Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/42

30 me. All thought proceeds from the heart. It follows, therefore, that if there be no thought, there is no heart. That boar, in the first instance, entered the garden and committed much injury. The gardener seeing it, cut off his left ear. Now if he had possessed a heart, he would have recollected the loss of so important a member. But he did not, for he entered a second time. Therefore, he had no heart. Moreover, on the abscission of his right ear and of his tail, had he possessed the defective part, he would have thought; but he did not think, for he entered a fourth time and was killed. For these several reasons I am confident that he had no heart." The emperor, satisfied with what he heard, applauded the man's judgment. And thus he escaped.

My beloved, the emperor is Christ, who delights in fair gardens; that is, in religious men, in whom our Lord planted many virtues. The gardener is a prelate: the boar is any