Page:Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo.djvu/54

 She opened a small box and took five eggs from it, and addressed the young man as follows, "As you see, these are five eggs, and there are only three of us in this room. Whereas your two brothers have passed such challenging tests in my kingdom, and if you also know how to divide these five eggs into three equal parts between us without breaking any of them, then I would dare to affirm that three other men of equal intelligence could not be found in the whole world.”

"Madam, what you have asked me is no big thing," the young man replied, and then he immediately removed the eggs from the Queen's hand, placed three in front of her, gave one of them to the counselor, and kept the other for himself. "Madam, here are three equal parts without breaking any," he said. But indicating that she could not believe this, since the young man had given no other explication, he said, excusing himself, "There are three equal parts as follows: your counselor and I already have two eggs each in our pants and you have none. Of the five you gave me, three of them are allocated to you, one to the counselor, and the other one to myself. Now that each of us has three of them, they have been fairly divided between the three of us.”

The Queen liked this answer very much, although it made her blush somewhat, and she showed the young man that she was very appreciative of him. He asked her permission to return to his palace. Whereupon she remained with her counselor, and she said to him, that it had pleased the Lord, that these young men, the sons of such a great king, were in her country, and that they knew so promptly the answers to the questions they were asked.