the princess, and that moreover the damsel had been given him to wife, they resolved to travel to Sicily, and, having taken passage in a ship, they were quickly borne thither before a favourable wind, and met with a very honourable reception. But these women had not been long in the land before they grew so envious of Cesarino’s good fortune that they took thought of nothing else than how they might work his downfall, and their hatred, which increased day by day, at last stirred them to cause him to be privily murdered. Then, having considered in their minds divers deadly stratagems, they determined at last to take a bone and to sharpen the point thereof, then to dip the same in venom, and to place it in Cesarino’s bed with the point upwards, so that when he should go to rest and throw himself down on the bed, as is the wont of young people, he should give himself a poisonous wound. Having thus determined, they set to work to carry out their wicked design forthwith. One day, when the hour for retiring to rest had come, Cesarino went with his wife into the bedchamber. And having thrown off all his clothes and his shirt, he lay down on the bed and struck his left side against the sharp point of the bone. And so severe was the wound that his body forthwith swelled on account of the poison, and when this reached his heart he died. His wife, when she saw that her husband was dead, began to cry aloud and to weep bitterly, and the courtiers, attracted by the noise, ran to the chamber, where they found Cesarino dead. Having turned the corpse over and over again, they found it inflated and black as a raven, and on this account they suspected that he had been killed by poison. When the king heard what had occurred, he caused the strictest inquisition to be made; but, having come upon no clue, he gave over the search, and, together with his daughter and the whole court, put on the deepest mourning, and ordered the body of Cesarino to be buried with the most solemn funeral rites.
