“When I have found them, I shall tell you what they are,” answered Ulenspiegel.
But Lamme, all merry disposed from having drunk:
“Thyl,” said he, “if we were to go to the moon to look for my wife?”
“Order the ladder,” answered Ulenspiegel.
In May, the month of greenery, Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:
“Lo the lovely month of May! Ah! the clear sky of blue, the happy swallows; see the branches on the trees ruddy with sap, the earth is in love. ’Tis the moment to hang and burn for religion. They are there, the dear little inquisitors. What noble countenances! They have all power to correct, to punish, to degrade, to hand over to the secular judges, to have their prisons. Ah, the lovely month of May!—to arrest the person, to conduct law suits without adhering to the customary forms of justice, to burn, hang, behead, and dig for poor women and girls the grave of premature death. The finches sing in the trees. The good inquisitors have their eye on the rich. And the king shall be heir. Go, damsels, dance in the meadows to the sound of pipes and shawms. Oh! the lovely month of May!”
The ashes of Claes beat upon the breast of Ulenspiegel.
“Let us on,” he said to Lamme. “Happy they that will keep an upright heart, and the sword aloft in the black days that are to come!”