Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/95

Rh candlestick, where is the candle that consumes me? O tripod of the bright boiler in which life simmers! O beautiful cork, fastened to the angling-line of Love, with which he has caught my soul! Lo, I embrace you, I press you to my heart; and if I cannot reach the plant, I adore at least the roots; if I cannot possess the capital of the column, I kiss the base. You who until now were the prison of a white foot, are now the fetter of an unhappy heart."

So saying he called his secretary, and commanded the trumpeter to sound a "Too, too!" and make proclamation, that all the women of that country should come to a feast and banquet which he had taken it into his head to give. And when the appointed day was come, heyday, what a feasting and frolic was there! from whence in the world came all the pies and pasties? whence the stews and ragouts? whence the maccaroni and sweetmeats? In short there was enough to feed a whole army.

And when the women were all assembled, noble and ignoble, rich and poor, old and young, beautiful and ugly, and when all was ready, the king tried the slipper first on one and then on another of the guests, to see whom it should fit to a hair, and to be able thus to discover by the form of the slipper the maiden of whom he was in search; but not finding one foot which would fit