Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/220

194 and pay debts with forgetfulness! Just when the poor girl was imagining that she should live with you and share your fortunes, she is left and forsaken ; she was thinking to break a tumbler with you, and now she has broken the pitcher. But go! forget your promises, false man! and may the curses follow you which the unhappy maiden sends you from the bottom of her heart! you shall learn what it is to deceive a young maiden, to make sport of a poor girl, to cheat an innocent damsel, playing her such a fine trick, putting her on the back of the page, whilst she carried you in her heart, and treating her with contempt whilst she served you so faithfully. But if Heaven has not bandaged its eyes, if the gods have not locked up their ears, they will witness the wrong you have done her; and when you least expect it, the lightning and thunder, the fever and the illness will come to you. Enough! eat and drink, take your sports and frolics and triumph with the new bride! for unhappy Filadoro, deceived and forsaken, will leave you the field open to make merry with your new wife." So saying the dove flew away quickly and vanished like the wind.

The prince, hearing the murmuring of the dove, stood for awhile stupified: at length he inquired whence the pie came, and when the carver told him that a