Alas! I am done for, I am overthrown, I am ruined, I have ended my days: it is not possible for me to get through life without my life; I must stretch my legs[1], since without my love sleep will be lamentation, food poison, pleasure insipid, and life sour."
These and many other exclamations, that would move the very stones in the streets, were uttered by the prince; and after repeating them again and again, and wailing bitterly, full of sorrow and woe, never shutting an eye to sleep, nor opening his mouth to eat, he gave such way to grief, that his face, which was before of oriental vermillion, became of gold paint, and the ham of his lips became rusty bacon.
The fairy, who had sprouted up again from the remains that were put in the pot, seeing the misery and tribulation of her poor lover, and how he was turned in a second to the colour of a sick Spaniard, of a venomous lizard, of the sap of a leaf, of a jaundiced person, of a dried pear, of a beccaficco's tail, was moved with compassion; and springing out of the pot, like the light of a candle shooting out of a dark lantern, she stood before Cola Marchione, and embracing him in her arms she said, "Take heart, take heart, my prince! have done now with this lamenting, wipe your eyes, quiet your anger, smooth your face: behold me alive and handsome,
- ↑ Stennere li piedi—i. e. to die.
