THE DAMSEL AND THE PRINCE.[1]
A young lady being enamoured of the Prince of Salerno sends for one of his chaplains and declares to him that she has received from the said prince numerous letters praying for her love. The chaplain, having divined her motive, enters into a plot with her and brings the affair to the issue desired.
AT that time when our most glorious lord and king, Don Fernando, was entertaining Naples, according to his constant use, with those joustings, those marvellous hunting parties, and those sumptuous festivals which were famed far and wide, it chanced that amongst the other merrymakers was a certain young damsel, of beauty almost unrivalled, and a scion of one of the noblest houses of our Parthenopean city.
Now for some time past had often let her eyes regale themselves with the beauty and the grace of form blonging to my most illustrious lord, the Prince of Salerno, and beyond this had heard sung, over and over again, the praises of his extraordinary worth. By this time she was more than
- ↑ Masuccio: The Novellino, translated into English by W. G. Waters: London, Lawrence and Bullen, 1895.
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