Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/118

94 her up, I am robbed of my heart; if I deny her, she will suck out my blood; if I consent, she takes away a part of myself; if I refuse, she takes the whole. What shall I resolve on? what course shall I take? what expedient shall I adopt? Oh what an ill day's work have I made of it! what a misfortune has rained down from heaven upon me!"

While he was speaking thus, the lizard said to him, "Resolve quickly, and do what I have told you, or else you will leave your rags here; for so I will have it, and so it must, be." Masaniello hearing this decree, and having no one to whom he could appeal, returned home quite melancholy, as yellow in the face as if he had the jaundice; and Ceccuzza, seeing him so moping and crestfallen, choked and swoln, said to him, "What has happened to you, husband? have you had a quarrel with any one? is there a warrant out against you? or is the ass dead?"

"Nothing of the kind," answered Masaniello; "but a horned lizard has put me into a fright, for she has threatened that, if I do not bring her our youngest daughter, she will make me rue it. My head is turning round like a reel. I know not what fish to take: on the one side, love constrains me; on the other, the