Page:Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo.djvu/65

 And he joined a flock of many other parrots who were captured in a net stretched out by a birdman from his capital city. And he imagined that if he allowed himself to be captured, he could return to his former state. He placed himself in a suitable place where he could be covered by the net and thereby captured together with many other birds and parrots, and put in a large cage, together with the others. And when the bird-catcher stretched out his net again, because he was endowed with reason and intelligence, he grabbed the peg which kept the cage closed with his beak and opened it. All the other birds flew away and he stayed in the cage by himself.

It wasn’t long before the bird-catcher returned to the place where the cage was placed, and he saw that the birds had fled and that the day's labors had been in vain. It had all gone wrong and when he approached the cage to lock the entrance door, so that the parrot who remained there was not going to escape, he was comforted by his wise and prudent words. This surprised him greatly and while it seemed impossible that a newly captured parrot could reason so wisely, he consoled himself by thinking that he could earn a lot of money with him. So, he continued talking to him and noticing that he answered him prudently, he collected his nets and put them away and immediately went towards the city with the parrot.