“It is now a year since old Father Girolamo died, who on his deathbed left to us both, to wear by turns, the gold ring which is hid somewhere in this wood in a vase under a stone on which is the word ‘Lift.’ Pity that he died before he could tell us just where it is. So we have sought and sought in vain, and so we must seek on, seek ever.”
When Pollione heard that, in the honesty of his heart, he was about to show himself and cry out, “Here is your ring!” when all at once he recalled the proverb of Virgilio to always hear all that a man has to say before answering. So he kept quiet, while the other friar said:
“Thou knowest that with that ring one can turn any man or woman into any kind of an animal. What wouldst thou do with it if it were thine?”
“I,” replied the other, “would at once change our Abbot into an ass, and beat him half to death ten times a day, because he put me in penitenza and in prison because I got drunk.”
“And I,” answered the second friar, “would change the proud, beautiful daughter of the count who lives in the castle yonder into a female dog, and keep her in that form till she should consent to be my mistress. Truly, I would give her a good lesson, and make her repent having scorned me.”
When Pollione heard such talk as this he reflected:
“I think I would do well to keep the ring myself.”
Then he took a piece of paper and wrote on it:
“L’ anello non avrai,
Ma asinello tu sarai,
Tu asinello diventerai
E non l’Abate,
Cosi dicono le Fate.”“The ring of gold is not for thee,
For thou thyself an ass shalt be;
Not the Abbot, but thou in truth,
This the Fairies say in sooth.”
This poem he placed on the stone which had covered the ring. And when the two friars found and read it, and discovered that the ring was gone, they verily believed that the fairies had overheard them and taken away the ring, and so, full of sorrow, returned to their convent.