op into one's mouth, but a dragon, that tears with his
claws, breaks to pieces with his head, crushes with his tail, crunches
with his teeth, poisons with his eyes, and kills with his breath.
Wherefore do you want to send me to death? Is this the sinecure you
give me for having given you a kingdom? Who is the wicked soul that has
set this die on the table? What son of perdition has taught you these
capers and put these words into your mouth?" Then the King, who,
although he let himself be tossed to and fro as light as a ball, was
firmer than a rock in keeping to what he had once said, stamped with
his feet, and exclaimed, "After all you have done, do you fail at the
last? But no more words; go, rid my kingdom of this plague, unless you
would have me rid you of life."

Poor Miuccio, who thus received one minute a favour, at another a
threat, now a pat on the face, and now a kick, now a kind word, now a
cruel one, reflected how mutable court fortune is, and would fain have
been without the acquaintance of the King. But knowing that to reply to
great men is a folly, and like plucking a lion by the beard, he
withdrew, cursing his fate, which had led him to the court only to
curtail the days of his life. And as he was sitting on one of the
door-steps, with his head between his knees, washing his shoes with his
tears and warming the ground with his sighs, behold the bird came
flying with a plant in her beak, and throwing it to him, said, "Get up,
Miuccio, and take courage! for you are not going to play at unload the
ass' with your days, but at backgammon with the life of the dragon.
Take this plant, and when you come to the cave of that horrid animal,
throw it in, and instantly such a drowsiness will come over him that he
will fall fast asleep; whereupon, nicking and sticking him with a good
knife, you may soon make an end of him. Then come away, for things will
turn out better than you think."

"Enough!" cried Miuccio, "I know what I carry under my belt; we have
more time than money, and he who has time has life." So saying, he got
up, and sticking a pruning-knife in his belt and taking the plant, he
went his way to the dragon's cave, which was under a mountain of such
goodly growth, that the three mountains that were steps to the Giants
would not have reached up to its waist. When he came there, he threw
the plant into the cave, and instantly a deep sleep laid hold on the
dragon, and Miuccio began to cut him in pieces.