Hearken, fly, and come no more.
If my speech you cannot read,
Surely you are fools indeed.
When Thia had come to the end of her mummery she still went on dancing round Cechato, keeping her eyes fixed upon the outer door the while, and making signs to Marsilio, who was there concealed, that he had better run away at once. But Marsilio, who was neither nimble-minded nor quick to catch her meaning, failed to comprehend what might be the purport of the gestures she was making or what she meant by going through these rites of exorcism; so he kept still in his hiding-place and did not budge an inch. Meantime Cechato, being now half stifled and mightily weary of lying stretched out on the floor, was anxious to get up, and spake thus to Thia: ‘Well, is it all over now?’ But Thia, who had not been able to induce Marsilio to move from his place behind the door, answered Cechato in these words: ‘Stay where you are, for heaven’s sake, and move not at your peril. Did I not tell you that I should have to repeat the incantation three times? I hope you may not have wrecked everything, as it is, by wanting to get up.’ ‘No, no, surely not,’ said Cechato. And Thia made him lie down stretched out as he was before, and began to chant her incantation anew.
Now by this time Marsilio had at last come to understand how matters really stood, and what was the meaning of Thia’s mummery, so he seized the opportunity to slip out from his hiding-place, and to run away as fast as his legs could carry him. Thia, when she saw Marsilio take to his heels and run out of the courtyard, finished her form of exorcism against the kite, and when she had brought it to an end she suffered her cuckoldly fool of a husband to get up from the ground. Then with Thia’s help he began forthwith to unload the flour which he had brought back from the mill. Now Thia when she went with Cechato outside into the courtyard to help unload the flour, saw Marsilio in the distance hurrying away at the top of his speed, whereupon she began to shout after him in a lusty voice: ‘Ah, ah! what a wicked bird! Ah, ah! begone, get away! For, by my faith, I will send you packing with your tail between your legs if ever you show yourself here again. Away then, I tell you! Is not he a greedy wretch? Do you not see that the wicked beast was bent on coming back? Heaven give him a bad year!’
And in this fashion it happened, that every time the kite came and flew down into the courtyard to carry away a chick or two, he would first have a bout with the hen herself,[[50]] who would afterwards set to work with her conjuration as before. Then he would take to flight with his tail down, but all the while the fowls belonging to Cechato and Thia suffered no damage at all from his harrying.
This fable, given by the Trevisan, was found to be so mirthful and amusing that the ladies, and the gentlemen as well, almost split their sides with laughter; so well did he mock the rustic speech that there was no one of the company who would not have judged him to be a peasant of Treviso. And when the merriment had abated somewhat, the Signora turned her fair face towards the Trevisan and spake to him thus: “In truth, Signor Benedetto, you have this evening diverted us in such featly wise that with one voice we declare your fable may deservedly be held to be the equal of Molino’s in merit. But to fill up the measure of my content and that of this honourable company, I entreat you—an it displease you not—that you will set forth to us an enigma which shall be as graceful in form as amusing in matter.” The Trevisan, when he saw how the Signora was inclined, was unwilling to disappoint her; so, standing up, with a clear voice and with no hesitation of any sort, he began his riddle in the following words:
Sir Yoke goes up and down the field,
To every tug is forced to yield.