upshot of the affair. And when, at the trumpeting of the birds, the Sun whipped on the Night, who sat mounted on the jackass of the Shades[1], they returned to the field, where at the usual signal they fell to plying their heels. But if Ciannetella was like another Atalanta, Lightning had become no less like a shoulder-slipped ass and a foundered horse, for he could not stir a step. But Shootstraight, who saw his comrade's danger, and heard from Quickear how matters stood, laid hold on his crossbow, and shot a bolt so exactly that it hit Lightning's finger, and out flew the stone from the ring, in which the virtue of the charm lay; whereupon his legs, that had been tied, were set free, and with four goat-leaps he passed Cianuetella and won the race.
The king seeing this victory of a blockhead, the palm thus carried off by a simpleton, the triumph of a fool, bethought himself seriously whether or no he should give him his daughter; and taking counsel with the wiseacres of his court, they replied that Ciauuetella was not a mouthful for the tooth of such a miserable dog and lose-the-day bird, and that without breaking his word he might commute the promise of his daughter for a gift of crowns, which would be more to the taste
- ↑ One mode of punishment in Naples was for the criminal to ride through the city on a jackass, with a paper cap (mitera) on his head, and whipped on his naked back.
