Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/211

Rh princely mien has pierced me through from side to side, and from this moment I give myself up to you for ever as a chained slave."

These were not words, but the sound of a trumpet, which called the prince to the table of amorous joys, or rather summoned him to horse in the combat of love; and as soon as he saw but a finger of tenderness held out to him, he seized at once her whole hand, kissing the ivory hook that had caught his heart. At this ceremony of the prince, Filadoro's face grew as red as scarlet, or rather like the palette of a painter, on which are seen mixed the vermilion of shame, the white-lead of fear, the verdigris of hope and the cinnabar of desire. But the more Nardo Aniello wished to continue speaking, the more his tongue seemed tied; for in this wretched life there is no wine of enjoyment without dregs of vexation, no rich broth of pleasure without the scum of annoyance; and just at this moment Filadoro's mother suddenly appeared, who was such an ugly ogress that Nature seemed to have formed her as a model of horrors; she had hair like a besom of holly, not fit indeed to cleanse houses of soot and cobwebs, but to sweep upon the hearts of all beholders the clouds of fright and terror; her forehead was a Genoa stone, to sharpen the dagger of fear which she stuck into all breasts; her eyes were comets, that predicted trembling