And Ulenspiegel went off bestriding his ass among rich fat meadows where the horses leaped in freedom, where cows and heifers grazed, lying idly in the sun. And he called him Jef.
The ass stopped and dined merrily on thistles. Sometimes he shivered with all his skin the while, and lashed his ribs with his tail to drive off the greedy horse flies that would fain dine like himself, but on his flesh.
Ulenspiegel, whose stomach cried hunger, was melancholy.
“You would be full happy,” said he, “master ass, dining like this on fine fat thistles, if no one came to disturb you in your comfort and remind you that you are mortal, that is to say, born to endure every kind of hardship.”
“Even like thee,” he went on, gripping him with his legs, “even like thyself He of the Holy Slipper hath his gadfly, ’tis Master Luther; and his High Majesty King Charles hath his also, that is Messire François first of the name, the King with the long nose and the still longer sword. It is then permissible for me, a poor little fellow wandering like a Jew, to have my gadfly, too, master donkey. Alas, all my pockets have holes, and through the holes away go gadding all my lovely ducats, florins, and daelders, like a legion of mice scattering to flight before the jaws of a cat. I know not why money will have naught to do with me, me who so greatly desire money. Fortune is no woman, whatever they say, for she loveth but the scurvy miser loons that coffer her up, pouch her up, lock her up under twenty keys, and never allow her to show as much as the tip of her little golden nose at the window. That is the gadfly that devours me and stings me, and tickles me but not to make me laugh. You are not listening to me, master donkey, and you are thinking of nothing but your grazing. Ah! belly worshipper, filling thy belly, thy long ears are deaf to the cry of an empty stomach. Listen to me, I want you to.”
And he lashed him bitterly. The ass began to bray.
“Let us come away now that you have sung your song,” said Ulenspiegel.
But the donkey would not budge any more than a stone post, and seemed to have resolved to eat to the last one every thistle along the way. And there was no lack of them.
Ulenspiegel, perceiving this, he dismounted, cut a bunch of thistles, got up on his donkey again, held the bunch under his muzzle, and led him by the nose as far as the territories of the Landgrave of Hesse.
“Master donkey,” said he, as they went on their way, “you run nimbly behind my bunch of thistles, a thin diet and poor, and leave behind you the fine highway all thick beset with these dainty plants. Even so do men, smelling some after the bouquet of glory that Fortune holds under their noses, others after the nosegay of gain, others the nosegay of love. At the end of the road they perceive like you that they have pursued that which is but little, and have left behind them that which is somewhat, that is to say, health, work, rest, and comfort in their homes.”