[1] Presto Giovanni in orig. This Prester John or Prester Kan is the hero of many stories and fables. See Marco Polo. [↑]
[2] Administrators, sometimes treasurers of a court. [↑]
[3] The ancients believed that certain stones and one especially called the heliotrope, had the power of rendering a person invisible. [↑]
III
Of a wise Greek whom a King kept in prison, and how he judged of a courser
In the parts of Greece there was a nobleman who wore a king’s crown and had a mighty realm. His name was Philip, and he held in prison a [[41]]learned Greek for some misdeed of the latter. So learned was this Greek that his intellect saw beyond the stars.
It happened one day that the king received from Spain the gift of a noble courser of great strength and perfect form. And the king called for his shoeing-smith that he might learn of the worth of the steed, and it was answered him that the wisest counsellor in all things lay in his majesty’s prison.
The horse was ordered to be brought to the exercising ground, while the Greek was set free from the prison. Look over this horse for me, said the king, for I have heard that you are instructed in many things. The Greek examined the courser and said: Sire, the horse is indeed a fine one, but I must tell you that it has been reared on asses’ milk. The king sent into Spain to learn how the horse had been reared, and heard that its dam having died, the foal had been reared on asses’ milk. This caused the king great surprise, and he ordered that half a loaf of bread should be given to the Greek every day at the expense of the court. [[42]]