Sweet colours mingled, both blown lightly through
With a soft wind for ever stirr’d and still’d.
After a little while one of them said
(I heard her)—“Think! if ere the next hour struck
Each of our lovers should come here to-day,
Think you that we should fly or feel afraid?”
To whom the others answer’d—“From such luck
A girl would be a fool to run away!”
THE STOLEN PIG
Calandrino had a little farm, not far from Florence, which came to him through his wife. There he used to have a pig fatted every year, and some time about December he and his wife went always to kill and salt it for the use of the family. Now it happened once—she being unwell at the time—that he went thither by himself to kill his pig; which Bruno and Buffalmacco hearing, and knowing she was not to be there, they went to spend a few days with a great friend of theirs, a priest in Calandrino’s neighborhood. Now the pig had been killed the very day they came thither, and Calandrino, seeing them along with the priest, called to them and said, “Welcome, kindly; I would gladly you should see what a good manager I am.” Then, taking them into the house, he showed them this pig. They saw that it was fat, and were told by him that it was to be salted for his family. “Salted, booby?” said Bruno. “Sell it, let us make merry with the money, and tell your wife that it was stolen.” “No,” said Calandrino, “she will never believe it; and, besides, she would turn me out of doors. Trouble me, then, no further about any such thing, for I will never do it.” They said a great deal more to him, but all to no purpose. At length he invited them to supper, but did it in such a manner that they refused.