nkey learns from the big one to eat straw. It is no
wonder, therefore, that Heaven sends him troubles by bushels--as
happened to a prince who was brought into great difficulties for
ill-treating and tormenting a poor woman, so that he was near losing
his life miserably.

About eight miles from Naples there was once a deep wood of fig-trees
and poplars. In this wood stood a half-ruined cottage, wherein dwelt an
old woman, who was as light of teeth as she was burdened with years.
She had a hundred wrinkles in her face, and a great many more in her
purse, and all her silver covered her head, so that she went from one
thatched cottage to another, begging alms to keep life in her. But as
folks nowadays much rather give a purseful of crowns to a crafty spy
than a farthing to a poor needy man, she had to toil a whole day to get
a dish of kidney-beans, and that at a time when they were very
plentiful. Now one day the poor old woman, after having washed the
beans, put them in a pot, placed it outside the window, and went on her
way to the wood to gather sticks for the fire. But while she was away,
Nardo Aniello, the King's son, passed by the cottage on his way to the
chase; and, seeing the pot at the window, he took a great fancy to have
a fling at it; and he made a bet with his attendants to see who should
fling the straightest and hit in the middle with a stone. Then they
began to throw at the innocent pot; and in three or four casts the
prince hit it to a hair and won the bet.

The old woman returned just after they had gone away, and seeing the
sad disaster, she began to act as if she were beside herself, crying,
"Ay, let him stretch out his arm and go about boasting how he has
broken this pot! The villainous rascal who has sown my beans out of
season. If he had no compassion for my misery, he should have had some
regard for his own interest; for I pray Heaven, on my bare knees and
from the bottom of my soul, that he may fall in love with the daughter
of some ogress, who may plague and torment him in every way. May his
mother-in-law lay on him such a curse that he may see himself living
and yet bewail himself as dead; and being spellbound by the beauty of
the daughter, and the arts of the mother, may he never be able to
escape, but be obliged to remain. May she order him about with a cudgel
in her hand, and give him bread with a little fork, that he may have
good cause to lament over my beans which he has spilt on the groun