Page:Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo.djvu/18

 And after he dismissed him, he asked the youngest son to come into his presence, and he also spoke to him in the same language which he had already used with the others. To which the young man began to answer in this way, "How can I Sire, to whom the Holy God has granted many years of happy life, tell me, how can I, still being a child, accept such a serious and important burden? I feel like being a small drop of water, and your empire is like a huge and endless sea. How could I possibly know how to administer such an empire? But because you see me as being so young, you mock me, and ask me to do such momentous things, and you make fun of my embarrassment. However Sire, while I am still a child, I am intelligent enough (thanks God), to know my strengths and my power and I realize that you are making fun of me anyway; because even if it was not the case, do I not have two elder brothers to whom you would have entrusted the heavy load of the empire?"

The king greatly admired the shrewd answer of the boy and he was infinitely consoled finding him to have such a sharp intellect. And thus having assured himself by the conversation he had held with his three sons of the progress made by them in the sciences, and after hearing the wise and prudent answers they had given him, he decided that to make them entirely perfect, they would go out to see the world, in order to learn from the different customs and manners of many nations as well as through experience, what they had already mastered through their readings and the lessons of their tutors.