Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/246

220 Nevertheless they laid a plan to fall upon Corvetto with the rear-guard of their roguery, and went again to the king, who was almost beside himself with delight at the tapestry, which was not only of silk embroidered with gold, but had besides more than a thousand devices and thoughts worked on it; and amongst the rest, if I remember right, there was a cock in the act of crowing at daybreak, and out of its mouth was seen coming a motto in Tuscan,—If I only see you ; and in another part a drooping heliotrope with a Tuscan motto, At sunset; with so many other pretty things that it would require a better memory and more time than I have to relate them.

When the courtiers came to the king, who was thus transported with joy, they said to him, "As Corvetto has done so much to serve you, it would be no great matter for him, in order to give you a signal pleasure, to get the ogre's palace, which is fit for an emperor to live in; for it has so many rooms and chambers, inside and out, that it can hold an army; and you would never believe all the courtyards, porticos, colonnades, balconies, and spiral chimneys which there are, built with such marvellous architecture, that art prides herself upon them, nature is abashed, and stupor is in delight."