Page:Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo.djvu/96

 The order, which was immediately carried out by the ministry, gave his wife, who had been the reason for all his misfortune great sorrow and immeasurable worry, due to her revealing the secret for weighing the Lion. She was more distressed than any other woman had ever been, so early the following morning she went to the tower, bitterly crying. She lamented greatly to her husband and confessed to him that she had been the reason of his great misfortune by revealing the method for weighing the Lion to her perfidious and disloyal friend. But her husband, who was walled up on the top of the tower, and who knew that he was certainly going to die in a few hours, said to her, "Your tears are now superfluous, and I don't see how they in any way can help me escape. You already know that you will have been the cause of my death; and it is therefore also right that you alone can rescue me from that and thereby prove that you truly love me and atone for your great sin. You see that at the top of this tower I am forced to die of hunger, or kill myself by jumping. So, with everything in your power you are obliged to help me with the escape of my life.”

“Therefore, return immediately to the city and bring with you many long very thin threads of silk to tie to the legs of many ants which you place against the wall of the tower.