er strong loins, and her angelic face, shakes her perfumed tresses,
gambols in the rays of the sun, shines forth in all her beauty,
changes her colours like the breast of a dove, laughs until she cries,
cast the tears of her eyes into the sea, where the fishermen find them
transmuted into pretty pearls, which are gathered to adorn the
foreheads of queens. She twists about like a colt broken loose,
exposing her virgin charms, and a thousand things so fair that a pope
would peril his salvation for her at the mere sight of them. During
these wild pranks of the ungovernable beast you meet fools and
friends, who say to the poor poet, "Where are your tales? Where are
your new volumes? You are a pagan prognosticator. Oh yes, you are
known. You go to fetes and feasts, and do nothing between your meals.
Where's your work?"

Although I am by nature partial to kindness, I should like to see one
of these people impaled in the Turkish fashion, and thus equipped,
sent on the Love Chase. Here endeth the second series; make the devil
give it a lift with his horns, and it will be well received by a
smiling Christendom.

VOLUME III
THE THIRD TEN TALES

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE
PERSEVERANCE IN LOVE
CONCERNING A PROVOST WHO DID NOT RECOGNISE THINGS
ABOUT THE MONK AMADOR, WHO WAS A GLORIOUS ABBOT OF TURPENAY
BERTHA THE PENITENT
HOW THE PRETTY MAID OF PORTILLON CONVINCED HER JUDGE
IN WHICH IT IS DEMONSTRATED THAT FORTUNE IS ALWAYS FEMININE
CONCERNING A POOR MAN WHO WAS CALLED LE VIEUX PAR-CHEMINS
ODD SAYINGS OF THREE PILGRIMS
INNOCENCE
THE FAIR IMPERIA MARRIED
EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Certain persons have interrogated the author as to why there was such
a demand for these tales that no year passes without his giving an
instalment of them, and why he has lately taken to writing commas
mixed up with bad syllables, at which the ladies publicly knit their
brows, and have put to him other questions of a like character.

The author declares that these treacherous words, cast like pebbles in
his path, have touched him in the very depths of his heart, and he is
sufficiently cognisant of his duty not to fail to give to his special
audience in this prologue certain reasons other than the preceding
ones, because it is always necessary to reason with children until
they are grown up, understand things, and hold their tongues;