

Between another’s feet swift flies

The spindle, and last one doth stand

With keen-edged weapon in her hand,

And cuts in twain the fragile strand.

This enigma was very easily understood by all the company, because it was clear that the fine and spacious meadow must be this world in which all men dwell. The three nymphs are the three sisters, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, who by the fancy of the poets are held to represent the beginning, the middle, and the end of our lives. Clotho, who holds the rock, shows forth our birth; Lachesis, 216who spins it, the season of our existence, and Atropos, who severs the thread just spun by Lachesis, inevitable Death.

Already the watchful cock, bird sacred to Mercury, had given signal by his crowing of the approaching dawn, when the Signora brought to an end the story-telling for the night, and all the guests departed to their own homes, pledged, however, to return on the following evening under whatever penalty the Signora might deem fitting to inflict.

The End of the Fourth Night.

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