“I SHOULD LIKE TO HANG THE WHOLE TOWN AT HALF A DUCAT EACH.”
“THE BOOK OF JOKES.”
TRAVELLERS’ TALES.
In Monzon de Campos a nobleman returned from India, as he was one day relating wonders of those regions to some neighbours, told them how he had seen a cabbage so immense that three hundred mounted men could rest under its shade. “I don’t think much of that,” cried a servant of the Marquess of Poza. “In Biscay I saw a cauldron so vast that two hundred men were hammering at it, and yet stood so far from each other that no man heard the noise of his neighbour’s hammer.” The Indian, much surprised, inquired the use of this cauldron. “Sir, to cook the cabbage you have just told us about.”
Don Rodrigo Pimentel, Count of Benavente, was a master much feared by his servants. One day at Benavente, as he was writing some important despatches, certain of his pages stood round about discussing their fear of him, and one said, “What will you give me if I go up, just as he is now, and give him a hard smack on the back of his neck?” The others eagerly laid a wager with him. Hereupon goes my good page as if to see if his lord wanted anything, and gives him a sound slap, crying “St. George!” “What’s that?” said the Count. “Sir, a large spider was crawling down your Excellenc neck.” The Count sprang up much disturbed, saying, “What became of it? Did you kill it?” “I knocked it down, sir, and it’s gone away.” And his delighted comrades willingly paid the wager he had so cleverly and boldly won.
Luis de Pinedo (Sixteenth Century).
“HEREUPON GOES MY GOOD PAGE AND GIVES HIM A SOUND SMACK.”