e said: "Your Majesty, I am single." And
the king said: "Will you be satisfied with my daughter, or with two
measures, of gold?" "Your Majesty," he said, "I want to marry; give me
your daughter." So he did, and they had a grand banquet.[30]

* * * * *

The story in The Seven Wise Masters, known as "_Inclusa_," or "The
Elopement," is found only in Pitre (No. 176), where it is told of a
tailor who lived next to the king's palace, with which his house
communicated by a secret door known only to the king and the tailor's
wife. The tailor, while at work in the palace, imagines he sees his wife
there, and pretending that he has forgotten his shears, etc., rushes
home to find his wife there. She finally elopes with the king, leaving
at her window an image that deceives her husband until she is beyond
pursuit.[31]

Far more curious than any of the stories above given is the last one we
shall mention from The Seven Wise Masters. The story in this collection
known as "_Avis_," or "The Talking Bird," is briefly as follows: A
jealous husband has a talking bird that is a spy upon his wife's
actions. In order to impair his confidence in the bird, one night while
he is absent the wife orders a servant to shower water over the bird's
cage, to make a heavy sound like thunder, and to imitate the flashing of
lightning with candles. The bird, on its master's return, tells him of
the terrific storm the night before, and is killed for its supposed
falsehood. This story is found in both the Eastern and Western versions
of The Seven Wise Masters, and practically constitutes the framework of
another famous Oriental collection, the Cukasaptati (from _cuka_, a
parrot, and _saptati_, seventy, The Seventy Tales of a Parrot), better
known by its Persian and Turkish name, Tuti-Nameh, Tales of a
Parrot.[32] The frame, or groundwork, of the various Oriental versions
is substantially the same. A husband is obliged to leave home on
business, and while he is absent his wife engages in a love affair with
a stranger. A parrot, which the husband has left behind, prevents the
wife meeting her lover by telling her stories which interest her so much
that she keeps putting off her appointment until her husband returns. In
the Turkish version the parrot reconciles the husband and wife; in the
Persian versions the parrot relates what has happened, and the faithless
wife is killed.

The Italian versions, as will soon be seen, are