me
to a deep water, and I smote my horse with my spurs, and I was almost
drowned, but he rid through the water without any peril. Then said he to
me, 'You did foolishly, for that you brought not with you your bridge.'"
"Verily," said the emperor, "he said truth, for he called the squires
the bridge, that should have ridden before you, and assayed the deepness
of the water." Then said the king, "We rode further, and at the last he
prayed me to dine with him. And when he had dined, he said, I did
unwisely, because I brought not with me my father and mother." "Truly,"
said the emperor, "he was a wise man, and saith wisely: for he called
your father and mother, bread and wine, and other victual." Then said
the king, "We rode further, and anon after he asked me leave to go from
me, and I asked earnestly whither he went; and he answered again, and
said, 'This day seven years I left a net in a private place, and now I
will ride to see it; and if it be broken and torn, then will I leave it,
but if it be as I left it, then shall it be unto me right precious.'"

When the emperor heard this, he cried with a loud voice, and said, "O
ye my knights and servants, come ye with me speedily unto my daughter's
chamber, for surely that is the net of which he spake." And forthwith
his knights and servants went unto his daughter's chamber, and found her
not, for the aforesaid knight had taken her with him. And thus the king
was deceived of the damsel, and he went home again to his own country
ashamed.

IV.--THE THREE CASKETS.

Some time dwelt in Rome a mighty emperor, named Anselm, who had married
the king's daughter of Jerusalem, a fair lady, and gracious in the sight
of every man, but she was long time with the emperor ere she bare him
any child; wherefore the nobles of the empire were very sorrowful,
because their lord had no heir of his own body begotten: till at last it
befell, that this Anselm walked after supper, in an evening, into his
garden, and bethought himself that he had no heir, and how the king of
Ampluy warred on him continually, for so much as he had no son to make
defence in his absence; therefore he was sorrowful, and went to his
chamber and slept. Then he thought he saw a vision in his sleep, that
the morning was more clear than it was wont to be, and that the moon was
much paler on the one side than on the other. And after he saw a bird of
two colours, and by that bird stood two beasts, which fed that little