Stories from the Pentamerone

one proposed this punishment and another that. At last it came to the turn of the seven wicked women to speak, who, although they did not much relish this conversation, yet, as the truth comes out when the wine goes about, answered, that whoever had the heart basely to touch only this quintessence of the charms of love deserved to be buried alive in a dungeon.

And on that day, at the hour when the star of Venus appears, who awakes the Dawn, to strew the road along which the Sun has to pass,

given a filbert, which she was never to open

recollecting the fairies' gifts, she opened the walnut, and out of it hopped a little dwarf like a doll, the most graceful toy that was ever seen in the world. Then, seating himself upon the window, the dwarf began to sing with such a trill and gurgling, that he seemed a veritable king of the birds.

Prince asked all the guests, one after another, what he deserved who had injured that beautiful maiden—pointing to the fairy,

biting his nails with vexation, he set to work, gathered up the remains of the flesh and bones that were left, and scraping the blood from the floor, he piled them all up in a heap in the pot;

they flew upon her, and instantly tore her in pieces, and each of them took her part.

struck by a dart of the passion that blinds the judgment and puts a spell on the reasoning of man.

And the next morning this fairy likewise gave her a letter to another sister, together with a chestnut, cautioning her in the same manner.

the old woman answered, "Know then, that the Prince of whom I spoke is a most handsome creature, and is named Taddeo, who, by the wicked spell of a fairy, having given the last touch to the picture of life, has been placed in a tomb outside the walls of the city; and there is an inscription upon a stone, saying that whatever woman shall in three days fill with tears a pitcher that hangs there upon a hook will bring the Prince to life and shall take him for a husband.