Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/290

260 whom he could get into his hands first of honour and then life.

Now after hundreds and hundreds had been led thither by their ill-luck, only to lose their reputation and their life, there chanced, among others, to come a maiden named Porziella, the most beautiful creature that could be seen on the whole earth. Her locks were manacles of the constables of Love, her forehead a tablet on which was written the inscription over the shop of amorous charms, her eyes two lighthouses, her mouth a cave of honey between two hedges of roses.

When Porziella fell into the hands of the king, he was going to kill her like the rest; but just as he was raising the dagger, a bird let fall a certain root upon his arm, and he was seized with such a trembling that the weapon fell from his hand. This bird was a fairy, who, a few days before, having gone to sleep in a wood, where beneath the tent of the shades Fear kept watch and defied the Sun's heat, a certain satyr was about to ill-treat her, when she was awakened by Porziella; and for this kindness she continually followed her steps, in order to make her a return.

When the king saw this, he thought that the beauty of Porziella's face had arrested his arm, and bewitched the dagger, to prevent its piercing her as it had done