Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/90

lxiv CHAPTER II.

In Rome there dwelt sometimes a noble emperor, named Dioclesian, who loved exceedingly the vertue of charity, wherefore he desired greatly to know what fowl loved her young best, to the intent that he might thereby grow to more perfect charity; it fortuned upon a day, that the emperor rode to a forrest to take his disport, whereas he found the nest of a great bird, (called in Latin struchio calemi, in English an ostridge) with her young, the which young bird the emperor took with him, and closed her in a vessel of glass, the dam of this little bird followed unto the emperor's palace, and flew into the hall where her young one was. But when she saw her young one, and could not come to her, nor get her out, she returned again to the forrest, and abode there three days, and at the last she came again to the palace, bearing in her mouth a worm called thumare, and when she came where her young one was, she let the worm fall upon the glass, by virtue of which worm the glass brake, and the young one flew forth with her dam. When the emperor saw this, he praised much the dam of the