“When you paint my portrait see that you take off half my fat at least. Else will I order my soldiers to have you hung.”
The Duke passed on. And next there came a noble lady with a hump on her back and a bosom as flat as a sword-blade.
“Sir painter,” said she, “unless you remove the hump on my back and give me a couple of others in the place where they should be, verily I will have you drawn and quartered as if you were a prisoner.”
The lady went away, and now there appeared a young maid of honour, fair, fresh, and comely, only that she lacked three teeth under her upper lip.
“Sir painter,” said she, “if you do not paint me smiling and showing through my parted lips a perfect set of teeth, I’ll have you chopped up into small pieces at the hands of my gallant. There he is, look at him.”
And she pointed to that Captain of Artillery who a while ago had been playing dice on the palace steps. And she went her way.
The procession continued, until at last Ulenspiegel was left alone with the Landgrave.
The Landgrave said to him:
“My friend, let me warn you that if your painting has the misfortune to be inaccurate or false to all these various physiognomies by so much as a single feature, I will have your throat cut as if you were a chicken.”
“If I am to have my head cut off,” thought Ulenspiegel, “if I am to be drawn and quartered, chopped up into small pieces, and finally hung, I should do better to paint no portrait at all. I must consider what is best to be done.”