“Who would not for life be a henpecked fool,
Must show, from the first, that he means to rule.”
Don Juan Manuel. Trans. James York.
A LONG TALE.
A KING kept a man to tell him fables and tales at night before going to sleep. And one night the King, troubled with anxious thoughts, could not sleep, and the man told him three tales more than on other nights. And the King bade him tell still more, but he was unwilling, having told many. And the King said, “Thou hast told many, but they were short; tell me a long one, and then thou canst hie thee to bed.” The man, agreeing, began thus: “A countryman had a thousand shillings, and went to the fair and bought two thousand sheep at sixpence each, and on his way back he found the water had risen in the river, and that he could not cross by either bridge or ford; but he found a little boat, and putting in two sheep, rowed across. And now, the river is wide, the boat very small, and the sheep many; when the rustic has ferried his flock across, I will go on with the tale.” And he got up and hied him to bed.
“Libro de los Exemplos” (Fifteenth Century).
ELECTIO NULLA DEBET ESSE IN MALIS.
A knavish fool condemned to death, asked the judge if he might choose the tree whereon he should be hanged; and this wish granted him, he was taken to the mountains, but could see no tree to please him. And they took him before the King, who asked why he was not yet hanged, to which the fool replied, the fact was he could not find a tree on which he felt he would like to be hanged.
“Libro de los Exemplos” (Fifteenth Century).