she raises her head, her merry laugh rings out again; she spreads her white wings, flies one knows not wither, turns in the air, capers, shows her impish tail, her woman’s breasts, her strong loins, and her angelic face, shakes her perfumed tresses, gambols in the rays of the sun, shines forth in all her beauty, changes her colours like the breast of a dove, laughs until she cries, cast the tears of her eyes into the sea, where the fishermen find them transmuted into pretty pearls, which are gathered to adorn the foreheads of queens.  She twists about like a colt broken loose, exposing her virgin charms, and a thousand things so fair that a pope would peril his salvation for her at the mere sight of them.  During these wild pranks of the ungovernable beast you meet fools and friends, who say to the poor poet, “Where are your tales?  Where are your new volumes?  You are a pagan prognosticator.  Oh yes, you are known.  You go to fetes and feasts, and do nothing between your meals.  Where’s your work?”

Although I am by nature partial to kindness, I should like to see one of these people impaled in the Turkish fashion, and thus equipped, sent on the Love Chase.  Here endeth the second series; make the devil give it a lift with his horns, and it will be well received by a smiling Christendom.

                             VOLUME III
                        THE THIRD TEN TALES

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE PERSEVERANCE IN LOVE CONCERNING A PROVOST WHO DID NOT RECOGNISE THINGS ABOUT THE MONK AMADOR, WHO WAS A GLORIOUS ABBOT OF TURPENAY BERTHA THE PENITENT HOW THE PRETTY MAID OF PORTILLON CONVINCED HER JUDGE IN WHICH IT IS DEMONSTRATED THAT FORTUNE IS ALWAYS FEMININE CONCERNING A POOR MAN WHO WAS CALLED LE VIEUX PAR-CHEMINS ODD SAYINGS OF THREE PILGRIMS INNOCENCE THE FAIR IMPERIA MARRIED EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Certain persons have interrogated the author as to why there was such a demand for these tales that no year passes without his giving an instalment of them, and why he has lately taken to writing commas mixed up with bad syllables, at which the ladies publicly knit their brows, and have put to him other questions of a like character.

The author declares that these treacherous words, cast like pebbles in his path, have touched him in the very depths of his heart, and he is sufficiently cognisant of his duty not to fail to give to his special audience in this prologue certain reasons other than the preceding ones, because it is always necessary to reason with children until they are grown up, understand things, and hold their tongues; and because he perceives many mischievous fellows among the crowd of noisy people, who ignore at pleasure the real object of these volumes.