"Alas! Woe is me! All my pockets have holes in them, and by the said apertures do all my fine ducats and florins and daelders ramble away, flying like a crowd of mice before the mouth of the cat that would devour them. I wonder why it is that money will have nothing to do with me--me that am so fond of money? Verily Fortune is no woman, whatever they may say, for she loves none but greedy misers that shut her up in their coffers, tie her up in sacks, close her down under twenty keys and never let her show herself at the window by so much as the little tip of her gilded nose! This, then, is the gadfly that preys upon me and makes me itch, and tickles me without ever so much as raising a laugh. But there, you are not listening to me at all, friend donkey! And you think of nothing but your food. You gobbling gobbler, your long ears are deaf to the cry of an empty stomach! But you shall listen to me. I insist!" And he belaboured the ass as hard as he could, till the brute began to bray. "Come, come, now that you have given us a song!" cried Ulenspiegel. But the donkey would not advance by more than a single step, and seemed determined to go on eating thistles until he had consumed all that grew by the roadside. And of these there was an abundance. When Ulenspiegel saw what was happening he dismounted and cut off a bunch of thistles; then, mounting the ass again, he placed the bunch of thistles just in front of the animal's nose. And in this way, leading the donkey by the nose, he arrived before long in the land of the Landgrave of Hesse. "Friend donkey," he said as they went along, "you, verily, go running after a bunch of thistles, the meagre fare with which I have provided you; but you leave behind the lovely road that is filled with all kinds of most delicate herbs. And thus do all men, scenting out, some of them, the bouquet called Fame which Fortune puts under their nose, others the bouquet of Gain, and yet others the bouquet that is called Love. But at the end of the journey they discover, like you, that they have been pursuing things that are of little account, and that they have left behind all that is worth anything--health, and work, repose, happiness, and home." In such discourse with his donkey Ulenspiegel came at last to the palace of the Landgrave. There two Captains of Artillery were playing dice upon the steps of the palace, and one of them, a red-haired man of gigantic stature, soon noticed Ulenspiegel as he approached modestly upon his ass, gazing down upon them and their game. "What do you want," said the Captain, "you, fellow, with your starved pilgrim's face?" "I am extremely hungry," answered Ulenspiegel, "and if I am a pilgrim, it is against my will." "And you are hungry," replied the Captain, "go, eat the next gallows cord you come to, for such cords are prepared for vagabonds like you."