All the listeners were both amazed and moved to pity by this pathetic story, and when it was finished Eritrea, without waiting for the Signora’s word, gave her enigma: I tell you of a heart so vile, So cruel, and so full of guile, That with its helpless progeny It deals as with an enemy. And when it sees them plump and sleek, It stabs them with its cruel beak. For, lean itself, with malice fell, It fain would make them lean as well. So they grow thin with wasting pain, Till nought but plumes and bones remain. The ladies and gentlemen gave various solutions to this enigma, one guessing this and another that, but they found it hard to believe there could be an animal so vile and cruel as thus barbarously to maltreat its own progeny, but at last the fair Eritrea said with a smile, “What cause is there for your wonder? Assuredly there are parents who hate their children as virulently as the rapacious kite hates its young. This bird, being by nature thin and meagre, when it sees its progeny fat and seemly—as young birds mostly are—stabs their tender flesh with its hard beak, until they too become lean like itself.” This solution of Eritrea’s pointed enigma pleased everybody, and it won the applause of all. Eritrea, having made due salutation to the Signora, resumed her seat. Then the latter made a sign to Arianna to follow in her turn, and she rising from her chair began her fable as follows. THE FIFTH FABLE. =Dimitrio the chapman, having disguised himself as a certain Gramottiveggio, surprises his wife Polissena with a priest, and sends her back to her brothers, who put her to death, and Dimitrio afterwards marries his serving-woman.= We often see, dear ladies, great inequality in the degree of mutual love. How often will the husband love the wife entirely, and she care little for him; and, on the other hand, the wife will love the husband to find nothing but hatred in return. In conditions like these is born the passion of sudden jealousy, the destroyer of all happiness, rendering a decent life impossible; likewise dishonourings and unseemly deaths, which often shed deep disgrace over all our sex. I will say nothing of the headlong perils, of the numberless ills, into which both men and women rush on account of this accursed jealousy. It would weary rather than divert you were I to recount them all to you one by one; but, as it is my task to bring to an end this evening of pleasant discourse, I will tell you a story of Gramottiveggio, now told for the first time, and I believe you will gather therefrom no less pleasure than edification.