I
have killed my own children! for this was the price of Jennariello's
life!"

So saying, he showed the Queen the little boys in the coffin; and when
she saw this sad spectacle, she cried aloud like one mad, saying, "O my
children! you props of my life, joys of my heart, fountains of my
blood! Who has painted red the windows of the sun? Who has without a
doctor's licence bled the chief vein of my life? Alas, my children, my
children! my hope now taken from me, my light now darkened, my joy now
poisoned, my support now lost! You are stabbed by the sword, I am
pierced by grief; you are drowned in blood, I in tears. Alas that, to
give life to an uncle, you have slain your mother! For I am no longer
able to weave the thread of my days without you, the fair counterpoises
of the loom of my unhappy life. The organ of my voice must be silent,
now that its bellows are taken away. O children, children! why do ye
not give answer to your mother, who once gave you the blood in your
veins, and now weeps it for you from her eyes? But since fate shows me
the fountain of my happiness dried up, I will no longer live the sport
of fortune in the world, but will go at once to find you again!"

So saying, she ran to a window to throw herself out; but just at that
instant her father entered by the same window in a cloud, and called to
her, "Stop, Liviella! I have now accomplished what I intended, and
killed three birds with one stone. I have revenged myself on
Jennariello, who came to my house to rob me of my daughter, by making
him stand all these months like a marble statue in a block of stone. I
have punished you for your ill-conduct in going away in a ship without
my permission, by showing you your two children, your two jewels,
killed by their own father. And I have punished the King for the
caprice he took into his head, by making him first the judge of his
brother, and afterwards the executioner of his children. But as I have
wished only to shear and not to flay you, I desire now that all the
poison may turn into sweetmeats for you. Therefore, go, take again your
children and my grandchildren, who are more beautiful than ever. And
you, Milluccio, embrace me. I receive you as my son-in-law and as my
son. And I pardon Jennariello his offence, having done all that he did
out of love to so excellent a brother."

And as he spoke, the little children came, and the grandfather was
never satisfied with embracing and kissing them; and in th