There was once a great famine in Genoa, and there were more poor people to be found there than in any other place.
The authorities seized a number of galleys, and they impressed sailors and paid them, and published a notice that all the poor people should go down to the sea-shore, where they would have bread from the commune.
Everybody went, and it was a great marvel, and this was because many who were not in need disguised themselves as beggars.
And the officials said to the people: we cannot distinguish between all these folk, but let the citizens go on to this ship here, and the foreigners on to that one there; the women and children [[193]]on to that other, and all must go aboard. The sailors set to work at once, and put their oars into the water, and bore the folk off to Sardinia.
And there they left them, for there was plenty there, and the famine ceased in Genoa.
LXXXVI
The Emperor and the Pilgrim
The Emperor[1] riding through the streets of Rome, saw a pilgrim who seemed to him to bear a close resemblance to his own person, and he asked his barons whether the said pilgrim was like him.
Everyone said he was. Then the Emperor believed it was true what he thought about the pilgrim, namely that the pilgrim’s mother might have been in Rome, and that his Imperial father might have had to do with her. He asked the pilgrim: Pilgrim, was your mother ever in Rome? And the pilgrim understood why the Emperor said that, and replied: Sire, my mother was never in Rome, but my father was, often. [[194]]