When this news came to the father and the mother of Guerrino they felt the greatest joy and contentment, seeing that they had by this time given up their son as lost. When he returned to Sicily with his dear wife and his well-loved brother and sister-in-law, they all received a gracious and loving welcome from his father and mother, and they lived a long time in peace and happiness, and he left behind him fair children as the heirs to his kingdom. This touching story told by Eritrea won the highest praise of all the hearers, and she, when she saw that all were silent, proposed her enigma in the following words: A cruel beast of nature dread From out a tiny germ is bred. In hate all beings else it holds, And each one trembles who beholds Its form of fear. Death all around It spreads, and oft itself is found The victim of its fatal rage, And war on all the world will wage. Beneath its breath the trees decay, The living plants will fade away. A beast more cruel, fierce, and fell, Ne’er rose from out the pit of hell. When the enigma set to the worshipful company by the clever damsel had been considered and highly praised by everyone, some found one solution therefor and some another, but not one of them gave the one which rightly explained its meaning. Wherefore Eritrea, seeing that her riddle had not been understood, said, “It seems to me that the cruel animal I have described cannot be anything else than the basilisk, which hates all other living beasts in the world, and slays them with its sharp and piercing glances. And if peradventure it should chance to see its own form mirrored anywhere, it straightway dies.” When Eritrea had come to the end of the interpretation of her enigma, the Signor Evangelist,[33] who sat by her side, said to her smiling: “Of a truth you yourself are this basilisk, signora, for with your beautiful eyes you bring soft death to all those who gaze upon you.” But Eritrea, with her cheeks suffused with the lovely tint of nature, answered nought. Alteria sat near by, and, as soon as she perceived that the enigma was now completed, having been highly praised by all, she called to mind that it was now her turn to tell a story according to the Signora’s pleasure, so she began in the following wise a fable which proved in the end to be fully as mirthful as it was commendable. THE SECOND FABLE. =Adamantina, the daughter of Bagolana Savonese, by working of a certain doll becomes the wife of Drusiano, King of Bohemia.=