To speed their work, nor night nor day
Take pause, nor rest upon their way.
One in her left the distaff plies,
Between another’s feet swift flies
The spindle, and last one doth stand
With keen-edged weapon in her hand,
And cuts in twain the fragile strand.
This enigma was very easily understood by all the company, because it was clear that the fine and spacious meadow must be this world in which all men dwell. The three nymphs are the three sisters, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, who by the fancy of the poets are held to represent the beginning, the middle, and the end of our lives. Clotho, who holds the rock, shows forth our birth; Lachesis, who spins it, the season of our existence, and Atropos, who severs the thread just spun by Lachesis, inevitable Death.
Already the watchful cock, bird sacred to Mercury, had given signal by his crowing of the approaching dawn, when the Signora brought to an end the story-telling for the night, and all the guests departed to their own homes, pledged, however, to return on the following evening under whatever penalty the Signora might deem fitting to inflict.
The End of the Fourth Night.