the condition that
they should not return to their court, until one brought the plume and
the other the golden spurs of the monster as a trophy of victory.

The unfading rose still preserved its magic power during this
expedition, rendering Prince Wladomir as invulnerable to mortal
weapons, as Achilles the hero, and as nimble and active as Achilles the
swift-footed. The armies met on the northern border of the territory,
and the signal to fight was given. The Bohemian heroes flew through
the opposing forces like storm and whirlwind, and mowed down the thick
crop of lances, as the reaper's sickle mows down a field of wheat.
Zornebock fell a victim to their mighty sword-cuts; they returned back
to Vizegrad in triumph with the booty they had acquired, and the spots
and soils which had before tainted their knightly virtue, they had
washed out in the blood of the enemy. The Duchess Libussa rewarded
them with all the distinctions of princely favour, dismissed them, when
the army was disbanded to their own residence, and as a new mark of her
esteem gave them a ruddy apple from her own garden for a keepsake, with
the instructions that they were to share it peaceably without cutting
it. They went their way, placed the apple on a shield, and had it
carried before them, while they consulted together how they should set
about making division with proper discretion, so that they might not be
mistaken in their gentle sovereign's meaning.

Before they reached the crossway that was to separate them, so that
each might follow the road that led to his own residence, they adhered
to the treaty of partition amicably enough, but now the point was who
should keep the apple, to which they both had equal right. Only one,
it was evident, could retain it, and both promised themselves such
wonders that each longed to possess it. Upon this they quarrelled, and
the sword nearly had to decide to whom the fortune of arms had assigned
the indivisible apple. A shepherd, however, happened to be driving his
flock along the same road, so they chose him for their umpire, and laid
their case before him, probably because the three celebrated goddesses
had applied to a shepherd to settle their affair about an apple. The
man reflected a little, and said,

"In this present of an apple lies a deeply hidden signification; yet
who can probe it but the wise maiden who has there concealed it? I
suspect that the apple is a deceitful fruit, which grew upon